airing dirty linen

Well I had to get your attention somehow! I love a bit of old linen, but preferably not too dirty. But I have been know to gingerly pick something out of the free bin and take it home and throw it in a bucket of soaker and be thrilled when the dirt vanished.

For the two weeks of the school holidays my op shopping was severely curtailed, but I did manage a couple of quickies. Amazingly when we were in Greymouth in the first weekend of the holidays the Sally Army was having a late opening on a Saturday afternoon, and between dancing we got in and had a bit of a rummage. The find of the day was the bright checked Onehunga woollen travel rug for 10 bucks.

With school going back on Monday my ability to op shop fully has been restored. Most of what I look for is linen and haberdashery. These are the ingredients for making things for my Mahana Redlegs label, where I try to be as close to 100% upcycled as possible.

In Motueka this week I found the two large pieces of floral fabric. The top piece was $2 and the bottom was $8, which I did hesitate with, but if I average it over the two pieces I'm happy. The photo doesn't really show the amazing neon pink flowers it the second pieces. I'm not quite sure what I'll do with it. There's enough to make a dress or skirt, but it'll probably end up lining my blanket bags, as it's a heavy twill.

In the Red Cross in Nelson I found this old blue cardboard box. It may have been a chocolate box once, and it used to have wee metal feet, but only one of those is still there. It was full of cottons, bias binding, needles, domes and embroidery cotton, again I hesitated at $6, but I think it was worth it. Has anyone else noticed that the prices in the oppies are getting higher and higher?

And I also scored an old cotton tea towel for $1 (that's more like it). I love these ones with the crochet edging, but after it's wash it hasn't remained whole for long. I've had fun cutting out the flowers and leaves and machine embroidering them onto my homemade wool felt to make into brooches. I'll save the crochet edging and think of something to use it for too.

Joining in with Max's Op Shop Show Off for the first time in weeks. 

making

Yesterday as the southerly storm thrashed the South Island, I stayed at home and sewed. Luckily our area was not badly affected, there were some loud thunder claps overhead, enough to make me unplug the modem to avoid the computer getting fried, but compared to other regions we escaped damage.

Daisy had the right idea and slept all day on a pile of freshly thrifted and washed woollen blankets.

Before I could get down to the business of making I had admin duties for the upcoming Mapua Makers Market that I'm organising with my friend. It's the 4th one we've organised and I wished it got easier, but alas not yet. 

By the end of the day I had seven freshly made zipper pouches/purses. I'm trying to be more efficient in my sewing, but as each piece is a one-off it's hard to get a production line going. I make according to the materials I have on hand, what inspires me, and often one thing leads onto another.

I enjoyed the free stitching, or as The Teenager said "Mum it looks like you can't sew a straight line". So now I'm ready to try this on a larger scale and make some cushions.

A couple of weeks ago I found a 95% compete tapestry of a Constable painting at the dump shop. After a warm wash and iron, I turned it into four zippered pouches. I love these so much I've kept one for myself!

All of the materials that I used to make these pouches were sourced from an op shop (or the dump shop) - the wool blanket, the fabric used for lining, the zips, the doilies and the thread. As my motto for Mahana Redlegs says "I'm upcycling as fast as I can."

Linking up with Christina's Made By Hand and Leonie's Show & Tell.

100

Life is busy, with lots of things going on. I'm off to a market on 7th July, so the kitchen table has not been seen for a few weeks! I'd read about The Hottie Project on Lisa's blog, which is all about making hot water bottle covers to keep children in Christchurch snuggly and warm this winter. Having spent about seven winters myself in Christchurch, I know it can get a bit cold, and add into the mix houses that have still not been fixed since the earthquakes, I know its a bit of a miserable time for some people. So hopefully my hottie cover will cheer someone up this winter.

I wanted to make a unisex cover, so chose a lovely soft gray jumper that I'd felted.  I'd never made a hottie cover before, but it really is quite easy with Lisa's template, or using a hottie as a guide.

We use wheat bags to warm our beds, which are heated in the microwave with a glass of water (a very important detail). No electric blankets around here! I love my wheat bags - yes I need three strategically placed about my person, and in the morning, if I haven't kicked them out, they are still warm. Here are some I made last year from a flanalette pillowcase.

When I'd finished the hottie cover there was enough left overs to make a pencil case. I've been making them like this for a year now, but felt like a change, so the rest I've made have different faces. It's more work, so I might have to put the price up slightly, it's so hard to calculate how long each one takes, I'm sure I have a very low hourly rate! 

