Psssssst ? need a quick fix??

I am back at work tomorrow so thought I'd get in some absolute last minute crafting and these are the easiest and funnest things to make.

You will need some ring findings

Some embroidery thread or dental floss (dental floss is great stuff to sew with- super strong)

and a few buttons.

If you choose to stack your buttons, sew them together first but not too much or the holes will get to small for you to pass your needle through.

Then you just sew them to the mesh plate and voila..................fashion awesomeness !!!

They won't last forever and your finger may turn green but who cares, they're buttons.

Edited to add: Thanks for the sweet comments this is where I got my ring findings ,

Bead it beads

This is.........what scares me

Ok, Just to let you know I am a shrieker !

That's right, all you have to do is catch me unawares and speak to me and I will be startled and shriek like a big girl. God forbid you should actually sneak up behind me and put a hand on my shoulder- you will be deafened !

This causes endless fun for people, particularly at work. I can just be sitting in my office working and someone will come to the door and just say "Jodie' and arrrrgghhhhh I scream ! It usually scares them just as much!

I scream if someone steps out of a doorway in my own house and I didn't expect it.

I have no idea why I do this and I don't think I was like this as a kid.

This is what scares me.

Her name is Cecilia and she was Jemma's Christmas present.

She used to stand just inside Jemma's door but I had to move her to the other side of the room because she startled me every time I went in there.

Of course Cecilia pops up in the strangest places, the laundry..... the sewing room, always beautifully attired but she scares the crap out of me nonetheless and the rest of the house fall about laughing!

of course all the "big" things scare me as well , like global warming, over population, consumer culture but for actual heart racing, bladder control fright - nothing is as scary as Cecilia .

Still quilting............

I have been plugging away on the quilt in dribs and drabs.

I have pieced two of the three sections and am quilting them very simply.

I am just adding lines around the green and a few random rectangles. The starting and ending and hiding all the threads is what is taking me forever. Half a minute to quilt around a shape and then 5 minutes of knot tying and needle threading.

I have decided to quilt and join these two pieces before I start to piece the last third, simply because it takes ages and drives me slightly batty.


I was disappointed to find out today that the French word for Tampon is......................Tampon. Not even the French can make it sound attractive!

An evening noodle

It is almost the end of the school holidays here and I spent the day at work yesterday , just getting the groove back and doing a bit of preparation.

This little hoodie had been bugging me all day so I was happy to finally get to it last night. It transformed somewhere along the process into more of a duffel coat but I am loving it.

The little triangles are vinyl and the cord is actually plaited DMC thread because I had no black piping cord.

The coat is made from a felted jumper, and of course now I have two more to make for the other boys.

Questions :

The little purses previous are from a Nicole Mallalieu pattern. At first I nearly died when I saw all the instructions , but that is because every little thing is explained. The pattern is really really good. Nicole also has the bigger frames and I am very tempted by the largest one.

Would I have tried them without a pattern - No way Jose!

OPTIMISM - Kids looking in the fridge just in case something they may want to eat has miraculously appeared there in the time since they last looked.

Pottering, doodling, farting, fussing?

I'm not sure that there is a crafting equivalent to the notion of pottering around? Doodling around ? Farting around? Fiddling? Fussing? You know what I mean when you are just half heartedly doing stuff, you know pottering but with craft. Noodling around ? (I quite like that !).

So I have been working on the quilt a bit and generally noodling about in the sewing room.
I like these

but I love these

they are only tiny, about 3 x 3 inches and really good for change or maybe a lipstick if your lipsticky kind of gal. They are a teensy bit fiddly, but after the first one it makes sense. The red and purple need some embroidery. The purple is a wee swappy gift for a very famous person. You might not be able to see the difference, the first three are cotton and the next three are a wool blend.

I seem to be in a noodling kind of mood at the moment - crafting a lot but just waiting for the next big excitement to hit me. That's not to say that noodling isn't fun, it's nice in its own way. I posted about rain on the blog last week and we got some, so now I am asking for my next big crafting adventure to step right up, whack me across the head and get me movin'. Come on .....................

This is......

I joined in the fun of the "this is...." meme over at three buttons.

