show & tell - Nova Flitter

It's been particularly hard this month choosing pictures for Show and Tell from all the inspiring projects on Nova Flitter's Cuppa and a Catch up blog, there are so many beautiful projects to choose from!

I'd come across Nova's work before online but I think I discovered the blog properly last year when she won the Umbrella Prints trimmings competition with these pieces above. I was really inspired by the way she had turned the small cuts of fabric into lots of beautiful sewing purses and bags and cards. I find it so hard to throw even the smallest scraps of pretty fabric out and here was someone who showed how to make the very most of every thread!

In fact looking through her blog I see that many of Nova's projects use small pieces to great effect. Take her Liberty Scrap Challenge theme where she shows each month how to sew with those precious small leftovers from larger Liberty projects. And in her distinctive style they never look like afterthoughts but more like a chance to mix and match your favourite patterns.

I also love the way she mixes embroidery into many of her pieces, including the wonderful redwork quilt she sewed with her Mum. Nova gives a wonderful tutorial on her blog which shows how to customise your own images for embroidery. I'm definitely going to try this.

As well as having her projects in a couple of beautiful craft books, Nova has recently produced patterns of two of her beautiful projects for sale, the pretty Petal Pocket pillow and Nesting Fabric Bowls (which helped her be named runner up in a recent Lotta Jansdotter competition). I'm sure I'm not alone in looking forward to future projects from this talented lady. Thanks again Nova for being part of Show & Tell this month!

name
Nova Flitter
location
Sunshine Coast, Qld
blog
http://acuppaandacatchup.com/
shop
http://acuppaandacatchup.com/my-patterns/
flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/acardaday/
pinterest
Pinterest – http://pinterest.com/novaflitter
ravelry
http://www.ravelry.com/people/NovaFlitter
 
1. Can you give us a short description of your blog/style/work
I am inspired by & love many different things & styles so I settle for ‘random eclectic’ when it comes to describing my style. I think that describes all aspects of my life actually, not just the crafty part. My blog is a space where I record & share my crafty makes.

2. Why blog? How did you start?
Andy had a few months work in far north western Australia about three years ago & never one to miss out on an adventure, off I trotted too.  Hmmmm... to say I was homesick is an understatement. From the moment I stepped off the plane I knew I didn’t fit. Not to be beaten though & with my trusty  sewing machine in tow together (from the comfort of our caravan and 40+ degree heat) we conquered it and I reached out via the interweb to other crafty types. Starting a blog in that strange time got me through it and I made many friends.

3. Family taught/Self-taught/Trained?
I guess I’ve just always been crafty. My mum is very creative and I grew up making & snipping & gluing & stitching.

4. Workspace - studio or kitchen table?
I have my very own playroom. It’s actually two smallish adjoining rooms which I just love. I think though that however much room I had for crafty shenanigans I could always fill another room, and another and another...

5. Blog/Shop name, where does it come from?
I have a bit of a tea habit & most things around these parts revolve around a brew -  the blog name came about as it’s just something I would say to friends – “let’s have a cuppa & a catch up!”

6. Favourite media to work in?
Fabric, though I am loving the yarn right now too.

7. Ambitions/future directions/future projects/medium you'd like to try?
I’d really like to expand my new found love of yarn into learning to crochet at some point. I have dabbled in silver smithing in the past and would really love to explore that more as well one day.

8. Are you neat and organised or, ahem, creatively messy?
Creatively cluttered would perhaps best describe my work space. I do like to make in a tidy & organised space though so have to work hard to keep it neat(ish).

9. Favourite handmade, handcrafted item you own not made by you.
I love everything that has been made for me & as well as receiving some beautiful handcrafted gifts I have been lucky to participate in some wonderful swaps too. It’s so special to have pieces around the place that have been made by others just for you.

10. Favourite food/recipe?
Cheese. Love the stuff.

11. Favourite colour?
Blue. Ooo & green. I love grey too. I’m also partial to a splash of red.

12. Star sign?
Cancerian.

13. Favourite place, landscape (not necessarily Australian)?
Home. There’s no place like it.

14. Any tricks for juggling life/work/family with creative pursuits?
Make any spare moments count - it’s amazing what can be achieved in just 10 minutes sometimes.

15. Favourite artists, artisans, crafters?
I am constantly inspired by others & it is really hard to pick a favourite.  Currently I am loving the Foreclosure quilt series by  Kathryn Clark http://www.kathrynclark.com/foreclosure-quilts.html

16. Your favourite thing you've made/written/done.
I really enjoyed the journey of the redwork quilt I made with my mum via correspondence. Living so far from family it’s great to be able to shorten the distance a little with a crafty connection like that.

17. Three words to describe yourself?
Content.  Crafty.  Happy.  

18. What do you like to do besides creating? Walking, reading, camping, gardening, cooking (& eating).

these days

Last weekend I was thoroughly spoilt for my Mothers Day with lots of presents and this little bouquet of garden flowers. In the afternoon we went for a walk in an the old palm gully in the Rozelle Hospital grounds where the Mr and I used to go with our lovely old white dog before we had kids. It was quite lovely seeing it through their eyes and reminded me how lucky I am to have these beautiful people in my life.

This weekend Ms A sewed her first clothes from a pattern, something we've been talking about for a while. It was nice to pass on my little bit of knowledge of pattern sewing. She's making a simple skirt (photo when its finished). I think I was exactly the same age she is now when I made my first skirt from a pattern, so that's nice. The days are cold and bright. Its inspired some more baking including these dangerous chocolate crackles.

On Sunday I spent the morning with an old friend and some like minded souls at a local permaculture garden talking about growing your own and other ways to be more sustainable. This suburban garden contains about fifty fruit trees, garden beds, a beehive and more. I've been wanting to grow more food in my garden and I came away inspired, with a few seed swap packets and compulsion to order a big stash of garlic bulbs to plant out.

I'm glad to say I'm nearly through the boring stuff, I can even see the light at the end of the tunnel so hopefully I'll have time for some creative pursuits soon, I can't wait! I have ideas bubbling away and looking forward to playing with them.

To see some really creative work, make sure you tune in tomorrow for May's Show & Tell guest. Lots of inspiration there!

my creative space - kid's cushion

I've been doing tax stuff this week, yeuch, so I've had limited time for creative pursuits. Luckily the other day I found these cushion pieces, which I'd cut and overlocked a few weeks ago, stealing a little time from other jobs and I had the satisfaction of quickly finishing a project.

The fabric was precut and edges overlocked already so it was a simple job to go and sew in the zip and the seams. I've actually got the cushion/pillow sewing down to a fine art through lots of practice. I love the simplicity and great design of the invisible zip and invisible zip foot. I must do a simple photo tutorial next time to share, if you haven't sewn an invisible zip you will be amazed at how easy they are.

This cushion is in the shop now. I think it would make a lovely pop of colour in a kid's room, and you could sew some matching accessories with the matching fabric. Or buy yourself a fat quarter and make your own. Next up the clouds are getting the same treatment. I love this print in the large format and I'm really happy to have some yardage of it to play with.

Can you believe too that another month has come around, the good news is that that means Show & Tell is on again next week, on Tuesday. My guest is a wonderfully crafty, creative blogger. I love her work and I'm so pleased to be featuring some of it this month. Don't forget to pop in and say hi.

my creative space - duvet cover

More a plan than a project this, but I wanted to join in today with Kirsty's Creative Space which has moved to a new home here. Thanks again Kirsty for keeping this wonderful space going for us every week for so long. Its always a highlight for me being able to join in with so many lovely, encouraging and clever people doing amazing and inspiring stuff.