I had to find time to finish off a small painting (A4 size) which is a donation to the Suter Art Gallery's redevelopment fundraiser. I did the background at art group, but it took me a few days to work out where to from there.  In the end I masked off the shapes and used white oilstick on the background. I've titled it "Glimpses", and have now got some other ideas for larger paintings.

There are quite a few other things going on in "life" which I'll not bore you with. Before I knew how busy this month was going to be I signed up for the 100 Days Project, where I'm doing a quick Sharpie drawing every day.  Seven days done, 93 to go! Some days I've found it easy, and others are harder, it's definitely a challenge!  Here is Day 1's drawing. If you want to check out the others take a peek here.

While on the theme of 100 - this is my 100th blog post. I've actually been putting off writing it, as thought I should make more of a song and dance about such a milestone and hold a giveaway (like proper bloggers do!). But I haven't quite got myself that organised - yet! I would like to thank my faithful followers and especially those of you who write comments. Comments are great - I appreciate them so much, if I was a better blogger I'd reply individually to you all, but I'm not, so sorry about that.

I'll leave you with a sunrise, we've been having some crackers lately, and heading towards the shortest day of the year I don't even have to get up early to appreciate them. Excuse the power lines but I was in my pjs and slippers and wasn't venturing off the deck to get the perfect shot!

getting crafty

I've had a few craft projects on the go over the last week or so, and this weekend I completed a few of them. Firstly I finished a couple of small embroidery pictures I started when we went away two weeks ago. I still need to frame them in the old metal frames that I collect then they'll be ready for the market. 

I've made two scarves which I've termed the "Frogging Scarf" because you knit it then frog half of it. I'd never done this before, my good friend was showing the kids (who are learning knitting at school), as it is what her grandma taught her when she was learning to knit. It sure is a great way to get fast results.

 
 I made one for myself, in a lovely soft wool that ended up giving an ombre effect, as can be seen with the three different colours above. Please excuse the bad selfie (complete with air freshener in the background!). Next I whipped up one for Miss L out of some wool I frogged from a hat that I got at the op shop for $2.

If you want a quick project try the Frogging Scarf.  Grab some thick and soft wool and the biggest needles you have (I used 10mm). Cast on an uneven number - 17 & 19 stitches worked for the two scarves I made. Knit in garter stitch for as long as the ball lasts or you want. On the last row as you knit across drop every second stitch, then cast off into every second stitch on the cast on row to make a loop. Sew in the ends.

Then for the fun bit - where you pull and undo every second stitch, all the way down to the cast on row.  Suddenly your scarf grows and turns into a light and lacey scarf! This one grew to 112 cm from 41cm of garter stitch. This wasn't as long as I wanted, as it only gives two loops around the head, but it was as long as the ball of wool I had, and Miss L is happy!

 Friday was a  bit of a wet and miserable day so I stayed at home and made a blanket bag, which has already been "baggsed" by a friend! She actually encouraged me to buy the two doilies at an op shop earlier in the week, when I tried to protest and said I already had plenty of doilies. I thought I'd better use them, so I sewed them onto felted wool circles with embroidery floss. She chose the first one which I sewed onto dark red wool. I thought I'd taken some photos of the finished bag, but it appears not - so here are the embellishments only! If you're interested in what my blanket bags look like here's a link.

Finally I made a kitty cat pencil case. I've been meaning to get around to making a batch as I'm going to be at a market in July, and these are one of my best sellers. Plus I've just been mentioned in a online magazine called The Jam Jar, so I thought I'd better at least have one in my Felt shop!

Linking up with Creative Spaces and Show & Tell.

patched up

This photo has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of this post - I just wanted to share it! Last weekend we went to see my aunt and uncle who live about an hour south of us. On the way we stopped at this cute old abandoned church. On the gate there were bunches of faded artificial roses. I had to tart the photo up a bit in Pic Monkey, if you haven't tried out this online (free) photo editor do.

This is what I want to show you - my first patchwork quilt. Well I'm not sure that it really qualifies as a quilt as there is no batting or quilting. But there is plenty of patching. I've made it for Miss L as she needed another layer on her bed for winter, instead she's ended up with two layers, as I've backed it with another woollen blanket, so it's quite heavy and very warm.

 It was quite time consuming cutting out the squares of blanket. Wool is quite hard to cut as it moves around on the mat. The squares are 30x30cm, and it's 5 squares across by 6 long, which means it's not quite symmetrical for the pattern. I used five different blankets, and made sure I had enough of the bright pink left to use as the backing.

As I've never done any patchwork before I used Susie from Flowerpress' tutorial for joining the squares together. As these are blankets it made very bulky seams and corners, and I couldn't find any other similar quilts on google, so had to make the rest up! Which was to top stitch, and clip the seams where the joins are, this worked a treat and it made the quilt look much flatter.