The first one is "this is my favourite cup"

This cup is a bit of a joke that a friend at work gave me- on the other side it reads "Proud to be a public serving, friendly, book stamping, softly spoken, helpful, well read librarian. " I think the joke was meant to be the "softly spoken" bit.

This cup can most often be found in the sewing room or around the lounge - half full of cold bitter tea, where I have wandered off and forgotten about it.

Miss Three buttons has asked me to come up with a "this is" for next Sunday so next Sunday

"This is ..............what scares me".

It is always like this .

So what did you boys get up to yesterday?

Well first we were having a going out adventure but Jodie got all frizzled and said we have to have a in the garden adventure.

Toby hided in a big pot and we counted him.There were spiders in there but they didn't bite him.

We got on the trampoline and we jumped but Jodie came out and told us we had to be just one person on the trampoline because a boy in the computer called Climber got his tooth smashed out on someones head and he bleeded all over the trampoline but was very brave.

We played lots of games and we got good at basketball.

except when Toby kicked it harder

cause he made it go higher onto the roof

but it didn't matter cause Fletcher is allowed on roofs and he went to get it.

and then Jodie came out and said two swear words and talked funny like Darth Vader and said GET..................OFF.......................THE..................ROOF.................CAREFULLY .............and got the big ladder and Fletcher climbed down.

But Fletcher said to Jodie that he is allowed on roofs and Jodie said "Pigs Bum" which is a little bit of swearing but not really bad. Then Jodie said she didn't want to come into the garden again and we had to play adventures that weren't dangerous and could we maybe see who was the best at basketball. If we played for ten minutes then she would come and watch.

So we played lots of basketball for a long time and then Oliver threw the ball onto Fletcher's face which hurt a lot

and Fletcher got really cross even though it was not an on purpose throw.

and he wouldn't talk to Oliver and he pushed him and then he cried loud

and Jodie came out and she looked at his face and said it was OK and told us it was an accident and fixed it all up

She said it was time to come inside and have some quiet time. She said we could watch a DVDV and then she made popcorn and said we could only put it in our mouths and not up our nose or in our ears or up our trousers and we giggled

so then we watched a dancing show and eated it all and spilt just a little bit but we eated those bits too.

presents and planning

I was lucky enough to win a 100th post giveaway from Amy of My Zoe Bug recently. This is the third 100th post I have won. I think I might have to stop entering.....


She sent me a lovely package. The apple bookmark is already in use and the watermelon tape is earmarked for something as well.

The strap with the rubber ring had me puzzled for a while - the ring is stretchy and you can put it over the neck of your water bottle to carry it when you go out power-walking (ahem).
The card is just awesome , full of little sewing notions and perfect for a crafter. I have tucked it onto my inspiration board.
Thank you Amy, It was a great present to receive. Pop over and check out the cute little paper bags Amy has made.

Now the boys and I are off on a promised "adventure". If I am not back later today could you have a whip around and come up with the bail money for me.

Open to interpretation....

I was tagged by Betty-Jo over at Lino Forest with showing you how my garden grows.
I made two mosaics of my garden, neither tells the full story but together they give you an idea.


Ballarat is on Stage 4 water restrictions and has been for a long time. This means No garden watering at all EVER ! No car washing except for windscreens and headlights and it must be done with a bucket-not the garden hose.



1. The bucket in the wheel barrow - when it is full of water it is too heavy to lift so we wheel it out the back gate, round the corner and in the front gate to water the front yard. Every load of washing fills this large toy barrell twice (no matter what setting the machine is on). Gone are the days of popping on the washing and heading out. We then wheel it around and bucket it out. The soapier load onto the tough plants and the rinse load on the fragile ones.

2. Ahh, this is gorgeous. This is the washing machine hose coming out of the dryer vent

3. washing machine hose into bucket

4. Empty Terracotta pots - no more pretty flowers, we would rather keep the trees alive

5. Cobwebs on the hose. We are not allowed to use it at all.

6. Rain gauge - ha, haven't had to use that for a while.

7. Hose in the front yard - this hose carries all the shower / bath water (not that anyone has had a bath in looong time) to the front yard. Thats the lawn (ha) it is lying on.

