Last night we got the video camera out, and made a video about this Christmas crazy patch wall art! I should be able to show you the video tomorrow, assuming all goes well with the upload (which sadly, is never guaranteed!). Here’s a little sneak peak…

If you don’t know about Brown Owls, then I suggest you pop over to the blog and read up on this lovely initiative by Pip.

I’ll let you know a little secret, I was pretty sick with worry when starting this thing. I mean, I was sitting in the park by myself waiting for people to turn up. I didn’t know what anyone who was comming looked like, and as far as I knew, they didn’t really know what I looked like. So I got stuck into my embroidery, looking up occasionally to see if anyone was wondering around aimlessly looking for a group.

Melissa and Steve turned up, and we chatted and crafted. It was a lovely afternoon, and next month we’re going to have it at their house, so we can use some sewing machine and make some pretty birds! If you’re on the Sunshine Coast we’d love for you to come along next month!

Craft group on Tuesday was quite fortuitous. You see, a while ago I had taken Nanna to The Patchwork Angel, where we saw people making the French Roses quilt out the back. We thought it was quite splendid and so Nanna bought the pattern. Everyone at craft was pretty keen to have a go at making a square (no one needed an entire bed quilt), but when we got there Nanna suggested we make a table runner out of them!

I’d been dreaming of what sort of table runner I wanted for a few weeks now, and it was going to be my next personal project, so for her to suggest we make one at craft was perfect timing, hence the fortuitous craft day!

You can see below my colour combinations, but make sure you click through on the links at the very bottom to see some other colour variations!

Other colour combos:

Pastel Colours, Bright pinks and oranges, dark vintage colours, bright colours (I LOVE the quilting on the first border in this one)!

1. My herbs in the garden are not dead! In fact, they have been alive for two whole weeks!

2. I am using the herbs and other home grown garden goodies in my cooking!

3. I’ve been featured on an etsy treasury!

Row 2, Collum 1

4. This makes two in my short etsy lifetime!

Row 3, Collum 4

5. Our trivia night (complete with buzzers) was a success last Saturday night!

6. My craft room is nice and clean!

7. Luke has been cooking yummy Jamie Oliver dishes, and they have been YUMMY!

8. I have been on craft gawker again!

here and here

9. I have nearly made it to 10 reasons!

10. My creative 365 is up to date!

Here is the blog of the woman who created these cute little things!

Anyway, I have two families, plus a little green one, plus a blue one Nana made me for my birthday! They are a range of sizes, and I want to make a rainbow of them. Below is the start of my rainbow of owls. I need to go and buy a few more pieces of fabrics in colours I don’t usually buy. I started these last week when Naomi and Jo came over for some craft. It was really nice to craft with other people. That’s one of the things I love about craft group.

Usually at nights I just do things by myself, and find satisfaction in people from the internet loving my creations (that would be you all!), and while that is definitely still the case, it is fun to have people to talk to while I make things! Does anyone else feel like this? To be honest, I have this hope that my children might like doing arts and crafts as well, and then we can all play together and make fun things.

The start of my new rainbow of owls!

Tiny little owls!

Well, I haven’t been for quite a few weeks because of sickness, uni, and work, so this week I finished off some projects that were well overdue! This little bag below is one of the things I just finished off. I’ve filled it with the embroidery projects I have to finsih (there are WAY too many of them in there!!) When I was making it I even had a play with some of the cute decorative stitches. Definitely want to get myself a nicer sewing machine with stitches other then straight and zig zag!

I’m thinking of putting up a little “how to” for this bag, so stay tuned for that soon! One of the things I love, love, love about craft group is the fact that we all use the same pattern, and end up with such beautifully different pieces in the end! It’s mostly just from the colours we choose, but also the emblishments that each person adds!

I’ve also NEARLY finished my angels… I sewed their little wings together, and now I just need to decide if I want to do anything else to them (I’m thinking no…, what do you think?).

