Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Stitchin'

Monday night was the inaugural Brown Owls meeting. It was so much fun the three hours just whizzed by. Pip and co have done such a great job of organising it, thanks guys, don't know what we'd do without you!

Unfortunately I didn't think to take my camera so I don't have any photos but you can see some that others have taken here. I sat and chatted to Corrie, Steph, Tish, Veronica and Cam who were all very lovely. It's so nice to meet other crafty people!

I had to do a runner at the end to make my train (they only run every half hour) and let me advise you not to try to walk through the park at night. It was pitch black, I couldn't see my feet! I had to backtrack and stick to the street instead. Luckily I made my train with 2 mins to spare.

Monday, February 25, 2008

Teddy

Made this little fellow at Sooz's Contemporary Soft Toys class.

The class was fabulous! Sooz was great, she was so friendly, enthusiastic and had so much great info to share. And the other class members were great too, sometimes you end up in a class full of people who don't talk to each other, that's so depressing.

Friday, February 15, 2008

Valentines

My Valentines

I made this card and knitted heart for my husband and spent all afternoon making Lemon Pots de Creme and "Cannelloni with Spinach, Goat Cheese, Walnuts, and Roasted Garlic-Tomato Sauce" from Fields of Greens (sorry no pics).

I love this recipe book! I bought it years ago after I had to give back the library's copy because I'd re-borrowed it the maximum number of times. There are no photos in the book but you don't miss them because all the recipes just sound so delicious. Most of them involve a bit of work though, there's no quick after work dinners here. The cannelloni was fantastic (and there's enough left over for tonight, woo hoo!), the flavours were so good together. Roasted garlic is amazing, it has such a creamy, smokey flavour.

Quick tip: I used Latina fresh lasagna sheets for the cannelloni instead of buying the dried pasta tubes, they were so much better. Each sheet made 2 cannelloni so there's enough in the packet for 16 cannelloni. Just plonk 1/4 cup of filling on your pasta sheet, spread it out along the edge and roll into a tube - this also much easier than trying to stuff the mixture into a tiny tube!

Now time to go reheat the leftovers :)

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Sorted for windy days

Whipped this up this morning.

Door stop

Not sure if it's heavy enough though. It's filled with rice that the weevils had gotten into :) Waste not want not! Perhaps sand would be better? But then it might trickle out through the seams ... hmm, I'll just wait until a windy day and see what happens. This is the tutorial I used, http://allittook.blogspot.com/2008/01/pryamid-door-stop-tutorial.html, very easy to follow photos and directions, thanks Rachael!

And check out my first post on I Op Therefore I Am.

Weekend wrap up

So here's the results of my crafty weekend.

Firstly there was the screen printing class on Saturday.
My first screen print

The class was quite fun but it wasn't as good as I'd hoped it would be. I suppose it's hard to cover much in four hours but she really just gave us very basic instructions then left us to print whatever we felt like doing. The above print was my first attempt, the stencil was made by cutting out paper. This next one was made by taking a rubbing of the fig leaf using wax crayons. The wax blocks the holes in the screen. I really like how this turned out, I printed two so I might make something out of them.

Screen printed fig leaf

There's another class in March on how to use digital images/drawings etc to make a screen which is what I'd really like to know how to do so I've signed up for that. I got to talking with one of the girls, Maria, in the class at lunch, she's into knitting and all sorts of crafty things too so I told her all about Ravelry. Hi Maria!

On to Sunday! I went to Gemma's for the Kaotic Kraft Kuties meet up. We were having a tote swap. Gemma made one of these tote bags for everyone (thanks Gemma) and inside were the first two issues of MixTape and a choccy (... hey! it's not where I left it in the kitchen - someone has eaten it, grrr).

Kaotic Kraft Kuties

And this is the bag made by Pickle that I received in the swap. Beautiful isn't it!

Kaotic Kraft Kuties Tote Swap

Friday, February 01, 2008

Shopping bag finished

Ta da!

All finished. I figured out how to make this by examining an old one that my gran gave me. It wasn't too hard but sewing the vinyl was stressful as it can't be pinned (the pin holes would be visible) and one mistake while sewing would mean I'd have to start again with a new bit of vinyl.

Next time I make one (will definitely make more) I'll use thicker vinyl as this stuff from spotlight was pretty thin, or perhaps I'd use leather? I saw some of these in Douglas & Hope yesterday that used leather and they looked really good (I'd already started making mine with the vinyl though).

Anyone know where to buy nice soft leather?

I thought I might write up a tutorial if anyone is interested?






Crafty weekend ahead

I went to morning tea at Meet Me At Mikes yesterday morning and met some new people which was nice. Pip is always organising something for the crafty types to do, she's so generous - thanks Pip!

I've also bought a membership for Brown Owls, also organised by Pip. First class in Feb 25th so I'm looking forward to that.

I'm looking forward to this weekend too, I've got two crafty things on. First is on Saturday, I'm doing a screen printing class from 11am-3pm at Olive Grove Studios in Sydney Rd, Brunswick (they don't seem to have a website). I'm really looking forward to this, I've always wanted to be able to do screen printing. I'd love to be able to print some fabric then make something from it :)

Secondly, on Sunday I'm going to the Kaotic Kraft Kuties meet up organised by the lovely Gemma. We have to make a tote to swap which I've been working on today. Actually I'd better get back to finishing it ...