8. Water container, used to collect water in the kitchen, when the water is running waiting to warm up.

9. This is where the dryer used to hang, and that's the hose going out the vent. Long complicated insurance type story there. You cannot have a window permanently open to accomodate this sort of thing or it voids your house insurance????? So we just pop it out the vent. Home beautiful or what?

10. The diverter from the shower / bath pipes so the water drips eventually into the front garden. Of course going from a big pipe into a tiny hose means almost no drainage, so the bath can take an hour to empty, leaving behind every tiny speck of dirt. ( we haven't used the bath for 6months or more)

11. Hose from diverter into front yard

12. Aha, this one didn't like washing machine water

13. Nor did his friend

14. More dead stuff

15. Thermometer

So at the moment my garden grows in spite of the heat and the drought and because we have become very very careful with our water.

and this is Barry, he holds 5,000 litres of water, he is about up to the second-from-bottom rung at the moment.

Just waiting for some rain...........

Not to put too fine a point on it.

There is a certain special kind of madness that comes with My mother deciding to sell house and move to this side of town at the same time that Mr Ric-Rac's parents sell their place of 27 yrs.

Lets just say I have never had quite so many conversations about boxes before in my life.

On Sunday we went to Mr Ric-Rac's parents place (about 1 1/4 hrs away ) to pack. The best part of that, was 2.5 hrs of car craft.

I finished off quite a few of these little guys. They are so great. I got the original idea from the gorgeous tutorials over at Moonstitches and made some before Christmas. They were so popular that I whizzed up another dozen on the machine and then just popped them in the car craft basket to finish off as the the opportunity arises.

A couple of late presents for some of Jemma's friends.

Remember murphy? Well when I gocco'd him I made quite a few and later fused on their bodies and popped them in the car craft basket as well. I blanket stitched this guy and when we got home turned him into a handbag.

It was a long day but we got lots done and the kids were excited with some of the "junk" they were able to acquire. They just loved these.........

and Grandma gave me this for safe keeping. This was her first ever ballet dress, made of parachute silk (that's all that was available at the time).

They couldn't afford a sewing machine so the whole little dress was hand sewn by Great -Gran (she of the 99 years not out).

stark raving bonkers

I have decided that there has been something in the water of blogland lately and people have gone a bit bonkers.

Firstly lovely Christine of Aunties Quaint Quilts gave me an award- the “you make my day” award.

Hot on her heels the esteemed Angela of Cottage Magpie awarded me the " I Less-than-three your Blog!

Now this one had me confused for a while but if you look at <3>

The ever crazy-in a good way- Lucy of Lucy Locket recycle her pocket then awarded me the “You're an amazing blogger”

I certainly do not feel I deserve any of these awards but I am very touched and quite surprised to receive them nonetheless.

I tell you there are days no-one in my vicinity “hearts” me, I am not making anyone’s day and am certainly not amazing. The fact that you guys thought that , even if it was only in some split (wine –induced for Lucy) second makes me feel a bit pretty good.

In the spirit of the awards I am passing them on to a few others. I won't go on about how hard this is because I know anyone who has tried to choose a favourite blog at any time knows it is almost impossible.

You're an amazing blogger



Amazing bloggers abound, but I am repeatedly amazed by the amount of projects Lara at Thornberry is able to produce. She gives great pattern tips and is a master of so many skills. Her work is amazing. Sooz at Soozs big adventure because she has more than once made me snort my morning cup of tea out my nose in laughter and always has me nodding along as I read.

I Less-than-three your blog!

Blogs I heart, there are so many. I heart Good-ness for its beauty, Monkee maker for its humour and Stomper Girl because although she doesn't know it but it was her little badge that made me join bloglines - and her blog is full of real life and blood and tap-dancing.

I heart Elsie Marley and Pea soup and Around the traps and my dear friend Annie at Flower garden
You make my day:

Without getting soppy and really not being able to just add every blog in my bloglines folder....I want to say it's you , yes you, everyone who pops in and says hi or just lurks and leaves a little dot on the map (when it is working) that make my day.

I truly never expected that anyone would find this little bit of cyberspace let alone want to pull up a chair and stay for a bit - I am amazed, grateful for and slightly bewildered by every visitor and every comment...

Thankyou, you make my day!

Now I am off to take my big fat swollen head back into the loungeroom where "the quilt" lies mocking me from the floor.