PERSONALISED BLANKETS FOR BOYS

Working on some lovely blankets for boys this time. Always love blue and brown fabric together so here is a sample of what I have been making. Girls blankets are in a previous post.
All blankets are available in either my Etsy store or my Madeit store.

PERSONALISED WINTER BLANKETS

These lovely and soft winter blankets are available in pink or blue and personalised as well with your choice of first name. Here's just a few I have made recently.

LOTS OF ORDERS KEEPING ME BUSY OF LATE

Hi everyone
I have been very busy with orders this last few weeks and of top of that my embroidery machine needed to be serviced so hence that caused a small delay. All orders are now posted and I have some down time to catch up on the dreaded paperwork. Above is just some of the orders made recently.

CUSTOM ORDERS

Here's just a little of what has been keeping me busy lately. As well as custom orders I have been cleaning my fabric stash and putting it into order, well as best I can anyway.

ITALIAN SAUCE MAKING 2011

My husband is Italian and every year since I met him we having been making sauce. This year I finally remembered to take some pics so here they are as promised.
Firstly as we use sauce all year round I have found it easy to wash each bottle after using it. They are left for a few days to completely dry inside, then "capped" and put into boxes ready for the next years sauce. These bottles are then simply reused each year!
This year we only ordered 8 boxes - in years gone by we have previously ordered 16 boxes, so we are slowing down and enjoying a varied menu for dinner.
What do you need for making sauce you ask?

Tomatoes (we order the Roma variety)
Machine for processing the tomatoes - these vary greatly in price, ours cost AUD $500
Beer bottles (for pouring the sauce into)
Salt
Beer bottle caps and machiney
Drum for boiling the bottles
Burner and gas bottle

Firstly the tomatoes were rinsed to remove any dirt. They were dried and left overnight simply because hubby picked them up after work.
The following morning bright and early the cutting process begins. (This year hubby started at 5am eager beaver indeed. I slept in made my way into the kitchen around 8am). Small tomatoes are cut in half, larger tomatoes are cut into quarters.
These tomatoes are then passed thru the machine which separates the skin and the seeds (to the left of the machine) and the sauce goes into the large pot. This year we chose to use the old "hand" machine as our electric machine is churning out a very "watery" sauce. Perhaps time to invest in a new machine!
Salt is then added to this sauce, then it is transferred to the bottles via a soup ladle and a funnel.
Bottles are then capped and placed into the drum/s. Once each drum is full (we have three drums here not sure of the size of each) the drum is filled with water and then with the aid of a burner and the gas bottle from the bbq/grill the bottles are then boiled. This process can take a few hours. Once finished the bottles are left for approximately 24 hours so the water can cool down and the bottles are removed and placed in storage. Preferably a dark area in a garage/shed etc.
This whole process has taken from approximately 5am till around 10pm. See how the day flies when you are making sauce!

RAG BAG

With a mountain of fabric to choose from I didn't have to look far for this fabric. In a small box I have some lovely charm square packs put aside for special little projects and this was one of them.
The charm squares are called A Little Romance by April Cornell for Moda. Also required for this project some wadding (I used Matilda's own) some muslin (I used my stash of seeded homespun) and some purple homespun for the lining or inside of the bag. I have also used some additional charm squares for the pockets.
Like my creation and want to make you own? I highly recommend this pattern from the lovely Dede from PeppersAtticon Etsy.

RAG QUILTS

These lovely raggy quilts have been made from gorgeous flannel fabrics. They are so easy to make you could probably make one in day although I took two days to make these. Lots of snipping when they are completed then into the dryer to achieve the lovely "raggy" effect.
These quilts will be available to purchase shortly in my Madeit store.

SEW BUSY

Hi everyone
Have been busy this month with custom orders. Normally January is a little slower than other months for some reason this year that is not the case. Anyway just a few pics of what I have been doing over the last few weeks.

LAPTOP HEAVEN

After 7 long weeks I finally received my laptop last Wednesday. As well as navigating my way around Windows 7 I have also had to transfer lots of files from my desktop (Windows XP) as well as heaps of pictures too.
So now I have to make myself a laptop sleeve as soon as I get time aka as soon as I can drag myself away from my embroidery machine hehe!
So now I have discovered I can tweet and sew at the same time, multi tasking at its best!!!

Newborn Baby Bibs for Chloe

A lovely lady I worked with some years back has just had her first baby a little girl by the name of Chloe. So naturally what did I make? Some gorgeous baby bibs and one blanket which is a work in progress and I can't wait to show you when it is finished.
Want to see more of my personalised bib designs? Look here.

Gorgeous fabrics just arrived

Have a look at these lovely fabrics which have just arrived. I am going to be sewing up a treat and making lots of baby bibs with these. The Hey Diddle Diddle fabric has to be my favourite, which one is yours?
My personalised baby bibs can be found at my Etsy store and also my Madeit store. Any questions please don't hesitate to contact me.

Handmade fabric Santa's

Here are just two gorgeous fabric Santa's I made 2 years ago. Both are made with patterns and gorgeous fabric and the fabric I think is what makes them look soooo good. One Santa is stuffed with polyfill and wool for the beard (sitting on the tv unit) and I also made one each for the parents as well. The pattern is from Picklemouse Corner and is called "Country Santa". The other Santa is "flat" has quilt wadding and looks great hanging on the wall. I like them both what do you think?
Also included some pics of the kids Christmas stockings made using gorgeous fabric, wadding for the middle, fabric for the inside, minkee for the top and yes they have their names embroidered on the top.

The Christmas tree is finally up!

At long last the Christmas tree is finally up. Purchased some new decorations this year and also a brand new star, the old one was leaning way to much.
Love the Christmas skirt? Yes its handmade with lots of lovely appliques, all hand stitched. The Santa is handmade too along with another Santa that hangs on the wall, will blog about them later.

Gorgeous baby bibs - another order posted

Every now and then I find a fabric that is just screaming at me to use for my personalised baby bibs. These two fabrics are no exception. The lovely giraffes on pink is just gorgeous and I still have some left and then there's the Zipadeezoo fabric in pink, very cute but only a small amount left.
This huge order was completed over the weekend and in the post to my lovely buyer. All bibs are Christmas presents and its lovely to see so many handmade gifts being bought online this year!
You can buy these bibshere!

Christmas lilies

Gorgeous Christmas lilies are in flower now and these came to me courtesy of my mother's garden. Big huge flower with loads of perfume and I have had them for just on a week now and there are still a few flowers yet to open! Christmas lilies are planted as bulbs and reach approximately one metre in height.