Covid19 Fabric Masks

I've been busy making fabric masks for friends and family.

It has been interesting few weeks, pulling the Konstant Kaos materials out of their hiding spaces and using beautiful fabrics that I have been hoarding for many years.

There are lots of mask patterns, but I have gone for the two piece "streamlined" masks with an inner lining and pocked for a filter.

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Each time I make a batch I change a little thing, refining the pattern a little bit more or the process.

I tend to make a stack of "insides" and then a stack of outsides and then have one evening where I put them all together.

The process has made me itchy to start making the beautiful bags and fabric pouches that I used to love making. I love working with the fabric and creating a smart looking end product, with of course my branding on it.

Making your own book weight

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A friend has this beautiful leather book weight that she uses when she has to power read though a book. In lieu of one, I used my grain filled heat pack to keep the pages open as I was ploughing my way through the Margaret Attwood book, "The Testaments", last week.

But here are some crafty alternatives if you have a spare afternoon.

Simple Book Weight
Martha Stewart has a simple pattern for a book weight to keep her cook books open.

Book Weight Carrot
I love this idea and I can see it being done in lovely patchwork fabrics in orange and green.

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Book Bone

This is a pattern for a soft toy bone. But simply replacing some of the filling with weights, would make it into a lovely Book Bone to hold your pages open.

Once you start looking at soft toy patterns there are so many possibilities. Bendable snakes, Sea Horses or little starfish as weighted objects to keep your book pages open. If you are not in a crafty mood you can buy a soft toy and open it and fill it with weights.

How to make Harry Potter Wands

It is Harry Potter day on Wednesday 31st July and the daughter and I decided to make some wands for the display in my School Library (Learning Commons).

What you will need:

• Sandpaper
• Old Chop sticks or twigs from the garden. Make sure that they are nice and dry.
• Glue Gun
• Glue
• Primer
• Paint (acrylic)

Step 1:

Make sure that your chop sticks are nice and clean, just run some sandpaper over them to take off any rough edges (or left over food).

Step 2:

Using the glue gun, start to built up the shape of your wand. Once you have applied the glue, dunk it into a tumbler of cold water to set the glue and then move onto the next wand.

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Step 3:

One the wands are dry again, prime them with a base colour, we chose black.

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Step 4:

Once the prime colour is set, use acrylic to dry brush your colours onto the wands. We used some acrylics that we got from the cheap $2 shop.

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Step 5:

If you want, you can coat your wands in clear lacquer to protect the paint.

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Enjoy! 

Patchwork Knitted Blanket Ideas

During Term 3, the colder term, there is a little knitting clique that are knitting blankets for charity. Every week they get together to knit squares of 20cm x 20cm and they are hoping to stitch them all together at the end and produce a few blankets.

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I am not a knitter at all, I seem to have better confidence and technique with a crochet hook than two needles. But I am giving it a go and I see it as an opportunity to learn a new skill. After all, we always need an extra craft project and cats are enjoying the fact that I have been sitting on the couch knitting while watching television.

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So here are some ideas that I stumbled across.

• Knitting Blanket Squares, patterns for knitting normal garter stitch squares and other fancy types of knitting.
• ABC Illawarra has a page on knitting squares as part of a community initiative.
• Love knitting has a free pattern download for a memory blanket.
• Knit-a-square is a worldwide organisation that makes blankets for vulnerable children in need.

Have you ever made a knitted patchwork blanket?

5 inspirational hot water bottle covers

Here are some gorgeous hot water bottle covers for inspiration if you are looking to create something for the Opendrawer Hottie Challenge.

1. Fox knitted hot water bottle cover

If only I could knit!

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2. Toothless hot water bottle cover

My daughter loves dragons, she would kill for me to make this hottie cover.

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3. Racoon handmade hot water bottle cover

Love these PDF patterns for hot water bottle covers, they have a lovely range. However, I haven't tested their patterns. The Sarah the racoon is my favourite!

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4. Crochet Grannie square hot water bottle cover.

Foxes Lane has a great tutorial on making a Grannie-hottie.

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5. Mushroom House 

I love the feel of this hot water bottle cover.

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Ikeahack: Trendig Teatowels update

When I saw these Trendig Teatowels in Ikea I knew exactly what I was going to do.

I drew up some plans, popped it all into a zip lock and then moved house a few times and forgot where I put them!

