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Well, the end of the yearly Christmas crafting is nigh. I have been sewing my proverbial off to spread a little handmade love to my family members. 
We have all three barrel purses made for the three ‘cousins’, little apron for the almost 3yo next door (which she got today and LOVES), a specs case for MIL and a jewellery case for my niece. PHEW! This article written by Germain Greer is espouting how handmade gifts for the holiday season should be avoided as it is an imposition to the receiver. WHAT THE HELL? No, knitting is not as easy for some as it is for others. Yes, there are some horrid gifts given in the spirit of being handmade, but do come from an effort of trying and love. No, I wouldn’t give someone an item that I wouldn’t keep for myself. And no, I don’t spend less time on gifts for others than I would if I was making it for myself. I think the art of giving gifts has been lost in our increasing want for the new and shiny. Why is the love and thought behind a gift no longer important? Why must it be the fastest, shiniest, newest, smallest, largest, latest there is? I, for one, am not a fan of “Giftmas” (a name I’ve picked up off a friend), at the best of times. I think there is too much pressure put on us to give fabulous gifts, and not enough thought about just spending time with the people we love. I do enjoy, however, finding gifts to make my for family where possible. Because the time spent making them is important to me, and it’s time I spend thinking about my family, even when I’m not physically able to be with them. So Ms Greer, handmade gifts may not be for you, but please don’t try and poop on everyone who both enjoy giving and receiving them just because you lucked out. I have a great basket that I love for my spinning outings but the big drawback is the snaggy nature of the woven basket. 
The basket itself is very pretty, but also very casual. So when I’m wearing anything more dressy than my jeans, it looks out of place. So I dragged out some kitschy fabric, satin bias and some ribbon and off I went!
I know the bias and the ribbon don’t match, but short of a flashy camera, it’s really not quite THAT noticable. Plus, I worked with what I had and it doesn’t bother me.
After a few enquiries over the years about why I love Vintage things, old movies, Swing music and spending copious amounts of time on just the right hair style, I thought back to where it really all began. Where I’ve narrowed it down to is Weekend Matinee’s with Bill Collins. The days that were too hot, too cold or too wet outside, saw us watching old movies starring Shirley Temple, Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Lana Turner etc etc etc …. As I grew up, I didn’t just enjoy the musicals, but just watching classic cinema opened my eyes to a lot of things that I realised I didn’t see day to day. Women in stylish outfits wearing hats and gloves, men in suits rather than in T-shirts and jeans, being able to use the excuse of washing your hair to get out of going out with a boy. That last one I didn’t get until much later, when I was setting and styling my hair. I was not confident enough as a Teen to embrace the styles that I loved, as a lot of teens weren’t in those days, so I dressed like my friends and to what ‘fashion’ dictated. I was never really happy with how I looked, though. I knew something was missing, but was too insecure to grab a hold of it and do what I longed to. Years went on and I found myself in my final years of high school. My parents took up Rockabilly dancing, and ‘dragged’ my sister and I to some social nights. After a few weeks of trying to figure it out, in the bathrooms, we asked to start lessons too. That was the kick start that I needed. That was back in 1992. I took 1993 off for my HSC exams and picked up dancing again early in 1994. I spent the next few years in dancing comps, all the while deciding to push my costumes back to more authentic styles. Attending social nights in big poodle skirts with crinolines and little sweaters or collared shirts. Then I discovered swing dancing, and my choice of clothing went further back in time. Around this time I was dancing 4-6 nights a week all over Sydney in saddle shoes or cute pumps/wedges, collegiate style outfits or swing dresses, I pulled out the crinolines on occasion too. Hair was curled and pompadoured, lips were red and I started collecting vintage clothing. Unfortunately over the years over half of my vintage collection has gone MIA. Which is sad, because I had some beautiful dresses, and with the vintage boom over the last 10 years, finding great pieces in Sydney in anything over a size 8 is very hard to do. Now I satisfy myself with making clothes with either vintage patterns, or altering modern ones so they look ‘right’. I get a lot of inspiration for clothes and hair from my collection of vintage magazines and books, as well as all those old movies that Mr Collins introduced me too when I was a kid. Thank you, Mr Collins! Each year I swear not to craft for gifts, or make an early start to it if I do… and each year it always come down to the last 25 days. Well, here is my first completed crafted gift. A NicoleM 90mm Barrel Purse. 
