Turtle Hottie

I would like to introduce you to my little turtle friend that I made for the 2013 Hottie Challenge. Except he doesn't have a name. If we gave him a name, he might not have been allowed to leave. Noah was a bit sad to hear that he couldn't stick around, but I told him that he was going to help some people with sick lungs and hearts to get better. I may have to make a special turtle, just for Noah.


My turtle is on his way to Open Drawer to be sold to raise funds for the Margaret Pratt Foundation, who fund research to give donor-organ recipients better outcomes. He is part of a group of hotties (hot water bottle covers) that was organised by Curly Pops, who herself is a recent recipient of a lung transplant.


Open Drawer will holding an exhibition in their gallery, where all the hotties will be displayed. The exhibition will be held from the 5th to the 28th of July, with the Gala Opening on Sunday, July 7 from 2-4pm. Open Drawer is situated at 1158 Toorak Road, Camberwell (Hartwell). During the exhibition, people will have the opportunity to purchase a hottie, or make a donation on behalf of their favourites. The hottie that raises the most funds wins a trophy.


If you can make it to Open Drawer, it is well worth seeing all the different interpretations that everybody had. I really enjoyed visiting last time. If you can't make it to the gallery, but would still like to see some hotties, you can check out #hottiechallenge2013 on instagram.


I wonder if someone will want to buy my turtle and take him home? What do you think we should name him?



For my turtle hottie, I used about 5FQs. This included some that got trashed, testing out ideas to see what would work.
SYST13 Running totals: in = 176, out = 53, total = +113

Tess' Kinder Doll

This happy, smiley Ric-Rac Kinder Doll was made for Tess for Christmas.



Instead of the fabric and ribbon combination for the shoes, I made them from felt this time. In pink instead of the usual black.



I used a stem stitch to sew the mouth and nose this time, instead of the usual back stitch. I used more strands of embroidery floss than the other times, too. This gave the mouth more definition. I made her eyes blue instead of black, too.



You might notice that the fabric matches what I used for Tess, last year.

If you are interested, you can see the other kinder dolls I have made:
Amélie's Kinder Doll
Lima's and Noah's Kinder Dolls
Ellie's Kinder Doll
Adara's Kinder Doll

***Update: The Kinder Doll pattern is now available as a downloadable pattern from Craftsy. Get it Now!

Poppy Breeze

My swap partner, Kylie, received her quilt on Thursday, so I can now reveal what I sent. This is some of what Kylie had to say about what she would like to receive:

I like just about anything. Brights or rich tones - especially reds. Not a fan of cutesy stuff, loving abstract designs at the moment. Not a big fan of lots of embellishments. Finished quilt will be hung.

I designed the entire quilt by myself. I decided to do poppies, because poppies are red, but then ended up doing them in these colours because the fabric was sitting there, calling to me... The grass has bees on it, which I think might me a little bit cute, I hope Kylie doesn't mind.



I pieced the sky using various pieces of blue fabric, radiating from the bottom left corner. I used some fabric from my stash and some I went shopping specifically for. The original idea was to give it a bit of a sunset type look, but I ended up sticking with just blue fabrics to keep it simple. The sky includes fabric with planes, raindrops, umbrellas and spots.



I really enjoyed quilting feathers into the sky, I'd never done feathers before this project and although it is more of a traditional style of quilting, I think it works in this more modern style of quilt. I think it looks a little like clouds.

The poppies were attached using raw edge appliqúe before placing the backing fabric on and I later quilted around them. I like how this gives them a puffy look.



I added the stems after all the quilting was done, which was really tricky and I had to use pliers to pull the thread through all the dense quilt stitches as it was so tight. I could have stitched them before I did the quilting, but I was a little worried about quilting catching on my thread, preferred not to quilt around the stems and didn't really want to quilt over them either. It might have been a little easier to have them show on the back as well, but I wanted to keep the back all white. I stitched the stems on an angle to give the impression of the poppies bobbing in the breeze.

Knot-less Embroidery Tutorial

Today I am going to show you how to do embroidery without big knots all over the back of your work. It keeps the back looking almost as neat as the front and there is less chance of getting big tangles going on. I always thought that knotless embroidery was just where you didn't tie any knots in the back, so the ends were all loose (and very,very messy), until my friend Jodie explained it to me. For this tutorial, I am working in backstitch. You can see a tutorial on back stitch at The Purl Bee.



