No Sew Halter Tops

Another day another great source of inspiration. I was so excited when I came across this inspirational site and I have a great idea on how I can use these ideas and lend them to other projects.

These two were the ones that caught my eye first but www.wobisobi.blogspot.com.au has so many incredible ideas and all of them are fun and stylish. 

So head over and check out her amazing restyles.

I'll make sure I post some pictures when I have a go. I have a massive tube of rib knit fabric which I originally planed to make a couple of strapless maxi dress' with. Perhaps a halter style maxi would be just the ticket? 

Have fun

Donna

No Sew T shirt Revamp with Bleach

Another brilliant idea to revamp a boring old plain T shirt.

Bleach pens are available in the cleaning isles of some supermarkets. They are marketed as grout cleaning pens in the bathroom cleaning sections. I have also seen them at Bunnings Warehouse.

Click on the above photo for an excellent tutorial. Oh and nice touch with the added stitching.

Now this is a great idea. canvas shoes can be picked up inexpensively from Kmart or Target and personalized to suit.

This one was done with contact, bleach and a paint brush. Brilliantly simple.

Well I will be giving this a go, such an inexpensive and versatile idea.

Have fun bleaching

Donna

My New Obsession - Up-cycled Creations

Really anyone who knows me will not be at all surprised by this post. 

I'm seeing this trend growing more and more and there is so much inspiration out there. 

I've seen so many ideas in the last five minutes I don't know where to begin so here is just a tiny fraction of the many ideas I would like to try.

Some require a little sewing and others a lot but then others require no sewing at all.

Be inspired and give it a go. Click on the pictures to go to these creative tutorials.

It is amazing how often I see great clothes on sale in the mens section for only a couple of dollars, yet in the women's section a similar item is on sale for $20. Well the above tutorial will get you thinking on that subject. Better yet next time family or friends say "oh I'm doing a serious clean out of my wardrobe" jump on the opportunity to up-cycle one of their old garments, giving you a new outfit for only the cost of a few buttons and some cotton!

This tutorial even shows how to use up the off cuts to make a cute, co-ordinated headband. Sweet!

This one will come in handy for Sophie. There are many great tutorials on Jesica's blog and I suggest you make yourself a cuppa and take the time to explore her amazing tutorials and posts. Now thats one talented lady!

Love this simple idea of stamping to make a plain T look fabulous and unique.

A great post with several ideas on making something old new again. I'll be trying a few of these ideas.

How about that T shirt you love, but it's just a little too short. Well Kate has the answer to that one.

This is so cute and the flowers could be used on headbands, clips, bags etc.

Now I don't know if I would be brave enough to use unlined lace with my figure but an alternate fabric could make a plain T look great!

Hmmm..... so many possibilities. 

I have so many more ideas to share alas, I must be off to school now.

Donna

A Landscape Quilt For Christmas Part 2

Strait back into it or I fear these blog posts will take me longer than the quilt did (ha!)



Mother and baby koalas my 1st animals to hit the sceen. Now I must confess when I showed Jane these pre printed Australian animal panels she said something that threw me and caused a major panic. "These animals look very animated, like cartoons and don't mesh well with your more realistic landscape."

My heart sank. She was right what was I going to do? ARGH.

I went home to have a serious think. Then whilst surfing the net looking for a miracle I found it.

Stitch Painting. Yep the name says it all, it's painting with stitches.

So I set to work and was so proud of my self with how this all turned out, I looked at the directions of the koalas fur and the different tones and recreated it with different shades of cotton and free motion stitching.





A Landscape Quilt For Christmas Part 1

My Mum and Dad mentioned early last year that they would like a nice quilt cover for the bed in their new caravan. Something simple. Something Australian, oh and their favourite colours are Purple and Yellow, oh and one more thing we would love a bit of turquoise thrown in there.

On the way home I started scribbling out ideas on the back of a napkin. That progressed into sketches, then into a full size 1.5 meter x 1 meter 1st draft.

After a few weeks research and teaching myself through watching you tube videos and reading up at the library, and most importantly much guidance, explanation, demonstration and priceless words of wisdom from a wonderful lady called Jane.

Jane is the owner of Patchwork 33 at Wyee Point, and Jane has quickly become my Yoda in the world that is quilting.

I started by pressing and adhearing the background layers using visa flex. First you adhere the visa flex to the back of your fabric, pressing a hot dry iron firmly for 5 seconds. easy right? Well that is until you realise each piece is 1 meter or so long and your iron only covers a small area at a time. Next you cut the piece into shape, peel off the paper backing and press for 7 seconds with a hot dry iron. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

You get the idea.

With all my background layers in place I began the long learning curve of free motion quilting.

Pebble stitch on the far away mountains.

For the sky I had a go at this random pattern, you alternate sewing a ( W ) or a shape that looks like the end of a bone continuing the line upwards sewing a mushroom cloud. That is how it was described to me. My 1st thought was "What The" then i watched the you tube video and it made more sense.

