TropicalSoup

What we did today...

(the height difference really cracks me up...for 2 people who came out looking and weighing and measuring almost exactly the same, they are certainly growing into themselves. And I am starting to even get people try to correct me when I say they're twins; trust me, I was there, ha!)

...our two smalls went off into the big wide world of primary school this morning. It was awesome. And a little nervy. And giddy-inducing. And deserving of extra last minute hugs and kisses. And completely tear free...for all of us! (I was convinced I'd have a wee blub once I got back to the car!) They are so ready for this next adventure, and I can't wait to see what they make of this amazing new episode...

I think they're a little happy about the whole thing, non?

(hahaha, and I just starting tearing up writing this!!!)

Scrap Attack

My scraps have been getting out of control, and for a while now I've been meaning to do something to consciously use them up, but bar grabbing a bit out here and there for other projects, they've just sat. And multiplied.So when I saw Stitched in Color (I feel like I need to physically restrain myself from inserting the missing *u*, ha!) is hosting a Scrap Attack Quiltalong, it seemed not only sensible but completely imperative for me to sign up! Now, I just need to come up with a quilt idea to whittle away at this mighty pile...any thoughts?

 

Funny story - I was halfway through writing this post and suddenly needed to lay my hands on a particular box of trim for reasons unknown but mostly because I simply couldn't remember having seen it the past few months (does anyone else do this? Get a wild hair - and completely distracted - midtask? I have a sneaking suspicion it's always been a trait, but I swear motherhood has exacerbated it beyond the...oooh look, shiny things!!!) Anyway....(what was I saying about getting distracted?) in my hunt for the trims, I found the rest of my scraps - a box about half the size of the big one in the pic above. Hoo boy, Scrap Attack couldn't have come at a better time!

The Button Balloon Ride

 

This is a little wall quilt I just recently made as part of my ongoing bid to build up a creative arty wall in Cole and Immy's bedroom (pictures soon...after frames have been bought)

It came about as a result of one of those happy accidents in the studio late one night. I had this sweet little set of buttons and I wanted to use them for something, so I started playing around, and a balloon happened. I quilted the background fabric by machine and added some whimsical hand quilting in a thicker thread and big stitches to add definition and (hopefully) a sense of movement. Then I stitched on the wee buttons, wove the little basket, attached basket to balloon, et voila!I added a brighter binding since I was concerned that otherwise it would look too washed out, and the beige walls around here demand something to draw your attention!

It's just wee - the whole thing is 40cm x 32 cm (about 16x13 inches) - and is the smallest thing I've ever quilted, bar coasters and potholders. But can I just say - I can totally see how people really get into doll quilts (the modern arty ones) - they're such a fun, quick fix, and an opportunity to experiment without the time and fabric (and whatnot) investment required of larger quilts.

 

Fun fact - this is the first quilt of mine to ever be on a wall, ha! It even beat Ti Kouka, which was always intended as a wall quilt...but I have plans....

