This year's Christmas effort

Nothing like killing three (3!) birds with one stone - Christmas tree, advent calendar and a lesson in Roman numerals:

The "advent bags" are paper bags purchased from a craft store. I printed labels with Roman numerals using my printer and big maths brain. The ribbons tying the bags on had been sewn on the tree last year. Astute readers will notice there are not the traditional 24 advent bags. This is because the craft store ran out of bags, and craft stores in Perth, Western Australia, are few and far between. Thanks to the mining boom, I can buy a diamond ring at the end of my street but not craft supplies! I'll put some bags to double use by putting a number on the back and turning it over after re-filling it.

How did I ensure the number was centred on my cut-out? Easy - use a template you can see through (a glass):

First, check the cut out will fit on what you are gluing it to.

Next, ensure you place the glass evenly over the printed part of the page.








How did it go down?

Missoni Infinity Scarf

Missoni knits at Mood in NY, April 2013

I promise not to make anything else from Missoni fabric when:
1. The fabric store stop stocking it (I'm looking at you, Tessuti, and Mood [right]); and
2. My stash runs out! (No time soon, I assure you.)

Meanwhile, I'll try to buy just little bits... enough for an infinity scarf:

 Machine sewn, except for the last section, to close the join:

With my purple leather jacket, picked up in Ebay for $26.00

I made an award winning house!

Previous posts have referred briefly to our house renovation, which as anyone who does one knows is time consuming, leaving little time for blogging. Just as time consuming is the builder entering your home in an award programme. There's the cleaning the house for photography, cleaning the house for the journalist writing up your entry,

then cleaning your home for the judging.  But it was all worth it in the end:

And this is what professional photography buys you:

Do you know Tagxedo?

Tagxedo allows you to form pictures with words. The website has a lot of basic shapes, but it is easy to create new shapes by finding a silhouette image on the web, saving the image and then uploading it to the site. I found a teacup and teapot image for this poster: