Joy of Joys, there is a NZ House and Garden in the mailbox!

Joy of Joys, there is a NZ House and Garden in my mailbox!



It's one of the loveliest issues they've put out I think. All very vintage and cottage gardeny and a tea party Magpie Chic style! What more could a girl wish for?

They have even published the lemon tartlet recipe from Port O Call from their archives.

It's become my signature tea party treat that one:P

I have the whole weekend to read it from cover to cover. Life doesn't get much better.

Hope you all had just such a pleasant weekend blog chics!

A small explosion in the universe!

A small explosion happened in the universe over night!
No, it was not the Large Hadron Collider blowing up again!! (Did you know that one of the guys that does the night shift on the LHC is a Kiwi?) It was what's known as "the Happy effect". It's a new law of quantum physics that I just invented. There is now a mall black hole out there somewhere in the blogaverse and it'll suck you in.... to reading my blog. It happened because Happy http://happylovesrosie.blogspot.com/ blogged about designing my blog graphics and now I have 20 followers! Such a lovely surprise for a new blogger. Thanks for your lovely comments too. I have enjoyed visitting you all .






I did eventually get to the weeding that I was supposed to have been doing five days ago. It's looking much better, and my autumn pansies are growing well. I just love purple!!
Autumn in my garden is a bit of a clean up and put everything to bed time.



Chooky doesn't put himself to bed, he just stays out in all weathers gathering a lovely layer upon layer of lichen.

These are my sturdy stockman's boots that I ware in the garden. I inherited them from my sister, so they are actually about two sizes too big for me, but I love them. When I went through customs coming back from playing jillaroo in Australia a few months ago, they had to pick out all the raisins from the treads! It took ages...Raisins you ask? Well, that's what you do when you're keeping a one year old and "The Woozle" who is three amused on a trans Tasman flight. You give them raisins of course, then you stand in all the dropped ones when you change a nappy, and they end up in your boots.
Thanks for stopping by blog chics!

A ghost in the machine.

I have a ghost in the machine!


No, it is not the Magpie Cat looking for a new nest, it is the software for my new camera! I'm so gutted! I had so many lovely piccies to share, and it worked the first time, but alas, never again. I re-installed it three times, and Richard gave it the benefit of all his problem solving and troubleshooting deliberations, but to no avail. So, it's back to the shop I go on Monday. But here are a few that I managed to get in before the wheels fell off!

The crysanths are from my Mum and she calls them "Matt's flowers", because they were grown from a cutting taken from a pot of crysanths that someone gave us after we lost him in a helicopter crash this time last year. It's not the least bit morbid, it makes us happy to see something lovely come from such a manky and neglected plant, and they always remind Mum of my brother Matt now, as they come out at this time of year. He loved an Easter Egg hunt did Matt, and it's those things that we love to remember about him.

I love this vignette, and keep being drawn back to it.

Never really did quite work out what to do with my plastic geraniums, but I feel they are an item that every girl should have in her magpie chic stash!!!

This is just the perfect image for serenity in the Magpie Chic world!

Thanks for calling in :P

Shall I choose the red coat or the green coat?

Hello again! Today I had a dilemma on my hands. Should I ware my red tartan op-shop duffle coat, or my emerald green one on my walk? Weighing up all the pros and cons, I chose the red one. My Mum wants to know how come I love duffle coats so much now, when she couldn't get me to wear one for love nor money when I was six!!! I don't know Mum; could've been the particular shade of porridgey brown that duffle coats favoured in the early seventies...

The Magpie Cat was watching from her nest in my haberdashery. She didn't have an opinion one way or the other.

Actually, that wasn't the biggest dilemma I faced today. The real dilemma was weather I was brave enough to try to install the software for my new camera! I've been really scared of it.

I've been making a lace decolletage for my op shop Nana cardy (in Nana lavender), and listening to National Radio all morning. I should be gardening today because the weeds are popping up again, but it's soooo cold now, so I went for a walk in my red coat instead. I'll have to confess to Hubby about the weeds tonight, because I pledged to tackle them today. But there were provisos about the weather, having consulted the Taranaki Daily News while eating marmalade toast in bed. So he may be prepared for the weeds still being there...

So I went walking, and stopped in at all the op shops up the main street of Hawera, and found a few things that I might go back for at the end of the week. I have a system whereby I leave stuff there for a few days and if it's still there when I go back for it, well then it MUST be meant for me.

When I came home the Magpie Cat was very interested in the contents of my Nana bag. I left her to it and raced off to get my washing in before it rained.

This is the result of my quilt how-to from my last posting. I need to make a lot more squares yet, but go can see the effect I was after. I'll embellish it with more bits of doilie etc over the top too.

You guessed it! I installed the software successfully and my new camera is up and running!! I hope the quality of the pictures has improved. I still have to read the instructions. I'm scared of them too, but I'll get through them tonight during the boring bits in Coro, and hopefully it'll all just get better and better!

Thanks for calling in.

My raggy ballerina quilt and how to make it.

I always wanted a bedroom with a fifties vintage ballerina theme. When my daughter left home with her spotted red hanky tied onto a stick slung over her shoulder (Piggling Bland reference for anyone who doesn't know what I'm on about), I was allowed to decorate her room!
So I did it vintage ballerina style... will blog about that soon, and put photos on flikr.
Decided to use all my little scraps of ballerina material and other doily remnants and bits and pieces to make a raggy quilt for the bed. Here's how you make it.



I cut my squares of wadding and my squares of backing to 8 and a half inches, but you can use whatever size you like. Lay the backing down wrong side up and place the wadding on top.

Cut several strips of co-ordinating fabrics into varying widths. I made them no bigger than three inches wide. Begin by sewing a strip right side up through the diagonal of the square.

Pin the next strip to the top of the previous one, right sides together, and sew like foundation piecing, through all the three layers with a quilting seam allowance ( I think it's about 3/8 of an inch - doesn't matter anyhow, wont affect the look of the finished piece).

Turn the piece over and press the seam, so that both pieces are now right side facing.

Continue with each strip till you have covered the whole square, turn it over and trim to shape with a rotary cutter.

Make as many squares as you like and lay them out in a combination that pleases you. Sew the pieces together with the seams showing on the RIGHT side (front of quilt). Splice along each seam allowance as you go, making approximately 5mm gaps between splices. I used sharp embroidery scissors. Afterwards you wash the quilt with a towel and put it in the tumble dryer with a towel or a tennis ball to "raggy" up the seam allowances.

This is what i mean by splicing the seam allowance. Making small nicks in it almost to the seam, but not through it.
Took this pic by myself, while simultaneously cutting!!! Hence the slightly out of focus cinematography effects:P

Splice all the seam allowances like this, then throw it in the washing machine!

The raggy edges look something like this when they come out of the dryer. I haven't finished mine yet, but I'll put it on the blog when I do. You know what I'm like.... it might be a little while because I'll be working on the other ten projects I've got going!