Freshly baked

Have you got your party frocks pressed and ready for our Dinner Party?

 

Just dropping in to let you know that my Moda Bake Shop Progressive Dinner spot for January 20 will be online at 8am Central Time for US visitors, which is actually 1am January 21 for us Aussies! Just as well we are good for a late night party here in Aus! See you then ...

What's cooking?

The lovely team over at Moda Bakeshop are cooking up a storm again. 

Lissa Alexander of Moda, in true Bakeshop style, has organised a virtual progressive dinner, and YOU'RE MOST CORDIALLY INVITED!

Dinner will be served beginning January 19, 2011 and ending January 26, 2011.  Please join us for lots of fun, great food, a very exciting announcement and chances to win fabulous prizes fresh from the oven! Here is the full list of hosts. You are most welcome to knock on my door on January 20. I'd better get cooking!

January 19

Stash Books

Oda May of Moda Bake Shop

January 20

Amanda Jean of Crazy Mom Quilts

Roslyn Mirrington of Bloom

Vanessa Christenson of V and Co

January 21

John Adams of Quilt Dad

Monica Solorio-Snow of The Happy Zombie

January 22

Kimberly Walus of Bitty Bits and Pieces

Melissa Mortenson of The Polkadot Chair

January 23

Natalia Bonner of Piece N Quilt

Vickie Eapen of Spun Sugar Quilts

January 24

Rachel Griffith of P.S. I Quilt

Lissa Alexander of Moda Lissa

January 25

Julie Herman of Jaybird Quilts

Sweetwater

January 26

Angela Yosten 

Jenny Garland

Need to spruce up your sewing space?

You may remember my debut project for Australian Homespun back in November - a sewing machine cover that you can read all about here.

 

Well, the companion article has just been published in Issue No. 92 (Vol 12.1). It includes patterns to make accessories to accompany the cover. There is a simple little pincushion ...

 ... a sewing machine mat, with lots of pockets along the front for holding all your tools...

 ... and a handy removable thread catcher:

For my overseas friends, if you are keen to purchase Australian Homespun, here is a listing of overseas distributors.

And for readers looking for the 'tape measure' twill trim for this project, I purchased mine from Hatched and Patched. They will happily do mail orders.

This issue of Australian Homespun also includes my personal profile, an unnerving but privileged opportunity! Considering my profile photo is now in every newsagent across Australia (yikes!), I thought I should at least share what I look like with you. This is me, suitably soft focussed to disguise the age lines!

My sincere thanks go to Catherine and her Homespun team for inviting me to publish my projects. If you'd told me 5 years ago that I would be writing and publishing patterns, I would never have believed you. What an exciting time it has been! 

An enormous thank you too to everyone who has been so supportive of me through my blog. I'd not have had the confidence to try pattern writing if not for you! Bloom x

Queensland floods

It seems trite to consider blogging about anything as everyday as sewing or gardening when so many Queenslanders are suffering right now from devastating floods this week. There are many photos of the destruction at news sites here and here, and a moving personal account here.

 image source

There is sickening news today that one body was found 80 kilometres from where the person disappeared, and that in reality, some of the 50 people still missing may never be found.

 image source

There are many stories too of courage and heroism in the face of danger, and of the amazing resilience of the Australian people. This photo gallery is wonderful testament to this. 


Of course the blogging world has swung into action and there are many ways to help:

The lovely girls at Gumtree Designers have launched a wonderful appeal to contribute 'New Beginnings' sewing kits to the many crafters who may have lost all their possessions. You can find all the details here.

Toni at Make it Perfect is coordinating a list of bloggers willing to auction items for donation to the Queensland Government Flood Relief Appeal. The auction will commence on Monday 17th January, and will be open for 1 week, closing on Monday 24th January. Details can be found here.

To those personally affected by this disaster, our thoughts and prayers are with you. We hope that you are being amply provided and cared for.

Babushka

My list of prospective handmade Christmas gifts was long. The tally of gifts completed was very short! The one handmade gift achieved for Christmas 2010 was this little sweetie:

It was made for one of my nieces. It is an Ooshka Babushka by The Red Thread. The face panel is pre-printed, and very cute!

Miss Babushka was favourably received by my niece, with all other bedtime companions ditched and replaced (at least for a time) by her new dolly. Gotta love that!

Hello 2011!

Well hello to my lovely cyber friends! My best wishes to you and your families for Christmas and a happy and healthy 2011. My apologies for not getting them to you earlier! The last two weeks have been a whirlwind of activity, well away from internet connections.

The harvest of our lupin crop was completed on Christmas Eve. The yield was disappointing, with much of the crop unable to be harvested as it had been flattened by wind earlier in the season. We may just recoup our costs. 2011 will surely be better?!

Finishing harvest so late meant a 4.00 am start on Christmas Day to travel to the coast for Christmas. At least the traffic was quiet!

Christmas with our coastal cousins means lots of food, lots of noise, good coffee, bushwalking, beachwalking ...

... and even a bit of fishing:

A few days with family was followed by a visit with old friends further down the coast near Narooma.

It is so easy to take the beauty of the Australian coastline for granted. There is a stunning landscape at every turn!

There was time to enjoy some of our amazing birds & blooms. Some hastily snapped native orchids in the bush ...

... and some drop dead gorgeous birds, which come in to feed at our friends' back verandah: a stunning King Parrot ...

... and the inimitable Rainbow Lorikeet.

