day 258: bi-fold wallet

hey presto ... one hour later and you have a cool, unique wallet :)

day 258 and i am making myself a wallet today as the one i purchased while on holiday is sadly falling apart :(  today's bi-fold wallet tutorial comes from modest maven and is pinned to my sewing diy board on pinterest.

i love creations like today's as they give me a chance to use some really pretty fabric's on something small and very handy.  i chose my fabrics, and used my handy dandy present from santa (a rotary cutter) to cut out all the pieces of fabric, then began sewing and within an hour i was done!

the pieces for today's creation and my rotary cutter (i'm quite proud i own such a serious craft tool!)

the card pockets ready to go

ready for the finishing touches and turning the lining in.

the finished wallet, in action!

outcome: cute, no coin compartment but this is perfect for all my cards.  one day i will learn to sew a zipper into something and solve that small problem.  in the meantime i have a really cool wallet that uses very cute fabric and was not too hard to sew together.  the tutorial was really easy to follow with plenty of pictures so you can't go wrong :)

my thanks to modest maven for the awesome tutorial that has solve my wallet issue without costing me a cent :)  love that, and that it was so easy to put together.

i have heard from both hey mickey (hi michelle) and from jen so their give away boxes will be packaged up tomorrow for everyone to have a REAL peek inside :)  the next give away will be around st patrick's day and i am thinking we will go green :)

day 257: pyjama pillow

the finished pyjama stash pillow!

day 257 and after my mammoth day at the sewing machine yesterday i wanted an easy creation for today.  i found this pj pillow tutorial by virginia of gingercake on prudent baby and thought the concept was fantastic.  i pinned it to my sewing diy board and thought one of these pillows for ben to stash his pj's in would be perfect because he is forever losing his jammies down the back of his bed.

i can't sew circles and while i absolutely adore the one made by virginia, i needed to create something that used straight lines!  i decided a square overlapped pillow would do the job nicely and it sounded easy enough for me to attempt today.  i have added a few more pictures than i normally would of the process below to show you how i made a square one.  just in case you too were scared of sewing circles and wanted to make a square one!

the pillow uses one piece of fabric and one piece of quilters batting and that's it for what you need bar the sewing machine.  as this is for a ten year old boy's pj's i went with an elongated size.  if it was square i figured the pillow would flop down too much so i went with a low rectangle shape. i also added in the batting so that if their weren't pj's inside the pillow would still hold it's shape.

all that is required for today's creation.

start by folding over and then folding over again along the shortest side of the fabric.

iron the folds in place so you have a good overlap, then measure your batting to fit.  make sure you cut your batting 1/2" narrower than the width of the fabric ...

... the reason you want your batting smaller is so you don't sew it in the first seam of your french seams, this means when you turn it inside out your batting won't cause any bulkiness.  it's at this point you realise my sewing knowledge is limited but that the photos help you figure out what i am trying to say ;)

its during the second sewing of the french side seams that you sew the backing in place.

turn out so you have the right side out, the batting should now be sewn in place with the side seams and you are finished

the completed pillow stuffed with the boy peeps pj's!

much better than trying to find the missing top or trunks down the side of his bed :)
HAPPY days, my friends, happy days!

outcome: really cool, and it looks good on ben's bed too, not to mention i will now be able to stop fishing behind his bed looking for missing pj parts!  i love when a creation is pretty to look at, easy to make, and has a useful purpose ... they are definitely my favourite kind!

sincere thanks to virginia of gingercake for the wonderful concept AND the tutorial is really indepth and would be easy to follow if you are into sewing circles!  as for prudent baby let me just tell you, the tutorials and all they offer are completely addictive ... there were so many projects i wanted to try, i didn't know where to start!

day 256: raw edge quilt

my first completed quilt .. quite proud am i!  it's so late it's actually wet in this picture so the colours appear a lot darker than they actually are :)

day 256 and i am bravely going to start my other new year's resolution today ... to learn to quilt.  i have wanted to learn to quilt for ages.  a dear friend of mine showed me how to paper piece for quilting mug rugs and i absolutely loved quilting using that technique.  i wanted to venture into something bigger with today's creation and make a raw edge quilt.  after weeks of not being able to sew because of my torn hamstring, i now feel it's good enough to be able to sew, so this week i am making up for a lack of sewing by doing a whole week of sewing creations from pinterest :)

i am using two tutorials to make my raw edge quilt because they both had brilliant ideas and there were parts from each i wanted to use!  the first one is from bloom, the quilt is stunning but the actual quilting bit looked a bit complicated for my first go.  as such, i am also using kelly's tutorial from the complete guide to imperfect homemaking, she made her's as a gift for her daughter on christmas eve!  kelly uses a simple cross as her quilting and that seemed like something i would be far more capable of doing!  both quilts are stunning and the tutorials are also pinned to my quilting board on pinterest.

