Business Mums Conference

I am waiting in anticipation for my conference pack to arrive for the Business Mum's Conference on the 20 - 21st of June at Homesglen.

Since starting on the Konstant Kaos roller coaster, it has been hard to find the time to completely focus on my business and where it is going. Generally this happens in the wee hours of the morning when the house is silent, the cats are sleeping and I don't have anything else to do ....

The theme of the conference is Recharge Your Business and the presenters look quite good.

Perhaps I will see you there?

Map Quilts

I love maps and stumbling across this entry on craft gossip got me thinking that I might put a "Melbourne quilt" down on my "to do list". Having tools like Google Maps makes it even easier to do a map quilt.

via Haptic Labs

I was trying to think about how I would "map" something and I as thinking about finding a friend with a data projector, project it onto the cotton and then make sure that the stipling is done ina geometric design to have the streets of your favourite town displayed.

Head over to Haptic Labs to see what else they are making.

Crochet Tea Cosy

A call went out to the Brown Owls to see who had a tea cosy pattern.

I have this pattern, below, from an old crochet book ... but I would imagine that any hat pattern would work, and wherever you want your handle and spout, you would leave a gap (hope that makes sense).

It mentions the use of Turabast which I believe is a metallic yarn, although I have no idea what ply the yarn is. Have fun!

Op Shop Granny

My mother stumbled across this gorgeous single bed size Granny Blanket for just $6.99 at her local Op shop.

I love the colour combination and the way in which the red just pop's out at you. I tend to have a leaning towards the good ol red/black/white ...

Speaking of Op Shops, if you haven't stumbled across "I op therefore I am" then head over and take a look. It is a collaborative blog, with all sorts of good stuff like a list of Op Shops listed by Suburb.

Who is up for an Op Shop crawl ... just like a pub crawl, only with tea and scones rather than beer and chips!

Sunday Morning Waffles

If you have been fortunate enough to visit the St. John's German Church Bazaar, then you might have tried the waffles for sale there. Waffles bring back many happy memories of the mountains of waffles my hubby's Oma used to make us, whenever I stayed the night at his parents place. That was long ago!

Years later, we finally got ourselves our own Waffle machine (a little bit like this one - we have a sunbeam, but they don't make them anymore) and we tend to drag it out on a sunday morning ... German Waffles are not as deep as the Belgium Waffles, they tend to be thin, more like pancakes.

Last Sunday the hubby and I had a TFM (Tori free Morning) and we made waffles for breakfast!

Traditional German Waffles

Ingredients

• 175g margarine/butter (room temp)
• 175g of sugar
• 1 packet of vanilla sugar (or 2 caps of vanilla essence)
• 4 eggs
• salt
• 200g self raising flour
• 50g of corn flour
• Sploshes of Milk

I make my waffles in my benchtop mixer, but you could do it by hand if you wanted to.

Recipe

1. Cream sugar/butter together then add the eggs one at a time. Mix until creamy with no lumps. Make sure that the butter is at room temperature or you will get lumps.
2. Add your dry ingredients (flour/cornflour/salt) one table spoon at a time until smoothly combined.
3. Add 'sploshes' of milk until the mixture is runny but not too much. If it gets too runny, just add more flour.
4. Heat up and oil the Waffle maker. We generally use melted ghee, but you could use spray oil or butter if you wanted to.
5. Experiment with how much waffle mixture you have to add. We generally use a ladel to pour it into the waffle maker.
6. Once cooked, remove from waffle maker, dust with icing sugar and devour. Alternatively, you could serve with icecream and fruit ...
   

*yum*

Footnote: I have not tried this recipe as a gluten/soy recipe. If you do, please let me know how it went.

Sonny & Coco Market

Konstant Kaos are very excited to have a market stall at Sonny & Coco Market at Preston Town Hall this Sunday, 24 May 2009.

Preston Town Hall: 10am - 4pm 284-286 Gower St, Preston,
(Melway Reference: Map 18 G12)

Yes my markets tend to be over the North side of the city, that is probably because I am a Northcote Girl! Come a long and heckle me!

I have some lovely new fabrics and also some new bags for sale!

Awesome Foursom Bag

v2 of my "College Bag" design done in Beatles fabric.

This was a custom job, made for someone who loves the Beatles. The customer bought the fabric for me, and I then added cotton drill and other bits and pieces to finish the bag.

Because it was a custom job, I took the liberty of experimenting with pocket and bag construction. The bag has way too many pockets and compartments! The bag slider and template plastic for the bottom came from You, Sew, Girl. I bought some bag feet to put on it, but then decided at the last minute not to.

If I have time I might make one or two of the cut down version for the market on Sunday!

Crochet Zig Zag Blanket

I am busily doing my granny a day for Tori's Technicolour Blanket. I discovered that peak hour on Punt Road can produce two granny squares. I find myself wanting lights to change to amber and for traffic to be busy just so as I can do a few more stitches ....

From Comfort Stitching

I have decided that my next crochet wonder will be a zig zag or Afghan blanket for the back room. In black, grey and purple. Once Tori's blanky is finished it will be off to Camberwell Market one sunday to visit the Yarn Man for some Merino wool.

In my travels I came across the Comfort Stitching web site. You must take a look at this talented lady and what she is creating. She also has a tutorial for a zig zag blanket.

Mothers Day wrapup

We had a lovely Mothers Day at the Collingwood Children's Farm.

We met for lunch and then had a leisurely afternoon strolling around the farm with Tori discovering a whole lot of new things, including feeding the goats.

For the first time Tori also said "Nanna", so that made the day extra special! The one characteristic that I have inherited from my Mum is the ability to try anything once.

Whilst my Mum doesn't see herself as a crafty Mum, I can clearly remember when I was young her making dancing costumes, fancy dress costumes and easter hats for us. Perhaps she has lost her crafty way ...

For Mother's Day I embarked on a marathon sew-a-thon and I made Mum a patchwork scarf with some of my Kokka Ouka Japanese Linen blend fabric with a faux fur backing to it.

I made my Mother in Law a fabric basket to keep her crochet and crafts in from linen and a Moda Fabric. The idea for the fabric basket is from the Zakka book that my hubby got me.

Granny a Day

Slowly crocheting along for A Granny a Day. Using the pattern in the Meet me at Mikes book, my goal is to make a nice bright multicoloured blanket for my daughter to snuggle up under while watching TV. The nice bright colours should be good for her as she is learning colours at the moment. Each crochet square is framed by a row of black.

I have been using the 8 ply "Sports Support" range of wool/acrylic from spotlight and I get up to three squares frome each ball of yarn and then I do the black row for framing purposes. I went for the blend for Tori as I wasn't sure if she would get all itchy with pure wool. Plus the acrylic means that when I wash the blanket, it will keep it's shape.

Although not sewn together, these squares area ready to go!