We visited the historic little village of Tilba, and had fish and chips on the beach at Bermagui. Unfortunately, this was closely followed by a violent, but thankfully short-lived bout of food poisoning for me, just to mix things up!

We then had a couple of days in Canberra across the New Year, catching a free NYE concert of The Whitlams, one of our favourite live bands.

 

I went to see the Ballet Russes exhibition at the National Gallery. It was very beautiful, and I loved seeing the textiles and construction techniques of these now 100 year old costumes. Someone had amazing foresight to have purchased these costumes for the Gallery way back in 1973. At that time, they were stuffed in a box, heavily soiled with makeup and sweat.

 

The conservation that many of the costumes has undergone is truly remarkable. This exquisite 'Costume for a Squid' was in confetti sized pieces before its conservation treatment. Quite remarkable.

Of course, there was a day of Canberra shopping for Miss 15, and the inevitable visit to Questacon for our excitable 12-year-old boy. Unsurprisingly, the free fall slide was the highlight for him:

Miss 9 was intrigued with the patterns she could make at the more artistic Recollections exhibit:

So after 10 busy days away, and 1800 kilometres in the car, we are now officially returned home for a rest!


Happy New Year everyone! Bloom x

In the nick of time

Having promised Janellybelly way back in the year that we would do a bag swap, she has finally received hers, just in time for Christmas!

In a deal that works well for me, Janelle chose the fabrics and I made the bag up for her.

She chose a gorgeous range of fabric called 'Zest' from the Stonehill Collection by Donna Wilder for Fabric Traditions. The pattern is 'Frilly Dilly' bag by Janelle Wind.

I hope your Christmas preparations are fun and stress-free. I have finished my shopping which is always a relief.

Things are otherwise a tad stressed in the Bloom household right now. Our harvest is not in yet. And there is a lot at stake financially for us. However, I keep reminding myself that we are in a much better position than many other families.

We are supposed to have Christmas with my husband’s family on the South Coast, but that is all hinging on harvest happening in the next few days. We have a contractor lined up, and providing he doesn’t break down, or get bullied into harvesting someone else’s crop instead of ours, and it doesn’t rain, he will be here very soon.

Hopefully, I will be in a better place for my next post!

Christmas rocky road

School holidays ... kids at home ... time for some Christmas cooking. Everyone surely has their favourite recipe for rocky road. This is ours:

rocky road

marshmallows, 250g, pink & white

cooking chocolate, 150g

copha, 40g

salted roasted peanuts, ½ cup (80g)

1 packet raspberry lollies

Line 20cm x 30cm lamington tin with baking paper. Chop marshmallows and raspberries in half. Place approximately half of the marshmallows, raspberries & peanuts in lamington tin. Melt chocolate & copha together in microwave, or use a double saucepan. Pour half of the chocolate mix over marshmallows, raspberries & peanuts. Place remaining marshmallows, raspberries & peanuts in tin. Pour over remaining chocolate mix. Leave to set. Cut into generous, decadent pieces and forget about the diet!

2010 teacher gifts completed!

My last post generated plenty of comment, much of it empathy and encouragement that I am not the only one to leave things until the last minute at this time of year! The 'pencil roll' gifts were completed and delivered to respective teachers. At least I know that they won't 'double-up' with this gift!

Kirsty at You Had Me at Bonjour rather cheekily commented on my last post: "Ha, ha, yes I seem to remember a post like this last year??" Hmmm, well yes :), last year, and the year before and the year before! You have a good memory Kirsty! Each year, they vary just a little depending what pens/pencils I can source. The thing that doesn't vary is my last-minute stitching! The pens I have used this year are Stabilo fineliners, in lots of colours, perfect for easing the drudgery of marking for primary teachers. 

Cherry Red Quilter asked how long it took me to find just the right colours to match the pens. Dare I say, they are all from my rather extensive stash?! I have been quilting in some form or another for 15 years, and have a fabric collection to match!

Quiltilicious of Little Island Quilting has excellent eyesight, particularly when it comes to fabric! She said, "Great to see someone with fabric that goes back as old as my collection...I can spot some Jinny Beyer '2000' fabric in there ;-)" Great spotting! There is a piece of bright blue Jinny Beyer 'Millenium'. And there is a story that goes with this fabric. It was purchased originally for this quilt. Never again will I purchase fabric with a date on it, in this case '2000' printed all over. When I presented the quilt to my son in 2004, he quick as a wink calculated just exactly how long it had taken me to make it!

I had two pencil rolls to make this year, the 'cow print' version being for a man, the spotted one for a woman. I recently had an email from someone lovely hoping that I would be writing up a pattern for 'my' pencil rolls.  While I would absolutely love to be able to do a pattern for these, they are unfortunately not my original idea. I would be treading on thin ice from a copyright point of view. I can point you in the right direction though. The idea originally came from the lovely Kathy Mack at Pink Chalk Studio and she has some simple instructions on this post.

I jazzed the pencil rolls up with some very cute downloadable tags by Amy Moss at Eat, Drink, Chic.

Naturally Carol commented on the amazing job that teachers do, 'teaching all those kids, day in day out'! Absolutely!! I am married to one, and I know the inordinate number of hours devoted to this most admirable of professions. A pencil roll at the end of the year is small recompense really, but given with sincere gratitude! 

Will I never learn?

Every year ... last day of school ... crazy last minute rush to finish teacher gifts.

Why don't I allow myself more time? Here is the progress:

Hopefully more time to talk soon!