Shiny

When I spied this thread at Open Drawer, I knew resistance was useless.



I quote from the packaging ...

This thread appears matt grey in ordinary diffuse light but flashes a luminous silver when viewed from the same direction as a light source. It is spectacular in low light or at night.



I wasn't sure why I needed it. Or what I would use it for.

All I knew was: Must. Have. Shiny. Object.

Sometime after the purchase of aforementioned thread, I remembered: I was about to make a coat (Jalie 2680 - Women's City Coat). And as you can see, this baby has a shedload of top-stitching.



Although the pattern instructions don't specifically recommend that said top-stitching should look spectacular in low light or at night ....



... I am sure that top-stitched seams flashing a luminous silver when viewed from the same direction as a light source will be a great asset.



Once I have finished the coat I will be able to go walking at night, secure in the knowledge that I will be visible from miles away.

Look out dear ... what's that in the headlights?
Why I do believe its a princess-seamed coat with wobbly top stitching.

This post brought to you as part of Blogtoberfest - October's blogging festival.

The one in which I mentioned the thread once, but I think I got away with it

Oooh ... lookee over here at all the pretty threads.

No, on second thought - if you don't live in Melbourne don't look at the overlocker threads. Quick ... avert your eyes. Pretend you never saw them.

And I'll be sure not to tell you that this little shop also has a wall ... yes a whole wall ... of zippers of every description. And beautiful interfacing for just $6 a metre.

Yep, I'm awfully glad you didn't see all that.


Anh Accessories Supply
407 Victoria Street
Richmond, Victoria
Open Monday - Saturday 9:00am - 5:30pm


This post brought to you as part of Blogtoberfest - October's blogging festival.

A bolt of fabric

Earlier this year, when I made this bed cover as a gift, I learned a number of important things about fabric and bolts.

For example: I learned that you can't waltz into your local purveyor of fine fabrics and request 11 metres of their best. No siree.

Apparently your standard bolt in a patchwork store is liable to hold far less. And you will need to buy shorter pieces of different prints and do something called sewing to join them into a bed cover.

Just between you and I, I've heard that some people do this kind of thing just for fun. Sheesh, it takes all kinds, huh?


Prints by Tanya Whelan for Free Spirit - Delilah collection

But more importantly, I learned that a bolt is actually something your 4-year-old is liable to do whilst you are puzzling (in the aforementioned fabric store) over which prints go together and in what combination and quantity.

Yes, this sort of bolt compels you to run up and down the aisles, with eyes wide and bellowing your child's name like a fishwife.

The sort where other customers are liable to look and think ... Sheesh, it takes all kinds, huh?


This post brought to you as part of Blogtoberfest - October's blogging festival.

From the more-is-more school of thought

A book of temporary tattoos.
A stealthy 4-year-old.
Four matching limbs.

Tatts a lot of body art.

This post brought to you as part of Blogtoberfest - October's blogging festival.

Simplicity 2506 mouse ears

Recently it was "dress as your favourite book character" day at school. For the uninitiated this occassion is also known as send-your-mother-to-the-edge-of-madness-with-some-completely-outlandish-costume-request.

So when Argy announced he wanted to go as "The Gruffalo" with his terrible tusks and terrible claws and terrible teeth in his terrible jaws, I had to do some quick thinking.



"Er yes, wow, that's a great choice" I said, all the while trying to fathom how to construct terrible tusks and teeth. But then a brainwave: "How about the Mouse?" I suggested, hopefully. "Isn't the Mouse the hero of the story?" Argy looked a little uncertain, but agreed.

I swung into action (before he could change his mind) and started rifling through my pattern collection. Mouse, mouse, mouse ... surely there must be something here. Sure enough, I found a pristine Simplicity 2506 - view D included a sort of hood with mouse ears. Excellent.

But my moment of triumph dissipated when I saw the words "Costumes for Toddlers".



Yes, there was no denying it: the pattern envelope clearly showed a bunch of smiling babies modelling the costumes. Bother. I looked back and forth between the pattern and 6-year-old Argy's well-above-average crown circumference. This was going to call for a little ingenuity.

