EPP Kindle Case

I love Elea Lutz's fabrics and decided to combine some of her Strawberry Biscuit ranges with her newest range called Apple Farm to create this cute little EPP Kindle Case. 

The fabrics work beautifully together, so if you'd like to create an EPP Kindle Case too, gather your EPP supplies and visit the Penny Rose Blog where I have shared the instructions on how I made my EPP Kindle Case.

I love to read. Admittedly, I usually prefer to read actual paper books and visit my local library regularly. We're off on a big family holiday to the US and rather than carting around books, I'll be taking my Kindle E-Reader with me. The first leg of the flight is around 11 hours, so I'll certainly have plenty of time to read. This little case will be perfect to keep my Kindle cozy and unscratched in my handbag.

Scrappy Churn Pillow featuring Bittersweet Fabric (TUTORIAL)

If there was ever a range of fabric, suited to scrappy projects, I think Bittersweet would be high up in the top 10 list. The geometrics work beautifully with the florals and the colours are all so vibrant... and just happy. 

The Churn Dash block is one of my favourites. It's traditional, but can be jazzed up with modern fabrics for a contemporary look. I thought I'd take another step sideways, and create a large scrappy churn block to use for a pillow.


If you'd like to create a scrappy churn dash pillow like this one, I'm including the cutting guide below.

Toffee's for the fair (Recipe)

It's the school fair this weekend and if the weather holds out, it'll be Ahhhh-mazing! The organisers this year are enthusiastic with tonnes of new ideas for stalls and fun activities for the kids (and kids at heart).

Every year, each family at the school receives an empty cake box with a request to bake something to donate to the cake stall. I love the cake stall. It's probably my favourite. One year I got lucky and bought a pineapple upside-down cake - glacè cherries included.

With memories of cake stalls of my childhood, I've decided to make good old fashioned toffees. I shared images over on Instagram, but it seems only my Aussie friends knew what they were. 

So... I'm here to share the recipe for this sweet treat. A regular at Aussie school fetes and cake stalls for decades.

Toffee Recipe

3 cups sugar

1 cup water

1/4 cup white vinegar

Rainbow sprinkles, nuts or coconut (to decorate)

First step is to lay out paty pans on a tray. I used approximately 20 mini ones, but it'll depend how big you want to make them.

Pour all of the ingredients into a medium size saucepan over a medium heat and stir until the sugar dissolves.

Increase the heat and once the sugar mixture begins to boil, stop stirring. Allow the sugar to boil for 15 minutes. Turn off the heat and allow to cool for a minute while the bubbles subside.

It's super hot, so very carefully spoon into patty pans. Sprinkle with 100's & 1000's, crushed nuts or coconut.

Allow to set for a few hours and then enjoy. They will stick your teeth together... but hey, it's all part of the fun.

Spring 2016

The first of September marks the first day of Spring here in Australia. We've had a remarkably warm winter with above average rainfall. Our crop of broccoli and cabbages is enormous. Stone fruit trees are blossoming and my flower beds are looking quite spectacular with their rainbow blooms.

I have a few Pierre De Ronsard rose bushes beside my side fence. My husband put up some wiring along the fence line to help the plant grow up and flower... and flowering, they are. 

These roses are my absolute favourites. They're unscented (boo!) but I love cutting and displaying them in old recycled jam jars, around my home.

For my birthday (earlier in the year), my super wonderful and amazing husband bought me a macro lens for my camera. Honestly, I haven't use it very much but it was just blind luck that I had that lens on the camera when a bee decided to visit the flower I was photographing. 

Have you seen 'Bee Movie'? I imagined the bee saying "Good Morning. How's your day going?" in a Jerry Seinfeld voice.

My Iceberg roses seem to attract families of aphids. Large, extended families with hundreds of children. Other than physically removing them, one by one, we can't seem to get rid of them. If you have any advice or home remedies on aphid removal, I'd love to hear them.

How's your garden blooming right now? 

Coming into spring or dry after a long hot summer?

What do you have growing in your flower beds? 

Is your garden organised or random planting (like mine!!)?

Bittersweet Fabric + Skittles Quilted Pillow

Welcome to my stop on the BitterSweet Blog Tour. BitterSweet is the newest line of fabric by Sue Daley for Riley Blake Designs.

If you love bright, bold, saturated colour, and exotic floral and geometric pairings, this range will absolutely delight you. It's a large range, with 24 different colour/print combinations. 

BitterSweet works well with a multitude of Riley Blake Basics (ie Swiss Dot, Gingham, Stripes etc) making it a perfect range for contemporary EPP projects.

I'm going through a "circle" stage right at the moment and enjoyed using some of my favourite prints from this range, to create the Skittles Quilted Pillow.

To create this pillow, I created a checkerboard background of 4" squares using BitterSweet Grey and Light Grey. The stripes were positioned in alternating vertical and horizontal directions before sewing the squares together.

Using my circle templates, I chose 2 sizes and traced out 8 of each circle to some Heat'n'Bond. I cut and fused each individual circle to the wrong side of 16 different prints and then cut these out on the drawn lines. I fused the larger circles onto the BitterSweet Light Grey squares and the smaller circles on to the BitterSweet Grey squares. 

I machine appliquéd the circles with a simple straight stitch (1.8 stitch length), twice around the raw edges. Once all of the circles were secured, I basted a layer of cotton batting to the back and machine quilted in the ditch and then around each circle with my 1/4" foot. I added a circle of hand quilting around each circle using orange and yellow perle 8 cottons. Honestly, I take every opportunity for a little hand sewing in my projects.

I had such fun planning and playing with these fabrics and am thankful for the opportunity. Visit these other beautiful blogs for the remainder of the BitterSweet Blog Tour. 

28 August	Sue Daley	http://www.suedaleydesigns.com/
28 August	Amanda Herring	http://www.thequiltedfish.typepad.com/
29 August	Anorina Morris	http://www.sameliasmum.com/
29 August	Carrie B	www.beribeedesigns.com.
30 August	Sedef Imer	http://www.downgrapevinelane.com/
30 August	Marissa Rae Gun	http://www.raegunramblings.com/
31 August	Sharon Burgess	http://blog.lilabellelanecreations.com/
1 September	Deanne Coombes	http://www.fabricpixie.com.au/blog.asp
4 September	Peta Peace	http://shequiltsalot.com/
5 September	Keera Job	http://livelovesew.com.au/blog-2/
6 September	Alison Von Bibra	https://cottonfactory.wordpress.com/
7 September	Lorraine Lovell	http://www.hettiespatch.com/
7 September	Leonie Bateman	http://www.leoniebatemandesigns.typepad.com/
8 September	Leanne Ivanoff	http://www.sewfab.com.au/blogs/news
8 September	Jina Barney - US	http://www.jinabarneydesignz.com/

BitterSweet by Sue Daley is now available to purchase - visit your local quilt store or Millhouse Collections here in Australia, or Riley Blake Designs for stockist information.

BTW - I have another project in the works, using BitterSweet fabric. It's a slow project which has a lot of hand sewing. I look forward to sharing it with you very soon, but keep a look out over on Instagram for lots of sneaky little progress peeks.