What do you mean it's the end of March already?!

Holy guacemole! It's been a fair while since I've posted. Lame!
Anywho, let me tell you about the latest most greatest things that have been going on in my world.

I'll start with the boring non-creative stuff.

In late Febrary/early March my work life was crazy hectic, luckily in early Feb I decided I'd take the second week of March off. Totally glad I did it, otherwise I think I'd have gone cray-crazy!

Last weekend I went for a gallivant OS to see my parents. It was nice to hang out with my parental units. I just did some reading and lots of sleeping. My main read was a book that I've been working on for some time, I've been nursing this book along slowly because I devoured the first volume within a month.  I do like me a little Sherlock Holmes.

My holiday read - Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories Volume II

Mum kept apologising that we weren't doing anything special, but I wasn't bothered. It was nice just being out of my usual environment.

The view from the room I was sleeping in. I love the colours, blues and greens. Yeah you're jealous :-P

I did manage to get creatively productive when I got back. On Friday I set up my sewing machine, my DVD viewing setup and I was ready to get my craft on. Oh yeah!

Aaages ago I started what I intend to be a bento box quilt and I thought if I was going to be sewing and watching a DVD at the same time straight sewing was going to be the best way to go so I worked on putting together more blocks. I put together 4 blocks at a time. Here are the fruits of my labour!

Please excuse the blurry photos. Shame!

That afternoon I went to Big W and bought some variegated yarn, some cheap fabric and a couple of other bits and bobs.

I got 4 balls of this Sean Sheep-Rockbank

The yarn is for a scarf I'm crocheting. The fabric was for a bag bag, the Mr requested on so we could wrangle our collection of plastic bags in the cupboard.

The Mr was out of town on Saturday and Sunday morning, which gave me some all-about-me time. Saturday morning I went to a Brisbane Northside Knitting and Crochet Group  meeting. I've only been to a few, but it was fun and I got started on my Clapochet. You can read about my Clapochet on Ravelry.

My Clapochet in progress.

My sister and I went out for lunch and she came over to my place afterwards. We watched Red Dog and we talked about her plans for her sewing patterns and her online presence.

When she left I watched The Help and made the bag bag requested by the Mr out of the fabric I bought from Big W. This is my creation complete and in use, tres neutral, tres useful.

While I was out and about Saturday morning I got a text from a friend that she was going to have a birthday brunch Sunday morning. She said no presents, but I ignored that part :) I pondered what I was going to make for her and I went to bed with a plan.

I woke up Sunday morning had a shower and got down to work on my friend's gift. I had some curtain fabric I had bought last year to make a different gift that I hadn't gotten around to making.

I cut two 12' by 18' pieces of the fabric. The fabric was shiny on one side and dull on the other, I used the shiny side of one of the pieces and the dull side of the other as the right side. The wrong side of the pieces were interfaced with adhesive interfacing. With right sides together, I sewed around the sides and left an opening in one of the short sides. The corners were clipped and it was turned right side out.

I zigzag stitched the side with the opening along the edge to close the opening. I stitched so that one side of the zigzag stitch missed the edge of the fabric while the other side of the stitch caught the fabric. This created a great over edge binding for the fabric. I should have done the whole side of the fabric, but I only did it to close the opening and to one end of the opening side. Silly. Oh well, you live and you learn. :)

Next was to sew the sides to create the pouchy bit. So I folded the short end with the zigzag edging up a third and zigzagged the sides together. Ta da!

My pouch is complete!

You might just be able to see that the outside is mostly shiny while the inside is mostly dull

Here's a close-up of the zigzag stitching.

I gave the pouch to my friend with a set of coasters that I had made before (you can read about them here).

The pouch and coasters. A doubley handmade gift!

That's about it from me my dear.
Until next time, do things you want to do, when you want to do it,
V xoxo

It's been awhile - Show and Tell

Hello there!

How have you been? I've been pretty alright. I may have been a bit quiet on the blog front but I’ve been going crazy on my Tumblr. Check it out! The 'Inspiration Scrapbook' link on this blog will take you there too.