I traced off the hood pattern pieces and then after taking a few flat pattern measurements, decided to employ an alteration technique called the LNA ("Large Noggin Adjustment"). The LNA (which is sometimes also referred in the trade as the "Big Head Spread"), involved slashing and adding extra real estate to all the pattern pieces making up the hood.

With the addition of a couple of darts, the fit was good and I was able to make up a snug mousy hood in brown fleece and beige tricot. I was quite pleased with the result. That is, except for a lingering doubt: when I changed the size of the hood, should I have graded up the mouse ears?

I soon knew the answer. On the morning of "dress as your favourite book character" Argy proudly wore his costume to school. "Hey ... look its a koala" yelled someone.

With my costume-making pride just a little dented, I tried to see the bight side. At least that's next year's costume sorted: Argy can go as Blinky Bill.



This post brought to you as part of Blogtoberfest - October's blogging festival.

/blôgˈtoʊbərˈfest/ (noun)

This poor craft blog. Its suffered months of neglect: no words, no pictures. Some 722 blog posts have been sitting about, gathering dust. The only visitors have been ones with unusual names like Viagra, Toilet Paper, Learn Spanish and Protein Powder (.. granted they do always stop and take the time to leave such thoughtful shopping recommendations).

Anyway, its time to pull up my socks and get writing again (although I am at a loss to explain how socks will help ... unless they are toe socks, because they like, totally help with typing).

To get back into the habit, I'm joining in with the an annual blogging event, Blogtoberfest. So I'll see you again soon .... I'll be the one in the stripey socks.

Gift voucher winner

I have drawn the winner of my Mooo Design gift certificate.

So just what is the probability of #1 appearing when one uses a random number generator? Anyone, anyone? I don't think I was paying attention in maths that day. And others for that matter. I dread the day the boys ask me for help with their quadratic function homework.

But I digress ...

Congratulations to the lovely Beck - you were #1. Keep an eye out for your certificate which will arrive by e-mail. Enjoy!

And thank you very much to everyone who took the time to enter the giveaway. Stay tuned for another one coming up very soon.

Bloomin' marvellous {Blogtoberfest day 31}

This is how the garden looked a couple of days ago. See how the mass of spring blooms swaying in the warm breeze and dappled sunlight were cluttering the place up? Ixia flowers everywhere.



Thankfully some 50mm of rain has taken care of the problem.



Yep. Shredded. Decimated. Shuffled off the mortal coil. Ex-Ixias.



Along with that pesky rose. The one with dozens of buds that were threatening to flower. The branches fell off overnight. (That should save on pruning).



I'm not upset. No. No. Its fine. Really.

Bye, bye October - it was fun being part of Blogtoberfest. Thanks Cathy for hosting the month long blogging festival.

A Mooo review ... and a giveaway too {Blogtoberfest day 30}

When Ben at Mooo Design contacted me recently and asked if I would like to review a product, I was delighted. Yes, yes, yes I would!

If you're not familiar with Mooo Design, its an Australian store online, that specialises in unique baby and children's gifts and clothing. They offer a range of really beautiful personalised products for baby, toddlers and kids. Their website is brimming with eye candy.



Anyway, Ben's offer was serendipitious. Back here at Chez Hoppo Bumpo, I'd been bemoaning the fact that the main wall in the playroom was looking a bit shabby (read: decorated with tattered Star Wars posters and some unauthorised orange pencil). So I asked whether I might review the (removable) Chalkboard Wall Stickers.

And this is what turned up - a beautiful mixed pack of large stars, space ships, cars, robots and other fun shapes.



Argy and Bargy were pretty excited and gave me a hand with putting the stickers up. The shapes were up in no time at all and looked fantastic (see above).



The boys have really loved drawing and "writing" on the fun shapes. The robots and cars have been particularly popular.



Even after being heavily decorated, the high quality chalkboard wipes perfectly clean with a soft cloth. Fabulous!



If you are looking for a fun way to decorate a wall at home - or for a gift idea - I can highly recommend these Wall Stickers. With a range of shapes and sizes to choose from, what's not to love?

A special thanks to Mooo Design for your generosity - you've transformed our playroom!



Now for the fun bit for you.

