In bed with a Hottie - Upcycled Tutorial featured in Hazed Magazine

Skill Level: Beginner/Intermediate (Just a bit more advanced than beginner level)

Just what you need to keep you snuggly on a cold winters night. And to keep you extra toasty why not try your hand at a hot water bottle cover? I have used a thrifted woolen blanket and sheet - however you can come up with your own eco-conscious cover using all sorts of upcycled garments - a woolen jersey, dressing gown or coat. Fabric to applique a design onto your cover can be nearly any type as you will fuse it with iron on fusing, giving it stability and strength. I have used a sheet for this one and neck ties for the hottie cover on the grey cover. Be creative, and feel free to send me pics of your creation, as I love to see what people come up with.

So what you will need to complete this project is:
Your chosen garments/linen/blanket
A hot water bottle for template
A sewing machine
Sewing thread
Sewing pins
Sewing scissors
Taylors Chalk or a light pencil
Ruler or tape measure
An iron and ironing board (or towel to iron on)
Paper or light card for a template and applique design
Sticky tape
Fusable interfacing/violene (make sure it has one side that has glue dots on it)
A button and loop of ribbon or cord for back closure

1. Firstly place your hottie onto paper/card and trace around. Now add 2cm around the entire template except the neck of the hottie. This part needs 3cm on each side to allow for the hottie to fit through the neck hole. This is your front template.

2. Now make a copy of your front template for the back. Measure ⅔ down this template and cut a straight line across. These 2 parts are the back template. You will now need to take the top part of your back template and cellotape 3cm on the bottom edge, so that your top back template ends up overlapping your bottom back template. This will provide the opening to slip the hottie into.

3. Label everything, pin the templates to your blanket and carefully cut around. You will now have 1 front piece and 2 back pieces.

4. Zig-zag stitch around all 3 templates to prevent fraying. You may find the material becomes wavy and slightly stretched. Just press it with your iron and it will return to its original shape.

5. Time to applique. Decide on a shape/symbol etc you like and draw or print this onto paper. Carefully cut around it (good idea to simplify it a bit if there are complicated areas, which is what I did with my NZ map).

9. Repeat steps 7 and 8 to make a small shape to applique onto the bottom back piece to hold the loop on.

10. Now pin the loop at the halfway point on the bottom piece near the top where the opening is.

11. Place your appliqued shape over the loop ends and zig-zag around it, securing the loop ends in place

12. Now place the top back piece over the bottom back piece and line it up until the back pieces are the same size as the front piece. Zig-zag these together along the sides to create the back opening.

13. Now you are ready to join it all together. Place the front piece on top of the back piece with the right sides facing each other.

14. Sew a straight stitch around the pieces 5mm in from the edges right around the pieces, starting at the top neck, and ending up back at the top neck.

15. Press the cover carefully before turning it in the right way. You may need to then press it again once it’s out the right way, to get the curves sitting nicely.

16. Lastly stitch a button near the bottom of the top back piece for the loop to go around to keep the hottie cover closed.

17. Now jump under the covers and snuggle your lovely eco-friendly hottie!

I made the grey one from an upcycled army blanket, to commemorate 100yrs since Gallipoli, and to pay tribute to those in NZ who lost their lives in the war.

aprons and gumboots

It was definitely a kitchen day today - lovely soft rain fell all day, which is great for our drought stricken earth.  It rained whilst i was picking peaches, collecting eggs and harvesting veges from the garden.  Which meant it was an apron AND gumboots day!  (I quite like aprons - and gumboots just top off the Domestic Goddess look!)

Anyhow, whilst finding my preserving recipe for peaches i got a wee bit distracted by jam.  And ended up making 2 jars of gorgeously red raspberry jam - courtesy of Alison Holst's recipe.  A lot quicker and simpler than i remember and a good quick fix.  Which then led me onto making a jam jar cover. Here it all is:

my hand dyed, upcycled doiley jam jar cover

Next on the menu was a Moroccan orange syrup cake - with almonds, eggs, breadcrumbs and rind of orange and lemon - then the fun part - pouring orange/lemon syrup infused with cinnamon over the top, waiting for a few minutes then tasting it....A citrus symphony i have to say...especially with a bit of cream drizzled over.  I found the recipe on Pinterest:
Moroccan Orange Syrup Cake

Dinner was a garden medley - courgette and feta quiche, with sweet corn and steamed beans.  Lovely to have an abundant garden...thanks to my lovely man, his army of worms, the compost he creates, and my chookies (chickens), who do a fantastic job with weed control and fertiliser.

I have tried a few quiche recipes, and quite like this one, as it has a brown rice crust, which is a bit more filling for my rapidly growing kiddies...
herbed zucchini and feta quiche

Here's hoping more rain falls on our poor parched earth.  And it was just the excuse I needed to try new things in the kitchen!

bunting fun, and gracie

my 6 yr old is nearly 7.  And very excited about it. She has also discovered buntings, and has decided she wants a fairy one for her rainbow birthday party.  I happen to have some gorgeous Cicely Mary Barker fairy fabric that will do nicely, so am eager to get that underway.

However, back to Gracie - she sounds awfully girlie doesn't she - but actually she isn't.  Up until about 5yrs, skirts were totally overrated - they got in the way of her biking and climbing trees, and we were lucky if we could get her into anything except shorts - even in the middle of winter.  In fact often in her earlier years, naked was her favourite outfit.  Thankfully her pre-school was understanding!
Anyhow, I thought I would show you one of her recent designs.  I gave her an old A3 sketch folder and she has been keeping her designs in it (because she is going to be a designer like her mummy when she grows up - cutey!)

Rosie the Robot, by Gracie aged 6 and a half

Next is a picture of my first attempt at a bunting.  I decided to go the upcycled route, so included are thrifted things - an embroidered tablecloth, floral sheet, vintage lace and a dyed pillow case.  I am quite pleased with the result, and think that this will be my giveaway for my redflax page on facebook - in celebration of the fact that I have passed the 500 mark of followers on Pinterest - we are a multi-social media society nowadays aren't we :)

upcycled bunting loveliness 

Autumn Harvest

My lovely man harvested more tomatoes from his glass house today, and made tomato sauce - I have to say it is the best batch yet - all because of the tomatoes hubby informs me - its been a bumper crop!

And that is not all that has been fruitful this season - our peach tree is laden - to the point where we had to tie it up and prop up some of the branches because of the weight of the crop....I had one today and it tasted like sunshine and dew all mixed together...

our beautiful peach tree

so I found a recipe for peach and almond tart - as they are members of the same family, I figured it would be a great flavour combo...peach and almond tart is a BBC Good Food recipe

Will keep you posted on how this turns out - it is filling the house with wonderful aromas...

The refreshing of my cushions is also on the creative menu this week - I thought i would share a picture of my latest refashion - the centre cushion is entirely upcycled from the table napkin backing and the hand embroidered table cloth front to the zip i took out of the tired previous cushion cover...

my new cushion covers

 Its lovely to breathe new life into beautiful linens that have been discarded in an op-shop.  The hours of work someone has lovingly devoted deserves to get a second chance to shine!  The cushion on the left is fabric i picked up at Spotlite - which was a surprise, I have to say.  Not often they have such funky fabric.

Off to get the tarts out of the oven - with a verdict to follow... :) J