Only one sleep to go...

2009 Advent Blog~a~long

Are you ready?

There's still time to join ~ heck join up on the final day if you really want to! The more the merrier {pardon my pun}

Now although I am the host ~ I am warning you that you won't be seeing a post from me until quite late in the day... unfortunately tomorrow is a real work day, followed by the mad rush to get home, pick up a no doubt cranky Miss K from daycare, do dinner, pack lunches for the next day and sit down with a nice cuppa while watching Bones on Foxtel! My post should follow shortly there-after... Let's hope the host doesn't fail on day one!!!

 

To keep yourself amused until then ~ go & check out this giveaway that Amanda from Polyclarific is doing! But don't enter, I want to win it ;) be sure to check out Amanda's shop here ~ her work is gorgeous!

A mess!

Anyone else make this much mess when Foundation piecing?

Final Sneak peak!

I finished the FINAL two blocks for our Round Robin Swap with the EB Newbie Quilters... all along I've kept forgetting that at the end of the round, I will be receiving back 12 different individual blocks ~ made by some of the most beautiful girls I've ever 'met'

Now I just need to wait patiently for a couple of weeks, last day for mailing blocks to Kirsty is 4th December, who will then package our blocks up & return them to us to piece into a quilt top ~ three cheers to Kirsty for organising this Round Robin... hip, hip, hooray!!!

 

 

 

I am really going to miss not having this Round Robin to do... if anyone's got an idea or two for 2010 projects, I am all ears (and hands and machine *whistle* oooh, have I dropped that bombshell yet?)

We have a button !!!

Thanks to Anna, we have a 2009 Advent Blog~a~long button :)

To put it on your blog, right mouse click and save to your computer. Then add a gadget to your blog layout. Choose add picture, find the picture on your computer and if you want to be REALLY clever, link it back to my blog post here

http://carrose-creations.blogspot.com/2009/11/you-better-watch-out_25.html 

Still want to sign up - go here

You better watch out...

IT'S COMING TO A COMPUTER SCREEN NEAR YOU SOON!

The 2009 Advent Blog~a~long

Are you joining me this year?

It's easy all you have to do is blog (or don't blog, truly... I'm that easy going) every day for the 24 days leading up to Christmas - starting on December 1st. Come & join the fun! All you have to do is join up :)

I know you want to :)

 

More sneak peaks!

A month to go & only 2 more blocks to make - it's getting exciting! Here's the latest 4 blocks... I'm starting to open up the sneak peak areas a little as we are nearing the end of the round. Are you excited?

 

Note to (future) self

STAY AWAY from stationary stores. Both online and in real life. Seriously. 

Oh & while we are on the subject, it's probably NOT a good idea to tell your husband you only purchased two pens and then do a daft thing like leaving the bloody receipt on the bench for all and sundry (and your husband) to see ;)

A home for Barbie :)

Remember when I mentioned a home-made dollhouse?

Well it seems that one level wasn't suitable for barbie, so she used the settlement money after her divorce from Ken and went up. A split level apartment that was sorely in need of a lick of paint.

So mummy sat with her afternoon beer, a tub of indoor wall paint in cream (ok someone should have told me that matte paint isn't the best to use on cardboard... it was chipping off as I painted it!)

A few curses, another beer, some lovely grass stains & a black ant bite later ~ barbies show home was finished.

 

Of course it still needs decorating inside, but these gorgeous little furniture sets that Great Nanna Rose gave to me years ago are suitable. The little Miss K had a ball playing with it this morning and is doing the same again now :) Awww!

 

 

Feels a little like Christmas

Ok so he (my dear, darling hubby) won't let me put up the tree nor start decorating yet... but he will let me put out the Christmas tin filled with choc eclairs... hmmm - anyone else see the problem here???

I have however managed to work around him and am easing into the Christmas spirit by buying myself this gorgeous Christmas mug... $2.49 from Crazy Clarks!!!

 

Then of course I had to practice my cookie making skills on the toddlers at mothers group the other morning...

Unfortunately the resemble little aliens more than gingerbread men... hmmm...

 

Today the Toddler and I got crafting before our morning swim lesson and whipped up some stamps on plain card, to be used as either present tags or Christmas cards...  of course hers turned out to be a little less Christmassy and a bit more festivy!!! But still lovely all the same (pictured are mine!)

and we tea-dyed some more calico because this stupid ning-nong made a huge error on cutting out those mini stockings and did them back to front... so I have four 'fronts' instead of backs, so I'm cutting out some calico and will reverse engineer the designs on to those ;)

of course my little helper had to be included and spent 5 happy (*blissful non-whinging*) minutes stirring water and managing to get it all over the benches, chairs, floors and herself before we had to rush off to swimming lessons. 

