Bonjour Quilts

Quilting, Sewing & Crafts

  • Home
  • About
    • Contact
  • Shop
    • View Cart
    • Wholesale
    • Pattern Corrections
  • Blog
  • Subscribe
You are here: Home / Archives for craft

Brisbane Stitches and Craft Show

April 5, 2013 By Kirsty 26 Comments

Follow on Bloglovin

Hi there everyone! Hope you all had a great Easter (if you celebrate it) and are having a wonderful weekend.

My email account was hacked yesterday – I’m so sorry if you received a strange email from me. Well, stranger than usual. Hotmail was onto it fairly quickly and shut my account down – it was really hard for me to verify I was the account owner because I hadn’t changed all my alternate contacts since leaving France. So learn from my mistakes here – make sure all your security details (phone number, alternate email, etc) are up to date as it makes account reactivation so much quicker.

But back to the crafting! The weekend before Easter I convinced Marg to come out again and we headed off to see the Brisbane Stitches and Craft Show.

We met up at South Bank Parklands, with its gorgeous bougainvillaea arbour:

Arbour at the South Bank Parklands, Brisbane, Australia

And then marched on to the Exhibition Centre (straight past the markets, no stopping, how’s that for dedication):

StitchesCraftShow2

I was still wearing a moon boot for my broken foot at this stage, so marching is probably a little over-exaggerated. However, we got there all the same.

StitchesCraftShow3

There were 25 or so quilting/sewing related stalls (out of 100) which isn’t a bad ratio.

StitchesCraftShow4

We enjoyed looking over the exhibited items such as the Queensland Lace Guild display:

StitchesCraftShow10
This was made by a man, baby! *said in an Austin Powers voice*

StitchesCraftShow11

There were the Challenge Quilts which had to include this source fabric:

StitchesCraftShow9

Lots of interesting techniques to study (but for the love of Liberty, don’t you dare touch):

StitchesCraftShow7
Once a Goddess, always a Goddess: Jeannie Henry

StitchesCraftShow8
Plumage: Sue Byrnes

StitchesCraftShow13
Fleeing in Fear: Lyn Barber

StitchesCraftShow14
Egyptian Delight: Jane Rundle

We also spent some time perusing the Texstyle Exhibit, which showcased fabric based design projects created by Year 12 (graduating) high school students.

We loved this dress (for its techniques – we are both past our ra-ra skirt wearing days):

StitchesCraftShow16
16th century Russia inspired dress with hand felted bodice and nuno felted skirt-
Brittany Thompson.

Nuno, you say? Why yes, the technique of felting loose fibres to a lightweight, gauzy fabric. And did you know it was developed in Australia?

StitchesCraftShow15
Fabulous

After all the lovely fabric:

StitchesCraftShow17

Textures:

StitchesCraftShow12

Ideas:

StitchesCraftShow5
Finally a use for all that bubble wrap

And seeing the guts of a Bernina machine:

StitchesCraftShow6

We were very hungry and decidedly parched:

StitchesCraftShow18
A late lunch on South Bank.

Then we wandered down to the Brisbane River:

StitchesCraftShow19

And caught the ferry upstream:

StitchesCraftShow20
Ye-olden-day version we saw from our modern ferry.

StitchesCraftShow21
The Brisbane Customs House (c. 1889): it’s not a French medieval town, but it’ll have to do.

StitchesCraftShow22

Dark clouds were brewing and a storm warning was issued. Marg’s lovely daughter offered to drive me home, saving me a train ride. Or even a bike ride:

StitchesCraftShow23
Great idea, although not sure if they get much use?

Lipton Ice Tea. Gee, that reminds me of something:

Oh Hugh, never stop dancing. Or taking your shirt off.

Have a great weekend, tout le monde!

P.S. I was doing nearly the exact same thing in Marseille this time last year.

Filed Under: craft, fabric, Hugh Jackman, Travel, video

IKEA Hack: Doormat repair

June 6, 2012 By Kirsty 17 Comments

I got this little doormat at IKEA. It cost €2.99. After about 6 months of use (indoors) the edges started to do this:

IKEA Hack Mat Repair - by Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts

We all started to trip over it.

At €2.99 I admit my first thought was to throw it out and buy another, which is a pretty crappy thought and indicative of the wasteful and overindulgent Generation X attitude that will lead to the ruin and eventual destruction of the earth.

I repaired the mat and saved the earth. I thought I’d show you how in case you want to repair a mat and save the earth too. Plus the mat turns out prettier, so wins all ’round.

The first step is the most painful – cut off and remove the old edging.

IKEA Hack Mat Repair - by Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts

Cut yourself four 10cm (5 in) lengths of wire, 18 gauge or fatter*, and bend them to right angles.

IKEA Hack Mat Repair - by Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts

Plug in your hot glue gun and get that sucker firing.

