Seven Panel Quilt with a painted back

I'm working on my first quilt pattern, which is pretty exciting. It will be super simple to put together, using just seven pieces of fabric, and will look similar to the quilt below, which I made recently. I'm so into easy sewing projects that you can finish off in one or two sittings.

Oh, and the best thing about making the below quilt? The back is hand painted using the same coloured ink as the quilt front. It took about 10 minutes to go crazy with the ink and a paintbrush on a blank piece of organic quilting fabric, and was so much fun. I've been thinking of selling little pots of paint, so you can paint your own fabric, so watch this space for that. In the meantime, wish me luck with the Tetris-like project of creating a quilt pattern that actually works. Fingers crossed.

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Spin Spin x Dawn Tan soap + dish packs

I'm excited to finally share a little collab - Spin Spin x Dawn Tan soap + dish packs.

Dawn Tan is an illustrator, teacher and soap maker extraordinaire. Her soaps are all handmade using the finest ingredients, and when I heard her explain that they need to drain freely (ie: not sit in water), I dreamt up the idea of making some simple yet functional ceramic soap dishes. It took a bit of prototyping to get the drainage holes right, and to get the clay and glaze combinations right, but they're finally here. There are two types of dishes. The first is made from white raku with a matt glaze, and the second is a porcelain blend clay with a lovely glossy glaze. And you can choose from five (UPDATE: four! Sorry, Rose has sold out.) soap varieties. Happy Monday to you.

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Fabric fabric fabric, buttons buttons buttons

Every now and then I reach *peak fabric*, ie: I end up swimming in a sea of the sceenprinted goods. This week was one of those times, so I promptly made up a whole bunch of colour-coordinated fabric packs, which are available as of today. And if you want to be the first to hear about such things in the future, make sure you sign up for the (infrequent) mailing list and get first dibs.

Oh, and I also went crazy making fabric covered buttons, so all orders received in May will get some buttons thrown in, for good measure. I hope you love buttons as much as I do.

Happy Friday!

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Easter

Wow, how great is the Easter holiday break? Getting four days off in a row is just the best - you can wind down, relax but you also have time to get stuff done. And I did sooo much - I baked (non-religious) buns (super old recipe from me here) and a pavlova, hung out with friends and family, enjoyed the autumn sunshine, went to a (city) beach, did some house painting and weeding AND did lots of sewing - some more work on a quilt pattern I'm developing, and I made two tunics from Lotta Jansdotta's Everyday Style book, which I bought ages ago - they're so comfortable, can't wait to make more (though excuse the dodgy phone/mirror selfie!) And I got heaps of sleep, so I now feel totally relaxed. Happy Tuesday :)

Two-colour Sharpie patterns

When I get in a creative rut I like to try something new, to keep myself happy and push myself in other directions. Trying out a different technique of drawing/painting/colouring/whatever is usually a good way of doing this - just do something, anything, right now, as quickly as you can.

So when I felt in a funk yesterday I took time to draw a heap of patterns with a Sharpie, then scanned them and turned them into a handful of minimal two-colour patterns (my favourite). Happy Wednesday to you.

TUTORIAL: Pysanky Easter egg decorating

How is it possible that I've only just discovered the art of pysanky, ie: the decoration of eggs with fun patterns, using beeswax?! I do vaguely remember doing some basic egg decorating as a child, maybe using a fern and a stocking and some dye. But being able to 'draw' really detailed patterns onto an egg using a fine tipped wax pen, called a kistka, is so much more fun.

If you're at a loose end over Easter and you can get your hands on a kistka, some wax and dye this week (hello, online shopping!) I'd highly recommend giving it a shot yourself. Below is a really basic tutorial, with the method my friend and I used - it really is so simple!

PYSANKY EGG DECORATING

TOOLS

• Eggs (free range of course!) - try a range of shell colours and sizes

• A pin

• A small screwdriver

• A kistka hot wax tool

• Beeswax

• Dye

• Hairdryer

• Paper towel

METHOD

1. Wash your hands thoroughly. You want to remove any natural or other oil from your skin, to make sure you don't transfer this to the eggs - it will stop the dye from penetrating the shell.

2. Hollow out your eggs. Prick a hole at each end using a pin and then use a small screwdriver to make a slightly bigger hole, being careful not to crack the egg. Blow the eggwhite and yolk into a bowl and use in baking, or make some scrambled eggs for lunch.

3. Light a candle and hold the kistka tip in the flame to warm it up. Scoop the tool through the beeswax to fill the well with hot wax.

4. Decorate your egg using the kistka. You can transfer a pattern onto the egg using a pencil, then trace it with the tool. Or go freehand and decorate however you want. If you need some inspiration, hello Google!

5. Mix up some dye and submerge the wax-decorated egg for at least 15 minutes. You can buy natural egg dye or try making your own, using beetroot or onion skin or eucalypt leaves or whatever else you can dream up.

6. You can now do some further decorating and then dye in additional colours, or you can stop at one colour.

7. To remove the wax, heat the egg using a hairdryer. Be careful not to burn yourself or blow the egg out of your hands (tricky!) As the wax heats up, use some paper towel to wipe off the wax. And that's it! Admire your handy work.