etsy

I’m free to do what I want any old time – not really, though the idea is exciting!

| poppypeach

It was the first week off for mama time in 10 weeks – it was just pure ecstasy to be able to have some freedom to create and work in my sewing room. My ideas were overflowing and the motivation to make something an all-time high, which is probably why I made two skirts and a top just to experiment! I really love the style of this skirt as I have always enjoyed the skirts my daughter wore effortlessly with zero zippers and an elastic waist – I love the waistband on the front of this skirt as it reduces the number of gathers in the front. I do really love the big floral skirt with the hand gathering at the front waistband, it is such a fun skirt to wear maybe a bit short for me!

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Repurposed waterproof skirt, score it at Etsy

The Polar Bear fox skirt is a beautiful print in a thin corduroy fabric. I was making a bigger size so I can have a range of sizes available. I love this fabric and am sad to let it go – so check out the sizing if you like animals and spoil yourself with a one of a kind skirt for next season. Both these prototype skirts I am selling at my Etsy store, so see the links above and if you want free shipping with that, go to the contact link on my blog and I will send you a code to use.

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As I love the yellow top that I wore for these skirts I wanted to replicate it as a top for all skirts – this is in a tee shirt style that I was experimenting with so I will try it with another fabric and see how it turns out. I have used a continuous bias binding on the neckline and the sleeve detail and I love how easy it was to create the bias binding using a tutorial from Craftsy.

I really enjoyed my time to create and  I listened to a wonderful audiobook I recently discovered called Big Magic – Creative Living Beyond Fear which was an excellent resource to get me back into the swing of things. Now whenever I am working I will just put an audio book on and work away – as long as I am not writing! What a great way to multi-task! I am now listening to To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, so groundbreaking for its time and kind of surreal to listen to living here in the USA where times have “supposed” to have progressed in regard to racism.

On to a more food orientated topic and assistance with working efficiently. I found my fave cafe downtown sells a flat white. So I wandered in to meet a friend and talk about her summer vacation in Italy and our vacay in Australia. I ordered the flat white, check out the pic above and guess which one is the flat white? The American style flat white is the one of the right! Now to me coming from Melbourne I expected a flat white to look like the coffee on the left, which is a cappuccino! The flat white they made was perfectly fine but it was a bit low on the foam at the top and at least it did not burn my mouth which is why a flat white is my favorite. Now I know for the future that I will order the cappuccino with soy and see what I get, fingers crossed I can get it the way I am used to!

 

Adding to the fun of getting back to a somewhat normal week where the kids are at school and I am at home working on my creative projects – let me say it again, heaven! We have had to work into our schedule on a Thursday to go to the farm to clean out the chicken coop – which is a kids job and as their payment they get to hang out with the chickens and the pigeons and quails as much as they like. Hanging out with the birds is a great motivator for them and they get their job done – so far it has been an hour to complete the cleaning and feeding of the coop and the aviary and with some luck, they will reduce that time!

Here is Ruby in all her teenage glory looking good as the Production Little Red Hen that she is. We are looking forward to next March after the chickens are 12 months old they will start to lay eggs. Missy is in the aviary holding the cutest little male quail – we are looking for some females if anyone has any hanging around? Then we can have little teeny weeny quail eggs. The kids got to keep the pigeon eggs and bantam eggs as a cleaning reward the other day and enjoyed them for a tiny breakfast the next day.

What a week it was and I was so happy to have had a weekend of doing nothing after the holidays of planning stuff with friends and family over the summer – farewell to the summer holidays and let’s get on this hamster wheel of craziness!!

A piece a week – A top for a party and a Wedding!

| poppypeach
With the deadline of the show fast approaching – October 25th, everything seems to be on schedule in regard to the inventory.This is a good thing which means the next step the photography! Though I keep on finding fabric and wanting to make other things as I am looking for linings and fabrics for my pieces. The focus has to be there to meet my deadline and have everything ready for the show with everything photographed, tagged and ready to display! As the next project on the agenda is Halloween – our favorite time of year!!
With the excitement of buying an overlocker this week, I had to check out how fast it is to make garments. I started with a pattern I enjoy wearing of late and made a top. The fabric I found was from a shopping spree last year in Portland with my good friend. We had a blast checking out fabric and looking for shoes and eating amazing food. The fabric has a gorgeous vintage feel and I used black as a contrast to break up all the floral and found this super cool button as I was cleaning up my thread box. Amazing, the things that I can find in the sewing room!!
This looks cute with a pair of skinny jeans – my utilitarian day wear of late! 
The vintage button I found in my stash
 Saturday was a big day for everyone – as it was the wedding of a good friend and neighbor of ours who moved up to the mountains to live. We were all so excited about the wedding and the fun part was getting dressed up and finding a fun outfit to wear!
I made the shift dress a while ago and it is super comfortable with fabric a friend gave me.  And lucky for me I found these ombre tights on Etsy to go with the dress – how did I know the day was going to be so hot!! Ash had a tie that said ‘I am a Rock Star’ and Missy had a cute Mini Boden dress and sequin shoes. Of course the girls were the happiest to have the opportunity to dress up 🙂 A friend of mine let me borrow her beautiful ceramic pendant to go with the dress – so perfect!
All dressed up and ready to go – finally we get to look good as a family together! 

Sitting on a hay bale and waiting for the bride to show up!

The wedding in action!

Congratulations to my dear friends – Cheers with Champagne in the Redwoods

A table bouquet that came home with us – thank you!

