Out & About.

For the past few weekends we've had some beautiful Spring weather here in Melbourne. A couple of weeks ago we headed down to one of my fave places, Mornington, for a picnic. It didn't take long for the seagulls to discover us. They had us totally surrounded & thoroughly enjoyed sharing our lunch. The noise was deafening & they became braver & braver & were actually taking food from our hands.

Today we headed into the city, we visited the Finders Keepers market at the Royal Exhibition Building, the beautiful building in the background, it was very enjoyable,

then we sat out in the gardens & had a picnic lunch watching the ducks on the water. 

Then it was time to head off to the airport to pick up Rowan who has spent 2 weeks away. The first week doing a work course in Sydney, the 2nd week visiting my Mum on the Central Coast. It is wonderful to have him home again!

I've lived in Melbourne for a little over 5 years now & I've seen so little, agoraphobia has kept me housebound for as long as I can remember, & I've decided I've had enough & I'm really going to push myself to go places! Next weekend I'm hoping to go to the Miss Fisher Exhibition at Ripponlea. I managed to get there last year & it was fabulous, I'd love to go again.

Alice in Wonderland

It started out so simply. I happened to read that Alice in Wonderland was published 150 years ago this year & I thought it would be fun to have a Mad Hatter's Tea Party. It was also my birthday coming up, & as I hadn't had a party since my 18th, which was a 'few' years ago, I thought why not?
Of course as with anything, give me a theme & I'm off, lol. Well with google & Pintrest there are millions of ideas out there so I started searching. Here are some pics of the day.

Poor Alice floating in her sea of tears.

Painting the roses red!

The singing flowers.

The baby who turned into a pig in the kitchen. 

I crocheted a bonnet for the pig, as you do.

Which way?

I caught the white rabbit. :-)

  

I made my dress & apron, it was fun doing some dressmaking for a change. 

Paul going clubbing, lol.

I used some of my vintage tablecloths.

The food, lots of yummy treats. 

I made placecards for the guests using old playing cards.

The dormouse.

:-D

Finally back blogging, again!

I did it again, locked myself out of my blog & today, with the help of ds, I finally got in again.Yes I'm writing down how I got back in. :-)

So what's been happening all these months? Well I have been busy & I will show you a few things I've made. I won't try & catch it all up in one post though.

Last year I started a monthly sewing group in my home to make quilts for Aussie Hero Quilts. These are the three quilts I've made so far.

This quilt was pretty quick & easy, well as quick & easy as a quilt can be! I used this tutorial:

http://crazymomquilts.blogspot.com.au/2013/10/how-to-make-zig-zag-quilt-without_30.html

The best bit, no triangles!, It's a very clever technique & I can definitely see more zigzag quilts in my future.

Things I will be blogging about to catch up:

I've also been busy crocheting this year. I'll take pics of some of the things I've made in daylight & show you.

Pics of the Alice in Wonderland party we had for my birthday.

Our new bathroom, we finally ripped out the old bathroom to deal with the leaky shower & almost have a beautiful new bathroom.

I'm so glad to be back!

YAY! I haven't blogged in such a long time & I'm finally here. I keep forgetting my password & google logs me in on another account so I can't post, but I finally got it sorted!

I have been busy since my last post when I told you about the poppies I was making, well yesterday was ANZAC Day & the culmination of all that poppy making. My Mum also started making poppies & she sent about 60 down to me to add to the collection. Mum is 85 & still a very keen crocheter. I gave some of our poppies to the 5000 poppy project with dedications to my relatives who fought in both world wars, I also sent some to Parramatta RSL for their collection, & the rest I attached to camouflage netting, & my husband draped it over the front of his 1952 FX Holden. He drove a WW2 Air Force veteran & his son in the Melbourne ANZAC Day march.

It looked lovely & I was so pleased to be able to honour my relatives, & indeed everyone involved in all the wars. I hope you had a chance to see the hundreds of thousands of poppies in the Melbourne display, & all the beautiful displays around Australia, New Zealand, & I'm sure other countries too. There are so many photos on the internet it's hard to miss them. 

I haven't just been crocheting, since October last year, a lovely group of ladies have been meeting in my house once a month to make quilts & laundry bags to send over to our Servicemen & women. We have a lovely time & have formed real friendships & are now meeting for craft days to work on our own projects. I was simply looking for a group to give some of my excess fabric to, when I remembered the Aussie Heroes Quilt project & got in touch with the organizer Jan-maree. She put me in touch with ladies in my area who were either already making quilts for the project, or keen to start, & our group very quickly formed.

Here is a link to the Aussie hero Quilt blog, perhaps you'd like to make a quilt or laundry bag. :-)

http://aussieheroquilts.blogspot.com.au/ 

I'm currently sewing the binding on a quilt to send & will post a pic when it is finished, I then have another quilt layered ready to quilt & 2 more on the go.

I won't try & catch up everything in one post, I'll be back soon to show you some pics of my fave quilt at the Melbourne quilt show last week, & the fantastic book & yummy fabrics that begged me to take them home.

So good to be back!!!

