Totally Tutorials - Resuable Lunch Sacks

There are many lovely tutorials over at http://zitzmanfam.blogspot.com.au/ and I found some lovely reusable snack bags there.  

Whilst this is a great idea for lunch bags, don't you think that it would make an excellent bag for a young girl to have in her school bag filled with sanitary products?  I'd have used that when I was a teenager!

I'm still struggling with this blogger interface.  The Livewriter website assures me that they have fixed any issues, or nearly fixed perhaps.  I plan to spend a chunk of tomorrow afternoon sorting it out, all being well.  Finding time to carve out on the computer is quite difficult right now!

Hope you've all had a lovely, quilty day!  

The Christmas Roast (and catching up)

***please forgive the DUMB centering of my text on this blogpost.  The computer is doing it all by itself.  The Blogger interface SUCKS, to be honest and until I can find a replacement to Live Writer, I am stuck with it and all its annoying drawbacks**

The girls and I are currently in hibernation mode.  It's well over forty celcius today (Thursday), tomorrow is meant to be hotter and Saturday is hotter again!  'They' are forecasting 44 degrees, with a cool change on Sunday - it should only be 37 C then.  Have to break out the wooly jumpers!

Both the dog and cat are inside with us, and I've been watering the chooks often during this weather (by watering I mean squirting with the hose trying to cool them down) and crossing my fingers we don't lose any.  I seem to lose a chook a year with the hot weather, but maybe that's just old age and the heat helps them along.  

I don't know how the Northern Hemispheres 'do' the heat, but in Australia we learn to close all the curtains early on a day like today, and I have done that for a week or so now.  The house is quite dark now, but very cool due to a gold plated airconditioner, stone walls and large bull-nose veranda.  One daughter is tinkling away at the piano, teaching herself Christmas carols (we recently acquired a free piano, but not one of us is musical at all!).  The other daughter is sharing the lounge room with me, cartwheeling over and over.  She's just learnt how to do that and she thinks she is just fantastic.  She's more fantastic than me, I never learned to do any sort of clever gymnastics.

I've been baking today (seems entirely sensible given the heat!!) and have made about 2029475 pizza scrolls.  Yesterday was chocolate chip cookies for Christmas and tomorrow is the big Christmas Honey Biscuit Bake.  I make these biscuits once a year, work my little buttocks off doing it and swear I'll not do it again, it's just too much hard work.  But year after year I do it, and give the biscuits away to my husband's work colleagues.  Every year he asks when he can take the biscuits in, so of course I'll keep going as long as he likes.

Sewing is sadly not happening much this time of year.  I've been watching the Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt happenings over the internet, and for the first time I haven't begun it with the others.  It's a combination of too much happening and also being so turned off (sorry Bonnie) by last year's design.  I've decided to wait until I see the finished result before committing myself to making it.  I have a very strong feeling that this finished quilt will be something I'll love (I keep imagining Roman tiles) so no doubt in January when life is quieter, I'll make it at my own speed.  It would be Murphy's Law that the one year I decide not to make it is the one year I adore the design.

What else is new?  Nothing really.  I haven't got any of my own quilting photos to show you so I shall leave you with another tutorial I enjoyed finding.

Sew Mama Sew has a million (well, maybe not that many but A LOT) of beautiful tutorials that you must check out.  I found this really lovely penguin designed by DelilahIris Designs.  I might make more than one!

Hope your Christmas planning is going well!  If you're in Australia keep cool please!

Happy Quilting!

Suzie

Lucy Boston - Block One

Despite it being school holidays, and ten days or so away from Christmas, I have been able to sew in small pockets here and there.  And slowly but surely, I achieved one block!

I still need to buy some fabric for the background and cornerstones, but I don't want to get that online.  I think it's too iffy and I need enough to do a whole quilt.  Best to see it in person.

It's really not a bad effort for my first go, and I must admit I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Today's tutorial is not the easiest - no real instructions are given but I have always liked a challenge.  It has all the measurements there, and lots of photos, but I'm assuming more than a little sewing knowledge would be required.

It's a very lovely handbag for needlework and clicking on the link I've just given you should take you there.  If you do have a go at making it, please let me know how clever you are!

It's a hot one today and we have already done our outside chores for the day, so while the little ones are watching a movie, I'm sneaking into the sewing room for half an hour.  Can't wait!

Totally Tutorials - Christmas Folded Ornament Tutorial

Don't you love it when you have a programme that works excellently, and they take it away and you can no longer use it?

I'm having that trouble with Livewriter.  Apparently, Windows have discontinued their Live Writer programme and someone else has taken it up.  It's now called Open Source Live Writer and it's apparently going to be bigger and better and blah blah blah.

Which is all very wonderful, except now I can't log in to it using my existing details.  It's not a problem specific to me, apparently if you have a blogger account, you can't use it with the new Live Writer.  Yet.  

So for now, I'm posting this on the (very inadequate if you ask me) blogger webpage.  Not loving it one bit, so please excuse any obvious editing problems - it's not me, I promise!

I spent far too long yesterday trying to work out why my log in wouldn't work, and didn't do any sewing.  So here's another freebie for you.

http://sowelustudio.com/2013/11/25/monday-mini-project-quilted-christmas-ornament/

You see these pleated Christmas decorations everywhere, but sometimes it's hard to follow pictures. If you're like me, a good video is the best at showing how to do the more complicated crafts out there. The very lovely website http://sowelustudio.com/ has a link to a video where you can follow along and make a few of these excellent decorations.  Clicking on the link above should take you where you need to go.  

Thanks sowelustodio.com for the fabulous video link!

Two days in a row!  Yay me!

And now for something new

I’ve tried before to blog daily, it just doesn’t end up happening.  I also spend far too much time on Pinterest, saving those pins of crafts and tutorials that One Day I will get to.  Doesn’t happen that I get to them, and more often than not, I lose them in Pinterest, and can never find them.

So for now, I’m going to try and mix my tutorial fetish with my need to try and blog daily, and see if it works. I figured if I can have them all here, on my blog, I might be able to find them.  You’d hope so, right?

I made myself a little header, which looks very blah but it’s a start, right?

And today’s Totally Tutorial is from a new to me blog called mammamiahandmade, the owner of which I believe is Brazilian.  She posted this beautiful little Christmas tutorial a few years ago, and I’m amazed that I only found it yesterday.

Aren’t they the cutest little things?  The tutorial is not in English, but there is a translate function on the blog, and whilst it’s not the best translation in the world the instructions do work out mostly.

Go visit her blog at Mamma Mia Handmade, her name is Andreia.  Thanks so much for your lovely tutorial, Andreia!