Craftapalooza

Whipped!

Hi ya'll! Thought I'd better drop in. I'm here, just a little distracted by other life stuff at the moment. Hope you're all well and getting into 2007 with a blast!

Our fearless leader over at WhipUp, Kath, has just launched a banner design competition for WhipUp's first birthday. There is an excellent prize pack and your design will be featured at the site for a minimum of 6 months. Very cool. So get designing.

Crafty wise I've been chipping away at that overdue 40th birthday pressie and I think I broke it's back this weekend. Phew! Also picking up socks in between.

I'm off to Melbourne for a whirlwind visit in February which I'm looking forward to. We're having a crafty blogger meetup which has turned into a crafty blogger mobbing ;) kidding, but I think there's about 15 of us! So exciting to meet other crafty types. Al's also flying in for the weekend and I can't wait to get my mitts on squishy Pia.

I'll leave you there, no pictures, sorry peeps, but more soon. Keep on crafting and loving. Also found via Kim this cool widget (I'm guessing it's a widget), just going to trial it for now, let me know if you find it slows things down considerably.

Lifting the tone...

Well a little. Thank you to those brave enough to share your indulging stories and for the tutorial request. Ask and it's yours. Following is how I do this, there are other ways and some of you may read this tutorial and snort to yourselves and mutter under your breath "THAT's not how you make tissue holders"....well it's how I make them :) so far no complaints.

I decided Ducky and Kodak will receive a tissue holder. Both great stories, but Kodak's contact lens story is a doozy.

My technique is the "Lazy Ass Bastard" method, or LAB™ for short.

First up, I'm all about templates for patterns, especially small crafty projects that I'll make more than once. I love adhering patterns to strawboard, makes it so much easier to place your pattern onto the fabric, trace with your chalk and then cut out.

So, for my version of the tissue holder, I've cut a template that's 6 inches x 7 inches. Why inches you Aussies ask? My cutting matt and quilt ruler work inches so it's just easier to go with inches.

Pick your outer fabric, trace and cut out slightly larger than the template. I also like to use a midweight fabric, just a personal preference. I also like to make more than one at a time, it's quicker.

Next up, I usually line my holders with a 100% linen in a cream colour. Don't cut your lining just yet, grab yourself some double-sided fusible interfacing, place your outer fabric pieces onto this and iron them in place. Let the fabric cool and then place these outer pieces onto your inner lining fabric. Iron away. Make sure you iron the edges well.

Now, grab your template, pinking shears or your rotary blade and cut out the 6" x 7".

Next up, add some trim to the 6" long edges. Be creative. Or don't add any trim at all, up to you. You can at this point place your trim so it hides the pinking shear edge, if you have pinking sheared. You don't necessarily have to use pinking shears as the fabric is fused it shouldn't fray too much, maybe a little at the beginning.

Find the centre point on the 7inch edge and mark on the inside with chalk. Then fold in your 6inch edges to meet this point and pin in place.

Sew across the short edges. I like to oversew the opening to strengthen the stitching.

Trim any excess fabric from the seams and cut your corners at diagonals.

I use the brand pictured below for stuffing the holders.

Turn out the tissue holder and push out the corners.

Voila. Completed holder. Easy peasy. Some more finished holders here.

I've cross-posted this tutorial over at whipup.

The IV's retreat? Went something like this, eat > talk > knit > talk knit > read knitting books by EZ > movie > eat more > talk > take photo's of someone napping > knit > movie > knit > nap > take more unflattering photo's of the nap > eat > knit > massage > eat talk > nap > knit > movie > talk > knit.

Finally, for your viewing amusement via Flickr blog, cats who lounge. Classic!

For you Mac users, signup to encourage Apple to create greener Macs!

Long weekend here in sunny WA, lots of sewing to do, must finish Petite 6.5's shower gift especially since she's due any day now. I'm also due a new handbag but have been thinking and procrastinating over it. Anyhow, have a great weekend!

blood clots 'n' knots

That's the name of the piece above. My buddy Kate has excellent accessories and she turned up one day wearing a gorgeous neckalce. It was a fabric tube with beads inside of it and knots in between, made out of an off white fabric with type printed onto the fabric. I'm loving fabric with type or maps on it at the moment, zakka stylin'. Typical me I couldn't just have a plain necklace I had to embellish. So somehow I ended up with red knot that wasn't quite working, aaah I thought, I'll put a bunch of french knots over it in a variegated thread.....Hmmm not sure. I've had mixed comments on the clot, some agree it's very clotty, other's are ok with it. Me, well I'm not going to take it off, but I'll make another I think minus the clot. Very easy necklace to make with lovely results.

Next we have the flower garland. Pattern originally from this book. Again, I had to fiddle. I had this idea that the garland had to last, so it had to be reinforced. Hmmm maybe not. The end result is pretty but I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable wearing it.  Again, I'll make this one again, being less anal and not reinforcing it! It needs to be more organic and lose.

I told you we're all about the textile accessory over here. Moving on to the wristband. Pattern from Lynn however I've modified it (that it's got to last attitude again). I've made a quilt sandwich to give it a little bulk and made it wider. The two on the left above are the new ones finished, the one on the right I've been wearing on and off for about a month. So you can get an idea of how it ages. These are great fun to make, fairly quick, depends how much you like to embellish and nice and squishy to wear. When embroidering I also keep my knots hidden in the sandwich and don't embroider through all the layers. Again we have yoyo action.

Finally, we have the scrap necklace from the craftster tutorial I posted at whipup. I think this one's a little short. It's fun to make and fairly mindless, cutting out tonnes of little eight's from scraps. I was managing to cut 6-8 at a time. Think I'll make another in black and white fabrics and maybe with a third colour or maybe it needs to be more random. Hmmm the control freak in me wants it to match! Love to see if any of you out there are trying these or other textile accessories.

whiplash, anyone?

Hey! What you doing reading this? Head on over to whipup and check out whiplash (excellent title don't you think!). You have until Monday 17 April to create some "everyday creativity"...Got you thinking? Juices flowing? Some excellent prizes up for grabs. Bring it peeps, want to see what you can whip over this weekend.

wow!

Wow. Seems you guys are loving whip up! Thanks so much for the support, the stat counter's going through the roof...of course you know what this means...hosting costs. A necessity! Kath's been managing all of this so us contributors were blissfully unaware of the costs.

As whip up is a non profit site and to keep the site adfree (and if you read the site!!) would you consider making a donation towards our hosting costs? If so, head on over to whip up to the little button on the right (scroll down a bit, the button's a bit shy!).