A piece a Week – Tote Bags for lots of stuff… and some tasty vegan ice cream!

| poppypeach
A sneak peek of what I will be showing at the FabMo Textile Art Boutique coming up on October 25th. In production mode I finished a small park tote and 3 patchwork large tote bags, perfect for picnics or your camera (they are quilted with a lining and pockets on the inside, so super soft). I found a couple of unfinished quilt tops at FabMo one distribution that had so much work put into them that I saw that they needed to be reworked into to something to be used and appreciated for its quirky beauty. Plus I really did like a lot of the fabrics quilted throughout. 
Small X body park tote

Large patchwork tote bag with ribbon detail – repurposed from FabMo fabric

Very subtle design on this quilt with a martial arts belt as a handle

For those who like checks with their flowers – quirky is the key here!

This week just flew by and last week was a doozy! The beginning of the week was cruising along until I got myself a flat tyre – boo! Fine and dandy and AAA came and saved my distress and then I had to drive to San Jose to take my car in to get a new tyre. The tyre was not in stock so I got to drive around in an SUV for a couple of days – the kiddos really loved the sunroof! And yes, secretly I did enjoy driving around in it too – the environmental activist inside me does not agree!! Anyway while waiting to go to my appointment I had time to whip up some strawberry and fig ice cream, just the thing to get your day on the right track. It was a vegan vanilla ice cream found on Food52 – I am so happy that I can eat ice cream and it does not mess with my insides like dairy ice cream. I think the picture below is straight out of the ice cream maker in a soft serve form with macerated strawberry juice on top – delicious.
Macerated Fig and Strawberry Vanilla Coconut Ice Cream – fun with my ice cream maker

My wheels for a couple of days – the Subaru Forrester!

 Oh and this week Mr Ash took up Martial Arts – here he is in his little outfit! I love it and watching the class and the kids in action is wonderful. I just need to get him to practice everyday which isn’t too hard as it is really good exercise for him after a day at school. I am hoping that he sticks with it and enjoys the benefits of martial arts.

The next Bruce Lee

Thursday night I went to the SF Etsy Meet and Make with the San Francisco Etsy team at the San Francisco Museum of Craft and Design. We made super cute gold dipped geode jewelry. My friend Cristiana from Pebble and Fire made a necklace and I made a ring. It was a fun class using the supplies found on this Pinterest page from Katy Atchison who taught the us this fun craft. The gold liquid gilding mix was intense (keep the lid on as it stinks like chemicals) but looks so good! Any jewelry you have just sitting around can be jazzed up with this stuff and it goes a long way!!

At the Museum of Craft and Design in San Francisco – needle in a haystack!

Sunday I made more ice cream as the end of another weekend was upon us! I had a couple of mangos from my CSA box and they were so tasty (not as good as Bowen Mangos from Queensland), still these were California grown and local – yay!!

Vegan Mango Ice Cream

For this amazing mango ice cream with a base of coconut milk – here is the recipe, an adaptation from a recipe for vanilla ice cream I found on Food52 and another Vegan Mango Ice Cream recipe.

2 cans coconut milk (I used one light and one full cream)
2 cups mango chunks – cut 1/2 inch square or smaller
2 tablespoons lime juice
1 tablespoon arrowroot starch
1/2 cup agave sweetner
1 tablespoon vodka
1. Mix 1/4 cup of the coconut milk with the arrowroot starch and keep aside. 
2. Puree half the mango chunks. 
3. Combine the pureed mango, remaining coconut milk, agave and lime together in a saucepan and bring gently to a boil, take off the heat immediately and stir in the arrowroot mixture. This should cause the mixture to thicken slightly. 
4. Whisk through the 1 tablespoon vodka (alcohol does not freeze and this is added to keep the ice cream smooth and creamy).
5. Let the mixture cool and keep in the fridge overnight – it will be nice and custardy the next day. 
6. Once cold and thick, pour the mixture into your ice cream maker and follow the manufcturers directions. My Cuinsinart ice cream maker takes less than 20 mins to get this going and it is so good straight from the ice cream maker! Eat straight away if you like a soft serve type texture.
7. Alternatively put the ice cream in a loaf tin and freeze for 2 hours or more with parchment and a rubber band to keep it sealed in the freezer. 
8. Serve covered in mango – this was fresh mango from my CSA and it was amazing once it was ripe!!

We all scream for ice cream – Enjoy!!!

A piece a Week – Inspiration from a Kelp Monster

| poppypeach
I found this great mask washed ashore on the beach when walking along the Morro Strand State Beach. Just doing my usual beach cleanup getting rid of things that I feel should not be part of the beach environment I stash in my pockets until I see a trash can and dispose of whatever it may be. In amongst the kelp I found a halloween mask I imagine that was covered in sand that did not belong in the landscape so I put in in my pocket for throwing away later.

The kelp monster complete with kelp attached

As it turns out I was inspired by this to make some cushions for the kiddos and so far I have managed to make one this week with my stash of FabMo fabrics and trims that I have in my cleaned out studio/spare room!

I wanted to try out a version using greens and of course using the inspiration of kelp made it green too! Using interior design velvet fabric with felt and stretch fabric from an old top it all came together. I like the face and the moveable arms and my son really liked it too which is always a bonus as it was designed with kids in mind. So expect to see some of these in my etsy store in the near future.

Wassup! Mr Kelp Monster!
Flexible arms of kelp – full of action
Secret back pocket to add your pajamas

It is time for a holiday sale!

| poppypeach
a new apron for holiday cooking?

It’s that time of the year again – shopping for gifts for your family and friends. From now until the 30th November (a 10 day sale) I will be offering 20% off everything in the store. Yay so click on nerdwallet link on this page or my etsy page and enter this code HOLIDAZE2012.