One of the down-sides with this technique is that you can only use an even number of strands of thread. Not to worry, for the leaves in my current project, it is recommended that you use three strands of thread. I chose to use four instead. Rules are meant to be broken and we don't really want our project to be a clone of the original. So I peeled off TWO strands of thread. TWO strands, because we are going to double it.



So now we have our two strands of thread, folded in half, with our cut ends together. You might expect that we thread the doubled end through the eye of the needle...



...but we don't. Instead, we thread the loose ends through the needle. You may need to wet them a little to get them to stay together.



So now we have our needle threaded, and we have the neat folded ends all down the bottom, and the loose scruffy bits at the top.



Take your needle, and from the wrong side, push it through where you want your embroidery to start. Leave a decent sized tail at the back of your work.



Form your first stitch, and take the needle back through from the front to the back.



This is the back of my work, please ignore the pink markings, I had a couple of goes at doing my transfer and instead of washing the fabric or getting out a new piece, I just flipped it over and started again (but it's really neat, isn't it!). Now take your needle through the loop at the end of your thread.



Before stitching back through to the right side.



Pull your knot-less knot tight and continue with your stitching.



When you have finished your stitching, work the needle back along your stitching before snipping the ends. In this case, I just worked the ends into the branches of the tree.

Fingers in Pies.....

Jodie says she has so many irons in the fire she could be a blacksmith. Me, I have my fingers in so many pies I could possibly be Little Jack Horner. Starting with a dolly I need to finish before next weekend.



In an effort to head off second-sock-itis, I have started my second tropical fish sock...



Slowly working through my cherry tree swing embroidery...



Trying to keep up with my growing boy and supply him with some long sleeved tee-shirts to keep him warm...



As well as a wind-cheater...



And of all things, a picnic basket make-over.... and I believe I may have promised someone a sashiko tutorial? Busy, busy, busy!

Here's the deal. Let's say I finish at least four of these before I start anything new...

What are you working on? Can you stick to one thing at a time?

Sashiko Satchel

I originally started this bag, back in April. Firstly, I did all the Sashiko Stitching after purchasing some variagated perle cotton at the AQC. I then had all the bits cut out ready for a Nicole Mallalieu workshop I attended with the ASG the following weekend.



Really, all I achieved at the workshop was getting the base done, and the purse feet on the bottom.



And then it sat there, doing nothing for weeks, whilst seeminly more important things were completed instead.



On Friday, I decided enough was enough, and I finally got this bag finished yesterday, just before dinner.



You can see above, that I over-came my issue with the zipper foot and the magnetic snap from yesterday. I ended up ditching the zipper foot altogether, used my regular foot and shifted my needle as far left as it would go. The regular foot offered more stability, and I really feel that the needle should be within coo-ee of a foot, otherwise what is the point of having a foot there at all? Janome really need to look at the design of their standard zipper foot a bit more closely. I struggle a bit with zips at times, because you need to raise the presser foot to full height to get the zipper head under the foot, and it won't stay at full height, it needs to be held there. This means you need one hand for the lever, one for moving the zipper head, and another for holding the fabric, so that you can pull that zipper head. That's one more hand than what I have! Ugh!



I went with an adjustable strap, so that it can be worn across the body or neatly tucked up under the arm.



I really like the simple style of this bag. The pattern is Nicole Mallalieu's Large Tote & Satchel. I just used some of the dark denim from my stash, the same denim I used for my skirt, Liam's jeans and my Wren City Bag. The flap is the perfect canvas for any art-work you want, to make your bag stand out from the crowd.

*This Sashiko Satchel is available for sale in my shop.
 

Check out some more Creative People, over here!

Variagated Concentric Circles

I've started using some of the variagated thread that I bought at the AQC, last weekend. Here's a little taste of what is to come. Of course, this kind of stitching allows lots of thinking time, so I am getting lots of new ideas while I am stitching away on this. More should be revealed next week...

Following along with Our Creative Spaces.

