Enjoying Chinese Hot Pot

My friends and I decided to make a trip to Ipot in Sydney's Chinatown.  I had never done hot pot before, but it sounded interesting.  I was so glad that I went with friends who knew exactly how this works.  I will post my video at the bottom so that you can hear how everyone chose their dinner.

Phoebe

Just capturing a pic of the decor.  It was nice.

This was my hot pot setup.
The thinly sliced meats in the back are beef and lamb.

Chris and Declan

Belinda, Chris and Declan

Belinda ripping up lettuce to cook in her hot pot.  LOL

Growth Charts Part Deux

Here we go again!

I pulled out my Pellon Peltex 72 double-sided fusible interfacing.  I had to buy it from the states and get it delivered.  The main reason I ordered it from the states is two-fold:  first, they sell everything under different brand names here and I can't figure it out; second, I don't have a car so I would have to pay to use a GoGet and then hope that the store I go to has something I could use.  I end up feeling stupid... asking tons of questions... not knowing what everything is.  But, that doesn't matter right now.  Let's move on.

So as I said... I pulled out my interfacing.  It was the first time I had unwrapped it.  I had asked the shop to cut it into 6 1-yard pieces, if possible.  Sometimes they offer and sometimes they refuse and send it to you in one big piece.  To my surprise, they cut it into the six pieces just as I asked.

I buy a lot of stuff through Etsy.  If you are interested, visit the website.  Not everything is just fabric and stuff for you to make things with.  There are a lot of people selling their homemade goods.  This is the shop I bought the Pellon from:  Twilltape Shop

This is three of the six pieces of stabilizer.

The Pellon Peltex 72F comes with instructions when you buy it.
I've purchased fusible web here in Sydney for applique projects.
It did not come with instructions, so I had to go online to get reminders.

So I had to join the three pieces together.  It was so stiff that I had a hard
time getting the pieces together.  The pieces were also much larger than the
throat of my sewing machine, so that added to the difficulty.  I've got
muscles where I never had them before.  LOL

This was the best part of joining the stabilizer - the end!

So once I had all the stabilizer pieces joined, it was time to fuse them to my material.  I opened my quilting table as large as I could and laid my backing material down good side down.  Then I laid the stabilizer on top of it.  Finally, I laid the growth chart on top and started ironing on the WOOL setting (no steam).  After I ironed it on both sides, I cut the sandwich down to the same size as the top.

The next step was to iron the whole thing again on both sides.  I was supposed to use a damp pressing cloth, but I don't have a pressing cloth.  I improvised by just spraying everything down and ironing...  again, using the WOOL setting on my iron.

Here's where I am now:

So now I only have to bind them.  That has its own challenges, but I have good thoughts.

Growth Charts

I made my first trip to a quilt shop here in Sydney a few weeks ago.  I've been trying without luck to upload some photos to blog about it, but haven't had much luck.  Hopefully third time's the charm (right now).

I found some fat quarters of kitty cat fabric that I simply adore and had to buy with no plan of what to do with it yet.  Here it is:

Cute, right?  Anyhoo, while I was at the shop I saw a pattern book with plans for all sorts of kid's stuff. Included in the book was a pattern for a growth chart.  The shop I was in had the growth chart featured and the fabric panels were available for girls and boys.  I have two young nieces.  Thankfully, there was corresponding fabric in both red and teal.  Both were acceptable for girls and I loved them both.  Here's my progress so far:

This is the project book with the fabric I bought.

One of the growth charts is going to be mainly red.

The other will be mainly teal.

Making these for my nieces was practically written in the stars.
The eldest is Riley and her sister's name is Abigail.  We call her Abbi.

Here I've finished attaching the borders.

Closer up.

The next step is to make a copy of the letters from the book.
Then you cut out the letters.  You want to make copies from the book so
that you always have the letters for future projects.

Take the letters you cut out and trace them onto your fusible web.
Fusible web is used to permanently attach two fabrics together.
It's very useful for appliqué projects.

At first I wanted the letters made out of this fabric with the squared circles,
but realized that you couldn't read the letters from a distance easily so I redid them.

I decided to use the same fabric as the border so that the names really popped.

I stitched around the edges of the letters just to be sure they didn't fray.

So I'm not finished yet.  I still have to fuse the front and back to a stiff stabilizing interfacing and then bind them both.  Stay tuned...