When I was looking around the Mooo Design website I noticed that the store has gift certificates. So, I would like to give one reader a gift: a voucher to the value of AUD$20 to use for a spot of shopping at Mooo Design.

To be in the running all you need to do is leave a comment here (... and don't forget to go take a look around Mooo Design, too!).

Please make sure that you leave a valid link or e-mail address so that I can contact you if you win. Everyone is welcome to enter. I will randomly draw a winner from the people who have commented before midnight on Sunday 31 October (local time, Melbourne Australia) the following morning. The gift voucher will be e-mailed.

Good luck!

EDIT: Entries have now closed for the giveaway.

To see more of October's blogging festival Blogtoberfest hop over here.

Captive {Blogtoberfest day 28}

Stockholm syndrome: paradoxical psychological phenomenon where a hostage begins to have positive feelings towards his/her captor

I found this so-called technical book in Mr HB's possession this morning. But look closely at the title. Is there not something a little odd there?

Friends, have the mountains of stashed fabric at our place finally taken their toll?


For more of Blogtoberfest pop over here.

An elephant birthday cake {Blogtoberfest day 24}

Here is Bargy's 4th birthday cake depicting (as requested) his cuddly elephant, Ellie (below).



I fashioned the sugary Ellie using Wilton's Ready-To-Use Gumpaste. Its quite pricey in Australia, but is easy to work with and sets very well.

The hardest part was trying to reproduce Ellie's sad mottled grey-blue, saggy appearance. (Her replica is possibly just a hair's-breadth away from being Cake Wrecks-worthy).

Jalie t-shirt {Blogtoberfest day 22}

If you look carefully, this blog is littered with evidence of unequal numbers of project starts and project finishes. Put bluntly: my craft completion rate is slower than a herd of turtles stampeding through peanut butter. Thankfully a lack of summer attire and a patch of warm weather have forced my hand a little on the "finishing" bit.

This ladies' top was sewn yesterday. I used Jalie pattern #2005. Its a popular t-shirt pattern with variations on sleeve length (3/4 and short) and necklines (V, scoop and boat). My version has the V-neck and short sleeves and is made up in a knit that I purchased from Spotlight a while back. The pattern is great - I will definitely make more tees from this.

However, I must not mislead you into thinking that this was a project started and finished in a single day.


Source: Jalie patterns

You see, Jalie #2005 is out-of-print pattern - available only as a download. At USD$8.99 its very reasonably priced and delivered as quickly as you can press Add to cart and Purchase. But there are some 72 pages to print and tape together.

And according to records it took me more than 6 months to complete the sticky taping. I don't think paper-craft is really my thing, do you?.

My review of this pattern can be found at PatternReview.com

My creative space {Blogtoberfest day 21}

Sitting on my desk this week is a small stack of Jalie patterns. The near parity between the Australian and US dollars means that I was able to buy these online for nearly half what I would pay in Australia.

To avoid too many questions about this purchase, I have arranged the acquisitions so that this trouser pattern is on top.



Friends, there is no way Mr HB will want to investigate said purchases if he thinks that I might want to sew him something. You know ... to wear.

Of course if you have used Jalie patterns before, you'll know that they are multi-sized from child to adult. This one is intended to be new trousers for Argy and Bargy. But there's no need for Mr HB to know that ... we'll keep that our secret. OK?

In fact I might even add a tape measure and a pad and pencil close by ... with alarming things like inner leg jotted on it.


To see more lovely Creative Spaces head over to Kootoyoo.

Head over here for more of Blogtoberfest.

Happy birthday, Bargy {Blogtoberfest day 20}

Bargy ...



... master of disguise ...



... and wanton vandal ...



... is 4 today.



Now if you could excuse me, I think you'll see the necessity for investigating why its gone so quiet downstairs.

Four warned {Blogtoberfest day 19}

Do you ever have a brilliant idea ... only to find that the execution is completely flawed?

Its Bargy's 4th birthday this week and as is customary, we needed to make a little something for his kindergarten classmates. My smashing idea was to colour ready-to-roll fondant (white) icing, before cutting out simple decorations for cupcakes.



I rifled through the playdough cutters and got to work on cutting out blue circles and two dozen red fours.



