Sassy headbands!

I made these sweet and sassy headbands a couple of weeks ago and they were a hit with my girls so have just added them to my shop. The black and white one above is made using this tutorial from Sandy Henderson's blog. I'd bookmarked ages ago and finally decided to give it a go.  It did take me a couple of go's to get it sitting right plus I added a little ruffle around the bottom to finish it off.

This cute little flower has been living in my hand sewing basket waiting for a suitable "something" to embellish.  I think the purple and white lace band is a perfect match plus Caitlin instantly liked it.

And here she is modelling it beautifully. It was Caitlin's last day of school holidays today and since it was her sister's first day back at school she relished being at home without her sister. We spent a good hour at the beach cooling down in the calm ocean waters, making sandcastles and watching a kite surfer skim along the beach.

Today I also spent a little time playing around on "Facebook" setting up a 'page' for "Thesewingattic". Not easy but I'm getting there. I find facebook very frustrating to navigate around but I'm sure it's worth it in the end. If you have any facebook tips and tricks I'd love to know!

I've been making..........

....little handmade buttons from Michelle's tutorial except instead of a ribbon shank I made a loop with the embroidery threads then stitched over the loop with a blanket stitch.

The buttons were made for these bright and fresh cushions that were inspired by the cushion I made for Deb here. I had some left over half square triangles which I added to, then played around with some designs and ended up with 2 cushions.

A zig-zag design....

and this one with alternate colours. They are both simply machine quilted with straight lines echoing the patchwork design.

I used up some scraps for the backs which I like as the fronts.

Although I'm sure I could find a place for them in my home they are up for sale in my etsy shop here.

Good news....

You may remember that just days before Christmas (in the middle of sewing some handmade presents!) my sewing machine broke down. I took it to my nearest sewing machine fix-it man who broke the news that he held little hope of finding a replacement for the part that was broken. Well he rang this afternoon to say he could not find a replacement part BUT he has cleverly fixed it himself and road tested it successfully! Now that's the type of sewing machine fix-it man I like! Obviously I would have relished the chance to research and buy a new machine but our finances won't allow that this year and also my Elna has been good to me over the years we've been together, making numerous items of clothing for the girls and I, mending holes in my husbands shorts and taking up hems etc.. not to mention all the quilts, pillows and other items I've produced over the years. I think my Elna deserves another chance. Might have to for go any free motion quilting though as that was what broke the camels back in the end so to speak.

So in preparation of getting my sewing machine back I went up to my sewing attic to have a bit of a tidy up after my handmade Christmas present sewing frenzy. I always like to start a new project with a clean and tidy space. I guess that's just part of my personality as I can't get totally absorbed in a project if there's housework to do. I know there will be people out there that are the complete opposite and can ignore a mess but in general not me.

I seem to have a fascination with pretty ribbons and ric-rac of all widths so much so that it was getting a little out of hand and messy. Having supplies organised and tidy saves time and frustration when you looking for a particular ribbon, button, piece of fabric or sewing tool. So with my ric rac and ribbons I cut pieces of cardboard, wound the ric-rac/ribbon around and cut slots for the ends to go into to hold them in place.

Of course I had to colour coordinate them so they look pretty.

Here's some of my favourite ribbons, just love the ones with the threads down the middle.

So what do you do to keep your supplies in order?? If you have any great organisational tips for your creative space I'd love to know!

We're back........

Thanks to all of you who left me lovely comments wishing us a great time on our little camping trip last week. I just didn't have time to reply to each comment but they were very much appreciated! Amelia did very well in her running part of the triathlon that she completed the morning we left. I think they came second in the womens group section which was an awesome effort for two 13 year olds. 

As you can see from the above photo I has fun playing with my new camera whilewe were away and took absolutely loads of photos so a word of warning thisisa long post full of photos of the beautiful New Zealand scenery. It was really nice to get away and give the girls some new experiences. One being that they had never travelled further north than Auckland before. We spent our week camping at "Matauri Bay" which is a idylic spot just 1/2 hour from Kerikeri in the far north.

There is a small Maori settlement at one end with a little church and cementry and the public camping ground with one shop at the other. The above photo was taken up the hill situated at the end of the beach.

A miniaturised photo of the camping ground and beach taken from further around the same hill. The first day we were there our friends took us out fishing on their boat then onto an island for a picnic lunch. The girls just loved this and caught a couple of fish each for our dinner that night.

At the top of the hill is this monument erected in rememberance of the "Rainbow Warrior", a Greenpeace ship that was bombed by the french intelligence back in 1985. In 1987 after the investigation was over she was transported to her final resting spot just off Matauri bay to serve as a dive wreck and fishing sanctuary. You can see pictures of her here. The ships propeller is part of the above monuement.

On the Thrusday we took a road trip up to Cape Reinga at the very tip of the North island. It was another hot beautiful day although a little misty with low cloud once we got there. This photo above is looking back down the west coast towards the start of Ninety mile beach. The scenery is stunning up here and there were photo opportunities everywhere.

Another west coast shot with the tasman sea.

Amelia  and Cailtin fighting.....

......but I did manage to get this photo of them both smiling a few seconds later. Caitlin was quite happy to have her photo taken just not with her sister and Amelia mostly didn't want her photo taken at all.

Looking up towards the old Cape Reinga lighthouse which is still in use today although is automatically operated from a Wellington base.

A sign post to get your bearings.

Taken from the very tip showing the two waters meeting, the tasman sea on the left and the pacific ocean on the right. The girls didn't quite believe me when I said you could see where the different waters met. The Pacific ocean seemed a little darker than the Tasman sea....

Another beautiful photo showing the meeting of the waters.

From Cape Reinga we went on to Te paki sand dunes at the start of Ninety mile beach. These sand dunes are just HUGE  and I could not stop taking photos of them.

