my ramblings

prints charming embroidery class

Last night Emily and I went to an embroidery class over at the Prints Charming studio at Annandale. We had a lovely evening stitching and chatting with a lovely group of ladies. Here's our stitching pieces in progress, we both need a little more stitching to finish off our pieces. I'm very pleased to say I have finally learnt how to sew french knots correctly.

 

Below is Emily's piece. Her chain stitch was so neat and even (as was all her stitching)...

 

Any my funky flower piece (which is actually a bindhi design). I came home last night and continued sewing while having my cuppa tea.

 

The little hand printed motifs used in the class can be seen/purchased HERE.

The girls at Prints Charming are holding some fabulous classes over the next few months. Join their mailing list to be kept up to date. I so happy as I've booked into one of their patchwork/quilting set of classes for next term, so looking forward to that.

Hope you have a good weekend. Thanks for visiting.

Cheers

Fiona x

australian homesewn update

It seems the magazine is now available.

Ro has just emailed me to say she's spotted AUSTRALIAN HOMESEWN in the newsagency in the Queen Victoria Building in Sydney today. It arrived this morning apparently. Thanks for your email Ro.

Cheers

Fiona x

a phoebe for my phoebe

 

During one of my recent visits to the Central Coast (Phoebe's sports have been taking us far and wide of late) I managed to sneak away for a short time to visit Blueberries. [Yes, any opportunity to surround myself in crafty stuff when I should be watching sport I will take.] My goodness, Blueberries is such a beautiful store. I wish it was located closer to me with it's gorgeous selection of fabrics, although that could be very dangerous to my budgeting. I did buy a couple of Melly & Me softy patterns which I'd been wanting for a while now.

One pattern I bought is Phoebe the Elephant. As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to have this patten. It's very, very cute. I showed it to my Phoebe. I told her I'd make one for her birthday. I let her loose on my fabric stash. She picked out some blue fabric and I started making and stitching.

 

I quilted the little blanket and edged it with rick rack.

 

I usually hand sew little details, but I wanted to try using the blanket stitch on my sewing machine. I need to practice a bit more, but liked the machine stitched look.

 

Phoebe is a very cute elephant. And my Phoebe loves her.

 

Fabrics used (all from Hello Betty by Chloe's Closet for Moda Fabrics):

• Berry Blossom Blue

• Order Up Blue

• Order Up Yellow

Thanks for vising my blog.

Still no news on the release of Australian Homesewn magazine, will keep stalking the stores.

Cheers

Fiona x

australian homesewn

A little while ago I was thrilled to be asked by Mel Goodsell to create a project for a new publication, Australian Homesewn. Last week my copy arrived. It is just lovely, with so many sewing projects for kids, the home and of course, us girlies. Mel has created so many gorgeous projects for the magazine herself.

My brief was to create a stationery set with a matching pencil case, covered note book (which you can see on the cover, above) and a laptop bag. 

 

I wanted to make something colourful, so I used some fabric from one of my favourite fabric collections, Park Slope by Erin McMorris, and mixed it with some lime chenille

The covered note book was fun to make with a place for your pen on the cover.

 

The pencil case....

 

and the lap top bag...

 

One of my favourite little details on my sewing projects at the moment, fabric covered buttons.

There are full instructions for these three projects included in the magazine.

Australian Homesewn is published by Derwent Howard. I've emailed Mel to find out when it will be on sale. To be honest I haven't ventured out over the last week to see if it's in stores yet, but when I find out, I'll report back here.

And in other news... 18 months ago I had braces put on my teeth. A little know fact to most and something that has not been well documented in photographs. Well, tomorrow I'm having them removed. YEAH!!! They've done their job. I'm not sorry to see them go, to be honest, but I did get a little sentimental this afternoon that I didn't have much photographic evidence of their existence. So this afternoon I dragged Phoebe outside to have a photo. Yes, a self portrait taken with Phoebe's little digi camera, a quick snap shot, a little memory captured of this little stage of my life. Bring on tomorrow!

 

I seem to have lots of other little things to report on, but have been really busy with family life and birthdays and Ribbons Galore. So I will attempt to post some more little projects very soon.

Thanks for dropping by.

Cheers

Fiona x

new ribbon pouches

New ribbons pouches/pencil cases/make up bags are now available at the Handmade store at Ribbons Galore.

Some pouches feature new German ribbons. This Babushka Dolls ribbon is just beautiful. 

 

Some pouches are decorated with some of my favourite Portuguese ribbons...

 Little Red Riding Hood ribbon.

 

 

And Flying Dolls ribbon.

 

 

There have also been some changes over at Ribbons Galore.

• I have replaced the Ribbons Galore blog with a WHAT'S NEW page, where I'll be adding news as it happens.

• The IDEAS GALLERY has been replaced with a new look gallery.

• I have also added a TESTIMONIALS page. I receive lovely feedback about the Ribbons Galore website and the ribbons, so I thought it time to give these a home.

While I'm giving a Ribbons Galore update, I have also created a Ribbons Galore group on Flickr. If you have a creation using ribbon from Ribbons Galore, please feel free to add it to the group. I'd love to see how you use Ribbons Galore's ribbon.

Thanks for visiting. Have a great weekend.

Cheers

Fiona x

the evidence

I've been in denial for a little while now. But last weekend Paul took a photo of the girls with me while we were up at Katoomba. And this is the evidence I DIDN'T need.

