My kind of Boxing day

Kitchen table cleared, sewing machine out and off I go. Sewing for myself, after months of sewing for Coulter and Coulter, its great to do some for me. I did not get all the stuff I cut out stitched up, but I made a big dent in it. What I did get done is four cushions and one skirt. Plus a few Coulter and Coulter bags. Hopefully I will get a chance to get more done in the next couple of days.

Today's Projects

Today, in between ironing, cleaning bathrooms, washing, making hats and pillowcases for Coulter & Coulter, I actually managed to get a couple of my own projects done. I decided I wanted to use for myself one of the vintage furnishing fabrics I acquired for Coulter & Coulter. I dithered a bit about what to make, cushions or a skirt. In the end I managed with a bit of pattern squishing to get one skirt, see below, and two cushion fronts cut out and ready to sew. The first item of clothing I have made for myself for years and years. I really enjoyed drafting the pattern from scratch and having it turn out exactly as I wanted. Now if there was an easy way to get rid of my spare tyres live would be slightly more perfect.

I also had time to sew up another cushion I have had cut out ready to go for weeks. The fabric I used is the last piece of one of my favourite Ikea fabrics.

An almost perfect day

The last few weeks and weekends have been very busy. Today at last there was a day with nothing much to do. The grass was cut, the ironing was done, there was nowhere I needed to be and nobody I needed to take anywhere. I did not need to get up early. I was able to laze in bed for a bit after having had the best nights sleep in a long time. My youngest and I had breakfast at a cafe in the village, I had a very, very tasty Almond Croissant and he had a very, very large slice of chocolate cake. We then had a little browse around the junk shop together, the first time he has been old enough to be trusted in a cluttered shop full of china. It was very pleasant being able to rummage around with him. He would now like for his birthday a Cash Register, a silver goblet and a picture of a black panther. Hmmm. I spent the rest of the day in the garden sewing and listening to radio 4 over the internet. I started of on the veranda but had to move down where there was more breeze to keep me cool.
I was still out there sewing when Peter came home for tea. He took this sneaky snap while I wasn't looking. As usual catching me from a very unflattering angle.

Buffy was enjoying the breeze and the cooler weather too.

The latest furniture makeover -

I felt very inspired by the Keirunga Quilt groups show and wanted to go home and quilt. You may be wondering what this has to do with the picture above. Bear with me I will get there eventually. As I am half way through the study makeover the study is very empty at the moment. There is nowhere to put my sewing machine and sewing stuff. I decided I needed a table at a height that would allow me to stand and use my sewing machine, with shelves below for all my bits and pieces. I have a painting trolley table thing. It makes an excellent mobile scaffolding, allowing me to reach ceilings and high spots when painting. Now I have my high ladder I don't need it so much. Hmm I thought a perfect sewing table.
To clean it up I thought I would just rub it down a bit, and paint over the paint stains. Then in my usual getting carried away style I decided that the paint was coming off quite well and I should keep going. One hour later, I think it turned out quite well. Not to bad for a cheap bit of furniture. I know it is cheap, firstly because it belongs to me and secondly because it came from Ikea. We have definitely had our moneys worth out of it. It started life as a kitchen trolley and extra work space, in my tiny little kitchen. Then it did service as a computer table, before it became the painting scaffolding table. And now it will make a great sewing table.
The finished result, not perfect, but just what I need, and who really needs perfection anyway. The study still has a long way to go. Before I fill it up with stuff I need to give the floor a very gentle sand and seal. Then I might just get to spend some of my spare time sewing.

Waitangi Day

Yesterday was Waitangi day. New Zealand's national day and a public holiday. It is also or would have been or is, the birthday of my first son, who if he was still with us would have been 20 years old. Unfortunately he did not even make it to one year old. This is a sad thing that happened and is past, please do not feel bad for me, I have three brilliant sons now and appreciate them so much. Anyway I decided to spend the day doing things I enjoy and put off all those other little jobs for another day

My eldest son needed to be dropped off at his friends very early as they were going to work in a Vineyard. Which is a whole other story. So there I was in the garden at 8am pottering around in the cool of the morning. Any other time here is just way to hot. I had a great time, I love gardening.

I had a very late breakfast on the veranda in the cool, enjoying the view of our tidy garden.

