Custom Bag order

When I made myself a Tote bag for the first time I used this fabric.

You might recognise it as coming from Ikea, they have a great range of Fabrics for bags and book coverings. Used sparingly, I think that it looks lovely and it is so hard wearing as well!

I paired it up with some dotty lining with two pockets and a clip for the keys.

It is off to England, so I hope that the new owner loves it!

Blood Spatter Cushions

While researching some ideas for my crime scene theme, I stumbled across these cool Blood Splatter Cushions. I love the fact that they are in velvet, but I was a bit shocked by the picture of the dog on one!

I generally sketch out an idea or two and the next time I am on the computer, I do a quick search to see if anyone else has "made it" before.

The artists name is From Keetra and she has some interesting things on her web site as well including the anonymous hugging wall.

Packages

I love my Express Post guy, he knows that if I am not home then I am not far. Andreas and I zipped out for a yummy dinner at Denn in Westgarth and when I came home two packages were sitting there at the door.

The first one, my indulgent Kona Rolls. Prompt delivery and beautifully packaged by the Fat Quarter Shop. These will be used for my daughters quilt .. makes it easier to match up printed fabrics that I have rather than doing multiple runs to the fabric shop.

The second, an Amazon purchase of I love Patchwork and My Neighbor Totoro picturebook or my daughter as a present when she gets her "big girl bed" in a few weeks.

I have decided that the first project from the the I love patchwork book will be the sewing machine cover, except it will be for my mixer in the kitchen (same idea, different application).

There are lots of lovely "clean" looking japanese inspired designs in the book and I will probably eventually make my way through all of them! If you love things like this, check out Rashida's blog where all the magic happens!

Presents for babies

I love doing applique ... so I knocked this up as a present for friends who have an 8 week old. They had a little girl, but are not pink people and since I have a love of teal, I thought I would use it as inspiration ...

Using some Japanese Matryoshka doll print fabric, I cut out and appliquéd the doll onto a white bib and some flowers onto some face washers. Check out etsy for Matryoshka or Babushka Doll fabric, it is everywhere ...

Paired up with a toysaver, it made a nice neat little package. Material was backed with interfacing, then some double sided interfacing to stabilise the shape before sewing it around with zig zag.

Photo's taken using my new Toy from Think Geek ...

Grandparents

I love to capture moments like this with Tori and her grandparents ...

She has just learnt how to sing the nursery rhyme "ring a ring a rosie". So she comes up to you, does it around the palm of your hand and then gets excited, impatient and then tickles your elbow ...

Fortunately her Grandparents are indulgent with their giggles and laughs ...

Buy Australian Made ...

Celebrate Australia Day on the 26th January by supporting one of our local textile designers.

Here is a list I have been compiling for a while now, if I have forgotten anyone, let me know!!

• Bird Textiles (NSW)
• Danielle Stewart Design (WA)
  
• Flowerpress (NSW)
  
• Ink and Spindle (VIC)
• Kristen Doran (NSW)
  
• Melbomba (NSW)
  
• PippiJoe (VIC)
• Prints Charming (NSW)
• Saffron Craig (NSW)
• Shannon Lamden aka Aunty Cookie (VIC)
• Sprout Designs
• Thea and Sami (QLD)
• Umbrella Designs (SA)

Flipping through their web sites and shops there are some lovely fresh designs in there. I tried to search for some indigenous designers, but did not have any luck :(

I often have difficulty buying these fabrics from my local stores so I often resort to just buying online. But keep an eye out at the various stitches/craft/quilt fairs that occur in Melbourne, as they are often sold there.

Creating a digital footprint

One of the "other" hats that I wear is that I am an Information Technology teacher at an independent school in Melbourne. I work there part time and I have taught IT at Year 12 for eons!

Memories of a favourite hat via Craft Elf

While preparing for my Year 12 class, I was lamenting over whether I would utilise Moodle again as a content management system for my class in addition to the regular paper based materials. I know that there are other similar programs out there, probably better ... but I am familiar with Moodle, and time is of the essence. A content management system allows me to manage the distribution and collection of work from students and more importantly it gives me diagnostic information on whether they are looking at the work, discussions and handouts I am providing them. An extra level of accountability. With Moodle uploaded to an independent web site, I can have full control over my classroom environment, for teachers this is an important aspect of teaching. You don't want an IT department closing down your web site half way through a course, especially if it is a Year 12 subject!

