Keeping busy in June

Keeping busy in June

A lot has happened since I last posted which was in April. Writing a post and uploading pictures seems so tedious to me and I feel I'd rather be doing something with that time. But it is also nice to see what I have done on my blog too.

My son recently celebrate his second birthday and we had a small party for him at our annexe. Everything was homemade except for the marshmallows (which no one ate!)

I made the cake at my mother's with a lot of help from her. I have not baked many cakes and it was only because of her that this came out good. Its a doggy cake and I got the inspiration from this site

I also made some fancy sandwiches taken from one very old Good Housekeeping mag that my amma had. They looked nice but were very tricky to cut and also eat. Will not make again!

I got some thrifted T shirts from our relativey new thrift "shops". These are vendors selling ther goods out on the pavement. At least they used to sell on the pavements but have now been given tyhe rooftop of our biggest parking area-Kandy city centre. Its lovely to just walk around and see lovely material from all over the world. They are not greatly cheap but sometimes you do find some great bargains. I bought several shades of T shirts for just Rs.75 each and made the 90-minute shirt as per instruction by Dana of Made. Thew pants are also from her basic pants tutorial. Istencilled my son's name and age and also a figure of an elephant on the T shirt from stencils I cut out on transprent sheets. All in all think it came out just fine.

I recenntly took part in the dishcloth swap organised by Down to Earth blog and received a lovely dishcloth from Helen Wilson in Tasmania (Between nowhere else and Paradise:

The dishcloth was knit from the softest yarns I have ever touched-bamboo. She also sent me a pack of playing cards and a lovely fragrant soap from Tasmania. Thank you so much Helen, you were a great swap partner and I loved getting your parcel.

Here are some things I have made this year and got immense satisfaction making them.

A curtain for the bedroom. I patched up some coloured pieces of mterial and sewed a strip in the middle. At first I thought it was odd but later on it gave a stained glass effect in the afternoons and it looked nice.

this is he medicine carrier/tote I made to take my son's and my medicine from place to place. It looks nice here but tends to flop a little after carrying. But its quite handy anyway. I carry almost allof my son's medicine, his thermometer, nail cutter etc.this is the ball I made from small fabric peieces. The end pieces are rexine. Inspired by Made by joel
Here is the quilt that I made for my sister. It is fnally finished and lies where it was meant to lie-in my sis's guest room.

My dishcloth

Amidst chaos I have managed to "finish" my waffle knit dishcloth for the Down to earth dishcloth swap. Inverted commas, because I want to fancy it up in some way but I have not figured out how.

The dishcloth swap

I am taking part in the dishcloth swap sponsored on Rhonda's blog Down to earth.
I found a simple knit dishcloth on Home spun living and am knitting it in white. I am wondering whether to add a colour in the middle. How to make it into something special? I was wondering about adding a colourful cloth border.
Here is a photo courtesey of Fire Fly Farm
Or maybe not. My computer has slowed down and I seem unable to upload pictures.Anyway it finally appeared. Looks cute. I'm supposed to cast on 38 stitches but in my hurry I have cast 39 and I found this out in my 4th row so I did a 2 together and decided I will keep this for myself if the mistake is glaringly obvious.

Will try and post pictures of my ongoing dishcloth. SO exited to see the end result!

Monsoon in March..

I have been unable to blog for some time due to various events that came up in my life. Out of the many the one that stands out is that my husband went into dengu shock while in Colombo and was admitted to Hospital by his friends. I was there with him for almost a week while our son was in Kandy with my mother. Thankfully things are back to normal now.

I made home made bread courtesey of Rhonda's recipe at Down to Earth

I also made a storage box using the tutorial on Positively splendid. As I couldn't find canvas I used rexine and sewed it in place using DMC thread punching the holes using a punch needle.

I took part in the Great Big stitched postcard swap (3) hosted by Beth Nicholls of Do What You Love and got this lovely postcard by Antoinette Vogt

And this is the one I made using punch needle embroidery. It was sent to Melissa of the Frugal Style. The postcards can be seen at this Flickr site

I won my very first giveaway! It was hosted by A foothill home companion and I won a lovely book by Ashely English of small measures called Home dairy. Thank you Melissa and Thank you Ashely! I am looking forward to making home made butter and yoghurt..