 

~~~

I'm joining up with Skip to My Lou's Made by Me Monday, and The Southern Institute's Creative Me.

Knitted owlet - a tutorial

Do you ever go on those *what if* journeys, where you start thinking about one thing, and that one thing leads to another and on and on and before you know it you have designed and made 5 different knitted creatures and you're not quite sure how you got there, especially since you didn't start out contemplating knitting or small creatures, but you just know the trip was fun? Nope? Just me then...ha!

These sweet little owlets are a result of one of those trips (well, one of the results, I'll share the others too if you'd like!) As I was knitting the first one (Brown Owl, I'm original like that!) I kept thinking of Hoot, the puppet owl presenter of a children's show here in Australia - he has a heart on his chest, and that inspired these hearts.

It then occurred to me that some of you might like your own wee owlet, so I knit Blowfish (the silver dude) to double check what I had done, and so I could write down a pattern of sorts, and here it is - enjoy!

(I have written the pattern assuming you have some knitting knowledge, but please let me know if you'd like more detail about something...or if I make no sense.)

A note about yarn, needle size and gauge: gauge doesn't matter. yay. Use any yarn along with a needle 3 sizes smaller than the yarn recommends (ie. if the yarn is sport weight and recommends using a 4mm/US6, then use 3mm/US3). Alternately, you can also use your yarn doubled, and the recommended size needle.This means that the size of your owlet will vary, but for reference, Brown owl is knitted with doubled light sportweight yarn alpaca and size 4mm needles, whilst Blowfish is made with a single strand of chunky yarn (also alpaca) and size 4mm needles as well - Brown Owl is 2.75" tall and 2.5" wide, and Blowfish is just a smidge more.

 

 

Knitted owlet:

Wings (make 2)

CO 3 sts.

Rows 1-2: k (the wings are worked in garter stitch)

3: k1, kfab, k1 (4 sts)

4: k1, kfab, k2 (5 sts)

5-7: k

leave live stitches on needle/move to a needle holder (a quilting sized safety pin works well here!)

Body

Cast on 12 stitches with dpns and join in the round.

Rounds 1 & 2: k

3: K2, kfab, k3, kfab, k3, kfab, k1 (15 sts)

4: k

(pop in a stitch marker around now to mark the beginning of the row to make things easy)

5: kfab, k4, kfab, k4, kfab, k4 (18 sts)

6-10: k

11: k2, knit 1st wing into body (see next line), k4, knit 2nd wing into body, k2

{To knit the wing into the body, hold the wing stitches in front of the body stitches in your left hand, and with your right needle go into both the first wing and body stitch, and knit them as one - think: 3 needle bindoff/knitted-in pockets etc. When you get to the end of the wing, just revert to ordinary knitting of the body. I like to knit in the the tail of the wing yarn for a few stitches to secure}

12-18: k

19: bo/leave on needles to kitchener after stuffing.

Glossary

BO - bind off

CO - cast on

k2tog - knit 2 stitches together

kfab - knit into front and back of this stitch

 

Turning the tube into an owlet:

1. Draw up the CO row of stitches and secure.

2. Stuff.

3. Close the top seam so that it is a long line (not a drawn up circle like the owlet's bottom) so that the edge starts and ends above the middle point of a wing (not fron to back as if there were a mohawk!) Now stitch that hole shut by you preferred method - either ladder stitch the BO edge, or kitchener it together. If you don't know what Kitchener stitch is, check it out here - it's a great trick!

4. Pinch a little of the *point* created at each end of the top seam, and make a small stitch that holds the pinched point about 1/3 of an inch either side - this makes the *ear* (though you can certainly leave this step off if your ears already look prominent!)

5. Add eyes, a beak, and maybe a little heart so nobody confuses him for the Tinman. Et voila!

 