 It was a bit tricky getting to the middle squares with my little sewing machine. While visiting my aunty I mentioned I was looking for an overlocker and ta-dah she lent me hers! I've never used one, and it needed rethreading and cleaning. The Teenager was most excited and jumped to the rescue, as he's used the same model at school. So glad he's learnt something useful in Year 8!

So with the overlocker I went right round the edge of both the patchworked and plain blanket before sewing the two together. It was a bit of a tight squeeze to as the backing blanket was slightly too small, so the blanket stitched edge needed unpicking. I gave this task to Miss L who in her exuberance with the unpicker managed to make two small gashes in the blanket! Never mind mum to the rescue, I zigzagged over the area with another piece of blanket underneath, then embroidered her name and 2013 on it. Hopefully an heirloom in the making.

 Everything I used came out of my stash, and prior to that from the op shop. I did use quite a few reels of cotton up, so there are two slightly different colours on the top stitching. So it was upcycling at it's best.
 
It's the last weekend of the school holidays I should be getting the house tidy and packing bags as we are going to Hanmer Springs tomorrow, and then on to Christchurch, to see Danny Bhoy. If you haven't seen/watched Danny check him out. We all enjoy his dvds, so the kids are a bit miffed they aren't been taken to the show. One of the kids favourites is his skit about the Fruit Police.

Before I cleared the kitchen table I whipped up a wee drawstring pouch to put my camera in with the leftover pink blanket. I even found a patch with a panda doing aerobics for the front!

I'm linking up with My Creative Space and Show & Tell (yes I'm that chuffed with finishing this project!).

happy holidays

Yesterday morning we went for a bike ride on the newly opened part of the cycle trial that is being established in the region. It's known as the Great Taste Trail, due to the Tasman-Nelson region being renown for growing all sorts of crops, livestock farming and fishing.

The small part we did was from Rabbit Island over the Waimea River to Lower Queen Street in Richmond. It only took about an hour return which was more than enough as the sun was getting quite hot. Living on the hills to the west of the Waimea Plains it's nice to get out on the flat for a ride.The boys in the family don't mind downhill mountain biking, but us girls don't like having to do too many gear changes so are much more into refined biking along nice paths!

 This is looking west, we live somewhere out there probably on the far right. It's about 10 minute drive in the car, it takes a lot longer to get four bikes secured to the bike rack! In the foreground is part of the estuary, the tide was out so there wasn't much water to be seen.

 The cycle trail goes around the edge of the estuary, so it's good for bird watching, on the other side is farmland. This is looking south, it was a great day for clouds. I just wish we'd get some rain, but think we are in for a long, dry summer. We get out water from our roof and store it in three large tanks, so we are more fixated about rain than we used to be!

Near the river there was a paddock with a herd of Clydesdale horses. I could only get a photo of these two, the others were too far away. These horses are still used by the family that has been breeding them for over 100 years.

 Here's Miss L riding onto the new swing bridge. It's a lovely blue colour which doesn't show up with the bright sunshine.

On the way back we stopped at this old tank that has been restored. Hubby thought it was an old water tank, but as H pointed out why does it have a door and windows! Good point, unfortunately there wasn't an interpretation panel here so we are none the wiser.

 After packing the bikes back onto the bike rack, we headed back the way we had biked to a berry garden. This is one of our favourite pre-Christmas rituals, picking raspberries and boysenberries. I think we may need to go back on Monday to get more for Christmas Day.

We have had our tree up for two weeks, we have an artificial one because of allergies. While I miss the smell of a real tree I don't miss the mess, as in the heat it doesn't take long for needles to start dropping. The kids decorated the tree, with some input from me! Miss L loves tinsel, as I restrained her tinsel use on the tree, I let her decorate a driftwood branch with some, no restraint there! The felt hearts I made a few years ago, they were the first crafty thing I'd made, and have lovely old buttons on them.

This year the only decorations I've made is a garland of felt circles from an old jumper. I like how the red matches the red in my painting.

Wishing you and yours, where ever you are, a very Merry Christmas.
Sally xx

weekend that was

Phew! The Christmas market season is over. Between the 4th November and 9th December I had tables at four markets. They have been of mixed success from totally blow me away I can't believe I sold so much (the Great Christmas Market) to the one this weekend where I sold very little, but it was still a nice day being out and next door to my bestie!!

Linking up with {tinniegirl} for Sunday Snippets, with some clicks from the weekend.

The last photo I took on Sunday evening looking out our bedroom window of a reflection of some trees on another hill, overlaying the view to the mountains - surreal.