It wasn't until I'd embarked on this venture and passed the point of no return (read: coloured half a kilo of icing in an alarming shade of carmine), that I realised there was a problem.

Yup. The triangles. Can you guess how tricky removing the middles from two dozen fours is?

Four crying out loud: please always check your playdough cutter font before getting started.



This has been a community service announcement.

Jersey how quickly it can all go wrong? {Blogtoberfest day 17}

A couple of weeks ago I stumbled across this beautiful piece of black and avocado jersey (when I say stumbled I do mean in the sense drove 8kms to a fabric shop and looked for half an hour). The beautiful drape and slightly abstracted tulip motif looked perfect for a skirt. I decided to use my new self-drafted knit skirt pattern and set to cutting out the two yoke and skirt pieces.

The fabric was lovely to work with.

The pieces sat obediently flat as I cut - there wasn't even so much as hint of a curl at the edges. It pinned together and machined like a dream. I gazed at the soothing green print. I began to think it was the nicest fabric I had ever used. In fact - I loved it.

That was until the incident.

Now as you might be aware, that most sewing events that are classed as an incident, involve an overlocker. And this was no different.



As I tried to make unfinished edges look pretty, something alarming happened. Nom, nom, nom said the overlocker as it took saw-toothed bites out of the fabric and then vomited thread everywhere.

As I was at my dressmaking class, my teacher came to see what was happening and gently explained that overlockers don't much care for single layers of jersey. Being as its so slinky.

Argghh. I felt like a tight-rope walker who had happily made it half way across the highwire. Before looking down. Whoa - whoa - whoaaaaaaa. I lost it. I took the skirt back to sewing machine to finish the waistband and hem. Suddenly the fabric was a slippery, stretchy nightmare. I was swerving all over the place. I lost the motivation to finish - it was hideous to work with.



As you can see I did eventually complete the skirt. But you know what? I hate* jersey. It can jolly well go and live with velvet.


* I mean "hate" in the sense of I will never use it again until the next time I see it on special


See more of Blogtoberfest right here.

My 1000 words {Blogtoberfest day 11}

I was going to sit down and write a witty thousand word piece.
But in the interests of cutting verbosity, I give you this photo instead (you know: pictures, 1000 words and all that sort of thing).

Sunset, Sunday 10.10.10

The arrrghh-I've-run-out-of-cocoa chocolate cake {Blogtoberfest day 10}

Isn't it annoying when you are part way through cooking something and you discover that an ingredient is missing?

Take for example, the the time I was dining at a beautiful Thai restaurant. The dessert orders had not long been taken, when the waitress returned with news from Chef. Apparently the kitchen was all out of bananas. It wouldn't have been issue but for the fact that all the desserts on the menu contained banana. Hmph.

I had somewhat of a banana moment myself today.

There I was part-way through making a chocolate cake to take to Curlypop's place, when I discovered that I was clean out of both cocoa and chocolate. I doubted my ability to sell the merits of the lesser-known chocolateless chocolate cake, so started frantically hunting for a substitute.

Ah-ha. There it was: granular and brown. My patent disregard for baking rules quick thinking, saw the addition of a heap of super sweet, rich Green and Black's drinking chocolate.

I think the result was quite passable. And infinitely better than it would have been than if I decided to use gravy powder.

The arrrghh-I've-run-out-of-cocoa chocolate cake

Adapted from this recipe at taste.com.au

1 1/3 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
2/3 cup sweet drinking chocolate
2/3 cup caster sugar
1 cup milk
2 tbsp lemon juice or vinegar
2 eggs, lightly beaten (I used 1 heaped tbsp Orgran No Egg, an egg substitute)
125g butter, melted and cooled
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180oC.
2. Grease a 20cm (8-inch) round pan; line the bottom with paper.
3. Sift together the flour, soda, chocolate and caster sugar.
4. Stir the lemon (or vinegar) into the milk, then combine with the eggs, butter and vanilla.
5. Beat the dry and liquid ingredients together with an electric mixer for 4 minutes.
6. Pour into the cake pan and bake for about 45 minutes.
7. Cool the cake on a rack, then ice and decorate (I used marshmallows for the flowers).