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Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Guest Post by Kelly

This is a guest post by Kelly from Vintage Mum & Modern Child... She mailed it to my regular email address rather than the direct publishing address... I read it yestreday and so here it is...

I was so flattered when Shruti asked if I could write up a guest post for her while she was away sunning it up in Goa and having fun with family. My reply of course was yes and her I am. At first I hadn’t a clue what to write about but since it’s Kids Clothes Week over at elsie marley I thought I would share a little about that.



I signed up last week and today I’ve been sorting through some old clothes I’ve had packed away with the intention of repurposing. I know Shruti is quite good at repurposing – like turning a sari into a quilted rug for her lounge.



Kids Clothes Week is essentially a challenge to set aside an hour each day for the week 20-26 September 2010 – this week! While it’s not limited to sewing, I will be concentrating solely on that because I can’t knit or crochet and Elijah refuses to wear knitwear anyway. We’re heading into Summer so I’ll be whipping up some shorts and tees along with a few Winter items in a size 4. Gosh, I can’t believe how quickly these boys grow! My sister gave me metres and metres of creamy white ribbing fabric so I might attempt a few singlets also.



So here is the pile of old clothes and new fabric that I’m going to try and create a new wardrobe for my almost 4 year old.









And these are the patterns I’ve dug out. Never underestimate a 40 year old pattern, in my opinion most never actually go out of date. It’s the illustrations on the packet that date them.









I’ll also be making some of my own patterns and going over elsie marley’s posts that provide inspiration.



I also started a day early (cheat! I hear you say) and managed to get this pair of pants finished. They’re a little big still which is good because they won’t be used for at least six months.














Think you’re too late to take up the challenge? Never! You can always set yourself a challenge or get a few of your friends together and have a kids clothes day (of course it will be kid-free)



Thanks Shruti for allowing me to share this post. I hope you have a great week away.





Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Extending all my giveaways...

Hey guys, Thanks to all the wonderful ladies who wrote here while I was away... I am back and refreshed... Wait for looong posts about my wonderful vacation...


But here's something that you will enjoy more... I'm extending all my current giveaways till Friday, October 1st... I must admit I have been really lax about drawing the winners for the past few days... I'm so sorry... But now you have another opportunity...


Here they are...
Make sure you comment on therespective posts and not here...

and

I'll draw a winner for all the 3 on 2nd October at 10.00 am...

Good Luck to all of you...

Cheers!!!


Saturday, September 25, 2010

oops

Oops, I messed up the link, sorry! it’s www.acuppaandacatchup.com

 

xxx

 

 

Saturday 9

Hello! I’m Nova, nice to meet you! ;)  I blog over at www.acuppaandacatchup and Shruti kindly invited me over to her place to do a guest post while she is enjoying her fab holiday.

 

So to keep up Shruti’s tradition I bring you the Saturday 9...

 


1. Who in your life do you think behaves and thinks the most like you do?

 

I guess I’m pretty much my mother’s daughter, we always seem to be on the same page and have similar taste & style.

2. As a kid, were you ever wrongly accused (and punished, if it went that far) for something you didn't do? If so, what was it? What happened?

 

I guess as with all kids who have  siblings there’s always the “he did it”, “she did it” thing – but  nothing major comes to mind.


3. What’s the scariest weather situation you’ve experienced?

 

I live in sub tropical Queensland and we get some pretty big storms here in Summer. The worst was when the sky turned green and a huge hail storm came though, smashing the windows.

4. If you could wake up tomorrow morning in another country, where would you want to be and why?

 

It would be nice to wake up in England to see my family.

5. Instead of going to work Monday, if you could spend the entire day doing something else--any one or two things that you absolutely love doing--what would you do?

 

Sewing of course!

6. What sites (other than meme sites) do you use most to help you post on your blog?

 

I hang out in flickr a lot and all the stuff going on there  keeps me inspired and motivated to keep making and blogging.

7. Check out a post on your blog from six months ago (March 2010) and tell us what is different now about your blog and/or life?

 

Not much has changed at all really! My blog is primarily a place to document and share my crafty adventures, I don’t share too much of other aspects of my life there but back in March was one of the rare occasions I did.  A dear friend was very sick and I was feeling utterly helpless and so very sad and I blogged about a gift I had sent her.

8. What was the last photograph you took?

 

I took pictures yesterday of a crafty little project I’m working on....

9. Which fashion trend do you believe is the most horrendous and why?

 

Ooo there have been some shockers.  I was never really a fan of the shoulder pad in the 80’s, I never quite got what that was all about.

