Step-by-step to a new purse

It has been a long time between drinks stitches for me. However, I did start a new project just recently. My 16-year-old daughter has been pestering strongly encouraging me to make her a Brigitte Giblin Little Hexagon Purse. 

Being 16, she is a little fashion conscious (!) and very pedantic about colour matching. She was very strategic about what fabrics I was to use for her purse:

Step 1: Go to wardrobe (or take a cursory glance about the piles of clothes scattered across floor), and note which colours dominate. Pull each of those colours from Mum's stash of solid fabrics - lots of neutrals, with splashes of watermelon, orange and teal.

Step 2: Take solid fabrics to Mum's (mind-numbingly extensive) stash, and proceed to pull out every fabric that even closely resembles the afore-chosen neutrals, oranges, teals etc.

Step 3: Decree to mother that tower of fabrics chosen "are the ones I want for my purse - these ones Mum, no sneaking in any of yours".

Step 4: Issue further instructions: "... and remember not too much pink, plenty of grey and black so it will go with all my clothes, Mum".

Step 5: Retreat to bedroom expecting that purse will be completed by dinner time.

Step 6: Take reality check on estimated time of completion of purse considering Mum is still cutting pesky little 1/2 inch hexagons from fabric tower two weeks later!

A beach bride

We travelled last weekend to the NSW South Coast for the wedding of the first of our nieces. The wedding had it all really. It was a spectacular South Coast day, perfect for a wedding on the beach.

Everyone ooohed and aaahed over the beautiful bride.

The groom teared up as he professed his undying love,

which of course made all the girls tear up!

There were pretty updos a-plenty,

and gorgeous young bridesmaids.

 The kids got to build sand castles and skip stones on the waves,

and play in the water, even in their best clothes!

Thongs were the preferred footwear.

 And the photographer was in his element as he led beautiful women across the sand!

It was a very memorable wedding, and the love these two have for each other was blindingly evident. A truly lovely day!

Dilly-dallying with new friends

I spent the long weekend dilly-dallying in the farm garden, basking in gloriously sunny, winter weather ...

... frolicking about with the flowers ...

... and making new friends, who were also out enjoying the sun - and munching their way through my garden.

Some were young and spritely, self-assured and handsome in freshly formed black and white coats, with busy schedules and the world at their (many) feet ...

Others were old and weatherbeaten, tattered about the edges and feeling their age, content to sit motionless for hours.

I wavered between the two - initially busy and enthusiastic, but pulling up stiff, sore and eager to sit after two days of concerted dilly-dallying!

I invited my new friends in for cake, but they politely declined, having already stuffed themselves full in my garden consumed an elegant sufficiency. Oh well, more for me :)

Gadgets ...

... and other ways to wile away your Friday evening ;) 

Cool tool #1: If you were a fan of Picnik, and like me, you were a bit lost when this photo editing tool disappeared from cyberspace, then get excited! PicMonkey has emerged, bigger and so much better than Picnik ever was. Quick and intuitive, there are many cool effects you can apply to your images.

 And mosaic making is a cinch.

Cool tool #2: Chip It! is a handy, and addictive palette generator. Simply drag the Chip It! tool to your tool bar, click on any internet image and Chip It! will come up with matching colours.

Admittedly, the colour names are US paint colours, but this could be really useful if you are planning a quilt and are a bit stuck to know what colours to pull from your stash. 

Or if you are struggling to know what colours to incorporate in a border fabric, this tool might give you somewhere to start.

How cool would it be if the colours generated were DMC floss numbers or Kona solid names?! Be warned, you could waste invest many hours with this little tool! 

Cool tool #3: Are you a jam maker or preserver and do you have a plethora of unlabelled jars of indistinguishable condiments in the back of the pantry? "Hey Mum, is this edible"? Well, this gadget is for you. The Jam Labeliser generates wonderfully professional labels with your own personalised details.

Simply print your labels, cut out with scissors and glue to your jars with a humble old glue stick.  Noice!

Have a great weekend, Queen's Birthday long weekend for many of us Aussies. Don't waste too much of it with my cute gadgets :) Bloom x

Daybook entry #13

Outside my window ... it is freezing cold, windy and most significantly - cloudy! No sighting of the transit of Venus for us today. 

From my picture journal ... the lovely Delbard rose, Paris 2000. 

 

I am thankful for ... my daughter's first full day back at school in five weeks. She has been suffering significant pain from a bowel complaint, and is still not out of the woods, but I think we have turned a corner.

I am feeling ... somehow melancholy, perhaps not helped by the weather, or the following:

I keep watching ... this film clip by Goyte - visually engaging and haunting at once.

I am listening to ... Pink Floyd's 'Wish You Were Here'. Not really a fix for melancholia :) 

My ironing DVD this week was ... 'Romulus, My Father'. Oh my! A beautifully shot Australian film about the unconditional love between a young boy and his father. One of those films I feel privileged to have seen for its beauty, but not sure I could watch again for the anguish! 

Hopefully my next post will be a little more cheery. If you'd like to share how you lift a bad mood, all suggestions will be grudgingly thankfully received!

P.S. Guy Sebastian's 'Like it Like That' just played automatically on my iTunes. Things are already on the up :)

Clay tag tutorial

Thank you for your interest in my tutorial. The tutorial has moved and is available in its entirety at this link. Best wishes, Bloom.

'Aster Manor' pillow workshop

There is not much fun to blog about just at the moment. We are into the fifth week off school for my sick daughter. Thanks to my Mum visiting, I did get a day out of the house last week to teach a workshop at Marally Craft. We had a great day stitching up versions of my 'Aster Manor' pillow.

Judy made up an elegant version in French red and taupe using Rouenneries Deux fabrics. Judy did a fabulous job considering her limited experience with a rotary cutter.

As it happened, there were two Jackies in the class. Jackie #1 tested out her brand spanking new Bernina by whipping up her pillow in Aster Manor by 3 Sisters. She found perfectly matching buttons and discovered the magic of the #10 Bernina edgestitch foot!

Jackie #2 chose the always fresh combination of blue and cream for her version. Again, her choice of buttons was lovely!

 

Wendy survived my first workshop and bravely returned for my second :) The fabrics for her pillow were chosen to match her recently upholstered bedhead - a sublime combination of soft blues in Bunny Hill's Oooh La La range.

Deidre planned her pillow specifically as a gift for a friend's golden wedding anniversary. It was a beautifully subtle combination of cream fabrics with gold accents. A very thoughtful gift which I'm sure will be happily received.

Thank you girls for a great day of stitching and chatting. It was a much needed break from the worry of nursing a sick child. If you'd like to make up your own version of this pillow, you can find the free tutorial over at Moda Bakeshop.

Happy Mother's Day

To mothers everywhere, a very happy Mother's Day. Mine was spent employed in the most unlikely of activities ... mothering :) My littlest bloss remains unwell & in need of nursing. And The Boy required some coaxing to get him through a Latin assignment on 'The Journey of Aeneas', due tomorrow. How is your Roman mythology?!

My Sweetness is a firm unbeliever in Mother's Day. Over the years, we I have come to an arrangement - I tend to treat myself! So after a busy day of mothering (and admittedly some Thai takeaway for dinner organised by Sweetness!), I am settling in with my treats:

Something special from T2 ,

and a gorgeous new book by Joanna @ FigTree Quilts. 

Hee hee, happy Mother's Day to me!

Mesenteric adenitis anyone?

My ten-year-old daughter has had constant abdominal pain for the last 7 days. It is not relieved by paracetamol, ibuprofen or naproxen. It is a recurring pain and keeps her away from school.

Yesterday, we were given a diagnosis of mesenteric adenitis which is a inflammation of lymph glands in the abdomen. Evidently, it is common in children. If you have any experience of this condition and advice to offer, please feel free to give it!

For the fabric tragics

The latest & perhaps loveliest marketing ploy to entice us all to buy more fabric ...

... lusciously shot, imaginative and clever films on YouTube ...

... by Art Gallery Fabrics. Tempted? Ooooh, yeah!