Also of note for any Sydneysiders who have been reading various blogs from those down south who attended (and raved about!) their “Evening With Amy Butler”, she will also be appearing at the Sofitel Sydney at 7:00 on the 20th of November, tickets are $45.

If you’re interested in buying any of Amy’s fabrics or patterns, click here to visit Amy’s designs on Fabric.com for up to 70% off retail prices!

1. ..coffee apron.. by Harley - The housewife in me has a secret longing for a beautiful apron like this, unfortunately I know that it would be covered in baby puke and nutella hand prints within minutes! Harley’s embroidery on this is just beautiful, the little stitches are so neat!
2. Quilted Patchwork bag by Corinne - I love the fabric choices here, and even better Corinne has also very kindly shared her tutorial for the bag
3. Christmas Star Ornament by TheKraftyKrew - I am constantly amazed with what you can do with machine embroidery, this tree ornament looks fab.
4. Tree Decoration by Edward and Lilly - Not just for Christmas, these would look great hanging from shelves, or with some essential oils dropped on them to make your drawers smell sweet.

For a chance to be featured in our weekly “Flickr Friday” post and receive some linky love, just head along to Flickr and join the CraftBlog.com.au photo pool, submit your photos and you could see your craft or finished work picked as some of our favourites from the week.

1. Cushions - Decorate your home with your old t-shirts a great project if you’re new to sewing or for children. To make it washable just add an envelope opening or a zip! These would also be great for kids to cuddle at night.
2. Reusable Grocery Bags - If your bags are recycled as well as reusable that gives you infinite green points, and he who dies with the smallest carbon footprint wins, right? I would personally add some bias binding to the neck and arm holes of this pattern for extra strength and to stop them stretching when you pick up your soy milk on the way to your yogalates class. Or you can make one a drawstring t-shirt bag from my own tutorial.
3. Panties - I LOVE this one, if you have any t-shirts that seemed hilariously offensive at the time you bought them, but in retrospect are maybe just a bit too offensive, this could be the way to go! (please don’t tell me I’m the only person to have a “NSFW” collection of t-shirts???)
4. Wall Art - Just staple your t-shirt to a canvas or over a stretcher frame and you have instant art, great for kids t-shirts that still look great but are just too small.
5. Quilt - T-shirt quilts are a great way to keep and display clothing with great memories attached, baby onesies and t-shirts are perfect for this project.
6. Pants/Trousers - These are so easy and quick to make, and make great pants for lounging around the house. Toddler pattern here. Adult Pattern here.
7. Donate! If there’s nothing you can do with your t-shirts and they’re still in good nick, there are always groups looking to take clothing to give to those in need. Look into your local shelters, church groups and clothing donation bins, don’t let your old clothes sit at the back of your wardrobe when someone could be getting use out of them

Then once you’ve cleared out all that extra space in your wardrobe, head over to our sponsor BustedTees.com to pick up some brand new and particularly awesome t-shirts for as low as $5.99!

Do you have any further ideas to give new life to old t-shirts? Share them (and links!) with us in the comments section.

Tutorials have once again reigned supreme! With these being the most popular posts in the last month.

• Notebook Cover Tutorial
• Fantabulous Pincushion Tutorial
• Free Creepy Critters Needlework Pattern
• Appliquéd Ribbon Blanket Tutorial

It’s been awesome seeing all the different versions of the tutorials and seeing people put their own spin on things, my favourite so far has got to be the embroidery patterns turned into Shrinky Dink necklaces! If you’ve made up on of the tutorials on the site, upload your finished piece to the CraftBlog flickr group to show it off to the world.

October also marked the 70,000th visitor to the site, when I started this just four months ago I wouldn’t have even dreamed about having that many people interested in what was being written, particularly in such a short time, so once again, thank you for visiting and for your feedback and emails!

