BQL Calender Challenge - August

As ever, Queen of the Last Minute, I finished the August challenge - following the previous 3 months I have not quilted it yet - I wanted a more summery, pastel type feeling, but it just looked like cat sick. So I went for this way. I wanted the eye to be teased by the interlocking pinwheels, not Kandy's original idea, as the pattern calls for mass half square triangle making followed by a design of your choice. this way I cut and placed, then messed with the placing, decided that the colours were 'wrong', cut some more, sewed them, frog stitched some, sewed some more, ironed, trimmed, sew, iron... I do like it, but it's not August for me.... plus I'm starting to loose interest in putting them all together as although I have used the same set of fabrics on them I'm not sure the ones I have will gel. Lets wait and see in December....

More Drawings

The littles have spent a lot of time drawing this summer. Most pictures get folded and stapled or glued into 'presents' these I rescued, catman above - from T2, Benji Cat below - he's hunting butterflies to eat (thanks to nana telling that tale, T1 has worries over the world security of the butterfly population) the butterfly is hiding in the tree....

Exactly the same materials

I gave the littles exactly the same materials, some poster paint, rollers, stamps and paper.....
they set them selves up under the quince tree and painted for a while. Mommy is the fortunate (and very happy) recipient of nearly all their artwork..... the difference in outcome would be good material for a developmental psychologist.....

T1

T2

T1

T2

Beach

T1 spent a very long time on the beach collecting these 'jewels' the muscle shell is lovely - almost like abalone. This is perhaps the last beach trip, with school starting next week, unless the weather picks up towards the end of September when there is a holiday......

Electric Substations

This is going to be an interesting set of pictures. I've increasingly noticed that Turkish substations are HUGE, like houses, and accordingly they have a department of house painters (I'm not sure if this is true - one of my Turkish readers please let me know!) There are some great lengths gone to to paint these, shingles, grilles, porches, and bricks are all added to the basic structure, they look quite good - in a strange sort of way. So this is the first one, in Tarabya. More to come - a lot more..... It will be interesting to see if they change as I go to different areas.

Wordless Wednesday

Happy Birthday Baby...

We celebrated No3's birthday today - this time I have free reign over the cake. I spied a lollipop garden cake on Martha - she adores butterflies, we make her say butterfly - because it's too cute, because she can't say it properly - 'bow-bow-bly' is what we get. I found some butterfly cutters and so used the beautiful MM fondant to make the base, cut the grass and butterflies from coloured MM fondant. I let the fondant set around the lollipop sticks overnight and put the sprinkles at the base..... easy.

T1 and T2's friends were back from various vacations as well as a dear friend +2 leaving, so we had the party a few days early and invited all the littles friends. 14 adults, 15 littles. Fun!!

I have a constant party favour dilemma, so this time I decided to make something useful... We often have to take 'Inside Shoes' places we go, I designed this one handle bag's size specifically for 5yr old inside shoes - it's just the right size to be held in the hand or over the shoulder - of course there were bubbles and a chocolate bar inside...

We had a Fun day.

5X all finished

Whilst the whole piece was finished in August - it's taken me until September to gather the courage to cut this piece into the sections with the red threads holding the feelings together - I love this piece....

5 X Finished - Fear

Lots of fear in this one, but mainly the (often unnecessary) fear of change, and that perhaps change is good, sliver linings and all....

5 X Finished Surprise

This was the hardest section for me to compleate.

5 X Finished Love

As Madness says 'Nothing more, nothing less, Love is the best'

5 X Finished Joy

The inspiration for this is my 'sunshine yellow' teen years bedroom, it even had yellow carpet! - this room glowed with energy when the sun shone into it, I associate yellow with sunshine, and sunshine with the desire to shout with joy.

5 X Finished Sorrow

So the inspiration about this is the sorrow of my dad's death whilst I was pregnant, and him not seeing No3 - all those circles inside circles are symbolic!

Wordless Wednesday

Fabric Paper III

So the finished piece looks remarkably like the last picture of II's post. Just slightly lighter. The fabric paper is very flexible and really surprisingly strong. (detail above)

I love the way the light shines through the sections (above) - it reminds me of the Dale Chihuly (or here) walkways, where he places vessles above you on a perspex sheet and you walk under them - seeing the light shing through.

Anyway - I learnt quite a lot from this - next time - if there is a next time - I will - use more glue, different size fabric, some paper, fewer sequins, a single sheet of tissue paper and a brayer to compress everything.....

Whilst I like the result but am not too sure what to do with the sheet. It didn't meet my expectations of being 'sand like' so I shelved that idea. I owe a hand made book mark - so use it for that - it' was easy to sew and rotory cut. I have a lot left over.... postcards?