I found the shadows from the clouds moving across the dunes fascinating.....

and loved the patterns made by the wind on the surface.

Taken from the top of one very large and steep sand dune hill. The girls are only halfway down but you can see how high it is from the size of the people at the bottom. You can hire boogie boards (or bring your own) to 'surf' down which looked like a lot of fun.

Caitlin on another unspoilt far north beach called "Spirits Bay".

Amelia at "Spirits bay".  according to Maori legend the spirits of the dead leave for their journey to the afterlife (hence the bay's name).

On the last day of our holiday the girls and I decided to walk up a single track on the hill at the end of Matauri Bay and discovered this cool little bay fill of dramatic natural rock formations. It was late in the evening when we ventured along this track and thetide was nearly all the way in making it all that more dramatic. Unfortunately I had forgotten to take my camera so promised myself to come upearly the next morning butthe tide was out and it was starting to drizzle so although I did take some photos they weren't as good as they could have been.

The shells at this little beach were abundant and beautiful!

Looking out towards some islands and down on the little bay. You can see the sun on the left trying to peek through the rain clouds which it eventually did and the day turned out beautiful once again.

It took us 6 1/2 hours to drive to Matauri bay but was so very worth it.

Gone camping....

Just to let you all know that we're off camping for a few days so will be taking a short blogging break as well. We're nearly all packed and ready to take off midday tomorrow after Amelia has completed her run as part of a team in a triathlon  in the morning.

The grocery shopping is done although as soon as I got home I thought of a few things I should've got and why is it when I misplace some item, buy a new one I promptly find the original one. This is the reason why I have 4 pairs of scissors, 5 tape measures and now I hopefully have 2 American plug adaptors. Both mine and Caitlin's camera's were purchased in the States so have American plugs on the battery chargers and therefore need an adaptor for our NZ sockets. I remember putting this adaptor in a safe and what I thought was an obvious place but now can't remember where that place was. This is surely a sign of me getting older or I just have too much to think about at the moment and am in need of a holiday, I'm going with the latter excuse.

A couple of favourite presents...

"The Quilters Stitch Bible" is a gem of a little book that I received from my parents this year for Christmas. It is full of numerous hand and machine decorative stitch's for embellishing quilts and I'm sure lots of other sewn items as well. It contains over 200 stitch's along with step by step instructions of each stitch. It's the perfect book for those of you who want to extend your repertoire of stitch's and add further dimension to your work. Can't wait to try some of them out!

My other favourite gift was a camera that my DH bought back from the States last month. Previously I've had to share my camera with my husband who takes it with him when he goes away overseas which means I then have to share my daughters camera so I really wanted one of my very own. I went with a Canon Powershot SX210IS which has lots of really cool features like a "Miniature lens" that blurs the top and bottom of the photo giving the effect of a miniature scene. I used this for the above photo which is a view over part of Whangamata and out to sea taken from our kitchen window.

And this is the same scene taken a couple of hours later with the "fish eye" lens. Cool eh! The girls and I had fun with this lens the other day and took some photos of each other which were hilarious but way too ugly to show here!

This weekend I will be :

• doing some training runs with Amelia who is participating in a triathlon on Monday.
• taking down our Christmas decorations.
• going to the gypsy fair.
• grocery shopping for our camping trip next week.
• packing for the aforementioned camping trip.
• swimming at the beach.
• mowing the lawns.
• playing with my new camera/toy.
• Enjoying the summer sunshine that is forecast.

I think that should keep me busy! How about you, what do you have planned for the first weekend of 2011?

Happy New Year !!!



Handmade with love.......

This was the scene in our house on Christmas morning, the girls beginning to open their presents from us before breakfast.....although I can't quite remember breakfast actually happening. I think the girls were too excited to be hungry and perhaps too busy eating chocolate. I know that makes us sound like bad parents but hey its only for one day of the year and that's part of Christmas to me, having treats at odd times of the day.

Now lets have a little handmade gift show'n'tell.....

I made this pen roll for Caitlin as she kept stealing her sisters one and she LOVES to draw.

All rolled up and ready to travel with her.

This little threesome of gifts was for my Mum. She came shopping with Amelia and I a couple of weeks before Christmas and I got her to pick out some fabrics but I didn't tell her what they were for. I made her a lavender filled teapot stand (lavender from her garden and pattern from the spring issue of Stitch) a pot holder ( tutorial here) and a folding market tote made from a Heather Bailey pattern.

Here's the reverse side of the potholder and teapot stand.

And here's the market tote all folded out. This pattern was very easy to follow like all Heather's patterns seem to be and I will be definitely making more of these.

And this is a very large memo board I made Amelia for her new room that I'm currently redecorating for her. I manged to get Amelia to pick out some favourite fabrics without her knowing what they were for. I must say she has great taste as they were all Heather Bailey's. The print I ended up using is from her pop garden range and I think this project makes the most of this large scale print. The base is a large artists canvas (thanks for the tip Lara!) to which I added some cork board so things can be pinned onto it as well as tucked behind the ribbon. The board is 24" x 36", took about 4 metres of ribbon, 28 buttons and just a few hours to put together. I am so impressed with how well this turned out. I think I need one for my sewing attic! Oh and on a sad note my machine is broken as in "not repairable" broken!!! Luckily I had  finished my Christmas sewing when it happened, just, and my Mother has lent me hers in the meantime. It would be a great excuse to buy a new one with all the bells and whistles if only I could afford it but unfortunately it couldn't have happened at  a worse time for us.

 The girls and I have had a lot of fun playing this game too lately. I had always wanted it as a kid so I'm making up for lost time now. I think the girls played about 5 games in one day on Monday.

Do you have a favourite family board game??