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You will need

• Cupcakes - There are a million and one cupcake/sponge recipes online, so I’m going to assume everyone’s google-fu is up to scratch on this one My basic one is 1 egg=50g of everything else, so if you use 6 eggs, then 300g sugar, 300g of flour, 300g of butter, throw in some baking powder, a splash of milk and some vanilla extract and you have yourself a sponge mix.
• Glacé icing in your chosen colours - Glacé icing is just icing sugar, water and half a lemon or a few drops of vanilla extract to flavour. Pour a couple of cups of icing sugar into a bowl and slowly drizzle water in there, stirring it in, when you reach the consistency of wallpaper paste (if anyone else has a better comparison please let me know! That’s the best I could come up with!) then you’re good to go. I make up a big batch of white and then split and add colourings, you’ll normally have to add more icing sugar after the colour to regain the same consistency.
• Freezer bags for the icing
• Black gel icing - find this in the baking aisle in a tube.
• Something pointy - toothpick is great, or a sharpened chopstick

1. Spread your icing over the top of the cooled cupcake
2. Using a freezer bag with the corner snipped off add a black swirl to the top of your icing whilst it’s still wet
3. Take your toothpick and drag the icing outwards to create the web (not shown because it’s bloody hard to do that AND take a picture!) take care to just brush the surface of the icing.
4. Let the icing dry for a couple of hours
5. Add the spider, d raw four lines crossing each other to make up the legs, and blob some on top for the body - don’t do as my mum did and make all yours with six legs, get into an argument with your daughter about how many legs spiders have and demand she Googles it to prove her point. Sorry Mum, but an entomologist you are not!
6. Nom your super yummy and superb looking cakes!

Just a note, these are best made the day of your party (or when you want to eat them), or at the very earliest the night before, Glacé icing can crack sometimes, or goes a bit dewy when left too long. So for your Halloween cupcakes to be looking their best I wouldn’t have more than 24 hours between decorating and serving!

Check out the Belsize Square sale today.

If you’re an Australia based store offering sewing or craft supplies and would like to let the readers of CraftBlog know about your sale or offer a special discount, please contact me and let me know.

Download the Creepy Critters Embroidery Pattern PDF.

1. Pincushions by Koala Brains - These were made these following the pincushion tutorial, and then KB was hit by inspiration to use the same technique to create a mushroom pincushion (see her thought process here), I love it! I have some red and white polkadot fabric that is now destined for this.
2. September mini Owl by TwoCheesePlease - I love the idea and look of a collection of mini quilts hanging on the wall, little 10×10 blocks of inspiration! I’m sure Holly’s swap partner was over the moon when this arrived in her postbox.
3. Embroidery on linen by Edward and Lilly - Linen is such a fab background for embroidery, everything stands out so beautifully, and this plant with French knots is no exception.
4. Organizer Wristlet by Fanny Tanioes - The thought of sewing something with this many compartments completely overwhelms me! I love the subtle colours in the fabric used for this wristlet purse.

For a chance to be featured in our weekly “Flickr Friday” post, just head along to Flickr and join the CraftBlog.com.au photo pool, submit your photos and you could see your craft or finished work picked as some of our favourites from the week.

Continuing the Halloween specials, I give you a super cute trick or treating bag, guaranteed to last from year to year no matter what outfit you’re pairing it with

I would like to stand up in my own defence before I get into this one, yes, I quilt, but I am a crazy/scrap quilter, I have a phobia of seam matching and precise measurements, so my methods (and finished product!) probably make seasoned quilters and patchworkers shake in their boots and run screaming from the computer. BUT, I say the dippy way this comes together, with the offset squares (again, formed by necessity due to the seam matching fear!) and the less than perfect embroidery gives it a very “shabby chic” vibe, at least that’s what I would like to believe! If you’re new to patchwork this would be an excellent project to get you going, the small size makes it less overwhelming than a quilt, and it comes together fairly quickly so you won’t be stuck sewing tiny pieces to tiny pieces for days on end.

You will need…

• Your chosen Halloween patchwork fabric - four fat eighths (9×22inches) would be perfect for this - Check out the superb Halloween fabric selection at Fabric.com in their “Bootique”
• Fabric for lining - 1 fat quarter
• Fabric for the embelishment band
• Embroidery floss, buttons and anything else you would like to embellish your bag with!
• Rotary cutter, cutting mat and ruler. A 4.5inch quilting square will also help, but isn’t essential.

NB: All seam allowances are a quarter of an inch.

