Malapropisms

This is what happens when I am too tired to craft in the evenings. I am forced to make rubbish evening television more interesting by developing movie titles with much more credible story lines. Like these:

The quest for the missing limbs:

When crazed animals with ridiculously long tongues attack:

Source: AP

World's worst premise for a movie. Ever:

The story of an internal organ so mysterious, nobody knows what it does:

I bet you were saying these with that American movie voiceover guy's voice in your heads. No? Just me, then.

Ra-ra hottie covers

Matariki Crafting, hosted by Juliet of Tartankiwi, will shortly be heading into its second week. This is an opportunity to get inspired by some winter-themed craft projects and ideas, some of which *gasp!* don't even involve a sewing machine, crochet hook or knitting needle - which I think may be a sign after what has been a very unsuccessful crafting morning here.

It started out with so much promise. All three children were out of the house for six hours and the day stretched out before me.  I had set up my overlocker and sewing machine the day before to maximise this precious time. What happened instead were machines that ate my fabric and broke their needles.  I hadn't got around to replacing the needles from the last time the overlocker was used, so sewing has ground to a halt.

All I have to show you are the covers I made yesterday for the Hottie Project, which were actually test runs but might indeed be the ones I send by default *eyeballs overlocker and sewing machine*. I had a play with an old terry towel bathrobe and used some store-bought pom pom trim, but found the end result to be a bit thin, small and underwhelming. The hottie that's nottie. So, I added a crochet motif but it still feels a bit meh. It's the New Zealand X Factor of hottie covers.

I went looking for a string of oversized pom poms yesterday to ramp things up a notch The Voice Australia-style, but there was nothing available, so you just know I had to go and make my own. They didn't take long to make, probably half an hour. Love pom poms. They're like spots in 3D. When my husband asked if I was actually seriously for reals going to use them, I knew I was onto a winner. I shall not be responsible for your child still being awake in bed at 10pm because they are having fun playing with their hottie cover.

Give me an H! Give me an O! Give me a T-T-I-E!

The little things

Growing up at the foot of a mountain, hot water bottles were a regular feature in our household during the winter months. I remember with not too much fondness the rubbery texture under my feet as I jostled it around to warm up the cold spots in my bed, the sound of the water sloshing inside - and being woken in the night when my feet strayed upon the cold, dead mass at the foot of the bed. Contrast this with my children, who have not even seen a hot water bottle in their young lives.

As I sit here in the relative warmth of my home, surrounded by my creature comforts and with my girls all sleeping soundly in their cosy beds, I am grateful for all that I have and my mind is turned towards an initiative that resonates with me so much as a mother.

It is the right of every child to feel warm, to feel safe, to feel loved. With the aftermath of the Canterbury earthquakes still continuing to affect so many families, and with the knowledge that many of them face another bitterly cold winter ahead, Lisa of Big Little, together with Catalina's Cottage and Sophie Slim has started a campaign to warm the feet of the children of Christchurch and the hearts of their parents.

Called the Hottie Project, the aim is to make hot water bottle covers and supply them to those who need them. A simple gesture with so much significance to those it reaches. I am joining in using a template Lisa has kindly supplied and I will share the results of my effort with you later. For now, it just seems more important to help spread the word.  Even if you are a non-crafter, which is probably unlikely if you are reading this blog, there are ways in which you can be involved; please contact Lisa.

Let's help fill winter with a little more cheer for some of these children and show the families in Canterbury that we care.

Fusion blanket

Relief.  This blanket has been months in the making. I am just so glad to have finished it. Kismet may have been at play; I had just enough blue yarn to blanket stitch and crochet borders around the fabric squares and stitch them all together.

This one was my interpretation of a blanket made by And the Little Dog Laughed.  Where the profit margin is in that blanket, I'll never know. Truly, the asking price is worth it for amount of time it would have taken to make alone, let's not even mention the cost of materials.