Then I spent the rest of the day sitting in the shade sewing and listening to a play from the BBC radio 4 website. Perfect.

Did I really do all that knitting

Jess over at Button Beauty is having a little giveaway for her one year blogaversery. She was reminiscing about fashion from the 80's and 90's. I had a wonder through my photo albums but could not find too many pics of my fashion faux pas, I was obviously not a very adventurous dresser. What I did find were lots of pics of me wearing stuff I had made myself. I obviously used to do a lot of knitting and I had forgotten how much. Above is a pic of my and my brother (sorry Bryan hope you don't mind to much). I am wearing one of the icelandic jumpers I used to knit. I think I knitted hundreds of them and could knock them out in a couple of days, all on circular needles.

The cardi in the pic above of me and my stepdaughter Lisa, is one I loved to knit and I loved to wear. It is a two colour fair isle. I used to love knitting fari isle in two colours, holding one colour in each hand, great fun. I am also wearing a skirt and shirt I made myself. I think I made nearly all my clothes, how did I have so much time.

Above are a couple of fashion faux pas. Leggings, why did I think they would make me look thinner when I was 8 months pregnant. I was so glad when they disapeared and a bit shocked when they started to come back into fashion. Then there are the lovely huge glasses that just about covered my face. I could not wear my contacts when I was pregnant, as I had so much calcium whizzing around my body, I would build up calcium deposits on my lenses with in hours. Glad those glasses are gone for good.

Another fairisle jumper I knitted with a skirt and shirt I made as well. My final fashion faux pas a curly perm. I have attempted to have my hair permed loads of times and it never ever works and I end up looking like a poodle who needs clipped.

I did start to wonder why I stopped doing all this sewing and knitting. Firstly I had children and secondly I used to run a craft stall making clothes for children. I would make thousands of dresses, dungarees, hats and scarfs every year. There was no time to do any knitting, and by the time I decided to stop the craft business I really did not want to see another sewing machine ever again. Sewing as a way of earning money took a lot of the fun out of it for me. Thankfully as the kids are growing up and flying the nest I am getting back into thinking about sewing more again. Don't know if I will ever want to knit again, did try to last winter but I could not find any patterns that interested me and the rather short sighted Man in the knitting shop told me nobody knits any more so they don't bother getting any interesting patterns in!

Weekend Skirt part 2

I found my new weekend skirt today, it was hidden at the back of my wardrobe, and I had forgotten it was there. I love the pattern, I love the colours, it is cool to wear, very very comfortable and of course has daisies on it. I tried it out today just to make sure. It worked for going to the movies, doing some sewing (there is a pic below) and for gardening. Perfect.

While trying out my new skirt, I made a cover for my sunlounger (or should I say shadelounger). It has taken me a whole year to get round to doing this, so obviously the skirt works really well.

Creativity at last

Now that christmas is out of the way. House renovation painting is out of the way for a couple of weeks. I promise to give you an update on the renovations soon. The house was cleaned and tidied. All the little bits of gardening have been finished, well never finished in the garden, but fine for just now. Peter was back at work, my youngest was playing happily. Time for me to do some sewing. Now, the longest part of my sewing is browseing through my stash of stuff trying to figure out what goes with what. Everything gets pulled out and there are piles of fabric everywhere.

I started off with some new cushions. Though not happy with the result, I think I should have put an edge on them in some way, will think about that and prehaps change them again some time.

Another project that has been waiting for a while, is a new tea cosy for Peter. His old one I did about 6 years ago and is looking very rough. In fact so rough I just through it in the bucket.

So here it is the new tea cosy. I have had the blue fabric for a long time waiting to be used. And because I always have to make things reversible, below is the other side.
Now, that has given me an idea, I wonder if I could make a reversible weekend skirt. Hmm, guess I need a visit to Spotlight to find some interesting fabrics.

Weekend Skirt

After three years of use my weekend skirt has finally had to be relegated to the rag basket, and I miss it. I am now going to have to find a new weekend skirt. Just in case you are wondering what a weekend skirt is, it is the skirt I put on at the weekend when there is nowhere to go and nothing much to do. When I wear it I know I can potter around and chill out. The properties that a skirt requires to be a weekend skirt are, it should be a fabric I love, have some daisies on it somewhere, be comfortable, be suitable to garden in and suitable to go to the market in.