Tutorial is behind the jump –>

Cut your fabric!

• Patchwork fabric - cut twenty 4.5inch squares (if you’re using four fabrics, then five of each), then stack and cut them in half leaving you with forty 4.5×2.25inch rectangles.
• Lining fabric - two 10×12inch rectangles.
• Band fabric - one 4.25×12inch rectangle.
• Handle fabric - Four 2×12inch rectangles - I used two different fabrics for some added contrast.

With your patchwork rectangles, sew each rectangle to another, creating pairs, sew each pair to another so you have a collection of four rectangles, then sew each of these together, you will (hopefully!) end up with five strips of fabric each with eight rectangles (I know there are only four in the photo, I was apparently having issues thinking clearly yesterday!). Don’t think about which fabric you’re sewing to another, just grab them randomly. Iron the strips, pressing all the seams down in the same direction.

Take the strips back to your cutting mat and cut each of them in half, you’ll now have 10 strips of your patchwork squares, yay! Sew six of them together, offsetting the squares on the rows (mix the strips up so you don’t end up using the same pattern next to each other), this will be the back of your bag. Sew two sets of two together, and then add the plain fabric for the band in between them, this will be the front of your bag. Iron everything thoroughly then with your ruler and rotary cutter trim off the overhanging edges from offsetting the squares. Don’t sew them together just yet!

Using a chalk pencil draw your design or phrase on the band, “Happy Halloween” or just “Boo!” would work well (particularly paired with a ghostie fabric), or the child’s name would be a sweet addition. Place the front of the bag into an embroidery hoop and embroider the words, I used a range of stitches to make it look more whimsical, but if you’re not so keen on embroidery, or doing this on short notice, a simple running stitch would suffice. Go crazy with the twiddles, I added buttons, novelty buttons would be great if you could find some with a spooky theme, fabric yo-yos would look great, or a ric-rac trim.

Create the handles by sewing two strips on the handle fabric right sides together, turning inside out, pressing (are you getting sick of that iron yet?!) and then top stitching an eighth of an inch away from the edge.

Sew your lining together (leaving the top edge unstitched, obviously!), before you do so check the size of it against the outside of the bag, just incase you’ve shaved too much off the edges when cutting off the overhang from the squares, if it is too big just cut it down to size. Sew both sides of your bag right side together, I like to pin the sides first and line up the rows of squares just to create a neater look, just make sure to remove your pins before the machine goes under your needle! Trim the corners on both pieces to give you the sharpest finish when they’re turned the right way out.

Place your lining inside your outer bag, once again with the right sides together, pin the seams at each side together so they match. Pin your handles into place, matching up each side so they’re even and making sure not to twist them. They should be hidden in between the two bags with just the ends poking out. If you’ve used contrasting fabric like me, then the one facing towards the outer bag will be on the outside of the handles.

Sew around the top of the bag, starting on the inside of the back handle and finishing just after the other half of the handle, this will leave you with a gap of a couple of inches for turning in the most inconspicuous place on the bag. Turn it the right way out and iron one last time! Either use an invisible stitch to close your hole, or topstitch all the way around the bag.

And you have a totally awesome, personalised, handmade trick or treating bag, only downside is that I haven’t tested it to see it’s lolly capacity, but I’d guess a fair amount of sugar and e-numbers could be happily contained within it, if it’s likely that you’re bringing home a huge hoard, it might be worth reinforcing the handles with a few extra stitches!

Feel free to share your finished bags, and any other Halloween creations with the CraftBlog Flickr Group!

As with all the patterns and tutorials on CraftBlog, this is licensed for personal use only, please do not sell or make any profit from the Trick Or Treat Tote, either in pattern or completed form. Thank you!

As I’m sure you can work out, the site is stuffed with everything related to making plushies, links to patterns, tips for sewing and design tricks. There’s everything you could want related to softies, whether it’s dolls, animals or even monsters you’re after, the site offers everything for both beginning and experienced toy makers, and as it grows will only get bigger and better!

Every week we try to chase away those midweek blues by showcasing some of our favourite craft bloggers. If you would like your blog to be considered for our “Wednesday Blog Love” post, or have a blog you’d like to recommend, please contact us.