I’m not sure if there is a pattern for these angels or not… possibly from a Homespun magazine… I will try and find it for you if want, just let me know in the comments, or send me an email (talia.carbis (@) gmail.com).

Last week the girls made the CUTEST little owls from Claire‘s pattern. You can buy and download the pattern here- it’s only $10 and they are quite fun to make! I’m a little way behind with mine- I just have a half finished one. I’m using a grey and purple sock, so it will be super cute! I think I might make some for a friend who going to have a baby soon(ish)!

ALSO I’ve made a fan page for this blog (and my other hobbies) on facebook! So if you’ve got facebook then go check it out and become a fan!

Talia Carbis

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This is where mum and I went yesterday. We both walked in and we were like, “*H)(&%*. This. Is. Heaven.” Only my mum doesn’t swear so her “*H)(&%*” was symbolic of the mind-blowing-ness of walking into heaven.

But seriously. We stood in the front door for way too long, just taking it all in.

This is how the day went: Stop at one stall and star at craft goodies and say  “we’ll never get through them all at this rate, we need to just go throught them all the stalls and then come back to the ones we like best”, Stop at the very next stall, buying slightly over-priced craft goods, and say, “wwe’ll never get through them all at this rate, we need to just go throught them all the stalls and then come back to the ones we like best”. REPEAT.

We did get through all the stalls, some we loved more then others. We also did a bag challenge run by Bernina. We had the front flap of the bag and we had to use these scraps and create something on the front. We had to leave the ‘bernina’ logo uncovered. I thought mine was quite clever- incorporating the red bernina logo into the rainbow. Apparently no one else did though.

These are some of the goodies I picked up too:

And my visual journal got a  bit of a workout. I wasn’t copying down things I saw, but you know how it is when you’re around such inspiring places, you see one craft and think “oooh! That would go well with XYZ I wanted to make” or “That technique would be perfect on the Very Hungry Caterpillar quilt I’m making” etc. So yeah, I wrote down ideas and thoughts and brands that I wanted to look into a bit more at a later stage…

…My first ever quilt/wall hanging!

Now I just have to hang it!

This particular little beauty I started last Christmas, but only got round to finishing recently. They’re quite simple and easy to make- great for someone who’s just starting with stiching and crafts (like me!).

First you’ll need to download the pattern here (apologies for it just being a jpg and not a pdf… it’s A4 size). And then you can follow the instructions below!

Step 1: You can either choose the same material for all of them, or you can mix it up a bit, like I did. Either way you need to cut out the template for each once with the material the right way up, and once with it the wrong way up.

The reason you have to do this is because the star (or the heart) isn’t exactly even. If you just cut two out the same they wouldn’t match up.

Step 2: Cut out the shape from wadding.

Step 3: Join the three pieces together, and using either running stick (which I used) or backstich, stich around the edge, about 1/2 inch in.

Step 4: Using the pinking shears to cut around the edge. You can easily adjust the size of the stars and hearts by cutting bigger/smaller shapes. You can also replicate this idea to suit anything you want! You might want to do some stars of david for Hanukka, or some cute animals for a nursery, or letters of a kid’s name for their room…

Step 5: Join it together somehow… this part is up to you! I think I’m going to either add it to one of my christmas swags, or join them on a string of raffia… let me know what you do with yours!!

P.S: If you want to make some other cute softies… check these out!

Anway, those who follow my twitter updates will know we’ve been working on a Christmas wall hanging. It’s coming along pretty well, and this week I attached the two halves, and started putting on my borders.

You can see a light brown border, which isn’t very big in this picture, cause I’ve been pinning on the red border. After that is a light green border. Then the binding. A lot of borders, hey?!

Anyway. Once my borders are on I need to put in the wadding, then put on some embellishments (And think of something to put in that green one at the bottom…)

Here’s a bit of a close-up. Everything you see in there has been button-holed around :-O