Finally Finished

Well I finally finished this cross stitch. 

It's only been about 20 years or so.

Trip into the past...

I got inspired about a month ago and decided to finish off some long outstanding craft projects.  One in fact from 1985!! The other one wasn't quite that long ago, but nearly!

Some of my former school friends might recognise this project from Year 8 Art Class! Yes I finally finished it! LOL! It was a screen printing activity.  We had to design a template based on a bug/insect of some sort.  I chose the butterfly and if I remember correctly the art teacher didn't think I enough detail, so co-opted someone else bug onto my material.

The next project I finished is a cushion cover.  I finished stitching the cross stitch quite some years ago, so it's just been sitting amongst my stuff waiting to be made into something. So I decided to use some of the leftover boarder material from another quilt.

Here is the finished project.  Laura this will be winging it's way to you at some point for Kate!

Cooking a Nigella Recipe

I made this over Christmas while in Noosa.  My Mum and I watched one of Nigella's programs and she made this on the episode we watched.  Mum and I were both so impressed, I tried to find the recipe on her site the next day, but to no avail.  So I did the next best thing, I watched it on ABC iView and wrote it down as she made it. 

It is call Black Beer Gingerbread, and it tastes heavenly!  All members of the family loved it too, even my Dad who isn't a fan of ginger anything ... taste not red heads! :D

I used Kilkenny Stout, and have made it again since with the same Stout.  Although I do have a can of Guinness sitting in the fridge for the next batch to see if it makes a difference to the taste.

Below is the recipe as I watched the program.

Black Beer Gingerbread

Recipe By Nigella Lawson

Pre-heat oven to 170 C.

Melt in a saucepan, 150 grams of butter, 300 grams of Golden Syrup & 200 grams of dark Brown Sugar (Demerara). Once melted, keep on heat and whisk in 250 mls of Black Beer (Stout). Then mix in 300 grams of plain flour, 2 teaspoons of Bicarb Soda, 2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon, 2 teaspoons of ground ginger and a ¼ teaspoon of ground cloves. Once this has been whisked into the beer mixture, remove from the heat. Whisk together 300 mls/grams of Sour Cream (Small carton 300ml) & 2 eggs. Mix sour cream into batter and pour into a pan. There is no need to grease the pan, especially if using the suggested BBQ foil pan. Bake in moderately slow oven for 45 minutes.
Serve on it’s own, or with cream, ice cream or custard.

So I made this ...

I again visited the Sylvia Pippen Designs website and spent some more money.  This time I purchased her Sashiko Scissors Holder.  The colour selection was a random pick by the person who fulfilled the order.  As luck would have it I got red & black fabrics!  I was really happy about that.  So the kit includes 6 Sashiko designs to choose from, white cotton, a needle, a button and all the fabric and wadding needed to make this beautiful and functional item. 

So the first decision I had to make what what design to choose.  The red and black accent fabric to go on the front was of paper fans, so picking a design to go with that was hard.  I decided to go with the double cranes, as that is what my eye kept being drawn to when looking at the selection.  I traced the design onto the black fabric, forgetting that I needed to angle it so it sat properly when the boarders were stitched on and it came time to construct the holder.

Double Cranes

Then came the cutting and sewing of the boarders to the above piece, which was fairly simple. Then came the sandwiching together and then some very simple quilting. I ditch stitched around the centre panel and then sewed a quarter inch line either side of the ditch.  I sewed on the binding, and made the button loop.  Which was to me a new thing and it took me a bit to work out how that might work.

Then came the folding into the shape and stitching in place.  I used one of my own buttons as the button that came with the kit did not match the fabrics.  Below is the finished result, both front and back views.

Front View.

Back View ... if a bit fuzzy!

More Presents...The Final Show!

So I only have two more projects to show that I completed for Christmas 2011.  The second lot of tableware and the wall hanging.

So first to the tableware.  I asked the recipients what colours they would like, all I was told was "Not Pink!", so that left a lot of scope.  Luckily I noticed a few things around their flat/unit the last time I was there and come up with the below colour scheme.  I wanted to do something simple yet fun, so I decided on simple strips and a large square. 