 

***************

 

Don’t forget to scroll down a few posts and enter Shruti’s giveaway..there’s still time J

 

Have a wonderful weekend J

 

xxx

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Gees, I hope my images load this time. It's no fun reading about quilts without seeing them.

Images the post below...t-shirt quilts

Sorry about this, but for some reason my images aren't coming through with the text in the right order.  The first Image:




Second image:


The third image showed up at the top of the post.

T-Shirt Quilts

Welcome back for my second ever blog post!  This one is about t-shirt quilts.  So far I’ve made three t-shirt quilts.  My husband had so many t-shirts he collected (and couldn’t wear any longer) that I decided to make a two sided t-shirt quilt. 


It took about 40 t-shirts to make each side. The t-shirts were fused to mid-weight interfacing to stabilize them, and behaved just like woven fabric when I sewed the blocks together.   The blocks were cut to whatever size the image was plus whatever extra it needed to be a multiple of 3” on each side (3” by 9” or 12” by 18”or whatever) plus an extra inch for ½” seam allowances.  They went together like a jigsaw puzzle. I didn’t need to do any extra cutting to get square tops.  There were a couple of blocks left over for next time.

 

The tops were so heavy that Wanda Rains from Rainy Day Quilts, my machine quilter at the time (now I’m trying to do it myself), convinced me to make two quilts instead.  She used felted cotton batts and backed them with navy blue flannel.  She sent a note saying that they were pretty difficult to quilt, and recommended light weight fusible next time.  She mentioned that the needles kept getting gummed up with the fusible stuff.  They came out great, nonetheless, because Wanda is awesome.  Check out the stitching below.

Wanda's Quilting

Fast forward to last Christmas, when my daughter’s friend Jose came over and brought a collection of monster-movie t-shirts.  This time, I used light weight interfacing, and in order to make it look like the t-shirts are individual frames in a movie film reel, I found some striped interlock fabric to mimic the sprockets.  This was also fused to light weight interfacing.  It seemed to sew okay, but the fabric stretched so much that—I kid you not—I had to rip and resew the seams about 12 times to get the top to square up.  To accomplish that, there were pins about every half inch along the new seams.  Seems like the interfacing didn’t do much this time to stabilize the interlock.  The red vine quilting fabric that acts as a background helped somewhat to keep the “film reels” squared up.  It was backed with flannel and has a light felted poly batt.  There was some fusible gunk build-up on the needle when I lightly quilted it, but it wasn’t too bad.  I finished it in time for his birthday in July.


 Next time, I’m going to try quilting the t-shirts individually to the flannel without interfacing. Then I’ll sew the blocks together, and trim the seams so the back will be a flannel rag quilt and the front, a t-shirt quilt. 

 Now, if only I could find a way to shoot photos of my quilts that doesn’t make it look like the quilt has hands and feet…

 Please let me know if you’ve tried making a t-shirt quilt, what worked and what didn’t.  Thanks for visiting!

 Theresa

Monday, September 20, 2010

Images for the post below...I hope



My First Blog

As you know, Shruti has gone to Goa to those gorgeous white sand beaches, and I am filling in as guest blogger today and Thursday.  My name is Theresa Alsup.  My nom de modem is lw—for listening woman, which is my favorite Tony Hillerman mystery.  If you normally read Shruti’s blog, or Lane Wilhite’s (quiltfool.blogspot.com) or Mrs. Pyjamas’ (fairybreadmusings.blogspot.com,) you’ve probably seen my comments.  I don’t have a blog of my own, so I seized on this opportunity to see what it would be like if I did. 

 The lesson I learned this weekend is that I should occasionally use my sewing machines for something other than quilting, so I can remember how.  My adopted daughter, Debbie, thought it would be fun to learn to sew and to use the sewing machine that I got her and her daughters this summer (if my evil plot succeeds, Debbie and her daughters will become addicted to sewing and I’ll have someone to quilt with.) 

 We decided to make a dress for Debbie’s youngest, Alyssa.  Somehow a tinier garment just seems less threatening—shorter seams, tinier pieces and all.  So we took a quick trip to the Cotton Shop in Redondo Beach, where the very patient sales ladies helped us find the right notions to make a little dress—I haven’t made a garment from a pattern in about 20 years and boy howdy, either they changed some of it, or I did not remember how to decipher some of the info on the back of the pattern.  I also disagreed a little bit with how the New Look people wanted us to go about making the dress, but as you will see, we “made it work.”

