Sunday, September 27, 2009

A perfect weekend for sewing

Listening to the Grand Final and sewing - a great way to spend a Sat arvo. Husband away being blokey watching the game with friends so the house to myself - lovely lovely.

Last night was a wild wild night - incredible non-stop wind and door slamming throughout the house. It was kind of a relief when morning came although the weather has been nasty all day too. Have made another bag - the psychedelic material one - and am really pleased with this. I think I will make this my 'bag recipe' for a while. Black twill top and handles and interesting fabric below. Would have kept on sewing all day but have run out of a few essentials - iron-on fabric stiffener and thread etc. See you soon Spotlight...


Also made a zipped purse for glasses - using some of the material I screen printed last weekend. Shauna has been fabric shopping for me in Sydney so I am excited about this and have some other fabric arriving this week too from Kelani Fabric Obsession.



Sunday, September 20, 2009

Let's get physical!

Nothing like the approach of a trip to Sydney to make a girl want to make an effort to get the body into some sort of shape (or is it too late?). Yesterday morning Sue and I had our first dragon boat row on the Derwent - eleven women in a long narrow skiff with a man standing up at the back of the boat with a long oar steering us. Quite a workout. I was hopeless at first - way out of rhythm and mostly only managing to do one stroke to the women in front of me's two - but managed to get the hang of it and didn't make too much of a disgrace of myself. Felt quite exhausted afterwards and could have even had an arvo nap.

I am blaming being pooped for my 'sewing injury' that afternoon. While sewing a scarf I managed to sit heavily on my pin cushion which I'd left on the chair in front of my sewing machine. At least six long darning needles impaled themselves into my bottom. OUCH OUCH OUCH OUCH OUCH OUCH! Had to extract them one at time. No sympathy from husband who was preoccupied with his own misery - the 'man flu'.

Despite the sore bottom, shoulders and arms Sue and I continued the fitness theme this morning by pushing ourselves on our Sunday morning walk - uphill moaning and groaning o Boronia Reserve but felt quite pleased with ourselves back at Sue's with our cups of tea.

Came home and did a bit of screen printing - a row of birds which I plan to use as part of a bag front. Worked out okay but the wind whipped up just after I pegged the printed pieces of material up on a rope in front of the oak tree and some of the material bits flapped wet ink around. Ah well.




Above top is a photo of a corner of the garden which is looking rather nice now that the rhodos are out and below the 'love tree' with its new 'e'.


Friday, September 11, 2009

Squeegee fun

Very excited - my new screen and squeegee arrived in the mail from Shauna today. Plan to do some screen printing this weekend - nice simple abstract shapes on cream fabric. Also have some sewing planned - will try out some scarves using the lovely Japanese fabric I bought a few weeks back from Jan at Kingston Beach and the silky plain fabric from Spotlight. And then there is the garden bed to dig out...

I went to the Hobart Flower Show in my lunch hour and felt positively youthful compared to all the old doddery folk there. Bought a sparaxis glandiflora so will plant this too.

Gosh it is going to be a busy weekend!!!


Monday, September 7, 2009

Market merriment and strawberry jam

I really enjoyed the Hobart market yesterday. It's such a great market - lots of friendly people, all sorts of lovely and inspiring handmade products, nice music, and general good vibes. Thank you to everyone who stopped by the millymaker stall and a special thanks to Julia and her Mum - my best bag customers!

Thanks too to the very creative Noella, Shauna, Sue and Jodie for adding to the
millymaker mix, to my darling husband for helping me set up and running errands during the day, to my brother Bruce for making the wooden display stand for my bags and to Noah for adding busking talent to the market.

I am excited already about my next market and just hope I get a spot in one of the upcoming
pre-Christmas events. Watch this space...

And now on to important jammy matters - In the endless pursuit of finding friendly foods for my dodgy digestive system I have been making a rather nice, almost cakey pumpernickel bread using almond meal and having this with a very delicious strawberry jelly/jam. The jelly tastes so wondrous it's hard to believe it is sugar free. Here's the recipe:

Strawberry jelly/jam
Makes about 2 cups


375 g (2 and a half cups) fresh strawberries, hulled and quartered
(I used two punnets)
250 ml (1 cup) water

2 tbs fresh lemon juice

150 g (1/2 cup) honey

1 tbs gelatin (I used one sachet)

100 ml warm water


Place the strawberries, water, lemon juice and honey in a medium saucepan. Bring to boil, then cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Remove from heat and strain through a sieve, gently squeezing out as much juice as possible. Dissolve the gelatin in 100 ml of water and stir into hot juice. Pour into glass jar/s, tighten lid and refrigerate overnight to set.


This is so yummy - it's hard to resist eating it by the spoonful rather than just spreading it on your toast!

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Come and visit me at the Hobart Designers Market this Father's Day

I am really looking forward to the market on Sunday. I have my lovely sister Shauna's cards and jewellery to add to my bags and purses, rings from Noella, groovy oven gloves by Sue and coat hangers by Jodie. An eclectic millymaker mix!

You can find out more about the market at:


The photograph above is of two of Shauna's beautiful hand-painted, hand-printed lino cut cards. They are little works of art in themselves and worth framing. While Shauna was staying with me over the last few days she also started a blogsite where you can see more of her cards and jewellery and hopefully she'll add some of her art soon too.