Scaring the birds off !

We've been seeing a lot more birds in my backyard lately.  Not the nice variety.  The Indian Myna variety.  Squawk squawk.

AND

They've been sitting on my washing line and crapping on my washing.  And leaving poop on my pavers.

ENOUGH!

A quick google was in order "how to scare birds off my washing line / discouraging birds / birds pooing on my washing".  These finally led me to someone who suggested googling "bird scarer".  wow.  did that pay off!   Apparently all you have to do it discourage them by hanging some bright mobiles and a picture of a hawk.

 

I laminated a sillhouette image of a hawk on A4 paper and stuck it on the water tank which the birds will see as they're coming in to take up position.

I  made a mobile out of old cds stuck together so they're rainbow sides are out - always beautiful - and a bit of fishing line.  They spin and catch the sun.  I had nowhere to put them actually over the washing line so I hung it in a tree beside the line and formulated big plans for a wire that would run over the top of the line with some hanging every few inches or so.

But you know what?

NOT ONE BIRD HAS COME SINCE.

The outcome was absolutely instantaneous !

Stoked

lore

Enough sewing... lets bake biscuits, ahem, cookies

Vegan cookies that is...

My favourite cupcake book of all time has been joined by a cookie book: Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar.  So I'm going to turn all yankee and call 'em cookies for this post.

Anyway,  I already had picked out Mexican Chocolate Snickerdoodles to make 'cos they sound unreal.  But Daughter2 chose NYC cookies.  The picture looked like a Neenish Tart and I thought - OH NO I hate them!  But thankfully it just looked like one.

Its some little flat pancake of a biscuit with icing on the back.
OMG they smells so good.  This is the three stages of biscuit [can't help myself!] making: dough on the tray/ finished baking / flipped to cool.

  And the book has been christened with my first annotation.   

Time for icing.  But thanks to impatience and stupidity - it's too thick.  And far too sweet.   Another annotation required.

And as ever, kids get off on baking. 

Verdict:  Yum.

Hubs enjoying one with a coffee.  And Slinky eyeing off the activity wondering if its anything she'd like.  Alas, no.

So if you fancy some great bikkies away from the norm, and with the added bonus of being dairy free and animal friendly, come to my house!   I'll invite you to share a cuppa and an NYC black and white cookie.

Stay tuned for the snickerdoodles...

Kanzashi flowers - filth wizardry style !

Thanks to this fantastic craft blog  filthwizardry we made some cute kanzashi flowers to alleviate this boring rainy [and cold] Boxing Day and to brighten the house.

our kitchen towel was the wrong kind :( and sagged

but the baby wipe ones were UNREAL

 

I had to do me a frangipanni - even though its rainy and cold - it is supposed to be summer after all

Still have to finish these off with beads/buttons in the centre as they are damp and I just couldnt wait to share.  Get out there and make some.  But use the filthwizardry tip and staple without the extra fold - I mean this is a quick kids craft.  This tip makes the whole process quick and problem free!

We had great fun, and I can see myself making heaps of the frangipannis and making a garland.

YAY

Bring on the sunshine

l
x

Day bag by Nicole Mallalieu

I love Nicole's patterns, I love her site (full of tips, techniques, things to buy...) and I love her blog.

Latest pattern I bought was the Day Bag because I wanted to learn the zip technique.   She suggests making the bag first without the zip and then tackling the zip because its tricky.  OK I'm good for that.

Bought some fabric for outside and lining but couldnt decide which was for which so got 1.1 metres of each (pattern recommends 70 cms fabric / 40cms lining). Spotlight cutter was generous and I ended up with a little over 1.2 each.

Copied the pattern onto interfacing:

Pinned pattern to fabric only to find I could fit all the pieces I needed for 2 bags at the 65 centimetre mark. So just HAD to make use of the rest by pinning out the pattern again.  Got 4 bags out of the two lengths!  Because of my frugal fabric use I couldn't do the pattern variation with the flap, and only one of the bags gets to have the zippered gusset.  The scraps that I have left don't leave any room for mistakes.  Lucky I'm a confident person!

The first thing I did before I started was to calibrate my machine to her unique 13mm seam allowance.
I traced the edge and seam line onto interfacing and worked it into my machine until I got a spot that I could line up with and give me a consistent allowance.

 

Then I made the bag!

 

 

Its cute cute cute.

Next time I'd...

*  Make sure I put the zip the other way around because you have to open it right to left rather than left to right.

* Put the feature ring on the right hand side of the strap on the front of the bag, so its at the front when the bag is slung over my right shoulder.


Both these hiccups are my silly mistakes, but it does pay to stop and think a bit instead of going bang bang bang, oops.

and I think I'll try with pellon next time.

Bag pattern and instructions get full marks though, its a great shape and size, and there were no head scratching moments at all in the construction process.

Thanks Nicole, you're the best !!

l

The u-handbag competition

Having a lot of fun with entries for this competition.  You have to send your photo of a bit of extreme sewing.

There have been loads of very creative interpretations of the theme.

C'mon win a sewing machine !!

The competition is here:

http://u-handbag.typepad.com/uhandblog/2009/12/win-a-sewing-machine-the-uhandbag-holiday-giveaway.html

We've submitted three photos.  You can enter as many times as you like.  Must put your photo in the flickr group and must comment on the post.  GO FOR IT!

our pix are:

fabric basket / fabric bucket - my own version

My first attempt was a bit like this one http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=204022.0 but i didnt like the way it wasnt really firm on the base.  And who wants to be faffing around with linings and outers, I just wanted to have as few seams as possible.

So I was playing around with making a base, and I thought - hey - how about delving into that pile of cds that i'm too 'green' to throw away and wanted to use for a project one day..

ta da, the fabric basket ala compact disque was born.  2 seams (albeit one fiddly round one).

and again

I quite fancy posting a tutorial, as I've got out my calculator and revisited high school maths (well the pi bit, anyway) and worked out how to make it so there's no annoying bit at the end of sewing on the base where you go, dammit - too short, or dammit - too much fabric.

And you get to use up those pesky discs that lie around the house

l

Baby quilt

This project grew out of a 3 pack of charm squares.  They turned out to be a bad investment, they were cheap at, I think, $4 for each bundle of 40 charms.   I made the disappearing nine patch but the fabric was so stretchy and 'strandy' that the end result was a dog's breakfast.

Enter a little creative appliqueing and lots of sewing reinforcement.

I think I managed to save the day and its a present for a baby whose mum is very earth mother so would prefer something a little homespun rather than perfection, so perhaps all's well that ends well.

But the moral of the story is to only buy good quality fabric.  Cheap = cheap !