David Bowie Craft Swap

I was pretty sad when David Bowie died and I'm not really one to get upset about famous people passing away, but David Bowie was one of my favourites. I grew up on David Bowie's music, one of my all time favourite movies as a child (and an adult) is Labyrinth and when I see cats with two different coloured eyes I always refer to them as David Bowie cats.

So when there when I saw that there was a David Bowie Tribute Swap happening on Craftster I decided to sign up.

I decided to make a couple of things for my partner, the biggest item was this bag. I  used the same pattern that I did for my Make a Purse and Fill It Swap, but this time I added some embroidery.

Here's a close up of the embroidery, I'm not completely happy with it but it is the first embroidery I've done in about seven years so I can live with it. 

I wish I could credit the designer of the pattern, but its a freebie and I cannot find the original design again! Anyway it came out a little bit wonky, but I'm happy with it overall.

I lined the bag with this fabric I bought a heap of at fabric-a-brac a couple of years ago as it seemed to work pretty well with the colour and the lyrics on the front of the bag.

I also made a cross stitch (obviously) there are a few David Bowie themed cross stitches on Esty if you're thinking of making one, this was my favourite. The pattern is by Jenny Savage Studio, the original design had the text in red, but for some reason I decided purple was better. Also the fabric is sparkly because sparkly is always better.

I was very lucky and received a pretty amazing package in return which included this button mosaic David Bowie, which I have to share as it is incredible and more art than craft!

I hope everyone's week is going great! I have finally sorted the photos from my trip and hopefully I will be able to do a post about that soon.

Crab Apple Jelly!

This isn't a post with a wacky name for a new dress I made, it's literally a post about making crab apple jelly.

Despite my general fear and hatred of everything kitchen related I've often thought that make jam, jelly and preserves would be fun for some reason.

So when I saw that Wellington Museums were going to have a series of workshops at Nairn  Cottage called "Nairn Cottage Preservation Society" including a workshop on jam making I was pretty excited. I thought my friend Shell would be excited too so I asked her to come along.

I hadn't visited Nairn Street Cottage for years but its an old historic cottage complete with historic gardens. The gardens include an old crab apple tree which seemed to be pretty prolific, so that's why we were making crab apple jelly.

The workshop started out with a presentation from Wellington Museum about food preservation in Te Aro pre-colonisation and then changes to the processes used once Europeans arrived. The presenter was wonderful and I felt like I learned so much about this area I've lived in for years.

While the crab apple jelly was on the boil we were given a tour of the historic gardens, which includes trees from "back in the day" which in New Zealand terms is mid to late 1800s. I realise for my European friends that seems like last week, but in  this part of the world that's really old.

This is the view from the back of the garden, apparently at one stage the council was trying to buy the property to turn into a car park! Apparently the owner at that time (who was a descendant of the original owners) was not having any of that and it became a historical site instead.

 Like I said the crab apple tree was prolific! We were also told that this garden was Wellington's garden so we are welcome to come back a collect crab apples or fruit from any of the other trees if we want to, which is pretty cool!

When  we came back from the tour of the garden the fruit wasn't quite finished boiling so we stopped for a cup of tea. 

Finally the fruit was finished boiling and it was time to strain it and add sugar and it takes A LOT of sugar to make jelly or jam.

 

Finally the jelly was poured into jars for us all to take home - some was more set than others! 

 We finished off our jam making morning by taking a few more photos in the lovely gardens.

 They even had some chickens - I guess that's a thing that settlers had to have I guess!

Someone else in the garden even offered to take a photo for us, its hard to believe this was less than a month ago as its pretty chilly now and most definitely autumn!

Also I'm obviously the short friend! Anyways the jam making work shop was pretty fun, hopefully  we can go to more of these in the future.

Mini Easter Celebration

Rich and I usually take our yearly overseas trip in winter, but this year we've decided to take it in autumn. In fact to save on annual leave (we need to use those four precious weeks so carefully!) we've decided to take our holiday during Easter (also Qantas had a sale on at this time....so....).

I've been excited about the trip for a while, but I recently realised how bummed I was about not being home during Easter as it often feels like the last "holiday" before the months get colder - also bunnies and chocolate are both awesome. So I decided to have a wee get together with friends to celebrate Easter.

