Felt scraps

Awhile ago now, I was  lucky to find a bag of scraps of felt for $1 at a thrift store.  Real good quality felt in a huge range of colours.  Even though they were scraps, they were decent sized scraps!

I have been using them to make flowers.  See my sock slippers here for the flowers.  I have made this monkey and started a blue one and a brown one.  I got the "recipe" from an address on the internet that doesn't seem to exist anymore.  Good thing I printed out the instructions for future reference!

Speaking of printing out stuff and the guilty feelings about wasting trees using paper.  Well!  When my hubby complained about companies not giving out printed manuals anymore for electronic stuff and giving CD's instead to read via PC, I told him that they are just being "environmentally friendly" and saving trees.  My hubby laughed at me and said that using a computer uses a lot of energy eg a lot of coal burning, mining for coal etc.  It made me stop and think that yes maybe we are being blind with tunnel vision on environmental issues. 

We say we care about the environment and try to conserve paper to protect trees (still a good thing)  but we have homes and workplaces full of power hungry appliances that we never unplug even when they are not being used.
I, from now on, will be more conservative with my power use which I currently waste.  Right now I am in my dining room writing this post, while in my sewing room I know my sewing machine is on and its light aglow!  My touch lamp beside my bed is most likely on.  The TV is on in the lounge and no one is in there watching it!  "My bad!". 

PS the address for monkey is: www.tiangong.zj07.com
Just in case someone has skills and can find this page.

In Memory

Anthony 

15.12.1994 - 2.7.2003

Remembering the fun times with such sweet sorrow.

Miss you Antmee

Simple pattern + great fabric = gorgeous bag!

I love this fabric!  Makes a simple bag pattern turn out quite nice!  If you want to make your own, you can find the pattern here.  It's called the "1 hour bag" and Jodi from Ric-Rac generously has it as a free pattern and tutorial.

My darling daughter "bagged" this bag when she saw it.  I had only half finished sewing it together!  Since I gave in and promised to give it to her, I asked her what colour buttons she wanted on the sides.  She wanted pink ones and do you think I could find some to match, in just the right size?  No!  It took me a few weeks of looking in fabric stores and even op shops before I gave up and bought some self cover buttons.  I was then lucky enough to find just the right shade of pink fabric in my stash.

Inside the bag is a simple pocket and a magnetic snap to close.  You could change this bag and add so much extra features like more pockets, a flap etc but then it would take a lot longer than the one hour it takes to make.  It actually takes longer if you add in the time it takes to make a choice on what fabric you are going to use!  The outer fabric and lining are cotton and the interfacing is H640 Vilene.

My niece likes this bag too!  So I need to make another in similar fabric!  As I said before, it might take me some time to find just the right fabric!

If you do make this bag, remember to strengthen the positions of the magnetic snaps with extra iron-on interfacing.  I didn't in the beginning and had to undo the bottom of lining to remove snaps and add some extra interfacing.

felted sweater socks

This post will most likely be more enjoyed by readers in the southern hemisphere,  because it's freezing cold here, and I have made the warmest socks ever!

These socks were made from a 100% lambswool jumper (translate: sweater for my American friends).   I found it in a sales rack of a thrift store.  So it was CHEAP.  Also as a jumper it was pretty ugly and unwearable.

I forgot to take a before picture but you can see from the above pic that I just cut off the sleeve and stitched the foot area closed.  I tapered the foot to snuggle around my toes,  therefore trapping in the heat and warming up my feet beautifully!

I hope my daughter doesn't mind I have decided to keep these for myself since she claims to be allergic to wool and I really am feeling the cold lately.  I don't know whether it's old age or if my low blood pressure has something to do with it.  Most likely old age! lol.  I will keep an eye out for acrylic jumpers to turn into socks for my daughter so she doesn't miss out.

I won a giveaway!

I won a giveaway a few weeks ago from Jess of JK Creations.  She generously gave away a few of her beautiful clutches she makes and I won one!  Lucky, lucky me.

I love the fabric she uses for her clutches.  I am inspired to experiment with different fabric types and embellishments now for some bags I am making.

I am making a couple of bags at the same time to really get a feel for how the different fabric textures behave with the same pattern and interfacing.  So it will be awhile before I get to post about them!

crafty recycling

I made this bracelet using a piece of  plastic from a drink bottle.  I think it may have been a bottle of Franklin's spring water.

The ideal bottle would be one that has an hour glass figure and you cut out  your cuff from this.  I shaped the ends and then used this to cut out some felt.

Decorate your felt first and then blanket stitch it around the plastic cuff.  Great for recycling those plastic bottles!

non sew related! turn away!

In May, I travelled to Whyalla, South Australia, for our annual tourism conference.  The show was full on for the entire week and not all of it spent sitting at a table in the conference centre listening to speakers.

We snorkeled with the Cuttle Fish.  Awesome!  I saw three.  The weather was rough and being a non swimmer, I got washed around a bit.

This is the closest I want to get to reveal my face on the net.  I am third on the right.  These were the brave souls who faced some cold rough snorkeling weather.

We went on a trip to Iron Knob.  I am luckily in the shadow. lol

A magnificent dinner with a live show of the "Desperado's".  Meal prepared by local high school students.  The meal was tasty and well presented.

We went on a scavenger hunt around Whyalla and then a tour by bus to see more sights of the town.  The pic above is when we were locked out of the bus and mechanics were called in to break in.  Here he is trying to drill out the lock.  Failed.  In the end he got a big hammer and smashed it out.

We got to wander around on this ship and see the very interesting museum they have at the Whyalla Visitor Information Centre.  We also went on a guided tour of "Onesteel" where they make umm......steel. 

We drank lots of wine and ate lots of food and my employers paid for it all and paid me to do it.  Pity this couldn't happen more often. lol

We also had some time to listen to some very interesting speakers.  I overloaded on info and a lot went in one ear and out the other.  Thank goodness a conference dvd was made and sent on to us later on.