Category Archive for ‘fabric’ at me, my camera and my life.

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Archive for the 'fabric' Category

uni, a dairy fairy and japanese magazines

Published

Helen

on March 2, 2006

in Uni, cool things, fabric and random life

. 0 Comments

Well Uni started on Monday and I am in the midst of getting back into the hang of doing my readings, taking notes and trying my hardest not to fall asleep in class and trying not to strangle a certain professor and making some new friends.

Due to some staffing changes at work I am now back in the dairy and freezer where I belong playing the role of a “dairy fairy”. I was trained at my previous supermarket in the dairy but then due to a staffing change I was jolted out of the dairy and into grocery before getting a spot as a meat packer which I quite enjoyed. However when I got my job with the company I am with now, they only had night fill roles open so that is what I took and since then I have been moonlighting as a dairy fairy when they have needed me but alas I have always had to hand my “wings” back after a couple of hours but not any longer! Nothing like lifting milk-crates and filling the ice-fridge to give the arms a work-out Yay for the Dairy.

A while ago I mentioned getting some Japanese patchwork and quilting magazines out of the quilt guild’s library, well I scanned them in the other week and uploaded them to Flickr last night so for your inspiration goodness I share with you

The first set come from a magazine called Patchwork Club. Click on any of the photos to be taken to it’s gallery where there are more scans.

The next set come from Patchwork Quilt Tsushin, again click on any of the photos to be taken to it’s gallery to see the other scans, these come from seven different editions.

Hope you enjoying looking at the pages I have selected as much as I do

A Bag for Jemma

Published

Helen

on February 15, 2006

in fabric and random life

. 2 Comments

A ducky little bag for sweet little girl, this bag is going to Tracy’s daughter, Jemma who loves cats

The bag was made using the Jordy Bag Tutorial at Crafster.org which is a slightly different construction method to how I made Rachel’s bag the other day. I created the shaping of the bag by first pressing the connecting lines between the four corners and then pressing from the corners up to either side of the handle which creates the sloping sides

I went with Mum to Queensland Quilters last night for the sole purpose of browsing the library for interesting books to check out and I came home with 6 issues of Patchwork Quilt Tsushin and 1 issue of Patchwork Club. All of which are chock full of great bags and very nice quilts

shoes, ornaments, a bag and so much more.

Published

Helen

on February 13, 2006

in cool things, fabric, paper and random life

. 5 Comments

The other day I picked up a pair of Source Stream sandals and they are just pure bliss, I have a hard time with shoes from wearing a 9.5 but mostly finding shoes that are always comfortable and can wear all day. Well these certainly fit the criteria and they are so funky as well - the images on the straps are sunflowers

I have been after some new work pants for a while now but finding good work pants is hard as well. Pants need to be loose fitting, breathable, big pockets etc so that I can actually fill the shelves instead of standing like a bean post, well I found a pair in the most unlikely shop. I was in Mountain Designs and saw some travel pants, which fitted all the criteria - black, loose, pockets, breathable. Score! What makes them even better is that they are a 55% Hemp/45% PET blend, dude my pants are a bong! (yeah I know that the hemp they grow for fabric is different to the pot kind but still), the best bit? They were reduced from $90 to $40, score!

How cute is this little cake stand from Mikasa? It is 5.75″ wide and 4″ high, perfect for taking photos of a single slice of cake or some biscuits

Two more purchases, as my family and friends know, I have a very good relationship with Christmas Ornaments, we go together like Vegemite and cheese or milk and milo, so when I saw these in the Vileroy & Boch store at DFO, nothing was going to stop me taking them home with me. They are from the Scandinavian Christmas 2004 series, which was the second year in V&B’s Christmas round the world annual collection, Russia was 2003 and America was 2005.

This is a bag I made for a friend who loves cats and is quite fluent in Japanese, so what better than a bag based on a pattern in a Japanese craft book and Japanese quilting fabric? Idea for the bag is from this book (the middle one on the front cover) - ISBN4529040011. Crafting Japanese entry for the book.

I love Pandani! They were such cool plants to play with whilst in Tasmania, the way the leaves formed corkscrews was just so cool, so here is a layout I did on them earlier today

Well that is for the moment, I was in the middle of making a bag but I ran out of thread so now I am playing in photoshop and chilling out to the crazy/beautiful soundtrack.

Ribbon Log-Cabin Block

Published

Helen

on February 8, 2006

in cool things, fabric and random life

. 4 Comments

I borrowed this gorgeous book out of the library the other week called Vintage-Style Quilts by Flora Roberts and one of the projects in it was a ribbon pin cushion which was constructed on a similar method to a log-cabin block, inspired by the idea, I grabbed some cotton, lots of ribbon and got started. The block is about 8″ square.
The elephant in the middle is from ribbon that was used to trim the curtains in my bedroom and the others are 3/8″ ribbons that I have collected in the last year or so from scrapbooking.

