1st Challenge for Iron craft'13, Cotton

As I'm always pushing myself to do and learn more things so I signed up for Iron Craft 2013.
It's a year long fortnightly challenge hosted by JustyCraftyEnough.com.

The 1st project of the year is Cotton- anything cotton, so being practically minded and wanting to make something useful I have made my hubby a Man-pron (apron-for-a-man) to try and help keep his clothes abit cleaner as well as being super-useful with lots of pockets to pop things in to keep on hand.

 

I've had metres of this stiff Cotton Denim for years, it seamed a-little to stiff for regular clothing even after being washed several times, but it's perfect for this project. My hubby is a glazier (glass installer) and is always coming home with some type of glue or resin smeared on his clothes so hopefully he will wear his Man-pron to stop this. He wanted lots of big deep pockets to store things on hand while working as well as a top pocket for phones and pens etc. 

The stencil is for fun, this is 'Scary Guy' which I purchased from Metallica's online store (MetClub.com)

Wow, how can it have been that long since my last post.

 

Elf Stocking- free pattern @ Home Sewn.com



I had been crafting, making, baking & creating allsorts of things leading up to christmas.



Chocolate Cranberry Mini Whoopie Pies, Yum!





These were just a few of the things I had made,
(I'm hopeless at remembering to take photos once I'm finished making something.)

Christmas Apron Gifts

The gift of Giving, The Giving Bunny Project @ Urban Threads.com

     I also made Bath Bomb Fizzys, Coffee & Vanilla Body Scrubs, Relaxing Lemon Balm & Chamomile Bath Tea Bags -which are all natural and super fun bathroom gifts,

(I found all the recipes and how too's on YouTube)

I will be making all of these again, they're so fun to make & use.

Christmas is over -Time to focus on the New Year that is upon us.

So why not sign-up for a year-long craft challenge!
A new craft challenge every 2 weeks, sounds great, hope I can keep up :)
Hosted by Iron Craft @ http://justcraftyenough.com

2013 is going to be a full-on awesome year. 

Michele @ Quilting Gallery is doing her first quilt drive for people affected by Super Storm Sandy.
Simple scrappy wonky log cabin blocks are to be made & sent to team leaders to assemble and finish to then be passed on.
                                                        
Even though I'm doing too many projects already I've signed up to do 4 quilt blocks to help out the drive, even though I'm on the other side of the world I want to let SS Sandy victims know that we are thinking of them at such a hard time.

My Beautiful Nemeisa's and old fashioned bearded Iris that are popping with colour by my front door, so pretty.

My vege garden is pumping, finally the good weather has come and the plants are loving it.

It's still crazy spring weather here in the South Waikato, rain,sun, hail and alot of wind.

My pink & blue bells are a lovely show under my Feijoa trees.

My vege garden is coming along nicely thanks to the plastic tunnels I've been using, the mini micro climates have let the broccoli, red cabbage, lettuce & mesclun salad be protected  from all the bad weather we had had for months.  I am going to be brave this week and start to sow my outdoor crops of runner beans, potato's, Sweet corn, Peas, Squash and Kamo kamo.

I planted beetroot, red onions, radish, zucchini & cucumbers a couple of days ago under cover.  

My garden in the early stages.

I am also very happy to let you know that I was voted 14th at the  Beginners Quilt-along @ Quiltinggallery.com, and have won an awesome Simplicity 6" x 24" Quilting ruler which I'm totally stoked about because I don't have one a 'proper' quilting ruler- so ya!

Thanks so much for the votes, they really did count, I only scrapped in by 1 vote! 

Time to vote.

The Beginners quilt-along I entered at Quilting gallery.com is down to the final voting for the grand prizes. There are 31 finished quilt tops in the final, at the moment mine is rating 17th out of the 31, the first 14 win- so VOTE,  VOTE, VOTE for me and "MY FIRST QUILT".
Click this link,  http://quiltinggallery.com/2012/10/02/voting-time-beginners-quilt-along-quilts/ check out the quilts, vote for me & submit vote. Only 1 vote per IP address, voting closes October 9th, fingers crossed x

Block 13's a winner!

Well guess what!
My 13th quilt block I made for  the www.quiltinggallery.com Beginners Quilt along has won a prize.
Wow, 13 must have been my lucky number.
I've won 4 quilt patterns from www.thefatquartershop.com, I was so excited when I got the email, goes to show how the Internet has made the world so easily connected, me from Lil New Zealand winning a U.S challenge, Awesome!
 

 #13 Quilt block is a winner.

I've been a busy-bee in the garden, it's spring-time, lots to be done, seeds to sow, plants to plant, compost to dig and BAD BUGS NEED TO DIE! Aphids in particular. Making themselves cosy in my glasshouse.
I checked out the sprays at my local supermarket & hardware stores and was blown away at the prices, anywhere from $18 for a 750ml ready to use spray or $14 upwards for a 250ml concentrated spray.
I remembered that in a previous N.Z. Gardner magazine there was a article on 10 Easy to make Organic Bug Sprays.
I hunted down the issue from the stack (November 09) and found a Garlic Bug Spray recipe, it's said to tackle many different bugs- aphids, wire worm, codling moth, white cabbage butterfly & mosquito larvae. So back to the supermarket I went to buy the 3 ingredients I didn't have, Pure Soap (sunlight), Garlic & Kerosene, totalling $11.83.The 4th ingredient is water.

This has made 1 litre of concentrate, with a mixing ratio of 15mls spray to 1 litre of water,
that's approx 66 litres of spray from 1 batch. Had to share the recipe, I will let you know how well it works over the following weeks.
                                                       Recipe for Organic Garlic Bug Spray
                                                         1/3 of 1 bar of Pure Soap (30grm) grated,
                                                         100grm Chopped Garlic (3 bulbs)
                                                         1 tsp kerosene (5ml)
                                                         1 Litre of water (warmish)

  In a large Juice Bottle I dissolved the  soap in a little boiling water, then added other ingredients,

shake the heck out of it, leave it for 48hr.

Then strain/sieve it and it's ready to go.

I have finished my quilt-top for the Beginners Quilt-along, just in time to be in for voting to win lot's of great goodies.
Judging starts at quilting gallery.com in two days time. You can check out how my quilt progressed at my flicker page and please vote for me & my quilt in the quilt-along.
/http://www.flickr.com/photos/82082458@N03/

I'm very happy with how the quilt has come together.
I just wish the photo's were alot clearer.
The fabrics are so funky, Skulls, Flames, Squiggles, Splodges, Puzzle pieces, Circles, Paisley's and Flecks.
In a colour range of Black, White, Grey &
Duck Egg Blue.

Just the backing & binding to go to finish the quilt completely.
Quilting gallery are in the planing stages for an intermediate quilt along in march next year. Bring it on!