My very good mate Sheridan (who is absolutely out of her tree) is organising the 2010 Craft Blog Convention.

It is going to be held on the weekend 15/16 May 2010.  She has organised accommodation at the Radison Flagstaff Gardens in Melbourne and that is also where there is going to be a crafting session on the Saturday.

There also will be a shopping expedition on the Friday afternoon and dinner on Saturday night.  She has created a blog Sew It Together that has all of the details and where you can register your interest.

Lucky for me I actually have some annual leave allocated to me for that weekend (surprising since I had to request the leave 18 months ago).

So YES, I will be going.  I can’t wait!!!

I love my iPhone. I am addicted and I pretty much use it for everything.

I wanted to share some of my favourite crafty apps (applications).

Knitting apps that I love and use are stitch minder and knit gauge.
Stitch minder is a little more than basic row counter. It allows you have simultanous counters like total rows, pattern rows and increase rows. I use it to keep track of how many rows, how many rows of the pattern and how many pattern repeats I have done.

Knit gauge is very cool. I am hopeless at figuring out gauge. Basically knit a swatch, count some stitches and put a pin at either end. Then input the number you counted and move the “sliders” to match up with your pins. It gives your guage for 1,2 and 4 in (also cms). You can use it for row gauge too. So easy.

HiConverter is something that I use heaps. Especially to convert fabric and yarn yardage measurements to metric.  It is a conversion calculator and you can customise it to have all of your most commonly used ones.  It also has a currency converter which will display mutiple currencies at once.  I like it to compare the cost of books on amazon/book depository/fishpond.

I also use pixelpipe to upload photos I have taken with my iPhone to flickr. You can also use it for facebook and other communities too.  It is cool because you can also input the tags and titles as you go.

And Sheridan put me on to bread and milk which is a shopping list. I didn’t like it at first but after spending some time setting it up I have found it to be awesome.

I am a prolific list maker and use todo by appigo to keep my lists in order.  It allows you to have projects and lists of lists and lots of other useful reminders.  Amongst my regular chores and errand lists I have a craft wish list, a craft shopping list and a list of my crafty things “to do”.

Other crafty apps that I use to acess my normal crafty sites are

• Etsy addict
• WordPress
• eBay
• Facebook.

You can find these simply searching the “app store” on your phone or in itunes.

There are also some other sites that are optimised for mobile use which means that when you view them on your iPhone they are reconfigured to be easier to use.  eg Flickr and bloglines.  Basically just type the normal URL into safari and you will be automatically redirected to the mobile site.  I have then bookmarked these pages to my home screen for easy access.

There are so many cool things out there.  Do you have a favourite?

Just for buying some Chocolate I won a new quilting bed for my sewing machine. Well … sort of.

I won a $100 woolworths gift card for entering a Cadbury promotion that I was totally unaware of.

So, I figure I put the $100 towards my next weekly grocery shop. Then that gives me $100 to spend. Are you following so far.

Then I buy myself a quilting table attachment for my machine – worth approx $100.



So a new toy just because I wanted to make some caramel slice. Not too shabby.

I haven’t even made the slice yet. Must do that tonight.  My visitors tomorrow might appreciate it.

While in Melbourne I made a special effort to drive out to Bendigo just to go to the Bendigo Woollen Mills factory shop.

It took almost 2 hours to get there and the weather was shocking for driving. It was 9 degrees when we left Melbourne and almost 5 when we got to Bendigo at 10am.

It is a well laid out shop and I really would have enjoyed myself if I didn’t bring the kids with me. My little boy also thought he was in heaven walking into a room filled with squishy “balls”. So once strapped into the pram, he didn’t stop screaming to get out. And my little girl was overly helpful. So even with the distractions I managed to buy a “shitload”.

This photo is from the bargain room looking out into the main store. I was too embarrassed to get my camera out in front of the assistant.

I bought

3 balls of 5ply colonial in Brown



3 balls of 5ply classic in Smoke (for a new milobo)



1 ball of 8ply rustic cedar fleck to take my total to 4



1 ball of 8ply cotton in latte to round out my collection of BWM cotton

then 4 balls of luxury (2 pink,2 white) for my sister

1 ball of red 8ply for Alison (we must catch up for dinner soon, at least to give you this wool)

and a ball from the bargain room 8ply blue/red for my dad – cause he wants an ear flap hat.

Not too bad. 2.8kg of wool for just shy of $130. I also needed to buy a vacuum space bag to fit it all home in my suitcase.

The colonial brown and the blue/red where the only things that I managed to get from the bargain room. And they weren’t significantly cheaper. I guess like all factory outlets you have to be there at the right time.  I probably would have found and bought a lot more from in there if I had the time and the patience (sans children).





Regardless of my lack of bargains, going was a highlight of my trip. It was awesome just to see all of the wools together and compare colours and to squish the balls.

The kids ended up having a good day as I took them to an indoor play centre (Bendigo Fun Factory)  to let off some steam for a couple of hours before the drive home.

I have been hiding away, busy with work and family and not much crafting.

Last week the kids and I went to Melbourne for a week to have some much needed family time.

We did all of the touristy things and I got the chance to catch up with a couple of old friends and spend some time with my Husband.

