A couple of finishes...

I can't believe it's been over a month since I last blogged! A fair bit has happened in the last 6 weeks, and a few finishes for me. I was rather impressed with myself, learning how to knit and making a baby hat in just a week... unfortunately though I have no proof though, with the hat managing to disappear prior to my getting a photo! I have concluded I'll just have to knit another, and quickly get a snap of it next time!

I've also both started and finished a little baby quilt. I designed it myself, and whipped it up using the machine. I mainly used fat quarters, and as it turns out, it's technically reversible. I completed the quilting by hand with spirals and butterflies :)

I managed to finish off the binding just in time. My final finish to share with you? A very special project I've been working on for 9 months...

My beautiful daughter Sofia Isabel arrived on her due date, at 2.12am on Tuesday 13 August 2013. She's a tiny little thing, with her birth weight being a mere 2.275kg. Alex is a very happy and proud big brother...

I daresay my new distraction will slow down craft progress, but I will try and keep the blog updated as best I can. For now, I'm enjoying these precious moments...

Until next time x

Craft show, stash additions and a start...

Since I'm back in Australia, I've returned to work for a couple of weeks before the baby is born. With this as a distraction I was beginning to forget to blog about my trip to the Tasmanian Craft and Quilt Fair last weekend! How silly of me :)

It was a fun outing with my Mum and Alex to this year's craft fair. We enjoyed looking at the quilts - Alex seemed particularly taken by a couple that had horses on them, and Mum and I got inspired to come home and stitch! 

But what to stitch? While at the fair I indulged, adding a few cross-stitch kits to my stash. Not that my stash really needed adding to, but how could I resist so many lovely patterns?

Of course, I couldn't resist and just had to start one (I figure I've well and truly worked on a few UFO's of late, so I could justify a new start)... I chose to begin with 'Seaside Cottages' by Dimensions. Here is what it should eventually look like:

And here is my progress after a week of stitching...

So tempted to start the backstitch to give definition but perhaps I should wait until I've completed the other houses also. I'm curious - do you do the backstitch at the end or as you go?

Another 2 full-time weeks of work to go, so I'll see how I go with blogging within that time... otherwise I'll definitely be back online after I'm done.

Until next time xx

More batik, a quilt, and a cold change

With only 8 weeks to go (plus or minus!) until bubba arrives, I returned to Australia - more specifically Tasmania - at the beginning of this week. What a temperature change from Bali!! It's been a rather miserable week in terms of drizzle, and the colder climate might take a bit of adjusting... time to get stuck into hand quilting perhaps?!

Before leaving Bali, I organised to do another batik-making class. This time it was a private lesson with the same instructor as last time (Nyoman Deking) but at his home. It was a great experience, with his set-up in his garden, and the lesson fee including a delicious lunch! It was much more affordable than going through the hotel like last time, and I feel I got more out of it. Pak Deking is happy to teach you one-on-one, or he can have large groups at his home. If you're visiting Bali and are interested in this type of experience, I would highly recommend contacting Pak Deking!

Pak Deking had prepared for me a design to match the one I did last time. It was great doing the class again knowing what was coming, and I was also lead through some more advanced techniques!! Here is my design after I had applied the bees-wax (which is step 1 of the process):

 Then then next type of wax then goes over the background areas, then the process of applying the colour. Here is my finished piece:

I'm really happy with how it turned out! And talking about batik fabric... remember how I blogged about going batik fabric shopping when Mum and Judy were here? Well, as promised I've actually made something with some of the stash I bought!! I made a relatively quick quilt - 'stack and crack' pattern - and even machine-quilted it myself! First time for everything I guess :) What do you think of the final product?

All that needs to be done for a finish is hand sewing the binding down - a perfect job for Tassie's cooler climate!!

Until next time x

My latest stitching... little progress though!

It’s been awhile since I posted anything much about my stitching. I have done a reasonable amount of stitching of late, but I’ve also been jumping around from project to project so haven’t felt like I really had that much progress on any one item to warrant sharing. I’ve done a few more stitches to my Anni Down’s ‘Gardener’s Journal’, a few on a Rosalie Quinlan stitchery, and some to a ‘couch companion’ by Leanne Beasley. Not yet sure if I’ll manage to meet my goal of finishing the quilt top of ‘A Boys Story’ before bubba is born, as the stitcheries are slowing me down. I have only finished one since last commenting on this project! Here it is:

I still have 10 weeks (plus or minus) until bubba is born, so maybe there is hope yet… just need to get focused again on the project!