Fabric Paper II

I kept on sprinkling the threads and snippets - trying to make them spread, I wanted 2 halves, a yellowy 'sand' half and a darker green/grey one, so put the materials accordingly.


Once all the threads were on I sprinkled a thick coat of PVA over the whole piece, this was hard not to 'mush' all the other stuff. I used a sponge brush thing - it was good as I could dab and splatter the glue without touching the threads too much. T1 then helped by sprinkling a very large amount of sequins over the whole piece.

Then the tricky bit. Putting the tissue over the whole, I opted for smaller pieces thinking the whole piece would be hard. I think either way would be hard. I then put it in a corner to dry.

It took a full 24 hours, the last few hours I peeled it away from the plastic and allowed the air to circulate around the whole piece.

Fabric Paper I

I've seen several references to fabric paper - so decided to make some, the long drying times has put me off - people have said it's 'days' the hot weather with a nice breeze should speed this up. I followed these directions roughly. I assembled all the bits, these I've been collecting for a while, threads and thin bits of fabric, some old sequins, the base fabric (I used some recycled open weave cotton) and the tissue for the top.

My original plan was for the fabric to look a little like 'sand' so I tinted the PVA glue with some acrylic paint.



I put a generous layer of the glue onto the backing - which was on a plastic sheet. I then started sprinkling the threads and chopped up fabric on the surface, trying to keep it even.

Paşabahçe - Vases

I spied these in Pasabahce - don't need any new vases, but love the design.....
($1.50 = 1ytl = 40p)

Shadow box table - Grand reveal

So this is how the table looks from above - very cropped as the debris around it is not interesting! and the 2 squares that are boring - my ipod bits and pieces, and some handles....
Just 2 empty slots to fill....

Shadow box table - Bits of Stuff

So random things, Wade whimsies - old, badges, dangly things, pressed pennies, a cat's eye, empty little bottles...... stuff.....

Wordless Wednesday

Shortbread and Oreo-ish biscuits again

We made another batch of the Oreo-ish biscuits - this time I refrigerated them longer - hoping that they would roll - so that we could use the fairy cutter - no - wouldn't work.
SO...
I made a batch of shortbread - this was good with the other cutters we have - even the long necked dinosaur - but no - not with fairies/princess cutters - anyone any tips? it breaks at the neck area....

Smartie Biscuits

Nana brought over good English Smarties, so.... we made Smartie biscuits - the littles were knocked out by them - they are cool.....

Incoming mail

T1 is on the verge of 'taking' this one into her custody - from Barbara for the BQL PC 'Flower Power' trade, the stitching catches the center of the sequins, making them 'pop' as 3D objects, neat.... I may borrow that idea.....

Incoming mail

More 'Flower Power' from Claire, and right - Michelle, from the BQL PC group.

Incoming mail

These were for the 'Flower Power' trade, folks got my 'Ortanca' cards.
left from Plum, the right from Lesley - again BQL PC

Incoming mail

These two spotties are now on my 'washing line' from Plum - this was her first set.... and below from Ruth.

Wordless Wednesday

Incoming mail

More 'spots and dots' - the landscape from Carole, and the dot-to-dot from Chris - again from the BQLPC group.

Incoming mail

Spots and Dots cards, the lady bird from Michelle, and the landscape from Janet - from the BQL PC group

I sent 'sunspot' cards from way back long ago.... slightly different edging on most of them though...

Princess Oreo Cookies

I subscribed to Martha's cookie a day email - it's bad, because I want to make more biscuits than I am - I figure there are lots of 'weird' stuff put in commercial biscuits, a batch takes no time to make, and I only ever make them if I have the oven on for something else. This recipe came through and I had to make it - I love Oreos, with cold FRESH (not UHT) milk - ice cold, full fat milk - so I had to make them. Of course I didn't make the cream filling....

T1 got this princess cookie cutter from Nana, so it seemed a good opportunity. The mix doesn't stand up to being rolled out. So we made regular round biscuits and then pressed a star cutter lightly into the top. Made at noon, 4 went to a neighbour but the batch was gone before 7pm. They were good but missing the slightly 'burnt' taste of Oreos - and not as crunchy - but good biscuits. I did of course convert the recipe to metric.

Doğuş Power Center

We often go to one of the smaller malls because it has this great climbing cube and play area, complete with a girl who watches the littles – now all 3 can go inside. Best of all – it’s free, free parking too…. The place has great air conditioning and so is perfect in the hot/humid weather. It’s in a strange location, sandwiched between the car repair area and the financial area – both low residential areas! Saturdays are quiet – this is taken around 12.30! We were nearly the only people in the whole place.