 We picked the pattern below, New Look 6361 because 1) it’s so adorable! and 2) it did not have a zipper, just elastic and halter ties.  This sounded about right for a first try (not that this lets Deb off the hook for setting a zipper, we’ll just have to get there in a couple of weeks with another project is all.)

 

Deb and I chose cotton quilting fabric to make the little dress because it’s easy to find pretty fabrics.  Cotton, wonderful fabric that it is, sticks to itself without having to do much pinning.  This makes it really easy to turn the hems and the casings for the elastic; a little starch, a little pressing and most of the work’s done for you before you even put it on the sewing machine.  Also, cotton drapes well, washes well and is very comfortable.

 Debbie started this project without even knowing how to thread the machine. At first, she had some trouble remembering to lower the presser foot, resulting in some pretty interesting snarls of thread.  The thread sometimes pulled out of the thread races, which also resulted in some spectacular messes, but she didn’t give up.  There was a broken needle (you really don’t have to push or pull the fabric, just guide it.)  There were a couple of seams ripped and re-sewn.  But in just a couple of hours, Deb was sewing seams confidently and her results are below:  a very pretty dress for a very pretty little girl.

 Alyssa added the shells herself, she liked how they go with the rick-rack—this is one little girl who can really accessorize. The kerchief we made is tied around her waist (her idea-- she’s a size 7 and we made the dress size 8, to give a little growing room and when she was putting it on, she insisted on it.)   A favorite day dream has my little adopted granddaughter winning Project Runway someday.

 

 
See you all Thursday!

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Going away...

I had talked about 'wall art' to you guys some time back... Well there are two types of wall arts in my home... 'Mommy arts' and 'kiddo arts'... You've seen mommy arts, now here's kiddo arts...



Thats kiddo in action...



there's trains, mangoes, helicopters, 'A's, and tons of windmills!


Yeah, and balloons...


His 'current' obsession is houses... I had to draw them for him to color... But now he draws them on his own...



Thats where we stamp!!! all veggie stamps and other watercolor painting...


We also have an apple tree... I drew the outline and filled it with colors... One morning it even had apples! Aadi told me they were mangoes (he loves them) but since he could not find the yellow crayon, it had to be red... How cute is that???


Here's another water color wall...


We also did a bit of sponge painting!!!


Here's houses and windmills again...


Thats the room!!! Now you know where all that inspiration comes from... In my house everyone is welcome to pick up a crayon and scribble on any wall they like in my Kitchen, Dining and my Computer room (we haven't painted them yet and will not be doing it till Aadi is 7 yr old)!!!

Would you like to join???

Coming to the fun part...

I'm finally leaving for my long publicised and awaited vacation with my family (no hubby but parents and cousins)... I'm really excited... The last vacation I went without hubby was to Singapore with Ashutosh... It was more of a work trip though... I know I'll miss him, since Goa's our favorite-st place! We've been here twice already... And I'm sure we'll go there many more times...

While i'm away I am not going to let you all forget me... LOL... A few of my dear friends have agreed to do a few guest posts for me in this period... I'm sure you guys will enjoy them...

Dont forget to comment to win $100 worth of fabric from Fat Quarter Shop... The post is here...

Cheers and have fun!!!

BWS tips button

Saturday, September 18, 2010

A celebration

Hello all!!!
Today I'm having a celebration... 80 posts , 159 followers!!! Its a milestone to celebrate...

And a feature article on my favorite Fat Quarterly Blog!!!

Things can get no better!!! Another reason to celebrate!!!


And to join the celebration with me today, I have Kimberley from Fat Quarter Shop. Sha has generously agreed to sponsor a giveaway for all my readers...

And what are we giving away???

 Dont you just love to sew??? So here's Mrs. Sew and Sew FQ Bundle worth $60.50 for one lucky reader!!!



Which one of them is your favorite fabric??? And what will you make from them???

We also have another winner to draw... A second winner will win a $40 Gift Certificate from Fat Quarter Shop... How good does that sound???

How do you enter???

The usual:

1. Visit Fat Quarter Shop and come back and tell me what you love about them.
1 entry

2. Be a follower. Old followers, leave a comment.
1 entry

3. You're eligible for another entry if you have commented on my blog at least once in the last month. Leave a comment with the name of the post where you have left the comment.

4. Blog about the giveaway to get 2 more entries.

5. Join the Spread the Cheer project and earn 2 more entries...

Hurry up... Now each one of you has 7 chances to win this one... I'll draw the winner when I come back from my vacation... Next Sunday (26 th Sept) midnight.

Good luck to you all...