Another little ‘finish’ I’ve had of late is the small birdies I was cross-stitching earlier in the year:

Just needs to be framed and then it’ll be completely done.

I’ve also been playing around with my new Bali Batik fabrics that I showed off a few blog posts back… hopefully I’ll have something to show you on that front in the next few days!

Until next time xx

I rode an elephant!

Yesterday my Mum and her friend Judy headed back to Australia and have now arrived safely back home. The last few days of their visit we jam-packed full of activity - a luscious lunch at a pretty impressive resort on Saturday, last minute manicures and pedicures on Monday, and the highlight: a visit to see some elephants on Sunday. 

The Bali Elephant Safari Park is a conservation project for endangered Sumatran elephants and is located just north of Ubud. It took nearly two hours to get there but it was definitely worth it. First activity of the day: elephant ride!!

Next, we saw the elephant's talent show where they posed for us, painted, showed off their tricks, and even played some soccer :)

All that showing off makes elephants hungry, so next up we got to feed them...

Then it was time for us to eat, so off we went to the park's restaurant for lunch - and just in time! Soon after we sat down it started to pour and didn't look like it was going to stop anytime soon. 

I really enjoyed our morning with the elephants, it's certainly an experience I'll never forget. They truly are majestic animals.

Until next time x

Fun at a Batik making class

While Mum and her friend Judy (another keen quilter) have been visiting, we headed to Ubud to participate in a Batik making class. We booked through the Arma Museum and Resort, which proved to be a lovely backdrop to what was a morning of laughter and fun as we played around with this traditional form of fabric decoration and painting.

Here is my piece of fabric at the start of the morning - the design was already drawn onto the white cotton by our teacher.

Our teacher stretched the fabrics onto a bamboo frame for us:

And then we got started. The first step was to go over all the lines with a hot, dense wax (I think he said it was a bees wax) using special tools provided by our teacher. We had to continuously have the teacher refill the tool with hot wax as it cooled down rather quickly, and if it was too cool it couldn't come out thick enough. Here we all are working away, check out the concentration in our faces!

Avoiding too many 'splotches' of wax was a bit of a task - Mum joked that hers was starting to look like a dog's breakfast, but our teacher kept insisting that the final result would look fine despite any slight errors! The more splotches, the more giggles were had, which for Mum and Judy in particular meant even more splotches. They both blamed their tools though... apparently I had the best, haha.

The next step was to coat the background with a different type of wax, which wasn't as dense as the first and therefore much easier to apply. Then we scrunched our fabric into a ball (after all our hard work!!) to get creases in the fabric for a final effect at the end of the process. Stretching our fabric back onto the bamboo frames, we got started on the painting. We had dark red, light red and orange to play with during this stage. Judy's design had ducks on it, and our teacher insisted she paint them red - Judy wasn't sure about this but obliged him all the same. Unfortunately I forgot to take photos during these stages. At one point I asked the teacher what colour my lady would end up being, to which he said "bright blue". You can imagine my concern! More laughs ensued.

After painting parts of our design red, we were then instructed to go over these sections with more wax - both on the front of the fabric and on the reverse. After this, our teacher took over for the final couple of steps: dipping the whole piece of fabric into the blue ink before putting it into boiling water to remove all the wax.

And here are the final products (somehow the lense of my camera got dirty, so this photo is a bit smudged sorry)... 

We were all pretty happy with our finished batiks, even my blue lady turned out really good! We think we may need to convert our pieces of art into cushion covers down the track.

Our teacher, Nyoman Deking, also does private classes. I had so much fun, and now that I know what the process is I'm thinking I might have to have another turn at making some Balinese Batik!! 

A highly recommended experience :)

Until next time x

Bali batiks

As I mentioned in my last post, my Mum and her friend Judy are currently visiting. We've had some quiet days at home, there's been a bit of Bali belly experienced, and there has been a bit of stitching (admittedly mainly by Judy while Mum and I just chatter!!). But today we got out of the house, headed into Denpasar to the fabric markets. In one particular fabric shops we were like children in a lolly shop... so many lovely batiks at rather low prices - what to buy?!?!

I may have gone slightly overboard in my purchases, but they were all so pretty and so many project ideas just whirled through my head! Here's what I bought:

Hopefully it won't be too long until I'm sharing a project or two that I've made using this lot! Repeat... hopefully :)

Until next time x