I started making my crochet blanket using a bobble stitch. It took me nearly two weeks to get the central colours to the size they are, and because of the blanket's slow progress, I lost interest in it, and put it away. Bad mistake. When I pulled it out again, I could not remember how to make the stitch so instead of a bobble, I ended up with a flat weave on the pink and grey borders.  I didn't mind how the combination looked, so I chose to continue with it.  You can view it in its unfinished state here.

Then it was time to work on the fabric squares. Selecting the fabric was easy. I love Aneela Hoey's collections, I used her Little Apples fabric in my quilt and when her Walk in the Woods line became available, I bought some charm squares. At the time, I had no project in mind for them, but this blanket seemed the obvious choice. The colours complement the yarn and give the blanket the snuggly, wintery feel that I was looking for.

Sewing the blocks together was not difficult, just time-consuming as I handstitched the openings closed.  I guess if I had thought it through, I could have made the seam allowances bigger and then machine topstitched the openings down once I had turned the squares out the right way. You should know me by now, I like to make things harder than they need to be.

Using my wool needle, I blanket stitched around the outside of each block in 1cm increments. They probably could have been spaced further apart. Then I packed them all away and didn't touch them for over a month. I guess I was struggling with how I was going to attach them to the blanket.

Somehow, and I can't believe it happened, the number of stitches I used and the v-stitches I crocheted seemed to work out and putting them all together was actually easy in the end. It took 13 hours to crochet the fabric squares to the edge of the main blanket using a flat-braid technique.

There are fusion blanket tutorials out there, and I think if anyone is considering making one for the first time, it would be wise to refer to them, if only for the sake of your sanity - unless you are like me and unwittingly embark on projects without a pattern because you are blissfully unaware of the potential difficulties.  That's always fun, and is, I guess, by definition, crafting dangerously.

Degree of difficulty: It was pure luck that this blanket came together relatively easily. This was a true sliding doors project - if I had chosen a different stitch to attach the fabric squares, made the fabric squares smaller, or even made the main crochet blanket any size other than what it ended up being, it could have resulted in a very large headache.
Time taken: Two months
Result: You would think that because this blanket combines both yarn and fabric, two of my most favourite-est things in the world, I would be thrilled with it. However, that tired, smug-looking child (but mostly tired) in the photo above was how I felt by the end of this project.

Linking up with Show and Tell and My Creative Space this week.

Seventh Sphere

Comments left by readers can reveal quite the treasure trove of talent, can't they? I have discovered some very talented craftspeople over these past few months, some with lovely small businesses quietly going about their lives and who I think really deserve to be taken notice of.

One of those people is Bel of Seventh Sphere. Although she did not win my latest giveaway, I clicked on her linked name in her comment (because I'm nosey) and discovered she designs and makes really gorgeous purses and bags, big and small. She is from Wollongong (loving that place name!), Australia and when I emailed her to tell her how much I loved them, we arranged to do a swap. I may have got the better deal.

She received some fabric that I have had for a few months and was looking for a way to destash, and she said, Destash is Wollongong's transliterated name, so off it went across the ditch.  Her beautiful coin purse arrived soon after, which was destined for one of my daughters, but I love it so much, I'm keeping it for myself. Now, every time I open my bag, I have a little bit of Aussie sunshine coming out of it.

Photo from Seventh Sphere Etsy shop

The purse is a great size to hold my loose change although Bel makes them in an array of sizes, including ones to fit credit cards too.

The purses are all handmade, lined, and have a secure clasp closure.  Some are made from vintage fabrics, others from contemporary new fabrics, and you can be sure there will be something there to suit everyone's tastes. Shipping is very reasonable too - $4.00 for shipping to New Zealand - that's cray-cray!

Here are some of my bag picks, but really, I had a hard time choosing.

A highland sling *snort*:

Photo from Seventh Sphere Facebook page

Or some paisley, perhaps?