5000 Poppies- my poppy designs

I heard about the 5000 poppy project a little while ago & thought, I must look into that, but as always I got distracted. Last week I had the luck/pleasure of meeting 2 lovely ladies involved in it, Carol & Marie, & knew it was time to jump in. Carol gave me a brochure with some patterns to try, I also googled patterns, & got busy crocheting & knitting. The patterns I tried were lovely, but quite time consuming, so I decided to have a go at making up a pattern. I had changed one of the patterns I'd tried, adding an extra row of petals, so was feeling brave enough to try. The beauty of crochet is that it is very quick, & as you are only dealing with 1 stitch at a time, unlike knitting, it's easy to unpick & keep modifying.

So here it is, I hope you like it!
PS I've added a variation, scroll down to see version 2.

Jim's Poppy 

(for my dad)

You Will Need:

(UK crochet terms)

8 ply green wool/yarn
8 ply red wool/yarn
black 'eyelash' yarn
4.5mm crochet hook (Use bigger or smaller if you prefer).
  

 Using green wool/yarn make 4 chain & join them with a slip stitch. (or make a slip ring)

Row 1, 2 chain, then 11 trebles into the ring. End green wool.

Row 2, Join in red wool, work 2 chain & 1 treble, into the first space, 
work 2 trebles into each space. 
Join with a slip stitch.

Row 3, 2 ch & 1 treble into the first space, 
*1 treble into next space, 2 treble into the next.** 
Repeat from * to **. around the poppy. 
Join with a slip stitch. Fasten off yarn.

Sew in all ends & trim neatly.

Work a row of backstitch in black eyelash yarn around the green 'spokes.' (Easier to see with lines than the fluffy yarn.)

Use your darning needle to flip up the fluffy part of the eyelash yarn.

Make more! :-)



Pattern without pics.

You Will Need:

8 ply green wool/yarn
8 ply red wool/yarn
black 'eyelash' yarn
4.5mm crochet hook (Use bigger or smaller if you prefer).

Using green wool/yarn make 4 chain & join them with a slip stitch. (or make a slip ring)

Row 1, 2 chain, then 11 trebles into the ring. End green wool.

Row 2, Join in red wool, work 2 chain & 1 treble, into the first space, 
work 2 trebles into each space. 
Join with a slip stitch.

Row 3, 2 ch & 1 treble into the first space, 
*1 treble into next space, 2 treble into the next.** 
Repeat from * to **. around the poppy. 
Join with a slip stitch. Fasten off yarn.

Sew in all ends & trim neatly.

Work a row of backstitch in black eyelash yarn where the red & green rows meet.

Use your darning needle to flip up the fluffy part of the eyelash yarn.

Version 2 

Alfred's Poppy

my great uncle killed in action, France November 3rd, 1915

Work to end of Row 2 of version 1 then:
Row 3 Move up from row 2 to row 3 with just a slip stitch then, *1tr, 2tr, 1tr, 2tr, 1tr, slip st.,** repeat from * to **, making 4 petals.

I will add the eyelash wool. :-)

For more info on the 5000 Poppies project pop over to the facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/5000Poppies/ 

or blog: http://5000poppies.wordpress.com/

Mum's Birthday Pressie

    It's hard to believe that mum turns 85 next Monday. If you met her you'd think she was much younger, she is as sharp as a pin & still very independent. As happens every year i racked my brain to think of the right present. I asked a facebook quilt group for suggestions & one clever lady suggested a bag for mum's walker, if she has one. She does, not because she's doddery, but because she has hammer toes, the result of hand-me-down shoes. As one of 9 children, & the youngest of 5 girls growing up through the depression, it's not surprising. 

    Unfortunately mum lives 1000 kms from me, so I couldn't pop in for a visit to measure up the walker, I asked my nephew to take some pics while he was visiting & I had to wing it. He tells me mum isn't using the walker so I'm hoping this will encourage her! With this in mind I decided not to go with something pretty, but something cute, oh & the walker is red which immediately meant red, black & white to me. I hope she likes it.

  

It's 10" square, I used lightweight pellon to give it some body & some medium weight interfacing in the base. The pocket is for her keys so they are easy to find.  I sewed on red webbing to tie the bag to the walker.

I sent mum a photo album a couple of years ago with family pics in & I'm printing some more to send.

Clare's Craft Challenge #2

This finish came down to the wire as I was waiting for a nice warm day to paint the chair. I did get it undercoated a couple of weeks ago, but the weather since has been cold with a lot of wet. Anyhoo yesterday was lovely & I got the 2 top coats on. Today I covered the cushion, yes I could have done that anytime but.........:-)

Here are the two challenge photos that Clare sent me:

Here's what I started with:

So here is my tah-dah, all done & I'm very pleased with it. I would have used the darker blue if I'd have any, but I'm on another challenge of using what I have, & this is the darkest blue I had in a sample pot. The blue flower is actually quite close to the blue grey, it looks brighter in the pic.

& yes even under the cushion is finished. :-)

It also kick started a lot of furniture painting because I have a stall at a car boot sale early in November, so this is my chance to hopefully clear a lot of excess stuff from the garage. I have a dream that one day I'll be able to park at least one car in the garage.

I will blog some furniture pics in the next week or so. Right now I have been nominated by my friend Abby:
http://quiltiverse.com/2014/10/its-my-turn-at-the-around-the-world-blog-hop/
to take part in the Around the World Blog Hop, so I have another post to write. If you would like to be nominated please let me know in a comment.

Don't forget to pop over to Clare's blog:
http://clarescraftroom.blogspot.com.au/
to check out the other challenge projects, I'm on my way now!