I decided on minimal quilting, as these were for males, so the "less is more" adage fit well.  I made 6 place-mats in total, all with the coloured strips in different combinations, but always finishing with the green one and the large brown square.  I used a variegated green thread for the quilting & ditch stitching, and again the tea dyed calico to bind and back them.  As I forgot to take photo's or measure them before I gave these away, this is the only photo I have of them.  I think the dimensions are 9" x 12" and that the strips were cut at 1.5".

I wonder if the secret on the back has been discovered yet ...

So on to the final piece made for Christmas 2011.  This is what I gave to my Mum.  I had spotted this panel on the BeBe Bold website in one of their Sales. I had it long before I knew what I wanted to do with it.  I knew I wanted to put some Sashiko stitching on it, and was going to do a spray over the printed Sashiko on the panel itself, but as you can see I only stitched a little on the print, and made a star quite by accident.

I also shadow quilted with a variegated blue sewing cotton around the square of printed Sashiko.  I think I could have shadow quilted around the lady too, but didn't think of it at the time, it might have anchored the quilting a little more.  Oh well, hind sight is always 20/20.

So after doing those two things I decided it needed something else.  I took it into work to show my friends and described what I wanted to do.  The opinion was that the white Sashiko thread might be a little stark on the outer edges. I had completely forgotten I had a blue to white variegated Sashiko thread too.  So the results are below. I also shadowed the lines with machine stitching, but did not stitch over the Sashiko thread, instead stopped and started o the other side of each row.  I can tell you there was much frustration in the sewing of these!

A close up of the detailed Sashiko stitching.

I backed the wall hanging with a bright blue & dark blue leaf print that I bought on the fly.  I literally picked it as I walked to the checkout/cutting table at Spotlight!  I think it works really well, and was surprised myself.  I also added a channel on the top, in case Mum wanted to hang it on the wall.  I whip stitched the binding down on the back and used a calico coloured thread, so made it a feature of the back for something different.  Again I was so focused on giving the present I forgot to take a photo of the back! 

So here it is in it's finished form!

... and more ...

The next batch is ...

The beaded open lariat necklace I made for my Aunt. This was a design I bought from the lovely ladies at Bead Shack.  This is a custom colour piece, of light gold silver foiled seed beads, topaz silver foiled seed beads, light gold Swarovski Pearls, and dark brown Swarovski Pearls, and gold crystal rondells.

This is hand sewn with Nymo thread, using St Petersburg Stitch, and sewn to any length you like.

Here are a few different angles.

Ooops!!! Post the Third etc....

So I completely got caught up in life and forgot I hadn't posted about the remaining craft projects I completed for Christmas 2011.

So here goes...


This is a pic of the pink quilt I made for my cousin...just because.


It started out as a small jelly roll of 2.5 inch strips.  I then had to decide on how I wanted the strips to come together. I drew out the sequence on some graph paper with coloured pencils. I had enough strips to do 3 panels, but decided on two. So I very meticulously joined one lot of strips together along the long side, and created a sort of tube.  Then cut 2.5 inch strips across all the colours. To sew the cut strips into the above sequence, I undid which ever seam would create the design. The I joined then all together, trying to match up all the seams as perfectly I as I could manage.  This being the first of these type of quilts there are some that are just not matching.

The sashing is some of the tea dyed calico I made a while back. This is also 2.5 inches in width.  I then had to go out and find complimentary pinks for the boarders.  The first boarder is a pale pink on white mottled cotton and is 4.5 inches wide. The next boarder is plain calico and is 2 inches wide, and the final boarder is bright pink floral on white cotton and is 3.5 inches wide.


The backing fabric was picked on the fly while I was out shopping for the material for the Green Place-mat set.  I used the remaining jelly roll strips to help widen the backing as the bright pink material was not wide enough.




I had help sandwiching the quilt, I used a cotton/bamboo blend wadding.  I decided to do a combination of hand quilting and machine quilting on this one. 'Cos why not challenge myself?  I used a template of a Japanese flower and hand quilted through all layers with a variegated pink cotton.  So there are 3 big flowers in the centre, and one small flower in each far corner as well.  I then machine quilted straight lines in diagonal from each centre flower and 'V' shapes on the inner boarders, and straight lines connecting each boarder flower.




The material I used for the binding was a tie dyed cotton of bright blues and purples and pinks.  I totally forgot to take a photo of the label sewn onto the back.  Might have to get my cousin to take a shot and I'll add it later.