This afternoon has been spent with toddler sleeping and mummy sewing up some more Round Robin Blocks. Hopefully a sneak peak to follow sometime over the weekend.

Quaint sweet dollhouses

For as long as I can remember I have wanted to own a dollhouse, a family heirloom to hand down to my kids for them to hand down to their kiddies and so on. Several years ago, boy it must have been 2000 or 2001. My dad built me my long awaited doll house :)

He found the instructions for a dollhouse in a "near vintage" magazine (maybe not quite vintage and I should be careful throwing that around as it was the year I *ahem* graduated high-school) check out the year!!!

 

The dollhouse was a scaled down replica of the first government house. Even more fitting for ME as I love all things to do with early colonial Aussie history... particularly the first fleet and subsequent years.

The dollhouse was gifted un-decorated, unpainted & unfurnished. I have purchased a 30 piece dollhouse furniture kit to go in it, just need to find the time to start making it!

Miss K is fast approaching an age where she would really love a dollhouse to play with. I half considered buying one that I saw at the Target sales earlier this year, but don't want to waste money on an interim one, when I have a perfectly good one here... So the goal for 2010 is to at least get the dollhouse painted and make a start on furnishing it. It will be a long term project (heck I've had it as a WIP for nearly 10 years now and it still has a half painted roof ;) so wish me luck!!! Hopefully I can have it near finished for her 4th birthday! That's 18 months away!

In the interim Miss K and I are going to make do with a hand crafted dolly house... which is still under progress (well we did only start it this morning) here is the front door! Now to find some paints and barbie so she can settle in to her new home ;) 

Mini Stockings :)

Well done Selina (from selina's vintage) ~ you guessed correct, the little sneak peak in my last post was indeed a mini Stocking! Very appropriate that you win this one, seeing as I am totally caught up in the Spirit of Christmas thanks to you & your recent & very gorgeous pay-it-forward I received!!! {eta: feeling like a complete ning-nong, forgot I had two readers named Selina ;) } I'll email you now Selina (vintage) get something away to you in the next couple of weeks.

Here are the finished stockings - oh so cute!

And a close up of the stitching...

Can you do a French Knot? I can't. I've been trying for years and still they come out all weird and wonky and wrong. These stitcheries nearly drove me up the wall when I realised I had nine to do on this one alone, not to mention the 16 on one of the others. My solution - beads! I think they came out pretty darn cute using the beads instead of FK!!! What do you think?

And of course this has totally thrown me over the edge into the Christmas spirit  

A trip to Crazy Clarks yesterday yielded the first bag of Chocolate eclairs & a cute little tin for them to reside in upon our dining table until after Christmas! I love this time of year!!!

 

I'm starting to think that I should be banned from the shops at Christmas... that or maybe have my credit card confiscated. I cannot walk past all these decorations / Christmas  things without buying something. Seriously. I have a problem. I need to go to Christmas-aholics Annonymous or something.  I have been buying Chrismtas themed books for Miss K since before she was born and last year yielded a count of nearly 16... :o we do read them every day in the lead up to Christmas and will do the same once more this year. Reading a blog last year (sorry I can't remember whose) I saw they bought a new book each year and added it to their growing collection. I thought that's a great idea. NEXT year I will buy 1 book to add to the collection.

It is now NEXT year.

I've bought 5 books already *hanging my head in shame*

I'm an addict. I need help.

Can you guess what's making me merry & bright?

This is the bright ~ borrowing my mummies light box until I buy my own ;)

So that I could make a start on these merry little man...

And just because I'm in the spirit (not into spirits as in drinks... mind they will appear mid-way thru Dec when I'm sinking under all the Christmas pressure I put upon myself) no, no I'm talking the Christmas spirit!

I am loving these little stitcheries - so quick & easy ~ reckon you can guess at what they are? First one to guess correctly what they might be, before my next blog post (which I daresay will be this Friday 13th) will receive one for themselves to treasure...  and it may or may not be filled with my all time favorite christmas treat ;)

Dear Jane ~ Quilt Along

A few girls in my online Quilting Group have expressed an interest in a long term quilt along for Dear Jane. For tracking purposes and easy future reference, I am putting a new section in my sidebar for any dear jane related posts / info.