Photo from Seventh Sphere Facebook page

Dude.  I know.  But don't take my word for it, go and check out her Etsy shop.

Oh, you're still here. You're probably looking for a link to her Facebook page. Now, go on, go and check her out.

She's a mod

Another crochet post - sorry to the croch-atheists, but it's something I have just loved to do over these past few months. Even though I have made a few items now, I'm still learning, and this post will show you just how far I have to go. What I enjoy about this craft is its portability and I find it easier to whip out my hook at night than to set up my sewing machine at the moment.

So, when I made my first crochet phone cover, my husband laughed at it. When he does that, it makes me determined to make more just to spite him.  Here are the results of my spiteful week.

Yep, I sewed the top end closed so this cover opens at the wrong end. Small mistake on my part which turned out okay if you can overlook the obvious upside-down stitches.

This photo was my inspiration for my next one:

The colour-blocking on the dress is so striking and I've been intending to sew a similar dress, but then I wondered if I could make it into a phone cover.  The answer is yes, yes I can.

The proportions are not exact, obviously, and I do think that the white and grey part would look better shortened. The grey yarn is wool, while the remaining colours are acrylic, and I suspect using different yarns is why the case distorted where the grey and white meet and why the grey stitching in the top row sits higher than the white.

While I was working on this, I was reminded of some modern art that seems to be appearing in 60s-inspired clothing lately.

Here was my inspiration for my Mondrian phone cover. Could I replicate this look?

JC de Castelbajac jacket and YSL sheath dress

Yes, yes I could.  Like all good works of art, it is best viewed from a distance. Here it is working its best angle:

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking "Not bad". Well, let me show you how it looks from the front.

I said I could crochet it, I never said anything about crocheting it well.

I trialled several different methods to achieve this pattern, allowing for the fact that I only had a very small amount of dark grey yarn left in my stash. I figured if I had to cut and weave grey tails at each round, I would use up more yarn that way. Also, weaving after every 20 or so stitches makes for a very s-l-o-w project.

What I did instead was keep the grey strand intact while working with the other colours and I simply wove it in behind the working yarn.  That worked okay, although the vertical grey line is not as neat as I had hoped.  Maybe I needed to do a slipstitch on each side of the single crochet with the grey yarn before introducing the white? I am going to experiment and see if that neatens it.

When I introduced the red yarn, the white and grey yarns were woven in behind it, and that's where it became messier. The non-working yarns are visible and the red block and the neighbouring white one look less sharp as a result.

Typically, it turned out there was not enough grey yarn to finish this project anyway - and I was so close. Tarnations!  The light grey yarn was used just so I could photograph the case and have something to show you this week.  I really think this pattern has potential and will be redoing it as the inner perfectionist in me cannot leave it looking like that.

Have you ever tried to crochet something like this? I'd be keen to hear your experiences.  In the meantime, I'll

Feel inside (and stuff like that)

Inside the letterbox this afternoon was a package from the talented and very witty Rebecca at Frybread Quilts. She chose little ol' me as the winner of these precious out of print Heather Ross Mendocino fabrics during the latest Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day.

*Squealing*. I started my fabric hoarding collection too late to purchase this line, so I am beyond thrilled to have some.  The cuts measure roughly 7.5cm x 112cm.  I have folded and refolded them twice already.

Not only did I receive these amazing fabrics she also popped in some extra goodies including another piece of fabric from this collection. Rebecca, I love everything you sent and the sticker made me laugh. I feel a bit like Texas some days around here. That slogan sure beats "Taranaki - Where Family Violence Is Not OK".

Look at the size of that one cent coin! Things really are bigger in Texas.

Thank you so much, you have made my week start off in the best possible way.  I feel a bit stink for the winner of my giveaway now, who got, well, fabric. And a New Zealand Post bag...

Here's a song for you Rebecca, if you're reading this - I know how much you love Jemaine Clement.