because i wanted to get this finished today, and it's a monday so i spend most of my day teaching the peeps, i cut out ALL 42 top squares, 42 backing squares, and 42 fusible batting squares last night.  it took me 2 1/2 hours so i was VERY pleased i did that part last night!

last nights work .. these are the fabrics i chose to make the quilt out of

this is the part i did last night, 42 tops, 42 backs, 42 fusible inners ... a LOT of cutting :)

you then iron the three pieces together and start sewing ... a lot of sewing!  once i had finished that part, i worked on putting seven squares together in a row, then began sewing the six seven square rows together ... are you still with me ;)  once that was done, i used a 1/2" seam and sewed right around the outside so i could rag the outer edge aswell instead of binding the quilt.  i can't bind, it scares me senseless i have yet to perfect my technique so will leave that part for another day.  then it is ideal to sit down in front of some good tv and start cutting all the edges down to the sewn lines ... this take a GOOD while and i saw a number of shows on the food channel before i had finished :)  then it was into the washing machine for its first wash ... at this point i was seriously considering whether my first quilt would come out of the wash still in one piece with the amount of cutting i had done ...

the quilt pieces sewn together ready to be cut along the raw edges. 

cutting along the raw edges

i took this photo of it in the washing machine in case it came out shredded!

and this is what it looked like after two washes!

outcome:  this was a LONG creation day for me at the sewing machine but it was absolutely worth it ... i am totally hooked and if you are a family member it is highly possible you will be gifted a quilt in the future :)  as this is my first quilt, this one is destined for my bed.  all that cutting and sewing was definitely worth the outcome :)  i love it and feel really proud of what i made today ... not perfect, but still beautiful.

my sincere thanks to the raw edge quilting tutorials from bloom and kelly at complete guide to imperfect homemaking, your tutorials got me through my first quilt and have me addicted to yet another craft ... go figure!

and the winner is ....

Congrats Hey Mickey ... send me your address details during this week and i will get the box of goodies out to you :)  If your name is Jen W, please also send me your address, we picked up an extra sheep for you and Luis as well!  Thanks so much for playing along, i had lots of fun putting this box of goodies together, I plan to do a green themed one near St Patrick's Day.

Can you both email me at kahoonz@clear.net.nz  :)

the last sneak peek

this is the last sneak peek at what's in the box of goodies to be drawn tonight, so get your comments in and we will have a winner very late this evening ... why late? well i want to give you as much time as possible and also my creation for today is a quilt and so i will be finished that very late tonight :)

sneak peep number 4 for the new zealand goodies give away

there will be one final sneak peek tomorrow ... or maybe two ;)

ok, here it is as promised sneak peek number four ... if you are new, HI! you have come over at a great time as i am doing a new zealand box of goodies give away :)  all you have to do is leave a comment to enter and we are drawing the prize tomorrow night ... so get your comments in! 

day 255: muffin success with cinnamon muffins!

the finished cinnamon muffins :)

day 255 and i have finally had success with muffins for today's creation.  these muffins from king arthur flour are the muffin version of a cinnamon roll/scroll/thing.  has anyone else noticed the HUGE amount of cinnamon thingees rolling around pinterest?  i have so many versions of them pinned to my recipe must do's board i figured i had better get to and make at least one of them :)  i chose the muffin because i am, if nothing else, determined to conquer this humble baked good.

this recipe has layers and requires three bowls for each of the layers.  i followed the recipe exactly except for adding the cinnamon/butterscotch chips ... i couldn't find any so i added 1/2 a teaspoon of extra cinnamon to the batter instead.  apart from that, the recipe requires no heavy machinery and while it is more time consuming than a one bowl wonder because of the layers, i can promise you it's worth it ;)

the bottom and third layer

the middle layer

the topping

these ones had the bottom layer, the middle layer, and then  in the process of putting the third layer

and finally the top layer is added and pressed in.

and finally the finished muffins, complete with a yummy glaze :)  SO very very GOOD!

outcome: when i read the comments on the website for this recipe i felt sure there was going to be some disaster but this was a TOTAL muffin success.  i was so proud of them i felt some for the real estate agents who had an open home at our place today.  even they left a card to say they were "beautiful" ... yes, people i have had a muffin success ... now i can try out jen's pumpkin recipe during autumn without fear :)

my biggest thanks to king arthur flour for providing me with a muffin recipe i could serve up to people without fear of ridicule!  even if we sold our house today, this would still be my one one moment of the day, hey maybe even the week :)