Victoria markets was fun and we came home with a bumble bee and a dragon. Both of which now have UGG boots.



Time in Melbourne for a little boy is just the best thing ever. One day was just spent with a met card catching trams and trains in and around the city.

While there we visited St Kilda sampling some yummy cakes on Acland Street and then a few rides at Luna Park.

We also spent a day at the snow at Lake Mountain

and went to the Melbourne Zoo. It was fantastic and probably one of the best zoos that I have been too.

I won’t say that I am glad to be home. I loved it down there and could have stayed a lot longer.

I have always envied Kellie’s quilts and appliqué creations from don’t look now. The motion of colour really appeals to me. She has some fantastic tutorials and the rocket ship pillow is on my to do list.

She has just created a pattern for 4 beautiful pillows and I am dying to make them. My little girl would love one of these (actually all of these) on her bed. I was thinking that I could use some fabrics from the last quilt I made her so they would match.

There is a giveaway of these awesome cushions on her blog.

She also has a beautiful quilt in the latest Australian homespun – called Megs Garden. It really appeals to me and I could see me making it in autumn colours. I best be off to the newsagent today (edit – next week) to pick up a copy.

This is a long overdue post.

Mid summer was very hot here in Brisbane and I was inspired to make my little girl some simple cotton dresses. I got some cheap cotton from spotlight.

I trawled through sewingpatterns.com for what seemed like hours and settled on NEWLOOK 6504

So then I googled the pattern the see if I could find an aussie supplier. You can see where this is heading …. I couldn’t find it anywhere.

Sewingpatterns.com offered the pattern as a download for $2.99 US, so I thought for 6 bucks (with a crappy exchange rate) it was worth a go. ……

It was a fairly simple ordering process. You pay for the pattern and they email you a password. From there you install a simple security plug-in for Adobe reader. Then you can download the instructions and the pattern sheets. The security of the system is that you can only use the same printer to print the patterns, now and in the future.

.

So what you do is print out the pattern sheets on your normal printer using normal typing paper. You tape them together and then cut out the pieces. VOILA there is your pattern. Well that process took fucking hours!!!! This pattern for a simple child size A-line dress was 84 pages. I kid you not. I would hate to think how many pages a more complicated adult pattern would be.

Putting the pages together was easy but kind of tedious. In the end I only joined the pieces that I thought I might use in the future. Which was silly because since then I have made almost every view of the dress. I also used a paper cutter to trim the sides of each page to make matching the edges up easier.

After I got the pages together I traced the size I needed on Grease proof/baking paper.

So a lot of work for a simple pattern. But a pattern that I only paid $6 for that I couldn’t get from my local spotlight.

I MIGHT do it again but only as a last resort and only if I couldn’t buy the pattern locally (within Australia).

So the final product …. perfect.

I have made 4 of these dresses and I can make the simplest one with just under 1m of fabric in just under 2 hours. So for  1 lunch time nap and $4 thats great.

I don’t generally make new years resolutions. I used to. I remember years gone by of lists to lose weight, exercise more, eat well, quit smoking.
I don’t think they ever worked and only led to trouble. I often felt disheartened when I couldn’t live up to my own goals.

BTW I did quit smoking but not because it was on one of these lists.

So I have made a new list, a crafty list.  A list of intentions and ideals. Things that I feel that are important, things that I have learnt to keep me on track.

• neatness counts
• pins work
• do what I can, when I can
• be productive and patient
• try and work on projects until completion - but work on what calls me and screams the loudest
• try something new, learn new techniques, challenge myself
• keep tidy
• buy for projects not for stash
• use what I have
• don’t waste time on crappy projects with cheap materials and dodgy tools
• it is ok not to finish something and throw it away
• I don’t have to blog everything

and most importantly

• life is too short to take things seriously

Thankyou for reading my blog / my “show and tell” / my what I made and did and the life of  my little family.  I imagine the year ahead will be bigger and better with brand new obstacles and challenges.

Happy New Year.

Donna

I am well behind on my this is posts.

Last week dees suggested showing our favourite book.

I have been thinking about this for a long time. I have lots of favourite books and lots of favourite authors. Once I find an author I like I tend to read everything they have written. At the moment I am a fan of James Rollins and I love Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels.

The book I use the most and couldn’t live without is my readers digest “Your cooking questions answered”. It is an Australian book so it uses common ingredients and metric measurements. It is sorted alphabetically and has lots of good information and lots of everyday recipes.



I have used it to find out how to ripen avocados quicker, how to make fresh pasta, used a gravy recipe

and also how to figure out if eggs are fresh.

We have been living in this area for over a year and it was only in the last couple of weeks that I ventured into our local library and got myself a library card.



It is not a particular big or inviting library but what I have discovered is their online library catalog.

All of Brisbane city council libraries are linked and you can easily get books from their other libraries for just a small fee of 55c.

It has been awesome. I have been placing books on hold online like a madman. Then a couple of days later – I get an email and I just pop in and pick the book up.

Over the last couple of weeks I have managed to get a hold of all of these crochet books.

We have also borrowed dozens of kids books, a few recipe books worth mentioning (Gordon Ramsay – Kitchen Heaven and Ice Cream) and a few quilt books too.

It has been a great discovery.