Last weekend I went to a local Knitting and Crochet Group and it was lovely. It was only the second time I had been to the group and I realised that that last time I went was nearly a year ago! Geez! Anywho, it was lovely meeting others who are into the same things as me and from various backgrounds. While I was there I worked on my Granny Square Throw.

This is the throw folded into quarters!

I have been working on this thing for years and years and I think I'm nearly at the end. It’s getting quite large. I think I want to do a decorative edge and then I'll draw it to a close. While I decide what edging I want to do it I've been weaving in and snipping all the tails. So that’s something that’s been keeping me out of trouble.

So I have a little story to tell you. In the later part of last year I became a little obsessed with sewing clothes. I've been reading sewing blogs like crazy (which probably had something to do with my FOMO post), I’ve borrowed heaps of sewing/fashion books from my sister who did fashion at TAFE (kinda like Australian Community College I guess, maybe) and I was gifted a couple of sewing books at Christmas. I had even downloaded, printed and assembled a couple of free sewing patterns; I hadn’t done anything with those patterns, but I had them anyway.

So the New Year rolled around and I thought, “Dammit! I’m just going to sew something. It doesn’t have to be amazing. Just something.” So on New Years Day I woke up and trundled downstairs with some fabric, a downloaded pattern, scissors and some determination. I’ve been slowly assembling this thing ever since and I finally finished it yesterday. So here it is…

My House Pants!

They are a pair of house pants. You know pants you would NEVER wear out of the house. They are really baggy and comfortable. I didn't take a great deal of care making them. There is A LOT wrong with them, but hey, it’s a start. I really am proud of my efforts considering it’s my first wearable sewed item EVER! Even if they look like a really bad Home Ec project :) They’re made from an old sheet that I bought from Lifeline (a thrift store). The fabric has been washed sooo much it’s made the fabric lovely and soft. That’s my sewing story and I hope to be able to add to it, I want to sew some more items of clothing and eventually something I could wear out in the actual world! Gasp! :P 

Oooh and before I go I have to show you the loot from my last shopping expedition to Spotlight (the Mr says he’s going to have to put a “Don’t Serve this Lady” poster of me there. Eeep!)

My Loot from Spotlight

I bought 4m interfacing for sewing pattern testing; 4m fusible interfacing to see if I can use this nifty tip to make my sewing patterns last longer; I bought another 4mm crochet hook with a thicker handle as I've been finding crocheting with my other slimmer hook gets tiring quickly; I bought I couple of D rings because I want to try making an adjustable wrist pin cushion; I've been looking around for this double tracing wheel for ages and I finally found it so I jumped at the chance to buy it; the Velcro is also for the adjustable wrist pin cushion; and finally a French Curve. It was the most expensive thing I bought, but I'm pretty pleased with it. It’s got lots of info in the packaging so I think it will be valuable as I continue to sew.

My new French Curve <3

The back of the Package - Great diagrams!

More great diagrams on the inside too. So great!

The invisible zipper foot I bought from a Janome dealer near the Spotlight I went to.

Invisible zipper foot

I've been lusting after an invisible zipper foot (unnecessarily really) for ages. So I just bit the bullet and bought it. I think the next foot I buy will be a binder foot (something else I've been lusting after unnecessarily, but my theory is if you lust after it for an extended period of time it must mean you REALLY want it).

There are a couple of other things I have to tell you about before I go. So have bought some pretty sweet fabric and I was trying to iron it on my small table top ironing board. FAIL! So last week I bit the bullet and bought a proper ironing board. YIPEE! Check it out!

My real life sized ironing board, mini table top ironing board and red iron rest

The only silly thing is that I had to buy a hot pad for my iron because the board didn't have a pull out rest. Oh well. You can't have everything.

And one last thing. I promise. I picked up this cute measuring tape and scissors set at Big W. I thought I'd lost my measuring tape so I thought heck why not get a measuring tape AND a small pair of scissors.

So cute!