I found the project last week and started to do some work to them. The goal is for them to be curtains in my laundry or maybe even upstairs.

I do find that play centres are the best place for embroidery! I can get my coffee delivered to me, my kids can be entertained and I get to do some work in some excellent lighting conditions.

Even though this one hasn't been pressed, you can see how I am progressing. This took me a day to do this using Perle 8 thread.

I loved the Trendig capsule collection that Ikea produced a few years back. I hope that they do something similar again, many of the products and designs were iconic.

Some of the Noren Curtains on Etsy are just so gorgeous. I hope that mine turn out as nice.

by Eastern Classic on etsy

by Kotori Handmade

by Honma Japan

Lovely kitchen prints

I wish I had more wall space to hang some of these lovelies.

Tea Time by Bridbird

I love the water colour type prints of multiple objects.

I love your egg beaters by Dazeychic

This vegetable print is gorgeous as well, giving us a visual representation of what should be in season. I think that this one will be lovely in my laundry space.

Veggie Seasonality Print by Cactus Club

Redd Apple Crochet Necklaces

Life has been busy over the last few months. New house, new job and not much time for crafting. But every once in a while I love to do some window shopping on Etsy.

I love these crochet necklaces, quite elegant. She has some lovely colours and combinations.

via ReddApple on Etsy

This one is just gorgeous!

Be sure to check out Redd Apple on Etsy.

Which Bag is your favourite?

My Year 7 class are putting together a class load of Rainbow Comfort Packs to go up to a bush fire affected area for students who have lost everything. About half of the class have managed to make or get made a hand made bag for the project. And being the good teacher that I am, I am running up a few on my trusty Janome to help them along. Most of the material given to me was from the costume store room, left over from productions past.

The bag design being used is the pattern for my Market Bag, except I have refined it using some of the techniques in the Zakka book to streamline the process. There is also no interfacing, fussy stitching or closures in these bags. They are a very quick make.

1. Kaos Bag

2. Army Bag

These two bags have got black chunky cord as the outside fabric and a lovely red inside.

3. Pink Gingham Sakura Bag

4. "I love Gingham" Bag

It is good for me, as it allows me to refine patterns and processes quicker than I normally would. There is also a sense of freedom in doing whatever you want to embellish the bags. I like embelishing Gingham bags, they are very girly!

5. Another Cherry Blossom Japanese Fabric styled Bag


6. Strawberry Patch Bag

Some more costume store fabric. I don't particularly like the strawberry design (on right), but enough people have said that they like it for me to use it. The petals are from the pinafore that I made for Sarah at the start of April.

7. Skull Love Bag

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Lastly, this bag uses a scrap of the skull love fabric. Sewn on and frayed! Hoping that a boy likes this one. I have lots of cord and Gingham (Pink, Blue, Red, Black, Yellow) left, so I might make some larger bags and perhaps try my hand at a backpack or two.

So this is what I have done this weekend. Another load will be done after the Thornbury Market on Saturday 2nd May. I will also be making one for the teacher and put achievement stamps in there and some other nice teacher styled things).

So which bag is your favourite?

Skirts for Work

My husband is doing a public transport day today, so I have been up since 7am. It is going to be 37 degrees today and I wanted to finish my sewing projects early. So the cats are in the back room snoozing in the morning sun, my daughter is upstairs peacefully asleep and I have been finishing a tartan shoe order that I plan to drop off this afternoon.

As some of you know, this week heralds the return to part time work for me. Nervous, excited and unfortunately flat broke! So last night I decided to knock up two skirts to wear. I have zips, I have material and machines and I know what style suits me ... what's stopping me???


I loved the colour scheme that I used for the Wigglesworth Quilt that I recently completed and I still had scraps kicking around under my feet *blush*, so I decided to make a skirt to remember my achievement! I present to you the "Wigglesworth wrap skirt"... *drumroll*


I found enough to make a strip to go down the front, the waistband is in the polka dot fabric and the skirt is a proper wrap skirt. Which means if the wind picks up I am not going to be showing people my underwear!

The second skirt is a similar pattern, but with a zip down the back and some hand stamping on the front. I present to you the "Raw Cherry" skirt ... *drumroll*


The red lining is finished raw, and the black is properly hemmed. The skirts come down to just below my knee (where I like them for work) and the waist is comfortably high to make my lumps and bumps disappear! I have more ideas for some more alternative designs, but for work I like to keep it relatively simple.