Thank you so much Kimberly!

Cheers!!!







Saturday 9




Saturday 9: Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying



1. When was the last time you cried?

Whe my son was not well and I could do nothing to ease his discomfort...



2. If you could wake up tomorrow with a new talent, what would it be?

Cooking... hopefully...



3. Who is someone (other than yourself) would you like to go back into your past and talk to and why?

My Grandmother (my Mom's mother)... I never really got to tell her how much I loved her... She died suddenly when I was 6 months pregnant... And till that time she had knitted 6 sweaters for my kiddo... I wanted to tell her they were beautiful... I still have one, I hang it on the wall in my sewing room... I gave the others to my brother's son...



4. What is your favorite meal eating out?

Seafood!!!



5. Do you feel energized or drained by being in a group situation? If the answer is "it depends," on what does it depend?

I love being in a group I'm familiar with... But being in a completely strange group drains me...


6. What word do you use far too frequently?

I guess with a toddler "No" is the word I use most frequently... (It does not seem to have an effect though)


7. What’s a word you’ve invented? (alternate question: What needs a word but doesn’t have one yet?)

You have that feeling when you are going through a wonderful phase and then suddenly something (very small) bad happens and you start feeling its all going to fall down and be as bad again... I need a word for that...


8. Pick out one of your favorite songs. Go to Song Facts and tell us about the song's history.

Song : Words...

The Bee Gees were 3 brothers - Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb. They wrote this after getting in a few arguments and realizing the power of words - how they can make you happy or sad.

This was written for a movie called The Mini-Affair. In England, the movie was titled The Mini Mob.

Barry was the only Gibb to sing on this. It was the first Bee Gees single where only one brother sang.

A cover version by Rita Coolidge hit #25 in the UK in 1978. In 1996 a cover version by Irish boy band Boyzone topped the UK chart. Maurice Gibb declared it the best ever cover of a Bee Gees song. (thanks, Edward Pearce - Ashford, Kent, England, for all above)

The Bee Gees became icons of the Disco era, but before they started singing dance songs in high falsetto voices, most of their songs were mellow ballads with lush arrangements.

This song was originally written for Cliff Richard, but he never got round to recording it as he wasn't making an album at the time. Rather than wasting the song, The Bee Gees decided to record it themselves.

Elvis Presley performed the song live as part of his concerts in the late '60s and early '70s. His version can be found on the 1970 live album, Elvis in Person at the International Hotel.




9. What is your absolute favorite piece of furniture you have and why?



Thats the plant display in my tiny garden... I love it because I got it made from all of the old stuff that was lying around in the house... Two ladders that had started to rot and a few wooden planks...


Cheers!!!




Friday, September 17, 2010

Favorite things Friday...

I've been reading Mrs. P's blog ever since I started blogging myself... Firstly because I so am a 'quilting in my pyjama's' girl! So when she started a Favorite things Fridays blog hop, I just hopped over to join her...





So here's one of my favorite things... It is a hand-me-down family heirloom, I'm so proud to have... It has been made by Rohit's grandmother. The skill is simply amazing... Here are the details...






I remember the day MIL gave it to me... It was just an year back, I was helping her straighten her closet. We came across a carefully wrapped package that she had completely forgotten about... It was packed in muslin... We carefully unwrapped it and found this!!! When I first saw it I thought it was applique... But when I examined it closely, I realized it was embroidery... I just fell in love with it... I was not into sewing at that time!!! I hung it up along with my curtains in my bedroom... I'll always cherish it... And once (read 'if') the redo of my sewing room is over, I'll take it in there with me... Its a wonderful inspiration...

What is your favorite thing??? Do hop over to Mrs. P's blog and join the fun...

Cheers
 


Thursday, September 16, 2010

My first Award...


Thanks to Nana Poppins... I have received the One Lovely Blog award from her...
Thank you so much Nana, I'm honoured!!!





Now here are the rules:
1. Accept the award. (Post it on your blog along with the name and link of the person who has awarded it to you.
2. Pay it forward to 15 other bloggers whom you've recently discovered.
3. Contact the bloggers and let them know that they have been chosen.

Here's my list
and


I'll add more later... I did all!!! I never thought I could go beyond 7. I had to find them from my reader, visit their site, leave them a comment, put their name here AND link them! My! that was quite some work... But I was glad to do it... :) Anything for my blog friends!!!

Cheers!!!

And yeah, Stay tuned I'm having a small celebration here on Saturday with a wonderful giveaway!!! Keep reading...





Obviously MARvelous