Taylor Street

Easter, study, lack of mojo, and the whole crazy thing

So yet another long and unplanned break which makes me think that perhaps I'm not cut out for this sort of thing.  I will persist though, as there may be a time when this gets the sort of attention I would like to give it.

I have been suffering from acute lack of craft mojo lately, so felt I had little to post.  I have made a ton of baby wraps, but there's only so many pics you can take of white or red pieces of flannel/waffle weave cotton with various print bindings you can take.  Some of them I was really pleased with.  One particularly - a scarlet red flannel wrap with a leopard print trim.  And yes, it was as gaudy as it sounds but at the same time fabulous.  That one went to my newest niece, and was inspired by my brothers oft voiced desire for leopard print satin sheets.  His wife is not leopard inclined.  It was kind of made as a joke, but both parents actually love it.  I sent along some more age appropriate efforts as well.  Other babes have been born, and my pile of loot I had ready for babies is almost depleted.

And then I caught up with three lovely ladies last weekend, and that plus the cooler weather inspired me to get the needles out.  I wanted a quick and easy project I could start and finish in an evening to kick start my mojo, so decided to do some booties for my lovely next door neighbours with a newborn son, who were off to NZ for a wedding.  And this is not just any wedding, it is the daughter of a former All Blacks coach, and the father of the baby (ie my next door neighbour) is a mad rugby fan.  So I made these:

Dreadful photo, but it's not like I haven't made about 15 pairs of these already and I still love them.  Happily they were very well received.

And whilst I mention lovely ladies (see above), how cool is this?  Very.

Remember me?

Hello internet people.  There's not been much making going on around here, and once again I have been foiled by flat camera batteries and the inability to remember to buy new ones.  I've finally checked my comments and see that there are some issues with this blog and the bloglines feed - some celebrity gossip crap is coming up.  So if anyone is out there still subscribing to the feed I apologise and thank you for persisting, and have sent bloglines a message for some help in sorting it out.  I have no idea where to start...  If anyone else has had this happen to them and knows what to do I'd appreciate some guidance.

And just because I feel compelled to post a photo, this is something I get to see every day on my way home.  Not bad hey.  This pic was actually taken with my phone.

String theory

Well, not exactly string theory as this is incredibly simple.  This string embellished black linen has been waiting to be morphed into a loose summer "throw on over the swimmers" type of shift for months, but Sydney never quite put on any swimming weather this summer so it hadn't happened.  A beach holiday is not so far off, so with that as motivation (and time disappearing) I finally made this incredibly simple and easy shift from Sewing Talk.

This is dress c from the book, and I added 1/2 and inch to the side seams of the largest size but this dress is plenty roomy enough and I probably needn't have bothered.  It was always intended as a schlep dress, so a bit of extra room doesn't hurt.  The fabric is a lovely black linen/cotton blend from Tessuti with string embellishment and I have a feeling this will be my dress of choice in the tropics.

Chilli tomato risotto

And there's more than a little chilli.  This is what came out of the kitchen the other night. 

Recipe can be found here.  I keep thinking about it which is a good sign it'll become a bit of a staple.

More stockpiling

Maybe I should open a shop.  Feels like that at the moment with my growing stash of baby related gifts.

These are the first of the flannel baby blankets a la Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts.  Flannel from Spotlight (and it's beautifully soft and fluffy), and the trim fabric is a 20's repro.  I wonder which will be most useful, waffle cotton or flannel?

Other than that, 2008 continues to fly by and I'm already counting the weeks until our next holiday (10).  And we bought a new car.  A new second hand car, but much newer than my old car.  And I still feel a little bit of a pang of loss from trading in my old car, probably because that was my car, and this one will be much more H's car given he drives it every day (as always) but it was never my car first.  And I'm scared of smashing the new one.  Not that I'm prone to smashing cars, but these things happen.