I dropped by spotlight yesterday and grabbed another 4 flat fats that I think will go well with my version of DJ. I like that I have no particular vision with how this will look and because my main aim for doing this quilt is to practice skills - I am happy to be a pantser (ie fly by the seat of me pants) on this project. Will be interesting to see how she takes shape over the coming months! 

 

To date I have completed the following blocks

M 10

B 13

 

Next blocks printed and ready to start when I'm ready are

A 6

A 8

D 13

B 1

C 9

E 10 

D 3

These were the suggested 'easier' blocks that were listed on the dear jane website.

Do you want to join me? As I said LONG TERM...

EB Doll Quilt Swap - Sent

This was the little wall-hanging quilt I made & sent to AJ

All hand quilted except for once around the outer edge!

I even attempted a hand quilted pinwheel on the front centre block!

 

EB Doll Quilt Swap #3

Today is opening day for the EB annual Doll Quilt Swap. I joined in last year and it was great fun watching everyone revealing what they had been seeing sneak peaks of over the previous 2 months. This year has been no different - there has been some stories that girls were waiting till the stroke of midnight to open their parcels!

I was lucky enough to have Jade as my swap partner & I received this gorgeous (wallhanging) quilt from her!

It's a wonky log cabin design done in retro Katie Jump rope fabrics on a white homespun background! I've been eyeing off the wonky designs for some time now & had been meaning to do one - but now I don't have to!!!

It is beautifully made and so ME. Gosh I'm such a lucky girl to own this quilt!

Isn't the quilting gorgeous! It's so neat and straight (something I aspire too ;)

Love this funky label! I actually thought of doing something similar!

Love the little hanging tag - aren't those buttons so cute!!

Thank you so much Jade! I love it and can't wait to hang it on the wall of my sewing room!!!

Hats & Skirts

November is here along with the hot weather and I am in need of a hat!

A lazy days hat (excuse the dark tired circles under my eyes... it was a self portrait taken after a LONG day out!)

And in reverse... love these spots!  

 

Of course I was on a roll, so I finished the froggy one for my dear little Miss K

(please excuse the blurry picture + the dummy, we have one tooth to go & she wasn't giving up her num-num just for a silly photo shoot!)

 

The reverse which is a nice green swirly (pictured in my recent Blogtoberfest)

It seems Teddy takes a better photo then both of us combined ;)

 

Kylie asked for me to share some tips on making this pattern... to be honest I had the first one cut & half sewn for months as I couldn't get my head around the circular sewing. The first attempt was caught in several places and I threw it to the side intending to never finish it. BUT I will say

1. Make sure you mark the quarters of pieces accurately (I originally used a fading quilters pen that faded by the time I wanted to match my markings. The second time I used a bright blue pen that doesn't fade (but is washable) this seemed to do the trick & because the 2nd time around was more accurate, it seemed to line up better & less bulk

2. When attaching the crown to the band, pin it all in place then sew with the crown on the top (the first one I did with crown on bottom & it tended to fold under the crown... it looks vastly better with the folds appearing on the band.

3. Following Sadie & Lance' advice to leave a gap when sewing the brim to the band is fast & easy to do! I don't do hand-sewing well, but this way works wonderfully, just ensure you leave enough of a gap to turn the whole thing inside out! With a half inch seam, it's easy to catch all seams under when doing the final top-stitch!

I think that's about all that bothered me while sewing it. I'll definetely be making more of these!

************************************

AND because once you start rolling you can't stop...

A skirt ~ I looked at the lazy days skirt pattern this morning... & it is pretty much similar (except for 3 differences) to the one I whipped up out of my head a few weeks back. This version just looks neater as I've used quilting cotton instead of a thin poly-blend AND thicker elastic in the waist!!! I did a different hem to it, this was similar to a pattern I did yonks ago.

Which has got me thinking about copyrights and selling. When does an idea become your own. If for example I add a frilled bottom to bottom of the poly cotton skirt I made a few weeks back ~ can I sell this? I have followed NO pattern for it - the frill is something that has been done on a tonne of patterns I've seen in my travels? Whose to say 'you can't do that' if I haven't followed a pattern... Anyone know the rules & would like to expand?

Regardless, I really love this skirt! Except I think my elastic needs to be tighter!