So I thought I would document the process I took to create a digital footprint for my Year 12 class. I know that there are others out there in the crafty world are in the process of setting this up for your businesses, hopefully you will find some use from it.

via Sharon's Blog - ICT & ECE

I had previously done searches for names and had decided on www.zincwhiskers.com as web site name for my Year 12 class, but by the time I got around to registering it, it was gone! So after a bit of brainstorming with a friend, we ended up with www.virtualwhiskers.com (If you are in IT, you probably know what a zinc whisker is ...).

Names are important when creating a business. The process of coming up with a name is quite complex, it isn't just about making sure the domain name is available. I also checked gmail, twitter, blogger and other social networking tools to see if 'virtualwhiskers' was taken. Once I started to use this identity, it is good if every social networking tool had the same name, easier to track and use.

There are lots of articles about how to choose a domain name. I have a few tips that I use:

• The shorter the better
• Two parts to a name easier to remember. eg. Konstant Kaos
• Try not to choose a word that will be mis-spelt. It might have looked cute on the business logo ... but people will mistype it.
  
• Consider similar domain names, will one spelling mistake send customers off to an undesirable web site?
• If you are branding your business, you need to have a clear idea of colours and logo's before you register. Once you start stepping all over the internet is is harder to change later on.

So, you have chosen your name. Check availability using tools such as Ajax Whois to see if it is available. It is also important to do a few searches on Google. When your customers or students search for your name, what will they find? So long as the answer to the search isn't something offensive, you should be right. Once you start blogging and twittering, your digital footprint should start to appear in the search engines.

There are lots of theories on what type of name you should choose for your web site. Of course it would be good if you could register a name that was exactly your business name. But if you take the case of my blog name, Konstant Kaos was already taken in blogland, so I had to come up with something a bit different. Thus, alittlebitofkaos was born ...

So once you have a digital footprint name all sussed out, what do you do?

1. You can register your domain name with companies such as Go Daddy, Then you can bring your name across to a web site hosting service such as dreamhost ($10 USD a month), Weebly (mostly free) or Hostgator ($4.95 USD a month). Depending on your needs. For virtual whiskers, I wanted a one touch Moodle install with online help, so we went with dreamhost and signed up for a year. Most of these guys have a help service you can use if you get stuck. But basically they will give you at least two names of servers that you can "point" your registered domain name to. Once that is done, you can upload your web site to your hosting site.
   
   
2. If all you want to do is use blogger as your web site, you can register your blog with blogger, and then buy the domain name through them. For example, this is what we did with Northside Makers. Made sure that northsidemakers.blogspot.com was available and that www.northsidemakers.com was available and then used bloggers interface to buy and set up the web site. Then we used a blogger template to set up the site.

Once you have your domain, register your other social networking tools. Even if you don't think you will use them right away, register them that way you know they are locked in. A few of the main ones might be ...

• Blogger to maintain a blog
• twitter for 140 character bites of what you are doing
• gmail for managing mail
• flickr for photo's

via Startup Blog

There are so many social networking tools out there, you could go mad registering all of them ... the idea is to be strategic and see how others are using them, and choose wisely.

• List of social media and social networking sites
• Web 2.0 tools and applications
• Mashables: 350+ social networking sites
• Wikipedia's list of social networking sites
• The Best Social Networking tools

For my purposes, I am going to use twitter for quick article or "check out this web site" updates. Flickr for pictures of classroom diagrams on the board, gmail to handle any site traffic. And I will probably look at a social bookmarking site that the kids can contribute to if they find something online. What is important is that I can use my web site to suck all this information in using Web 2.0 and RSS feeds and I can use it as a hub for what I am doing. Hopefully the kids will learn something along the way and so will I.

So I have registered all the things for virtual whiskers, now I need to set up the web site and the Moodle courses for my kids ... T - 2 weeks for the first day of school!

Space Invaders Quilt inspirations

I stumbled across this web site where someone had done a space invaders quilt ... definitely a project that I would enjoy doing!

via by metanoia_cw

I have tracked the development of this quilt through her blog and it is going to look absolutely great! The last post saw The Quilted Hen doing the stippling ... eep! Most sites talk about stippling, but there is a good picture of the set up on her blog.

A bit more searching and look what I found! A Tetris quilt ... and another one!

by leanne_david2004

And I even found a tutorial on how to make one! Too many possibilities!

Vintage Ad Browser

Flipping through Seth's Blog, (yes I know I should be writing) I came across Vintage Ad Browser.

I wish I had a sewing machine that does this!

Take a look at some of the old beauty ads, they are priceless.

Prints Charming

Doing a bit of a search to see how many Australian hand screen printed textile designers are out there, and I came across Prints Charming.

Ohh! some very nice bold prints (I love bold) that I would love to quilt with! They also have some lovely quilting kits which include material, batting and instructions.

Check out their blog and check out their web site and shop! nice stuff!