Fully Laundered

All the birds have finished with the laundry so I'm planning a new run. This time a full bodied width of 140cm! With spring on our doorstep I'm thinking bright and light on linen or cotton. What are you thinking?

Domino effect

A little late with this one... but here's a great slideshow of independently designed fabric on etsy on the Domino website and guess what!? Pippijoe is there too!

Treasure chest

I found this chest in the last hard rubbish throw out. Much to my husband's dismay I am one of those people who loves to make treasures out of other people's trash. It's hereditary. I won't go into how many projects my mum has on the go! 

I brought this home under the cover of darkness and secreted it away until I had time to do something with it. I forgot to take a before photo of the whole thing so you'll just have to imagine it from the pic of the lid corner when I was part way through sanding it back. I have removed the rusty hinges and have decided to have the lid fully removable by nailing a strip inside the back edge of the opening so the lid sits in place quite neatly.

After a couple of undercoats using leftover house paint I sprayed the top coat in off white gloss, then attempted my first bit of upholstery with the lid. First making a pad and stapling it in place, then sewing a pocket to slide the whole lid into. I've just folded in the ends of the fabric and only have to tack the opening closed to complete the job. 

It was going to be a toybox but is now collecting shoes due to its location near the back door. A great place to sit!

Just kidding

Kiddy up in aqua

Kiddy up in red

I arrived home yesterday to find my two new prints waiting for me! I am very excited about these designs and have printed them full width so they can be used for more homewares and pillows and other fun bedroom stuff! They are in my shop now. I also have them available in half width sections if you have just a small project in mind.

My kids have chosen themselves in the line up. Big Joe is the blondie with the shaggy hair (especially so, thanks to last weekends scissor/hair incident) and little pip is still waiting for her hair... we are hoping to be able to wear hairclips by her second birthday...

As always, there are mix packs of the fabric in the etsy shop for lovely crafty purposes! Such a rainy weekend - perfect craft weather!

Window Shopping

New season stock are now in store at Minimax and I have to say I almost had a vehicular incident when I drove past today and saw their front window! I had to bring the kids back later after dinner and baths - sort of like a mid year christmas window event - to take this pic!

Obi One Tutorial

I've been meaning to post about this for longer than you need to know!! I have put together a tutorial to make one of these obis. You need to find 3 co-ordinating fabrics (Fabric A plain and the Fabrics B & C with a print/pattern). Fabric D is for the backing and the feature strip around the centre, so choose something plain that will fray well (more on that later!)

The finished size for this pattern is 90cm. You might want to measure around your waist and extend or reduce it to fit. You want the obi to overlap very slightly (say 2cm) at the back. If you do need to extend or reduce the length, add/subtract the amount required to/from both fabrics 1A and 1B making sure they are both still 10cm wide.

STEP 1

Cut Seven pieces of fabric is per diagram. You will also require 2 pieces of sturdy ribbon (ie grosgrain) approx 2cm wide and 25cm longer than the size of your waist. These ribbons don't need to be the same colour, but should be the same fabric.

The seam allowance in this tutorial is 1cm.

STEP 2

With the right sides together sew 1A to 1B and 2B to 2A making sure that you swap around the order of the fabrics so fabric A is on top in one and Fabric B is one top on the other.

STEP 3

Again with the right sides together sew Pieces 1, 2 and 3 together.

STEP 4

Turn it over and place the Fabric strip (Piece 5) on the right side of the obi along the horizontal seam. Sew Fabric strip on leaving a 1cm allowance on each side. Pull out a few strands of the fabric to make it fray.

STEP 5

With the right sides together, pin the backing piece 4 to the obi. Stitch along the top and the bottom leaving the ends open. Once sewn, turn right side out. 

STEP 6

Turn the ends in by 1cm and place the ribbons (one at each end) at the top of the obi and pin the ends together. Sew using the machine, or  handstitch with invisible thread. Turn the ends of the ribbons over twice at the ends and hem them to stop fraying. Done!

Of course, if you don't have the patience to get the fabric, cut it up and sew it all together, you could hop over to my shop and buy one of them already made up!! In two different sizes and all completely different designs, you will be sure to have a one and only!

Happy Tree

The one whose name comes from the Sound of Music also known as Ms Hoppo Bumpo has recently passed on a Tree of Happiness award to me! She writes beautifully and actually finishes most of the projects she starts!

To accept the award, I have to list six things that make me happy and then, pass the honour on to other bloggers. So here we go....

Six things that make me happy:

• the crusty bits from the edge of the lasagne
• colours - all of them, but not all at the same time
• a fresh drawing pad and new pencils
• my first coffee in the morning outside in the sun with a sudoku
• hearing my husband singing to my kids in the bath
• cooking up a feast with produce from the farmers market and not having to clean up

Phew, there you go! So now I pass the baton and bestow the Tree of Happiness upon their fab blogs: craftjuice, bug and pop, of paper and thread, shimmy shake and little byrd! 

In style

On Friday I went along to the Life in Style Trade Show which was full of beautiful homewares, bags, kids pyjamas, hair accessories and much more. I finally met Rebekah from One Small Room and saw their stand which looked great! I especially loved her dress which was a grown up version of one of their girl's tunics. 
The Trade Show was also the launch of their new range of child focused prints 'Designers for Sprout Design' of which I was one of the designers. I look forward to seeing the print on fabric!

New Mix Packs

2mix Stream Daisies

2mix Laundry Stream

I've just realised there were no mix packs with the Stream Bubbles print in the etsy shop so I've just made up 2 different packs and put then in there! The bags of scraps that I put in the shop have sold out so quickly, I will make up some more once I have enough pieces!

If you want larger pieces of fabric, please visit pippijoe for the full range of fabrics and designs by the metre.