We went to the Sweet Cakery and Bakery in Karori - I've wanted to go here for the longest time. This place really works in with my general world view which is "everything cute always".

This place really is solely a cakery and bakery as one of my friends was hoping to get something for breakfast here. You'll only be able to get breakfast if you're ok with cake for breakfast - some people are probably ok with that though.

There were a lot of different sweet treats on offer, but only one gluten free option, which was the salted popcorn cupcake so that's what I went with.

The cupcake may look tiny, but with that much icing on top it was plenty of cupcake for me and the tea was also delicious.

They also make some speciality cakes, my niece would have lost her mind if she saw this Frozen one.

 My sweet friend Joy spoiled us all again with lovely Easter packages, she created all the packaging herself with her crafty magic and filled them with Easter eggs!

I still feel a bit sad about missing out on Easter, but at least I got to eat cupcakes and hang out with some cool people.

Also yes I'm home from overseas and my trip was amazing and full on and I have many photos and stories to share -eventually!

Woodland Creatures Swap

At the end of last year I had pretty much lost interest in doing swaps on Craftster as pretty much none interested me! However, this year there's been a bunch of different swaps I've wanted to do. The most recent package I've completed, that has now been received by my partner was for a Woodland Creature Swap.

I made my partner an adorable hoop, the cross stitch design is another from Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery. The pattern is called "Quilters Love Fall" and I  thought it was a very woodland design - even if the main woodland creature is a human.

I also made a bunch of pouches, because I'm pretty into making pouches right now and I want to use all the fabric (and there's a lot that needs using!).

First up is this little flowery zipper purse. The outside fabric and zipper pull were both fabric-a-brac finds. The wee pocket is made from fabric-a-brac fabric too, its made from the scraps of my well composed dress.

This adorable ribbon was part of the wrapping on a present Alicia sent me, Alicia uses the best ribbon which I hoard in the hope I will get around to using in  craft projects. I actually used some for this project so hurrah!

Finally my partner said she likes bunnies so I lined this purse with bunny fabric that I bought from Fabric Destash Central - I only bought a small amount of fabric, so it was perfect for lining.

The second purse is made from fabric that may be familiar, I picked this up at a recent fabric swap. I picked the fabric up for the sole purpose of using in this swap and I actually used it, rather than letter in hang out in my "cave" for no reason.

This purse is also fully lined with fabric I received in a swap shortly after we moved into the house, so I've had it for a year - so its not too bad in terms of hoarding. Right?

I also made a third drawstring pouch that I didn't take a separate photo of, but it's made from some cute mushroom print fabric I also got from fabric destash central and trimmed with more of Alicia's ribbon. The drawstring itself is ribbon that I've had forever!

So that's it, another swap package! I have to say I was pretty happy with the cross stitch and all the pouches. I love sewing them right now - who wants one?

Newtown Fair Anna Dress

Today is definitely feeling like autumn, chilly and windy - I wore my coat for the first time in weeks. Weather changes pretty quickly around here, last Saturday it was the Newtown Fair and it was about a million degrees.

Rich and I went along to the fair with our friend Matt who lives in Newtown - I only ate ice based food all day because it was so hot.

That's right I had gelato, shaved ice and an ice block. The "Mr Pops" ice block was pretty amazing and made in Newtown which is pretty great.

There were all kinds of performances, musicians and general carry on at the fair - it was pretty rad.

I decided to make a maxi dress to wear to the fair and chose the Anna Dress by By Hand London, 
about a million people have made this dress already, and I don't think I can add much more about it! It was pretty easy to make, but next time I make it I think I will make it from a more stable fabric (this stuff was so floaty) and also work on the fit in the bodice a little bit.

 So the fit isn't perfect, but I'm still pretty happy with it! I know this is an easy pattern really but for some reason I kept telly myself it would be "too hard" for some reason.

The fabric cost a total of $3 from an op shop, its not the nicest fabric to wear, but I kind of didn't want to use the "good fabric" the first time I used a new pattern.

Hope you all have a fun weekend, I have another fair to go to tomorrow with Ria and then another one the weekend after that - autumn is the season for fairs it seems!