Till next time...

The year that ended

We are experiencing a very wet and dreary period in Kandy and it is quite depressing and scary too. Scary because all around us the hills are coming down along with trees and in some cases the houses which sat on them as well. We were marooned at my in-laws place for about 48hours with no electricity because two trees fell trapping their house in the middle.


This is how I crafted by lamplight:



I am punching a monkey face on to a piece of flannel using the punch needle. I want to use this to make another pair of shoes for my son. I made a similar pair for my next door neighbour's daughter using a giraffe face. Here is the image:



















I also did some cooking. Rather, baking. For our 1st of January Department celebrations I baked some patties using a well tried and tested flaky pastry recipe from an old book I had. They came out really well and were crispy and melt in the mouth quality. Then I made some cupcakes for Dulmini's farewell party using the butter cake mix.

Then I made some home-made, all natural fruit jelly using mango and pineapple for my son. I was worried about the amount of chemicals they add to these shop bought jellies because everytime my son has some his whole mouth is left the bright colour of the jelly. So I made this using 600ml of fresh fruit juice (I stewed the pineapple with some sugar and a stick of cinnamon) and 1/2 oz of gelatine. It was really tasty and my son kept asking for more!



I also found time to make Dulmini a toiletry bag: The material I bought at relatively low prices from a shop where they sell "cut pieces". and the zipper ornament is from a pencil I had. I like the clour combination and the way it turned out. I machine quilted the whole thing and because I didn't have a walking foot on my machine it was a lot of frustrating work. But I love how it turned out and Dulmini also loved it.





This is the quilt top I am making for my sis: It is finished and I am now both hand and machine quilting it. Its a very slow process but I am enjoying every minute of it-especially the hand quilting part. This is a close up of the already quilted part:















Well that's all for now. Just looking at what I have done makes me feel thrilled about the small crafty accomplishments I have made last year and the beginning of this year. Feel very satisfied. My crafts keep me sane and happy and contented :-)

Holiday crafting

Although I had only one off day just before Christmas, I managed to get in a bit of sewing and crafting. I made a paper Christmas wreath and it came out really well. I need to thank Shannon from luvinthemommyhood for sharing it.

My son was in need of some indoor footwear. The weather is rainy and cold here in Kandy (and everywhere else in the country apparently) and he hates wearing socks or sandals inside. I tried elastic backstraps on his flip flops but even that is not worn very enthusiastically.

So I got this free pdf tutorial for Reversible fabric baby shoes from http://www.maked.ca/ and it turned out really well.

Here is my son wearing them. He looks quite thrilled here but it is quite an effort to get him toactually wear them! I think maybe they're not very comfy inside and have decided to make another pair using some soft flannel material.

That's all for the moment. I am still working on my siter's quilt. Plan to make another pair of indoor slippers for next door baby and a toiletry bag for Dulmini, our pre-intern who is about to leave for her internship.

Sewing fever

I suffered from a bout of sewng fever the last few weeks and kept making things, one after the other. First of all I finished the party frock for my niece which I made from some cotton mixed silky material. It was a combination of light pink and cream. I told her over the phone that it looks like strawberry and vanilla icecream and she was satisfied. I decorated the skirt border with small roses made from pink, purple and cream baby ribbon and for the sash I attached 3 of the larger roses I had made last week along with some ribbon leaves.

Some close ups:

And then there was this huge wrap around skirt which I recievd as a gift from India from my inlaws. It made me look like a tent and I thought I'd alter it to suit me. I did do a little altering but then another fever overtook me and I started making covers for the following things I own:

My new CD player, some CDs I own and the new phone my hubs got me for my birthday.

I used an old pair of shorts which I cannot get into now to make a dust cover for the CD player. And leftover scraps from the Indian skirt to make covers for the CDs and phone.:

They are not perfect I know but it gave me enormous pleasure to make these last weekend. I really enjoyed my weekend at home with my son and my parents.

Now I am working on the series of 3 panel paintings that I promised for my husband and also a coverlet for my sister's birthday. I will upload pictures of them one day soon. Till then, tata!