Turns out I hadn't lost my measuring tape at all. Meh. I like my new set anywho! :)

Ok that's enough show and tell now I think. I've got to save the rest for another time. So what's the latest with you? Do you have any ambitions for the new year? How about any Works in Progress? Is there something you're lusting over at the moment?

Do something you're excited about,

V xo

Crocheting along...

Hey there,

This weekend was pretty chilled. Lots of sleep (mmm sleeeep...zzz). Oops sorry about that.
I also went to the Old Petrie Village markets for Sunday brekky (just between you and me, it wasn't a bowls club brekky, that's for sure).

I did however do something that I've been meaning to do for ages. I subscribe to Craftzine and my Google Reader account has been backing up for ages with its posts. So I sorted through over 100 posts over the weekend. So I kinda feel like I've accomplished something in that regard.

Oh! And I also worked on this old thing...

While working I found my wrists were getting tired. So I started holding the needle differently. I started holding the needle in the under-the-needle position. It was better for my wrist, but I found that because I'm using a 4mm hook it's a little difficult to hold.

I've found a few tutorials on how to make crochet hook grips
here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnyAKzdcbeY
here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4CAwk9bc_s
and here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6gfwP4R21Y

And I've found some pencil grips here
http://www.officeworks.com.au/retail/products/School-Supplies/Erasers/SAS54520#

So I think I might go the way of blue tack and pencil grips first to see how that goes.

What have you been up to these days?

Until next time, have a great week and do something you love!
V xoxo

Have you ever had one of those weeks....

Hi Everyone,

Have you ever had one of those weeks where nothing seems to go right?

Things have been a little crazy with me lately, and I've been neglecting my creativity.

After I posted the blog about me moving to Blogger I was told that Mr and I were accepted for a rental property and we had to move in That Weekend! Argh!

So I spent all of the week before last packing the heck out the share house we were living in. That weekend we moved the heck into the new place.

All was going well until the Monday afternoon after we moved in, when Mr went home and they had so kindly turned off our electricity. So no lights, no cooking and no hot water. Blah! So we spent all the evenings driving to the old share house or the Mr's parents house to shower and eating takeaway most of the week. Ugh!

We finally got our power connected on Thursday morning - Hello 20th century and it's been not to bad since then. Phew! We still have to get a washing machine so last weekend we went to the Mr's parents house to do our laundry. 

We are still settling in, but I'm going through internet withdrawals as we still haven't sorted our internet out. Oh! I haven't been neglecting my creativity entirely. I have been knitting this...

On my train rides to work. 

I think that brings you up to date friends.

Until next time, get crafty and make something you love,

V xoxo

I'm moving...

That's right, I'm moving my blog.


I've been thinking about this long and hard and I have come to the decision to move from Wordpress.com to Blogger.com. I'm a bit of a Googleophile and I haven't been loving the direction that Wordpress.com has been moving in since I joined. I'm not a massive techspert and I have been finding Wordpress.com a bit difficult, so I'll leave to Blogger.com which I have found to be a great deal easier to use. I have already moved my older posts over to Blogger so you won't have to come back here to see them.


You will now be able to find me at www.simplefibrelife.blogspot.com.


I could say that I didn't post last week because I was agonising over whether I wanted to move my blog… but that would be lying. To be honest, things have been a bit busy with The Mr and I looking at rentals the past couple of Saturdays and then taking it easy and getting house chores done the next day.


However I have managed to finish a project. I have finished my something to wear from THIS post.

Crochet Hat

My hat took me a couple of goes, but I got it in the end. Just a simple single crochet made on the fly. Done in the round with bulky yarn and a 12mm hook.
Also, I have started doing this

Crochet Chain Strands

because I was totally inspired by this.
I've also been working on this

Crochet Project

I'm going through a crochet phase..... hmmm.


Well, my lovely peaches, that is all for now.
Until next time, get crafty and make something you love,
V xoxo

PS. Don't forget to adjust your bookmarks, and change your RSS reader feeds because I am moving my blog.