~~~

If you make one (or a parliament!), I'd love to see - you can add them to the Tropical Soup Flickr group (how terribly presumptuous of me!) Thanks, and enjoy! you can see more lovely creations over at Our Creative Space.

~~~

A note about this pattern: it's my free gift to you. Free is free, the pattern belongs to me, but you're welcome to make owlets for yourself, for charity, to give away or sell. I only ask that you acknowledge the pattern is a Gawjus design by Tropical Soup. Thanks!

 

Happy Australia Day!

I sparkly heart this gorgeous little native tree that is next to our driveway...

I hope you had as lovely and relaxing a day as we did on our first Australia Day. We didn't end up getting to any of the events around the place, but it was so nice just to hang out together. I got some fun things done, and have a wee treat for you tomorrow!

The *No Longer Christmas* quilt

Well, it's finally done! (yay!) And it's not even February yet...ha!

Once I was about halfway through with the quilting I started to feel the love again for this quilt - and just as well, because for a while there I felt like I was hardly on speaking terms with it. You may recall that I had a few hiccups with deciding on just the right quilting style, and (of course!) when I was exactly one-third of the way through quilting these dense straightish lines, I thought of the *perfect* quilting design. I guess I'll just have to make another...I certainly wasn't going anywhere near contemplating ripping all that stitching out!

Dense straight line quilting seems to be one of my fallback styles at the moment. It's very labour and thread-intensive, but I do love the texture. I was trying to make the lines a little less regimented and a little more organic, but I don't think I got there...it feels like the slightly wonky lines are more drunken monkey than they are organic freeform design. Hmm, will have to work on that.

I used a thin red-and-white stripe fabric for the binding, and resisted making bias binding since I figured there's already so much diagonal movement in the quilt that a vertical stripe on the binding would be a nice change. I used Rita from Red Pepper Quilt's amazing tutorial to practice attaching the binding completely by machine, and it worked really well - there are a few areas I needed to remedy, but on the whole it is a great technique. I still love hand stitching on the binding, but it's nice to have options, especially when time is short.

 

The quilt measures around 50" x 60", though it hadn't been washed at the time of taking these photos, so the crinkly goodness is still to come. Now just to wait until the festive season rolls around again!

 

I'm also linking up with Today's Creative Blog's Get Your Craft on, The Southern Institute's Creative Me and SkiptomyLou's Made by You Monday

 

Sweetening up the coaches...

 

Cole and Immy spent a few days over these Summer holidays at a holiday programme run through their beloved gymnastics centre.They had a great time there - to the point where they didn't want to leave at the end of the day. Unfortunately, they also had a really tough time with me leaving in the mornings...6+ months of being home with mama and little outside interaction in the form of wee friends and regular preschool (like they were used to in NZ) has taken its toll, and there's a bit of separation anxiety. I'm sure it's something that we'll be able to gently work through, but there were a couple of tough mornings involving tears. Mine included (but I managed to keep them in until the kids couldn't see me!) And the coaches were so lovely and kind and understanding, that I figured we needed to find a way to say thanks...

I saw a cookie gift idea on Pinterest (here) for a Valentines treat, and decided to modify it a little for the coaches. This is what I did:

I split the cookie dough into 5 balls once it was made, and added a little food colouring to 4 of them - Immy had overseen the colour choice (much!) earlier in the piece. I then rolled each ball out and used a star cookie cutter to make a gajillion little shortbread stars. (there were also a few hearts as you can see - a special request from my heart loving wee lass)

I used the recipe in the link above, but ended up annoyed at myself for not using my tried and true shortbread recipe, as the cookies seemed a little bland (that may have been user error on my part since I seem insistent on baking at 1am!!) Rather than make more (1am, remember?) I melted some dark chocolate and partially dipped each star.

And then it was just a matter of packaging them up - 5 stars in a small cellophane bag, tied with twine, and a wee label attached. The kids coloured all over a piece of A4 cardstock with every colour crayon in a random patchworky manner until there was no white remaining, and then we used a scalloped round punch to cut out tags. A single hole punch, a little writing, (each coach's name on the front, and *you're a star!* on the back. Cheesy but hopefully forgivable!) and voila!

Next time I think I'll type up the message and names on the cardstock pre-colouring, but I didn't think of it this time round until after the punch was being well used!

Because there's no such thing as inappropriate owl humour!

(source)

Why bookshelf builders moved on from cardboard boxes....

 

...guess we should really get ourselves organised and off on an Ikea field trip! As much as I adore the Leaning Tower of Pisa, I'd really rather not have a cardboard replica in my studio!

*That* Christmas quilt

 

I'm not sure exactly when the official end of the Christmas season is observed, but I think it's safe tosay that this quilt didn't make the cutoff for this Christmas, ha! (I've started humming the LampChop tune *this is the song that never ends* around it now, oops!)

It did get basted in there somewhere, and since this picture was taken, I have started the quilting. 5 times, in fact. And been reminded of my need for a new unpicker 4 times. (the 5th lot of unpicking can wait until morning, Ugh) But, this little beastie is not going to escape - it  will be quilted, it will be bound,  it will stop giving me grief, and we will become friends again, whether it likes it or not! Because I'm reasonable like that...