AQC 2012

I was lucky to attend the Australian Quilt Convention on Saturday with my mum. We traveled to the convention by train. As mum is further away from Melbourne than I am, she got on a couple of stops earlier, and when I boarded the train, the train that is supposed to be an hour earlier was running so late, that I got on that one. When I eventually managed to get in touch with mum and confirm that we were indeed on different trains, I got off, and momentarily panicked because not all trains stop at the station that I got off at. But it was okay.... phew! About ten minutes later we were on the same train, traveling to the same place.

Anyway, I took my camera with me, and carried it around in my bag all day, but I didn't bother taking any photos. Not that there wasn't anything worth taking photos of, but according to the exhibitor list, you weren't supposed to, even though people were. I took photos last year and never blogged them. I didn't take any photos at Tessuti either, nor at Cleggs. Perhaps I just wasn't in a photo-taking mood?

Anyway, I managed to grab myself a copy of A Field Guide to Fabric Design, which I have had on my Fishpond wishlist for ages. I see now that it would have been far cheaper to buy it from Fishpondthan from the Can Do stand, but seeing it there, right in front of me, made it difficult to resist. I also grabbed myself a copy of Mollie Makes from the Ballarat Patchwork stand, that everyone is raving about. It's lovely, but I don't think I will be subscribing or anything... although I am a little bit excited to try out the crocheted flower on the cover. I have some crochet learning hurdles to overcome first though.

I also grabbed myself a couple of variagated Pearl (Perle? Is there a difference or are these the same thing?) cotton balls. Hopefully I will have an update as to what I am doing with those within the week. I have big plans, I hope they work!

Tangled

I was hoping to get started on this today, to match the other one. Something I can do whilst keeping an eye on the kids, or sitting in front of the TV, or maybe on the train on the way to and from the AQC this weekend.



But then things got a bit messy.....

Joining in with Our Creative Spaces.

On My Way to Grandma's House - part two

I'm not the greatest of hand-embroiderers, but I think I managed to pull this off. I would love it if anybody had some tips, especially with what you are actually supposed to do with all those ends at the back? If you look closely at my photo, you can see them from the front, although it is nowhere near as bad when it is hanging on the wall.



I have a great tip for you, though. I had some trouble, initially, with my transfer pencil. It just was not working. Do you want to know what the problem was? Don't use steam. The pencil comes out with water, so when I was steaming it, the design wasn't going onto my fabric. Or perhaps it was, and I was just steaming it right back out again. There you go. That is helpful information to have :) I wish I knew that before I started. So use a dry iron.



I used Aneela Hoey's embroidery pattern, which you can buy through links on her blog, or from the Fat Quarter Shop as a digital download. Aneela also has a great tutorial about how to fill using back stitch.



I used this tutorial to finish the back of the finished piece. I didn't take any photos, but lets just say that it doesn't quite look as good as the one in the tutorial. I think the important thing is that it looks good from the front, right?

On My Way to Grandma's House

I was lucky enough to be a pattern tester for Jodie Carleton of Ric-Rac. She thinks I was doing her a favour, haha! Anyway, it was great fun, and I think Little Red may well be Jodie's best pattern ever. I have always had a soft spot for Little Red Riding Hood, as can be seen here, here and here, so I was practically jumping out of my skin when she chose me to test this pattern.



Jodie's pattern even teaches you how to make the cute little basket of goodies. My basket isn't lined like it is in the pattern (part of the testing process) but it does show that if you find the lining a little too tricky, you can skip that bit and it will still be gorgeous. The fruit hides all the raw edges inside the basket, anyway. I think I might go back and re-do the basket, with the lining though, as I do think the lining looks lovely.





The boots are AWESOME! I must admit, threading the laces back and forth was a little fiddly, but oh, so worth it!



The dress is also pretty fancy. It's fully lined, and those little toad-stools along the bottom are pretty cute. I am proud to say that I have mastered the French knot whilst embellishing those cute little toadstools. I also love her hair and her cape. Ok, so I love ALL of her, and she has received lots of hugs and sloppy kisses already, in this house, as the kids all love her too.



Jodie has only just released her pattern, and it is already in stock at Under the Mulberry Tree.

*** Update: You can now also by Little Red as a downloadable PDF from Craftsy