I have no idea what I will do with this block, Mum has suggested making 12 tiny ones to go round the edge and turn it into a cushion cover or to make it the feature of a bag. I have no idea what I will do other than sit and look at it Ideas?

In other news
Readymade Magazine now has a blog.
Check out these awesome lights from brightlights-littlecity.
Uncooked - cards that well make you laugh like others have not before.
Lastly, perhaps you may have noticed that I have my very own favicon for my site -

most of my loot

Published

Helen

on January 14, 2006

in fabric and yarn

. 3 Comments

(click the image to see it larger)
1. 1970’s and earlier Wool Kimono Fabrics from a must see store in Tasmania called Wafu Works at Kinsgton Beach (20mins south of Hobart). It is harf to believe these are wool, they are so light
2. Modern Japanese Quilting Cottons
3. Ultra Funky and Bright Wollen throw/snugle/picnic rug from the Waverly Woolen Mills outlet store in Launceston
4. Knitted blanket from the Glen Orchy Tip Shop/Recyling Centre - Perfect to felt
5. Little roll of Japanese wrapping paper from the 50’s or 60’s
6. Modern Japanese quilting cotton FQ picked up from the Salamanca Markets
7. Patons Alpaca Yarn - for a beanie of my very own
8. Panda Myth Mohair Blend, an utterly gorgeous colourway and weight which was reduced to clear at $2 was $8-10ish, I have… 14 rolls of the stuff to make a cardigan
9. Vintage Kimono Cotton, with the most gorgeous print on it
Other Loots
10. A bottle of South Country Cyder
11. The new Interweave Knits Crochet magazine
12. A copy of Yarns, a brand new Australain mainly knitting magazine but it does have a nice smattering of Crochet in

I think that is about all I picked up along the way, well other than all the gorgeous cherries that we were gorging on

Christmas Ornaments Part 1

Published

Helen

on December 18, 2005

in creating and fabric

. 3 Comments

Well Christmas is fast approaching and in exaclty one weeks time, Mum and I will be drawing close to Dubbo on our 2 day drive to Melbourne.

These are three styles of ornaments I have made so far, little plum puddings (which I need to find some tiny holly to add to the top), Christmas Trees and Stars inspired by Jenny at All Sorts.

You can click on the image to see the ornaments larger. The Christmas Tree is by far the easiest to make, just 2 roughly cut triangles for the tree and a thin folded strip of felt for the trunk. The tree which is shown here I have done little bullion stitches, which Mum says look like little gold grubs :), on another one I have done quite primitive cross stitches. The Plum Pudding probably takes the longest time due to the cutting and stitching on of the icing. I did not like cutting out the stars but they do look so cute especially as I reduced the pattern that Jenny provides so some of them measuere 2″ across instead of the usual 4″, so cute

That is ornament installment part 1, I have a couple more styles that I am working on currently and most of my present shopping is done

Machine Made Patchworks Bag

Published

Helen

on December 11, 2005

in fabric

. 3 Comments

One day a few months ago on a craft blog crawl, I came across Crafting Japanese, a blog which collects details on Japanese craft books and the items that people have made from them. I looked and looked and picked the books I liked best and ordered three of them from YesAsia.com

After many days of thumbing the pages, to select what to make first, I decided on a bag from the book Machine Made Patchworks.

Machine Made Patchworks Bag

Most of the fabric is William Morris Prints by Rose and Hubble, maybe this will be a Christmas present for one of the girls …… or maybe I will keep it for msyelf

Book Details
ISBN - 457911020X
Easy Links to buy the book - Yes Asia or Amazon Japan See what others have made at the entry for this book at Crafting Japanese - The Japanese Craft Book Resource.

Blossoms and movies

Published

Helen

on November 26, 2005

in TV and Movies, fabric, paper and random life

. 3 Comments

As some of you may know I have recently had no real interest in scrapbooking but yesterday I printed off some photos and then this evening I sat down to have a little play and popped out this one. As long as I don’t spend too much time chatting to people on Messenger I am a relatively quick scrapper, as an image will pop into my head fairly quickly after selecting photos and cardstock and finish most pages in about 30 minutes.

AS part of my anti-boredness campaign, I rented a few DVD’s out the other day, I picked up Kinsey(which was so not what I expected), Crazy/Beautiful (oh the Romeo and Juliet story line set in teen angst, really liked this movie, seemed so real, the turmoil that Carlos had between his family and Nicole, etc etc good stuff and well Jay Hernandez the actor playing Carlos is pretty nice looking), Beyond Borders (really liked how this movie spanned the three events over the period of ten years and well the scene in the beginning where Clive Owens comes barging in just sets the whole scene) and finally Napoleon Dynamite(I got this out after hearing so many people rave on about it but I have to say I didn’t really think it was much of a decent thing, sure it was different to most films but still so not what I felt it was cracked up to be).

The Patchwork Tree had a sale today so I popped on down to add to my stash, I picked up some Amy Butler Charm fabrics as well as some more Japanese imports, oh I wish I could find that company’s website as I would be in heaven.