Next I layed down the tree trunk and started laying down the leaves. Jane had made a few suggestions on how I could have created my foliage. Of course all of these ideas just didn't look right to me, they probably would have been a hundred times faster but hey. I'm an obsessive perfectionist and being a gift for my mum and dad it had to be the very best of me, that meant cutting each and every leaf out individually.

Yes I am insane, but that's why you love me right!

I played around with the different shades and layering and decided I was just going to have to bite the bullet and go for it. I pressed down the tree trunk and started free motion stitching some detail and texture onto it to create the bark.

As you can see I tried to give texture to the bark with sharp upward motion and a few knots thrown in the mix.

A close up of the leaves with detailed stitching.

To be continued....

Cheers Donna

9 Kids Christmas Party 2011

As always we had a great time at the Chanel 9 kids Christmas party.

Diego came to visit us while we were lined up to see Santa.

Next we said hello to Rudolph and Christmas Bear.

Then we headed to the face painting table.

Of course Sophie wanted to be a Yellow butterfly.



Next we headed out to the big slide.

We had so much fun on the pony rides.

Sophie even got to fly a space ship.

Next we headed inside the studio for the go Diego go show.

Sophie quickly made a new friend and they had so much fun singing, dancing and screaming at the top of their lungs. Well what else are you supposed to do when Diego asks you the same silly question  3 times over?

All in all it was a great day.

Well that's all folks

cheers Donna.

Not Long Now - Australia Day

          Oh how I love Australia Day. A great day to celebrate what it means to be a fair dinkum Aussie.

                                         I have been pondering what we will do this year???

Last year we went to Australia Day Live in Canberra for the Wiggles concert.

The year before we had a picnic down by the lake.

Maybe if the weather improves we can go fishing on Daddy's new boat and then have a BBQ?

What do you do to celebrate Australia Day?

well that's all folks

cheers Donna.



Fun at Lake Burley Griffin - Canberra

I'm playing catch up.

I'm sooooo.... behind with my blog it's not funny.

I'll post all about the quilt I made for my Mum and Dad for Christmas which took up every moment of my time for 6 months!

But back to the topic at hand.

Lake Burley Griffin. We had a great day out whilst in Queanbeyan for Easter.

On arrival we were greeted by some beautiful swans.

We headed onto the wharf and strait onto the boat for a guided tour of Lake Burley Griffin. Our tour guide was hilarious we laughed our socks off and learnt so much. It's great having a local guide the tour. He knew all sorts of interesting tid bits.

I was surprised how entertained Soph was. I expected the novelty to wear off in the first 5 minutes, only to hear the inevitable "I'M BOARD". But I was wrong she had a great time and asked loads of questions. She giggled and giggled at all the jokes our tour guide told (even though I think most of them went strait over her head!) 

"Look look everyone. Nana your not looking LOOOOK"

A quick pic of mummy and Sophie.

We passed the fountain at just the right time.

As we headed back under the bridge we passed lots of these pedal boats and knew we had to have a go on these.

We pedled all the way down the lake under the bridge and down to the fountain. Thankfully the fountain was not going at the time or we would have been drenched.

We took turns pedalling and although our legs felt like they were going to drop off towards the end we powered on and made it back to the wharf.

What a great day out

Well that's all folks

cheers Donna.



Easter Adventure In The Capital

I was looking through some photo's and came across photos from our Easter trip to Queanbeyan to see my family.

We had so much fun on our friends Clem and Carolyn's farm.

Clem took Steve, Sophie and Dad out on his tractor to collect wood.

Sophie loved going for a ride on George. George was a circus pony and there fore is extremely affectionate and just loves the company of people and the other ponies.

What a character Soph was giving George hugs and he was blowing horse raspberries and laughing.

Sophie loved pretending to drive the tractor. Especially with Nandad's cow boy hat on.

This one is a bit squinty, the wind was howling so we decided to take a walk and explore the property.

The dam was a breath taking oasis in the beautiful bushland. Surrounded by native trees and shrubs. The water was still and native flowers were blossoming. "Hows the serenity?"

This is the new farmhouse. I just love it and as I wondered around I dreamed of a farm house of my own. "Sigh".

Sophie insisted I take a picture of the water tank. When I explained how the water tank uses gravity to feed the water down to the house she was so impressed she ran strait to Daddy and told him "I need you to build a water tank for our house, then we can have special gravity water."

We headed into the farm house to warm up in front of the fireplace and enjoy the fresh scones I had baked that morning. Needless to say they didn't last long.

We all piled into the 4x4s and headed out along the track to the road. We had to park our sedan out near the road as the track leading into the farm is dirt, bumpy and full of wombat holes.

What a great day we all had. We can't wait to go back and visit again.

Well that's all folks

Cheers, Donna