It’s not PERFECT, but for my first metal frame purse it’s awesome Tomorrow is the Inner City Knitters Guild Christmas Morning Tea. The only difference between this meeting and all the others, is that there will be as little business as possible and as much socialisation, knitting and oohing/ahhing as possible. There will also be a slightly larger morning tea provided by 4 members (instead of the usual 2). I put my hand up for the Christmas rotation and decided to make Christmas cake balls. They don’t differ greatly to normal cake balls, you just use a different cake, and have the option of adding a bit of “Christmas Cheer” (ie: alcohol) into them aka rum balls. As I’m serving a mixed crowd, and it’s MORNING tea, I decided to go safe with some vanilla essence instead. Recipe Centre
Coating
Method Crumble fruit cake into a bowl and sprinkle essence/alcohol over the top and
Place baking paper onto a tray, and roll mixture into bite size balls and place on tray. Place tray of balls into freezer for about 4 hours. Melt dark chocolate and oil, and using a toothpick dip each frozen ball into the melted chocolate until covered, allow excess to drip off, and place on a new baking paper lined tray. Repeat for all balls, and place tray of chocolate covered balls into fridge until the chocolate has set. Chop glace cherries into small pieces and melt white chocolate and allow to thicken (cool) slightly. Using a teaspoon, drizzle a small amount of white chocolate over each ball and place a piece of glace cherry on top so it looks like a little cream covered pudding. Place tray back in fridge until chocolate is set. 
Serve and enjoy! I used a small melon baller to measure my balls, (which equates to about 1.5 tsp) so they were evenish, and I yielded about 85 balls. Of course you can make them larger. They are quite rich, however, and in my opinion a little bit of rich is nice, and you might find that making them bigger might make them a bit “too much”. Not all 85 will make it to the morning tea, however. As I’m sure DH will want to have a taste Now for things you put on your head! This is only one of my hats, the ‘hatinator’ isn’t quite finished, as I had to make changes to the overall design. 
It’s a Sinemay hat (banana fibre), in a cranberry colour. It is a 2 part crown plus brim. Wired and covered edge with sinemay bias, grograin inner band and grosgrain/sinemay outer band. It’s obviously too big for “Polly Esther”, but it fits my huge noggin (largest in the class by 3/4 of an inch, including one guy! :S) I have also made a silk flower to ‘dress it up’ a little when I want to wear it with a bit more of a girly outfit. Well, it was on for young and old, really. Getting as much of our hats done as we could manage. My fascinator went through a redesign during the week, so I tried to get that finshed while my hat was drying from being stiffened with a rather noxious concoction. Of course I didn’t get everything DONE, but I’m very close, so will have finalised pictures by the weekend. I also tried my hand at making a silk flower. FUN! I might look at doing a bit more of that next year. I have really enjoyed making hats and fascinators from ‘raw’ materials. It’s very similar to the buzz I got from finishing my knitted shawl. I now have a hat that fits me, can be worn smart casual or a bit dressed up, and a ‘hatinator’ that would look very pretty with a vintage style dress. |
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There are things I’ll do differently with future ones. The clearance between the arm and the bed of my machine isn’t high enough for me to manipulate the purse properly to put the two sections together and do the top stitching around the top etc. The Peltex/Timtex type material is in it by then, and it’s quite stiff. So for future ones, I’ll be handstitching the ENTIRE top section. This in a way will actually save me time (as I won’t spend it cursing at my machine).
