Weekending

Still a way to go to get to the Trig Point

Cross section of a Ponga Tree Fern Trunk that has been sawn off.

Parataniwha

Signs of Autumn

•  bright fungi around the base of a Pohutukawa tree,
•  moss which always reappears in my driveway at this time of the year.  Though I have to admit, I did think that this would be an awesome masculine quilt design and colour combo.

Happy hexis

• one more row to piece together, then it's onto joining the rows .

Mother's Day

•  hiking the Mt William Walkway with The Scout, Miss B, Mr J and a few other scouting families. We hiked through bush,  up and down farm paddocks with sheep and cattle. Luckily the views out from the top were lovely.  The ice creams we got at Pokeno at the end were good too.

Hoping you have all had a fabulous weekend too.

Road Trip Case

My Mum is off on her Big O.E in a few weeks.  Seven weeks travelling around Britain and Europe.

As an early Mother's Day present, I decided I wanted to make her a Roadtrip Case, to keep her ipad mini, charger cables and notebook safely together in one place when she wasn't using them.

Using  some pretty floral fabrics from Kate Spain and a perfectly co-ordinating dot print  (all from my stash I might add) I set to work.   The instructions are clear and very detailed, however, I would recommend reading the pattern two or three times before starting to make this. 

I didn't use canvas for the interior stiffening, I found  Legacy extra firm stabiliser at Spotlight and decided to use that instead.  It definitely gave it a nice firm finish and shape, and I like to think a little extra padding too.  I also decided not to use velcro (hook and loop) fastening on the pockets, instead using small elastic hair ties and some purple buttons from my stash. and I didn't split the pleated pockets into four, rather I kept it as two, so there was plenty of room for a note book and her cables.  I did consult with Mum slightly on this, and she decided she didn't want the handles on her case, so again I have just used a pretty button and elastic hair tie to keep it closed.

This was the first time I have made continuous bias binding,  and I used this tutorial to show me how.  I machine sewed the first fold of the binding, it was a little tricky around the curves and something I definitely need some practice at, then hand stitched the rest down as I would on a quilt.

Some useful tips  for me to remember should I make this again:

• when sewing vinyl, to stop it from sticking to the sewing plate, place a piece of paper under- neath it.
• hand baste the zip and zip bindings to the vinyl, before machine sewing it in
• use lots of pins to hold the pocket pleats in place and I also used a few tiny stitches at the top of the pleats to hold them together.

I love how this has turned out, and hope that Mum enjoys using it on her travels.  And yes, I would make this pattern again.

Mother's Day

I had a nice weekend with my mum staying, and yes I did get a cup of tea in bed for Mother's Day, as well as these gifts.  Flowering Cyclamen from mum, Spotlight voucher from Miss B (guess there is a shopping trip in my plans this week) and this funky candle was made by Mr J at cubs.

Now to do some baking for school lunches and a lasagne for dinner.  See a mother's work is never done.