I have been promising Master J a bespoke duvet/doona cover made with my Flower Press fabrics for ages, and in particular this lego Bricks design. A Spoonflower parcel lost in transit and general busy-ness means I've only got this far though, whoops.

The other day though I finally got round to buying a sheet set to match the print. My idea is to back the quilt with the flat sheet to make the case and then keep the fitted sheet and pillowcase to coordinate. Its hard to find fabric wide enough so sheeting is is the perfect solution.

The only problem being of course is that at Spotlight the other day I fell in love with this discounted king size sheet set, which is the perfect vibrant blue colour to match my Bright Blue Bricks, and also has a lovely feel to it, high thread count and soft. And they didn't have the single size. Which means there will be some measuring and cutting involved. Which is why it keeps going down the to do list!! I find it so hard to cut and measure large pieces of material. Any hints on ways to make that easier are very welcome or if anyone has any wonderful ideas about quilt cover designs/tutorials, closures, sizes I'd love to hear from you too!

sewing with flower press

I've banged on about how wonderful it is to see projects made with my fabrics before, because it really is the most rewarding part of designing, getting those fabrics back and then transforming them into something beautiful and useful. Sewing with your own fabrics is a wonderful feeling, but seeing where people take your prints is equally fun and always a really nice surprise. Especially in the hands of talented peeps like the those who made today's examples.

I've only recently seen these beautiful softies from Megan Nicolson whose shop on Madeit is called pint. Megan posted this pic of Boyd the Bear the other day on my Facebook page. Isn't he beautiful, he's made from all Flower Press designs, from head to toe. These hello bears are for newborns, and would make such a dear present for a new baby. Boyd and the rest of the recently listed batch was snapped up in a day so its probably worth keeping an eye on Megan's blog to see when more are coming.

I'm not sure the wonderful CurlyPops needs an introduction, but for those few of you who don't know her, Cam is a sewer extraordinaire and a fabric designer herself. We did a swap last year and she sewed up the requested brick prints into these great toy bags for her nephews.

Another wonderful local crafter who does amazing work is Katia from Plushka. Her series of felt softies is so delightful and I was tickled to see this new blue bunny with my marble fabric ears and tummy. He's for sale in Katia's Madeit shop along with all her other amazing work, I love her detailed little embroideries and her new Fox softie is so sweet.

This dress below by Kimberley of BaaBaaBoutique was made especially for a Lego themed birthday party. Isn't it fabulous, I love the clever panelling and the lego head detail Kimberley has stitched onto the front. Her BaaBaa Boutique Etsy shop is here.

Last but not least is this beautiful pillow case design with applique lego brick from Audrey, sewn for her nephew. I love the little details that she has included and the way the small panel of feature fabric and applique personalises the pillowcase. Don't forget my pillowcase tutorial if you are keen to make your own. And I've restocked the Flower Press shop with Brick prints and Clouds in case you want to sew your own.

collected

My new print 'Collection' was born and raised on the blog, starting out as a photo and then a painting and now a print which I've just listed in the Flower Press shop, printed on A4  heavy archival matte paper perfect for framing. In fact I did just that with the first of the run, and sent it off yesterday to my Mum for her birthday. I meant to get a photo, it looked so nice in its white Ikea frame!

This image started with my collection of blue and white china, found in different places over the years, some dug from the garden, some picked up on the beach, some even from a beach in Vietnam.

I was inspired to make a photograph (above) of my collection a couple of years ago, you can read about that in this post. A year later I finally sat down and made a painting inspired by that photo and recorded it here in My Creative Space here.

I hope you like it!

healthy week

Last week we decided to have a healthy week in this house. We decided to go vego for the week, give up alcohol, chocolate and lollies and try to eat more fresh and less processed food and sugar around here.

Its been great. Just concentrating on our food choices has been a positive thing, instead of just grabbing the easiest thing we've had to think about each meal. As a result our repertoire of vegetarian dinners has increased, which I'm really glad about. This experiment has helped us find some delicious new recipes to add to our rotation, the egg curry and the spinach triangles were especially delicious, and easy and even the kids loved the marinated tofu despite claiming to hate this ingredient.

