Halloween Interlude

Pumpkin designed and crafted by youngest daughter.


Lots of make and do happening at the moment - lots to blog about!

I Made Corsages All Afternoon

Corsage overdrive. I put these nifty little numbers together this afternoon with fabric from the stash.



Two are birthday presents, the other one I may give to a lady that I see at my dancing class - she has worn a variety of corsages and I dared to ask her last week if she makes them herself .. and she does!

I Made Meringue (eventually)

A baking interlude…


Lemony Meringue Pie and boy it was lemmmmony!
I ruined the first batch of meringue by overbeating it I think - so I poured that down the sink and started again.
Yum.

I Made A Bolero

So to the contents of my knitting bag - behold the circular bolero. This pattern caught my eye on Yesterknits free patterns page and has been translated by this talented crafty blogger.


It was a dream to knit up, although my version seems roomier, must be a tension thang. But such lovely soft yarn and such an easy pattern, I rarely got my needles in a twist.


I’m wearing it with some swing pants I made up many moons ago (in the archives somewhere) - they’ve had a new lease of life with some buttons from Roman’s vintage giftbox (see archives).


I bought a new pair of Lindy dancing shoes the other week, the pants will swing very well with them I reckon.

So now I’m lost without a knitting project to hand - I’m not very skilful but the act of knitting something is sooo relaxing. Anybody got any fave quick knits I could try?

I Made A Friend

I love my Bunny.


I have been a fan of Thimbleanna’s blog for a long time now - boy is she one prolific crafty lady. Her bunnies are the best .. and now I have one of my very own sitting by my sewing machine. Anna visited the UK last week and we had coffee in town with Flib. I was so touched when as a parting gift she presented me with Cupcake.


I am a softy at heart. That won’t stop me sticking pins in him though.

Best Room In The House

I've been waiting and waiting for a clear day in order to decorate the toilet!
It's such a small room that it really only takes half a day to throw up some paper - all the hard work like painting the woodwork and the ceiling was done by my other half. Bless him, he's a God send. I get to the do the fun bits..

I've gone for the boudoir look with birds. I love birds and would probably have a huge shabby chic white wire aviary affair in the garden if I lived in warmer climes..

The wall paper is suitably kitsch - silver and cerise.


We still have an old chain pull cistern - it's not beautifully Victorian or anything so needs a little dressing. I got this birdtastic fabric on etsy a while ago in readiness, whipped it up into a neat little frou frou number. Goes well with the chandelier.




My sister bought me this 'keepsake picture frame' for my birthday. I think I'd have one in every room - they're so versatile. I bought the 1930's cast metal birds on eBay and decided to trap them behind the glass. They're flying over some flowers and a landscape postcard that I bought when I was a student. I was drawn to the postcard at the time as the picture was so evocative - space and freedom - what every 19 yr old yearns for. Oh and a vintage car driven by a cool dude of course..



Now I can sit on the loo looking at the bird box and daydream.

I have had creative surge recently. The contents of my knitting bag ...


... completed this week. Watch this space for piccies of my Raspberry Circular Bolero!

Old Buttons For New

I bought a nice (cheap) high waisted skirt that I could hobble about in - with a view to customising it with some vintage buttons.


Now who has the best button collection in our house? Not me. It took a fair bit of negotiating to finally come up with this little number...


A vast improvement wouldn't you say.

I Made Another Corsage

I'm corsage mad at the moment - everybody should have at least one, preferably one for every day of the week.
My big sis graduated recently and I wanted to send her a gifty through the post.
First I found this on Etsy.


A sheet of retro unused wrapping paper 'For The Graduate'.
From the same seller, I also found this wonderful little book for my neice who has just bought a fab hand cranked Singer on eBay!



Then I made the corsage, using colours I know big sis would like.



I bundled up the corsage, book and wrapping paper with some yummy chocolate (of course) and sent it in the post!
I love getting stuff in the post, it's prompted me to look into joining some more swaps. Anyone got any good swaps on the go out there?

School Bag

The Summer ends and my girls are back to school. My youngest was determined to make a new school bag - in a retro stylee - and chose some fabric from the stash. I engineered the project and she did most of the sewing.








It's very roomy and very sturdy with a calico lining. And of course it looks darn coooool!

I Made A Corsage

I was determined to make something today.
My day job involves lots of writing / surfing / watching TV. I can feel my craftiness withering. I find it so easy to dive into Etsy or eBay or other people's blogs after a long week and simply let the beautiful things wash over me. I love looking at handmade things, vintage things, crafty things. I usually end up with a headache and a bad of ICMT (I Could Make That).
So - behold the evergreen corsage, made from stash scraps and a brooch I got in a goody bag of jewellery bits off eBay.
It took less than an hour to make. And boy I feel good again now!

I Made Some Soundproofing

The distance from my bedroom to the sitting room is not a great one. We live in a ground floor flat, with two daughters who like to listen to 'sounds' especially when I'm trying to lie in or blog from my bed a la Barbra Cartland. I had to dampen the sounds emanating from the sitting room somehow and came up with the palm curtain!
This is lovely fabric from John lewis - flocked onto a sort of jute and it compliments the wallpaper I threw up this time last year in the hall.






It was simply a case of hemming a length of fabric that fitted the (glass) door and attaching it via some dowel. Muffles the sounds and looks good too!

I posted pictures of my fabulous stained glass last year - one piece I didn't show you was our house number '87'. Peter who made the piece (to my design) had it on display with some of his other wonderful stained glass works at the time.
87 now sits proudly in our front window, I'm too cautious to actually hang it in the porch in case someone decides to take pot shots at it.

I Made A Yee Haa! Skirt

Yup - I dragged that ole pattern out of the packet and ran up yet another swishy skirt, this time in the ever popular wonderful Cowgirl Fabric.


I had a thang for TV Western heroes many years back, my Final Degree Show in Fine Art/Textiles was cowboy themed. I had made and screen printed a panelled calico skirt with cowboys, added conchos and a leather appliqued waistband that said 'Howdy'. Alas I doubt if any pictures of this exist in my dusty shoe boxes.. I may look.
In the meantime, here is a vintage picture of yours truly - taken 23 years ago - the vintage look, everlasting it seems - along with stylish knitwear.



The blue dress was an original taffeta effort bought in a 2nd hand store - it was like wearing rolls of wallpaper. This dress used to get quite 'whiffy' after I'd been dancing about in it. And as a student, I naturally didn't have a dry cleaning budget.
You had to drag that cardy off me to wash it - I loved it so much - another charity shop find and in the early 80's these kind of vintage items cost mere pennies.

I now find myself in a strange parallel universe where my daughter is shopping in thrift stores for genuine vintage 80's items... nostalgia will eat itself...

I Made A Sundae Curtain

Having mentioned in the previous post that my kitchen is a good place to be, I had to do a little maintenance recently.
There is a hidey hole where the potatoes and soft drinks are chucked after the weekly shop. I felt it needed something a little more Chi Chi.


Comme ca...



Neat eh? Michael Miller 'Ice Cream Shoppe' fabric bought from here.
Compliments the chili lights and Coke border nicely.