Steel magnolias

This was an accident.  I didn't mean to start it, but I'm glad I did.  Unfortunately I'm in the grips of a bout of "inability to complete a project", and as I have a huge pile of un-finished quilts in the front room, why not start another one?  Oh, and whilst I'm at it, how about I make it a hand quilt job? 

The fabric is Amy Butler Tree Peony from her Lotus line (but as far as I'm concerned they're magnolias), and the back is the matching full moon polka dot in slate.  I'm enjoying hand quilting despite being very slow, and I think this will look quite lovely when it's done.  I gather everyone knows where the inspiration comes from?  I hadn't planned on it, but then I saw the fabric on sale at the local quilt shop...  It was all over fairly quickly.  It's cot size, so if my currently pregnant sister-in-law has a daughter this will be for her.  Her taste is much more subdued than mine, which I admit is not difficult but I really don't think she would like what I would normally make for a child.  Maybe this endlessly wet, grey, and humid summer is taking it's toll on my sensibilities as well. 

Baby wraps are go

After reading the responses I had from this post and asking other mothers I know, I went ahead and bound some wraps at 100 x 130 cm (I know this is none of the suggested measurements, but I wanted them the same size and the smallest piece was 100 x 130 once I squared it up and I thought it was in the ball park).  I really love these, and would keep them for myseld if I had a reason to.   The cotton fabric I used for the binding is from Tessuti, and the cotton waffle weave muslin is from Spotlight and is really wonderful quality (they still surprise me when they sell good stuff).  If anyone decides to have brave a journey to Spotlight to buy some, just be aware the 112 cm wide waffle weave is 100% cotton from Pakistan, and the 150cm wide is 65% polyester from China but they're all mixed up on the table together.  Not that there's anything wrong with blends, I just wanted to use 100% cotton so bought the narrower fabric.  I made the binding fabric strips in to bias binding (not traditional quilt double fold binding), machine attached, and then sewed the second side by hand using mattress stitch.

Now hopefully someone I know has a baby girl...

So far it's 0/1, so I had to do a boy-ish one in great haste, and realised I don't do boy-ish very well.  Add a couple of quickly appliqued singlet onesies and I think (hope) this will be a nice welcome to the neighbourhood for my newest nextdoor neighbour.

Marla v2.0

Now that's better.  Thanks for the input all you voters: it appears you have collective fine taste !

A gift from Granny

When my gran kept asking me what I wanted for Christmas this year (last year actually, but you know what I mean), I kept telling her I wanted her to teach me to crochet.  I could have learned from a book, but I wanted her to teach me.  She taught me to knit when I was three, so it kind of felt like a tradition for her to teach me and after all she is the queen of the granny square afghan, having churned out countless squares for countless blankets, and claims to not know how to make anything but granny squares.  She wrote out the most lovely instructions for me which include things like "make sure you sew in the ends as you go as it's a devil of a job if you don't.  Trust me, I know", and "OK here we go!  Dive into the next hole for three more trebles".  She also was at pains to tell me that it's traditional to have four rounds of colour, then the fifth round in black.  She also said she's seen some recently that used colours instead of black: a mustard version was very attractive, but it really is not the way they are supposed to be made.  Lord knows what she'll think when she sees I have blatantly ignored tradition and made mine only four rounds, and used off-white for the border colour.  Contraversial indeed.

One thing I must say, these squares are wildly addictive.  I've done ten since Friday.  Just what I needed - another obsession.

Mothers know best

Next on my list of making for expectant mothers is to trim some gorgeous muslin I bought recently, but I really don't know what lengths to cut the fabric.  It's all roughly 110cm (43-44") wide, so now I need to know what length to cut them that is most useful for mums and babes.  Help me.  I've asked a couple of people who had wildly divergent suggestions as to what was most useful (one being an enormous 150 x 150 cm or 59" x 59" for you imperialists, the other just over half that), so wondered if anyone who drops by and has a child or two could offer their opinion - I'd really appreciate it.