Cut yourself four lengths of bias tape to fit the edges of your mat with at least at least 3cm (an inch) overhang on each side for you to fold over.

IKEA Hack Mat Repair - by Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts

As you can see above I didn’t leave myself enough overhang but was saved by being able to stretch my bias tape.

I used 20mm (3/4 in) binding as it was what I had on hand (but I would’ve liked it to be a little wider – go for a 25mm (1 in) if you can).

Check that your wire fits the angle of your mat corners and then glue it in place. The wire will enable you to turn down the dog-eared corners, letting your mat live another day.

IKEA Hack Mat Repair - by Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts

Then glue down your bias tape, starting on the top side of your mat (the side that faces up). Try to line it up so that it sits just under the holes from the old edging (so you can reuse the holes for sewing).

IKEA Hack Mat Repair - by Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts

And wrap your cut ends over the sides of the mat to keep it tidy.

IKEA Hack Mat Repair - by Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts

Once you have all the top sides of your binding glued, give it a moment to cool. If you start pulling the tape around to the back before the glue has set your binding will shift and look most unattractive.

Then you can flip the mat over, wrap your binding over the edge (and the wire) and glue it down.

IKEA Hack Mat Repair - by Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts

Now the fun part – blanket stitching the edge. You’re gonna need a big strong needle of some sort:

IKEA Hack Mat Repair - by Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts

Your first stitch should go in from the back and pop out on the edge (I just used a dab of hot glue to secure the thread tail).

IKEA Hack Mat Repair - by Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts

Then you can carry on blanket stitching along the straight edge, using the old holes if you like (much easier).

IKEA Hack Mat Repair - by Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts IKEA Hack Mat Repair - by Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts

Then you might decide that your mat is looking way too Christmassy for this time of year so you might pull it all out and start again with another colour (I used DMC perle cotton No. 5 but would’ve loved to do this with kitchen twine).

IKEA Hack Mat Repair - by Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts

With the corners, I took a stitch at the very point, which worked out nicely.

IKEA Hack Mat Repair - by Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts IKEA Hack Mat Repair - by Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts

Continue around the mat to where you started and there you have it. I can’t tell you how strong the urge was to go on embellishing (cross stitching alongside that chevron) but I made myself stop because I really wasn’t sure how well the whole thing was going to hold up. After all, folks were going to be wiping their feet on this puppy.

Here it is complete and after 2 months of use. It’s stood up pretty well. Every time a corner gets out of shape you just fold your wire to fix it up.

IKEA Hack Mat Repair - by Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts

Sometimes the stitches get scuffed and this happens:

IKEA Hack Mat Repair - by Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts

All you have to do is push them back out to the edge and it looks great again.

IKEA Hack Mat Repair - by Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts

If you really wanted to make it super hardy you could make your own bias tape out of canvas and use something more durable (such as sharpie pen-coloured fishing wire) to sew it up.

It’s only a small act, but I felt pretty good about repairing this doormat. By using odds and ends I had lying around the house I kept it out of landfill and saved the resources that would’ve been needed to produce a replacement.

Think of the children: save your doormats!

*Wire is sized such that the smaller the number the larger the wire. So the sizes thicker than 18 gauge are 16, 14, etc, not larger numbers as you might expect. I’ve been caught out on that before.

Filed Under: craft, embroidery, tutorial

French-style embroidery sampler

May 14, 2012 By Kirsty 15 Comments

I showed a sneaky-peak of this embroidery a few months ago:

Oz2
It’s now finished and has been in its new home for quite a while:

Maaike2
Maaike3
I made it for Maaike who blogs at CreJJtion and who made this beautiful crocheted baby blanket for me when the baby was born:

Maaike1
Back when he was teeny tiny
I’m excited for Maaike as she has a new shop on Etsy offering crochet patterns and her gorgeous (and customisable) baby blankets. The perfect handmade gift for a new baby!

We visited Sara Louise in Le Petit Village this weekend, where I took lots of photos.

LPV1

With those pics added to the ones from our Spring Trip, I have photos out the wazoo at the moment. I’m working my way through them and will have some up shortly.

LPV2
There’s nothing petit about the view

Hope you all had a good weekend – have a great Monday!

P.S. McSigh. Have you seen this? I feel like a French icon has been sullied.

Filed Under: blogging, completed projects, craft, embroidery, Travel

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • Next Page »

Don’t Miss A Thing!

Keep up to date with all my tutorials and patterns.

Your email will be safe and never shared, and it's easy to unsubscribe at any time.

  • Home
  • Shop
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2021 Bonjour Quilts

Unless stated otherwise, all content (text and photographs) belongs to Bonjour Quilts, so please do not use without permission. The use of a single photograph and a link back to the site is fine, for educational or informational purposes, but please don’t republish more than this in any form (digital or paper). Do not take my photographs and offer them for download (free or paid) on your website.