Words and Pictures

A little bit of winter time green around my house...

More Words and Pictures at Meet me at Mikes!

B x.

Pincushion Tutorials & Patterns

Pretty pincushion by Craftapolooza

I've just signed up for a pincushion swap at Swap-bot... I guess I have swap fever or something, but anyway, I thought I'd just compile a list of all the pincushion tutorials I came across cause someone else might want them.

tiny pincushions at how about orange

square patchwork pincushion at paper.string.cloth

round patchwork pincushion at creative kismet

offset square wrist pincushion at planet june

round wrist/cuff pincushion at keyka lou (I think I'm going to make this one!)

simple handmade pincushion at purl bee

crocheted cupcake pincushion at spud & chloe

felt hedgehog pincushion at urban debris

felt apple pincushion from living creatively

Goodnight!

B, x.

PDF pattern, bug swap & a giveaway!

Astrid, a personal fave that I had to send off this week to live with Imogen!

I've been having all these great ideas lately, and instead of letting this one pass me by, I thought that I'd just come right out with it and see what people think...

I'm making a PDF pattern of my little bugglings at the moment, it's taking a bit of time because I am lazy in this department, and because I'm going to get my Ma to use the pattern just to make sure all the instructions make sense (she doesn't know this yet, so if you're reading Mum, thanks in advance for being sooooo supportive!), but when I do, I plan on uploading it as a freebie... and I want to celebrate a little by getting a group together to do a swap, I want to see what everyone else comes up with, and I think it would be really fun, and interactive and good! And if you sign up for the swap, you can have the pattern a while before I upload it to my site, cause I'm usually lazy about that kind of stuff too. Plus, having a bit of a deadline will motivate me to keep going with my pattern making!

If you'd like to join in on the bug making fun, leave a comment or email me : bee_cah@yahoo.com.au, both are fine, but make sure that you leave an email address so that I can get back to you if I need to remind you that it's on. I will be posting more about this as it approaches.

Also, (if you've made it this far through my meandering idea post) if you join in, I'll pick one lucky bug maker to win something super cool, a new toy, that is top secret... and it's not a panda! It's something completely different and completely ok for boys and girls alike!

And please don't be put off if your sewing skills aren't amazing, bugs are easy to make, I promise, so long as you can sew a straight line, you're pretty much going to be ok!

Let me know! I'd be stoked if this thing happens!

B, x.

EDIT: I've gotten some emails asking if this is an international swap... and the answer is YES! So feel free to join up no matter where you live!

Good question people!

2ND EDIT: I've gotten quite a good response to this, so much so, that I'm now about 1/3rd of the way through the pattern, so I'll leave it open until the end of the week, and publish a list of players/swappers on Friday Evening (Aus time), and the details of how/when it will happen. Feel free to email with any questions or concerns, and if shipping international is a pain, I'm happy to pair you up with someone closer to home, just let me know!

Pincushion Tutorials & Patterns

Pretty pincushion by Craftapolooza

I've just signed up for a pincushion swap at Swap-bot... I guess I have swap fever or something, but anyway, I thought I'd just compile a list of all the pincushion tutorials I came across cause someone else might want them.

tiny pincushions at how about orange

square patchwork pincushion at paper.string.cloth

round patchwork pincushion at creative kismet

offset square wrist pincushion at planet june

round wrist/cuff pincushion at keyka lou (I think I'm going to make this one!)

simple handmade pincushion at purl bee

crocheted cupcake pincushion at spud & chloe

felt hedgehog pincushion at urban debris

felt apple pincushion from living creatively

Goodnight!

B, x.

Some great flickr groups for inspiration!

Enjoy!

Raspberry Clafoutis

I made this yesterday, and it's a beautiful rich, but light desert that is kind of like custard but also like cake, kind of like cheesecake in texture, but not dense... try it, and see! You don't have to use raspberries, the original recipe I had, used cherries, and I think it's a traditional dish made in France during cherry season (don't quote me on that though!), I used bottled cherries once and it was delicious, but I think blueberries would also be lovely, as would apples!

You need:

I cup caster sugar

3 cups of raspberries, fresh or frozen is fine-- I used frozen

1 cup plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

4 large eggs

1 3/4 cups of cream

1-2 tsp of vanilla essence

grated zest of 1 lemon

icing sugar for dusting

To make:

Preheat oven to 220 degrees C. Butter a medium size baking dish, sprinkle with 2 tbs of caster sugar, and spread the raspberries in the dish. Bake for 10 minutes, there may be a lot of juice--do not discard!

In a bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.

In a large bowl, use an electric mixer to combine the eggs and remainder of caster sugar (medium speed is fine). Add the flour mix in 2 additions, alternating with the cream in one addition. Add the vanilla and lemon zest and stir to combine... it smells fantastic by this stage!

Pour the batter over the raspberries, sprinkle a little extra caster sugar on top, and bake until puffed and golden brown, about 30-35 minutes. Let cool slightly and dust with icing sugar before serving!

This is mine cooling! Look at all that raspberry goodness!

B.

My Creative Space

Well... my creative space has been the focus of my life this week. Since I got home from the markets I have pulled a lot of things apart around here, and I think the influence of The Toy Society has been good, I have given away so much stuff, stuff I was hoarding for ridiculous reasons, like maybe one day, I might do more uni on something that interested me briefly seven years ago... so my creative space has been a crazy, chaotic mess of everything I love, or did love, no matter how fleetingly. I've also been suffering from this adherence to how my apartment should look, like have the dinning table in an orthodox spot, Joe pushing his sculpture equipment out of the way, me having an extra bed set up just in case, and the way my fabric was organised was atrocious, I would neatly pack it all up and put it in the cupboard, and it would be out and all over my desk within ten minutes of starting a new project.

Sewing space in the middle of all the pulling apart.

So I was thinking, I need to admit who I actually am, how I work, and build my space around that. The dinning table is now set up for screen printing, not eating, and so people who come over will know that I eat at the coffee table... so what. I got rid of all the education textbooks I used last year in the dip ed, because someone else can use them, and I'm not, no matter how many hundreds of dollars they cost me. I moved the stereo, which sad to say I rarely use these days, and replaced it with all the beautiful, big, hardcover art books Joe and I own, which had been sitting at the top of the linen cupboard, neglected for just over 2 years now. Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, Whitely, Dada, street art, Russian Expressionism, here we come. And one of Joe's beautiful landscape paintings has taken centre stage in the lounge room. This place is looking more like a workspace with some living areas in it, and that's what it really is. We don't ever really just sit around and chill out, we are always making, reading, looking at pictures, testing, doing, and so we need to be able to use every square inch effectively.

And it feels good! I'll take photos when everything is sorted.

Hope Friday is good for you, and remember to check out all the other creative spaces at and through Kootoyoo!

B.