I didn't eat red meat or chicken as an adult before I had children and I've felt recently that we've been relying too much on meat to make a meal even if its just a small part. It will be interesting to see how we fare now the week is over.

There have been concessions, we ate prawns on Saturday night when we took advantage of Mr F's trip to our favourite dumpling shop suburb to buy frozen dumplings for dinner and the vegie options were sold out. And I made my new favourite cake on Saturday to celebrate Mr D's brave day, - a trumpet exam in the morning followed by Goalie duty at soccer. Also the pastry and the tofu and the ravioli was all pre-prepared for convenience. It would be nice to make our own, but we wanted to see how we could embrace healthier options within our usual routine.

Our menu this week has gone like this:
Monday - Marinated Tofu and Vegie stir fry with rice
Tuesday - Home made Pesto on pasta with green salad
Wednesday - Thai Red Egg Curry and Rice and Papadams (Marion's red curry kit)
Thursday - Spinach and Feta triangles and Homemade coleslaw
Friday - Roasted Butternut Pumpkin & Fresh Sage Ravioli and Spinach and Ricotta Ravioli from local pasta makers Peppe's with homemade tomato sauce and homemade Bread.
Saturday - Steamed Prawn Dumplings and Chinese Green Vegetables Stir Fry with rice
Sunday - Vegie burgers with Salad

Dessert each night has been a plate of cut up fruit including mandarin, banana, apple, persimmon and grapes with dried apple, apricots and prunes and almonds. That's been one of our favourite parts of the week and as someone who doesn't eat enough fruit its been an easy way to increase my intake.

For school lunches it helped to buy some new small containers. Instead of prepackaged cheese sticks we've had sliced cheese with rice crackers. They were very popular and will stay on the menu. Muesli bars were replaced with a small container of fruit, dried fruit and nuts. Sandwich fillings have been more difficult and ended up being variations on cheese, but my kids have never liked the easy options like jam or honey for school lunches. We bought Sushi making ingredients but didn't get round to it yet. We also made sugar free banana apple muffins which went in lunches a couple of times.

For breakfast we ate cereal and it was interesting to compare the different healthy options we'd bought using the nutrition information on the side panel. Sometimes the healthy option is not what it seems! I ate muesli with yoghurt and fruit. I'm such a toast girl that this was a big change and I liked the way it filled me up for longer and made me delay my first cup of tea.

So all in all a good week! Any ideas for more family friendly vegetarian dinners gratefully received ;-)

my creative space - patterns

Busy with boring bits today but the creative stuff is calling to me. I started this little crochet experiment while I was away, it was my car craft and while I haven't quite worked out the edges (because I'm trying to cheat and jump to the tricky bits without learning the basics of crochet!) I love the pattern. It was inspired by the Wavy Blanket pattern which I saw someone making on Instagram. I've adapted it to make a shorter, scarf length to play with and I'm having fun again mixing colours. My new method is lining up balls of wool till I'm happy with the combination and then taking a pic on my phone to remind me of the order.

I seem to have caught the clothes sewing bug too and I couldn't resist these patterns which I saw on Marina's Wink Designs blog. They come from Australian designer Megan Neilsen, a young Aussie designer living in the US. Check out her blog for the sewalong which gives heaps of tips for sewing these patterns. Can't wait to try them. Its exciting to see some of the new home sewing patterns coming out. I've been wearing my Tovas and just loving them. I need another couple I think. And I've seen some Colette patterns I like, any recommendations welcome.

This is a glimpse at a bit of my stash, amassed recently with different projects in mind, and some fabrics picked up when opping the other day. I was surprised when I put them together about how many are blue, which I don't wear that much of. I need to start sewing some of it soon!

Back to the boring now though... To check out some creative projects pop in to our creative space.