Emily has finally caught up with me... she's the same height, perhaps even slightly taller.

 

Even Phoebe is on the case now, measuring herself against me, say it won't be long 'til I'm the shorty of the house.

I'm sure some money has exchanged hands between Emily and her dad to take this incriminating evidence.

Thanks guys!

Fiona x

Maya Road design team blog posts

During May, I've written two posts over on the Maya Road design team blog.

In the most recent post I've created a Sheet Calendar magnetic set, and given a simple step by step tutorial for making these yourself.

And this is the finished set...

Here's the calendar all set up on our little magnetic board. 

 

My other post showed a lampshade I've made for Emily using some Maya Road trinket flowers and scalloped rick rack.

 

 

Some instructions are on the Maya Road DT blog. Supplies/materials for the lampshade:

• Maya Road suede stitched blossoms, pink and cream;
• Maya Road light pink scallop ric rac (one of my favourite Maya Road trims);
• IKEA lampshade;
• Hot glue gun.

Thanks for visiting, have a great week.

Cheers

Fiona x

Maya Road 5 product challenge

Our latest Maya Road design team challenge was to create a project from five products. The Maya Road girls sent DT members a brown paper bag with five Maya Road products. We were allowed to use extra products like adhesive, paints and pattern paper.

The challenge was published in the Maya Road consumer newsletter. You can subscribe to the newsletter HERE.

It was a lot of fun. Although I keep my scrapbooking simple, taking away the freedom of adding whatever I wanted was a little challenging. I struggled when I saw the chipboard gear shapes in the brown paper bag, but was OK once I turned them into flowers. Here's what I created from the contents of the brown paper bag.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for visiting. Have a great week.

Cheers

Fiona x

Productivity update

School holidays are over, time for a crafty catch up.

Firstly I'm going back to before Easter. I did finish my other Easter basket for Emily in time for the Easter bunny. This was our last project from the Easter Egg-ceptional Egg-xtravaganza. Here's the finished product.

 

The cute birdie fabric used on the outside of the basket is manufactured by Timeless Treasures Fabrics. The only details I can find about this one is its code name on their website, it's mod-c4867-sorbet. The lining is another fabric from the same collection, but I can't find any details of it at the moment. That fabric has small hearts printed in matching colours.

And here are the baskets together on Easter morning.

 

I have been quite productive over the holiday break. We went up to Hawks Nest for a few days and seeing the weather forcast I didn't think we'd be spending much time outdoors, so I packed my sewing machine, fabrics and ribbons and settled in for a few days of sewing.

I have made a few changes to the Ribbons Galore site. One being a dedicated section for my new Handmade at Ribbons Galore goodies. And here is a batch of new pouches/pencil cases in the making, the result of my holiday sewing.

 

A few favourite designs are coming back.

Little Red ribbon pouch:

 

Snow White ribbon pouches:

And a few new designs...

The Snow White ribbon is now available in pink at Ribbons Galore. Here's the pouches in the making:

 

Tea Time ribbon pouches are coming soon too:

 

Golilocks ribbon pouch:

 

I have several new favourite ribbons which can all be found in the Fairly Tales and Fables collection at Ribbons Galore. One ribbon which I've loved using is the Babushka Dolls ribbon:

 

If you would like to pre-order any pouches before they are available at Handmade @ Ribbons Galore, please send me an email, info@ribbonsgalore.com.au and I can send some more details about the designs.

That's about all for now. Have a great week and thanks for visiting.

Cheers

Fiona x

 

Day 8 of the Egg-ceptional Egg-xtravaganza

Well here we are, our last day, day 8, of our Egg-ceptional Egg-xtravaganz.

I'm sharing some photos of a fabric Easter basket I've made for Phoebe. [I have a basket for Emily half sewn and will share photos of that one when I'm finished.]

The idea for the fabric basket came from Liesl's disdressed blog, where she made a very cute Easter fabric basket with bunny ears.

I've made a similar box style basket. The handles of my basket are semi-circles of fabric. I have quilted both fabrics (the outside and lining) to give the fabric extra body.

The finished basket measures about 20cm square, which gives a very generous space for the Easter bunny to fill with eggs on Easter morning.

 

 

I finished the top edge of the basket with rick rack.

 

I loved this cute fabric for the lining of the basket. It is a Japanese fabric by Sevenberry. The brown fabric for the outside is a Michael Miller fabric called Espresso Pod Ditz.

 

One of my blog readers, Julie, asked about the girls bunnies. We still have Bubbles and Butterscotch, they are nearly six years old, which I believe is "getting on" in bunny years. I admit to being a bit slack when it comes to taking photos of our little darlings lately (that's the bunnies, not the girls). So this afternoon in the fading light, I quickly took some photos of beautiful Bubbles.

 

Bubbles is still very cuddly and loves a snuggle.

 

Butterscotch was reluctant to leave the hutch this afternoon.... I will have to try one the weekend to take a better photo of her.

 

I'd like to thank everyone for visiting my blog during our Easter Egg-ceptional Egg-xtravaganza. Mel and I have chatted abouthow much we've enjoyed sharing our Easter ideas. We're hoping to bring you some more crafty ideas sometime soon.

Have a happy Easter.

Cheers

Fiona x