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a pretty pillowcase

April 22, 2010 By corrie 18 Comments

I had picked up this alphabet panel in SL a while ago and it was so cute, not good quality but cute! As you can see there is a nice big dirty mark on the fabric, something you often find there when things have been walked over, chucked around, etc. On the weekend I actually went to buy 2m of pink minky for girly blankets and there were some big dirty marks over the first metre so I said please cut after the marks, the lady kept saying are you sure? they MIGHT wash out, I could do you a discount if you want to take the chance! no lady I’m thinking, its dirty and has dark green gross bits all over it, cut me 2 clean metres!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, back to my panels. So I found an unopened cheap ruffle pillowcase in the cupboard that I had wanted to use for another project and set to work. This is so easy, takes you no time at all and the trickiest thing is staying neat around all of the letters when you do your stitching. I can’t wait to see keira’s face when she comes home tonight……because a girl can never have too many pillows on her little bed.

Filed Under: sewing

from my kitchen this week

April 21, 2010 By corrie 12 Comments

there has been a bit of cooking going on lately, one of the perks of being over my morning sickness! I made another delicious pear flan and I have to say much better the next day so make it late at night, pack it away and cut up and enjoy cold the next day…delicious!

and last night I was in the mood for my macaroni cheese, perfect comfort food and everyone loves it except retro daddy who is over it! What is your mac’n’cheese recipe as maybe I can try that on him? mine is so simple but love to know yours….this is a very bad photo of very good pasta!

2Tbsp butter/marg
2Tbsp flour
2 cups milk
1-2 cups grated cheese

I melt my butter and add in the flour, when it starts to bubble whisk in the milk and keep stirring till it thickens. Turn off heat and mix in cheese till it’s all melted in and add to cooked pasta (one 500g bag is perfect). I love mine with lashings of black pepper too.

and then today I did a batch of raisin oat cookies (recipe here), delicious! And my cookie jar is overflowing so the recipe goes a long way and perfect to keep the twinnies entertained while miss keira does her ballet class this afternoon. Thankfully there are no rules of disclosure so I don’t need to tell anyone how many hot cookies I had with my cup of peppermint tea

these will truly feed an army…..and the cute little placemat was whipped up over the weekend with some very cute fabric from my store!

Filed Under: dinners, everything else

macaroni cheese?

April 20, 2010 By corrie Leave a Comment

What is your macaroni cheese recipe???? I’m thinking maybe I need to broade my horizons and try a different recipe! Here is mine which I have been making for absolutely ages but to me it’s just soooo good. And when I’m pregnant this is a regular on the table

1 bag pasta
2Tbsp butter or marg
2Tbsp flour
2 cups low fat milk
1-2 cups grated cheese

– melt margerine and stir in flour, when it starts to bubble whisk in the milk and keep stirring till sauce thickens. Turn off heat, add cheese and stir till cheese is all melted and add to your cooked pasta. I like to season my cheese sauce with pepper and then add more pepper just before serving (not to the children of course!)

so what is your recipe?

Filed Under: recipe

quilting with Sarah Fielke

April 19, 2010 By corrie 4 Comments

In more exciting news for Notebook Magazine’s The Craft Room, the June timetable is now up here with new crafts including papercrafts and also quilting with the very talented Sarah Fielke. This is the one and only quilt I made from her first book….

It’s a one day class where you come empty handed and go home with a small quilt or cushion. Beginners come and learn everything about quilting and more experienced quilters can work at their own pace with Sarah’s expert teaching. I’m looking forward to learning how to do the nice big hand quilting with perle cotton…as in learning the right way not my self taught could be dodgy way!

Book your tickets for June here…..

Filed Under: notebook magazine, quilting

on the needles

April 19, 2010 By corrie 9 Comments

oh dear this is embarrassing! somehow I started 3 knitting projects within a week…first up was the pixie hat from vintage baby knits, so cute but taking me like forever to knit up in a 4ply (gorgeous yarn from celia’s basket)

so I moved on to the mason dixon baby kimono in some melody, also lovely and the colour sapphire is just gorgeous.

then on sunday night while watching underbelly (I’m seriously underwhelmed by this version, yawn, my grandma was right…just switch it off!),I decided to make my own pattern for leg warmers…so far so good. Cast on 40 stitches of 8ply (I’m using luxury) on a set of 4mm dpn’s, grab a safety pin if you can’t find your stitch markers! Once you’re past the rib (k1,p1) you’re on fire so hopefully by Sunday I will have finished these babies and will give you the pattern.

and I promise not to start anymore knitting projects as I’m running out of room for WIP’s!!!!

