I Finished!!!

This month I took part in the Choose Your Own Bag Adventure Sew-a-long.

The basic gist was that you sign up to sew a bag in the month of August. BRILLIANT! I thought, I am definitely playing along. I have a massive stockpile of fabric and need motivation to whittle it down (so I can buy more fabric of course!!). So I decided to make a camera bag.

Now my decision to make a camera bag wasn't a whimsical... "oh yes... I will make a camera bag.. that's going to be nice and easy". I have never really sewn many bags with success. I made a messenger bag a few years ago for our niece for Christmas, but that is about the extent of my experience. But... I decided.. I am going to give this a crack. It is supposed to be an adventure after all!!

After a lot of looking at pictures, deconstructing the items in my head and drawing/ drafting/ cutting and sewing. I can proudly announce that...

I MADE A CAMERA BAG!!!!

As you can tell... I am very excited and very impressed that it turned out perfectly. It is just the way I had imagined it in my head which makes me so so proud!! There are seriously so many layers in this bag. There is the fabric, two layers of interfacing and also padding. I am proud of my little Janome for making it through without a problem.

I decided to make the bag without "sections" as I want to be able to just put the camera etc. in the bag without having to worry about pulling it apart necessarily. It also means I can put other things in the bag if I need to such as my keys/ purse/ spare undies for the lil man.

Super impressive (even if I do say so myself!).

And Oh my goodness I love this pink fabric... I will have to do something with the leftovers! I am thinking padded covers for my camera lenses.

Head on over to Curly Pops and have a look at what everyone else made :)

Sunday Snippets

 

The week that was... Playing along with Tinniegirl for Sunday Snippets

commitments...

I have spent so much time recently obeying the commands of the "important" things in my life. Kids, work, uni, housework, cooking, washing. I don't make enough time for me.

Last week I was very sick. For Wednesday, Thursday and some of Friday I couldn't move. I had spent so much time the week before staying up late, and then getting up early to work on assignments. I was drinking a lot of caffeinated drinks and eating quick, easy meals (translate - very unhealthy) and the end result was that I came down with the worst flu I have ever had. I felt almost as bad as when I had glandular fever.

It goes to show that what you put into your body is important. Food is fuel, and rest, fresh air and sunshine are what keeps the body moving. When you put the wrong fuel in your tank you become run down and simply don't go (much like if you tried to run your car on soft-drink instead of petrol). I am generally a VERY healthy person, I don't eat very many processed foods and I limit my caffeine intake to one coffee per day and a few cups of tea. More on this another time, it has taken a LOONGG time for me to wake up to the foods that I put in my body and how they make me feel inside and also the affect they have on my mood.

Last week I do believe my body was saying HOLY CRAP! What are you doing to me woman?!?!?! 

Thankfully, I am now on the mend and after a very stern wake-up call, I am back on my usual healthy diet and am doing a 7 day clean eating challenge to help my body get back to normal. I also made the decision yesterday that I would spend today doing something for ME!

I busted out my plans for my bag for the challenge and the fabric I have chosen and started tracing.

Unfortunately I am out of interfacing though (insert big fat frown here). I thought I had LOTS but apparently I am out (I want my bag to be nice and sturdy). So I will head off to Spotlight over the weekend and get some more. Here's a peek at my fabric choices though...

One of the main rules that I had for undertaking a sew-a-long was that I HAD to use fabric from my stash. I am on official fabric ban at the moment until I use up some of the fabric I already have. These two fabrics just so happened to be sitting next to each other on the shelf.

The grey fabric is a cotton fabric that I bought so long ago I can't remember where it was. But I do remember buying it to make pants. The pink is something I bought to make myself a new ironing board cover. Yes... too busy sewing nappies up until recently to bother making either of those things for myself! But when I saw them sitting together on the shelf I thought... yup! They are going to be my bag. 

The grey will be the main body of the bag and the pink will be my accent fabric. I just love pink, especially bright pinks like this one. 

Hopefully I will have more progress by Monday. Now that I know what I am going to make, I am very excited to make it.

wordless wednesday

 

 

 

beetroot

the great croissant battle

Last week I found a recipe for croissants. I was so excited as I have never made croissants before! Knowing that I would be up late that night doing assignments, I set to work on getting the basic dough together. 

You see unlike anyone else I know, I get bored and simply bake. I am not into cooking things that are quick and easy either I love to cook things that have many specific steps that I can master. I am funny like that, I love precision. 

Anyway, the next night I popped the croissants in the oven... yum!

 

They were delicious! but not quite right. They didn't rise up enough, and didn't unravel the way that a croissant does. It's winter here, and the dough didn't rise enough in the first rise which probably was the cause of the not quite fluffy texture of my croissants.

But, yes... I cannot let a recipe beat me! I must master the croissant! So on Friday I got out my mate sunny, who is quite good at making me amazing pizza dough because he is awesome at creating the right temperature for rising dough.

 I set him to make pizza dough but put my croissant ingredients in. I had to change the recipe a little, as I also felt the quantities weren't quite right on the recipe I had found.

The result was perfectly fluffy, delicious dough that was so easy to work. Thanks Sunny!!

The thing about making croissants is that they take a long time to make! It took me a whole day to get my dough ready to the stage above where I got to roll it into those little crescents, and even then they weren't ready to go into the oven! Oh but into the oven they eventually went and mmm...

 Delicious, fluffy croissants that unraveled beautifully when I pulled the ends.

These croissants took me 8(ish) hours to get ready to bake, and then they take about 10minutes to cook after that. So they are a long-haul, many steps, precision, ahh just my style!

What have you been baking this week?

I'd love to know!

better late than never...

I missed my creative space post yesterday... The world was happening...

Work... Tiredness... Major meltdown in the evening (me not the kids)

So I will update you all today :)

I have done some planning for my bag for this month's sew-a-long. Which was fun, and a bit exciting. I have to do some more research yet, but there's something on paper.

I also made (translate - decorated a chesty singlet) Miss-R a top to wear to her school mini-olympics on Wednesday. MUCH appreciated by all involved. We are all pretty into the olympics here, so it was pretty exciting for Miss-R that her class got to dress up in Australia colours.

I made a dress bag for someone at Miss-R's Calisthenics club.  I even inserted gussets... these will be going on her dress bag that I will make for next year as it means it will hold more costumes.

And then after that I sat doing assignments as it is week 10 at uni (translate - end of semester) so I am crazily writing portfolio and journal entries and sleeping very very little (thus the meltdown).

I am looking forward to bed on Sunday night but know that I need to work hard to get there as I have a lot of work to do.

I hope you are enjoying your week!!