Filed Under: bendigo, knitting

quickest apron in the world

April 18, 2010 By corrie Leave a Comment

yes, this could officially be the quickest and also the cutest apron you will ever sew! I used 90cm of fabric (I have a growing tummy, if you’re skinny use less), cut down the middle lengthways and one piece is your front. The other piece you’ll use part of for your waistband and ties. Hem all 4 sides (I fold over a little bit, press then fold over 1cm, press and sew).

Make a cute waistband from 4 1/2 inches of fabric from the other half of the fabric, fold down the centre and press, unfold and fold the edges into the centre line, press and sew down the folded over edge.

Sew to top of apron front (I also did a topstitch on the top of the waistband), fold over the edges of your waistband to the back and I used some cream tape as my ties for the back and sewed with a zig zag stitch! Keira and tillie spent a while pointing out their favourite girls….and it’s too easy! I’ll make one for katia and we can look japanese cutesy at our markets.

Filed Under: sewing

pear flan

April 17, 2010 By corrie 15 Comments

more cooking than craft going on here lately!! I thought I’d try the yummy pear flan recipe that I found on a new blog I love called frills in the hills! She’s a mum of twins, loves to bake, and lives up in my part of sydney so of course I love it! Here is my flan before it went in the oven…

and here is the after…..we had family drop in while it was in the oven so talk about perfect timing! It just did us for afternoon tea and dessert and everyone loved it!!!!

Very easy recipe and I love that there is no butter in it as I feel I can justify more slices…not that there is anything left! Definitely give this recipe a go and thanks melissa for a great recipe!

Filed Under: baking

Sushi uncut

April 16, 2010 By corrie 18 Comments

I haven’t made sushi in years!!! But my little darlings almost send me broke with the amount of sushi they eat each week so I thought I’d give it a go and I’ve got to say….a winner!

All you need are nori sheets, some avocado or fillings, rice (I just used medium grain which I had in the pantry), some sushi rice reasoning and a mat which I already had floating around. The great thing is that everything came from the supermarket so you have no excuses to not make your own! Everyone ate it all up and there was a teeny bit of rice left which I put in some inari wrappers (I get mine at tokyo mart in northbridge, the best japanese supermarket in town!!!).

Now most of my lovely readers know that I put nice pretty pictures on my blog…but today I thought I’d show you the behind the scenes! No last minute hair tidying, no posing and a flash going off in the window! I just was laughing so much as I was taking these thinking no way are these making it to my blog….

but since it’s crazy here most of the time and it’s been a crazy week….why not share…..a taste of life at my house!

and yes, guess who had the joy of cleaning up afterwards!!! But I hope to hear about your sushi experiences soon, it’s just so easy….

Filed Under: cooking, recipe

what I should be doing today

April 15, 2010 By corrie 10 Comments

Today I should be catching up on laundry, washing the floors, getting all orders out the door and making some cookies for when my tummy starts rumbling about an hour after I’ve eaten……

what I am doing is using some of the the lovely new fabric in my store! It’s not fair to be shipping it out the door and not using any!!!! As I suspected, green apples and little red riding hood are my top sellers but keira wants a dress from the cute little girls so that is on my agenda today when the babies nap. Plus I can do that while a load or two of washing is on!!!!

rest assured all orders are now done and by the door…in fact since writing this post I’m back on the computer doing last minute work on the June timetable for The Craft Room….wait till you see who is teaching quilting in Sydney…I can’t wait and will be at the classes with bells on!

Filed Under: everything else

learning to sew

April 14, 2010 By corrie 6 Comments

well obviously I know how to sew, but today Wynona and I got to learn how to use the Brother NS-30 which is the machine that Brother has so kindly supplied for The Craft Room. They are all brand new and opening up all the plastic made me feel like I was personally getting a new machine. It’s such a cute machine, I’m embarrassed to admit we learnt a few little tricks and it was similar to my own machine but I did miss my little thread trimmer! man I love that feature on my machine.

Melanie from Brother came out to teach us and I think she may have a dream job, taking home new machines to learn on, teaching people how to use the Brother machines, going to all the craft and quilting shows….but she is evil as she’s made me want the Brother QC-1000 and at over $2000 I better be a really good girl for Santa this year!

and tonight I’ve set up a facebook page so you can keep up to date with the latest classes, projects, teachers and news from Notebook’s The Craft Room and a flickr page to share your latest projects with other readers and craft lovers so come and join in! phew, off to give keira some well deserved cuddles now……she doesn’t like seeing mummy go off to ‘work’

Filed Under: brother, notebook magazine, sewing machine

cute fabric overload

April 13, 2010 By corrie 8 Comments

I ordered these fabrics last year…..and they are just as cute as I remember. Sadly all the russian doll and kokeshi fabrics were sold out before my order which is so disappointing but there is plenty of cute in this order to keep everyone happy! Here are my favourites……little red riding hood (this won’t last long)…

crisp green apple fabric….

cute girls….oh I see aprons, cute skirts, cushions and bags out of this fabric which I also have with a lovely fresh green border too

there’s a hint of russian dolls in this cute fabric which I also have in another colourway! these bright fabrics are so perfect for little people as there is always so much going on!

In the store now, just go here !! And if you’re coming to my sewing classes at Notebook there will be a nice range of them to sew with!

Filed Under: everything else, sewing

30 seconds of fame…..

April 12, 2010 By corrie 9 Comments

Since becoming a stay at home mummy, I read my local paper religiously, to find out what’s going on in the area and this morning I was very keen to read the paper to see my face in there……you can read the article here

picture courtesy of the Manly Daily

For once I actually like the photos ( a different one was in the paper) which is good but honestly do you think I could have folded the quilt a bit better! we took a lot of different photos and were moving things around here and there and holding them and I must have put it down thinking it was out of sight….wrong!!!!!!!!! The other lovely lady is Yogi who runs sweet dreams cakes and makes the most beautiful cakes and cookies you’ve ever seen! I first met her at Magnolia Square when I went last year and now see her all the time at ballet! You won’t be doing any daggy old sugar flowers in her classes.

Filed Under: everything else

it’s live!!!!!!!!!!!

April 12, 2010 By corrie 14 Comments

one of my babies is now live!!!! Most of you know I’ve been working with Notebook magazine on The Craft Room and now today, sydney ladies can book in for classes in May! Just go here !!! If you click on each class each teacher’s bio comes up with their picture…..awwwwwww. Can I just say that I give the magazine a boring old excel spreadsheet and they make everything look pretty!

So I’m doing beginners sewing every Thursday except May 13 when the lovely Wynona of Ivy Designs is stepping in for me as I’ll be in Melbourne for sew it together!!!! I’ll also be running them in June too so just watch out for the next timetable which will be released in May!

Brother have very kindly supplied brand new sewing machines for the classes and now in my spare time I need to get interstate off the ground…because as you know, I have a lot of spare time! But I’m a born organiser and love a good challenge! And yay to Notebook for such an amazing concept and lineup of classes and teachers!!!!!

Filed Under: everything else

darla pj’s

April 11, 2010 By corrie 19 Comments

Retro daddy set off this afternoon on his run leaving me to clean up the back room, in other words tidy up my sewing area! So I did that quickly (ok I partly cleaned my area) and moved on to some cute pj’s for my miss keira. It’s cool at night but not cool enough for winter pj’s…

so I took some darla fabric, vintage size 4 pants pattern (I love my old stash of patterns because I can always find a basic pattern in there and they were cut and ready to go) and a $4 tee and set to work

1 hour later and little miss has cute pj’s! At first she wasn’t so keen and asked me to make her a tail and colourful boobies so she could be ariel the mermaid (apparently her new sister is going to be called ariel too….we don’t know what we’re having yet but keira won’t entertain the idea that it could be a boy)……somehow I managed to bribe her with some mummy sparkly lip gloss and now she loves them…

and she’s such a poser! We took about 30 photos but these were the cutest and funniest!!!!!! ok now I need to clean the floor out the back, cleaning my sewing room always seems like wasted time!

Filed Under: sewing

first knit of the season

April 9, 2010 By corrie 31 Comments

well it’s been a week on the needles and finished this morning!!!! And there is nothing like popping it straight on your model in her pj’s for some instant satisfaction! As soon as I put this little shrug on tillie she said ‘pretty’, awwwwww.

This is the baby shrug from Simply Baby: 20 Special Handknits for Baby’s First Two Years, also available free here. Debbie Bliss patterns tend to run large so I made the 12-18 month size in an 8 ply rather than 10 ply and it’s a perfect fit for my little miss tillie.

I used 2 balls of Melody in mauve from Bendigo and ohhhh what a gorgeous yarn! A dream to knit with and at $4 a ball I’ve snapped up a second lot because I know it won’t last long. It knits up beautifully and feels so so soft! Perfect for knitting for little ones.

I’ve set myself a goal of making each of my darlings a little knit this winter so one down and two to go!!!!!!!

I was also hoping to get myself a little cardigan done too but it might be too ambitious with my current workload so we’ll see how I go…..

Filed Under: bendigo, debbie bliss, knitting