This is option number one, it fits a couple of the criteria, but I am not sure I would want to be see wearing it anywhere but at home. It is just tooo turquoise.

Option number 2, I love this skirt. Unfortunatly it falls down in one area. It is not quite as comfie as is required. It is just an itsy bitsy too small. Maybe it is worth loosing a couple of pounds for.

Option number three, used to be a dress which for some reason I converted into a skirt. I can't remember why now. There is one problem with this skirt, it is a little to big and has a habit of slipping down when I am carrying things. This could easily be sorted. But perhaps what I should do is make a new one. I could deconstruct my old skirt and create a new one to the same pattern. Hmmm, which now raises the problem of finding the fabric. Until then I think perhaps option 2 is going to be the temporary weekend skirt, I will just have to breathe in.

New house pressie

My friend Keriann has just moved house, so thought I would make her a pressie. I used the tutorial from here to make the fabric basket above. I think it worked out really well. One day I will get round to makeing some for myself, I thought they would look really good sitting on the shelves in my sewing room.

A rose to far perhaps

There was something not quite right with the dressing gown I made on Wednesday. I could not quite put my finger on what.
Then it struck me it needed a trim on the edge. So after pulling every fabric out of my stash I settled on another rose fabric, one of my favourites. Still not sure if it is perhaps a rose to far. But I like it, I will be wearing it and nobody apart from the family will see me in it (oh and just you as you read my blog). So who really cares. And of course being me I had to make it reversible. Hate doing edges, interfacings and neatening seams. So if I spill my breakfast yogurt or slobber toothpaste down it, I can quickly swap it over to the other side and nobody will know.

97 done and still going slowly

You might remember a few months ago I started making yoyos for a teapot cosy project. Here they are so far. 97 done and 15 more to go I hope. Maybe Peter might get his teapot cosy before christmas.

Time to myself sewing

I thought I had a few hours to do some sewing today. I had the day off to watch my youngest run his cross country race. I cut out a batch of sewing, wich included - a new dressing gown, a tablecloth and a couple of other small mending projects. Then got ready to go down to my son's school, hmmmm. I could not find the car keys, after searching for 30mins, my wonderful cleaning lady took pity on me and gave me a lift down to the school. I walked back afterwards and found the car keys hanging on the key hook in the cupboard. Guess I should have looked in the obvious place. Anyway, I did not get through my large pile of sewing, only managed to get the dressing gown done. Perhaps when I grow up I will not be so scatter brained.

This is ........... my creative space

This is my creative space under the bed in the spare room. I used to have the whole room, but Peter has sneaked his desk in and has acquired a small corner. Have a look over here to see some other creative spaces.

I bet you will never guess what I am working on at the moment.

The possiblities are endless

Here is a better shot of that fabric I got yesterday. It makes a good table cloth I think, I will put a plain border around it to give it a bit of depth. Then what to do with the rest ... Pyjama bottoms, Cushions for the cane chairs on the veranda, Curtains for the kitchen, use it to back a quilt .... this list could go on and on and on and all for just $3 per metre.

Another Fabric Bargain

I found this gorgeous fabric at spotlight today, for only $3 a meter, that is less than £1 a meter for my UK readers. I love the blue background with little dots and roses. Sorry about the blurry pic.

Back to the Past

I had a brilliant evening gossiping with a couple of good friends last night. The topic of conversation got round to when I used to be a craft worker, and my friends requested that I put some of the photos of the work I did up on my blog. So here they are. The pic above is of my next door neighbour's daughter modeling one of my reversible dresses and matching hat. One side of the dress was a red check and the other the lovely red daisy fabric. The dress could be flipped inside out depending on what mood you were in or if one side got a bit grubby. I also did lovely bright and colourful reversible dungarees, little padded jackets, sun hats, waistcoats, fleecy hats and scarves and cot quilts. The above snap is of my stall at a special market day in Berwick. I usually did indoor craft events or craft tents at Agricultural shows. The lovely quilted pics were done by my best friend Sheena, and they sold like hot cakes.

I stencilled the chickens on to the fabric of the above dress.

Sewing room #3

The current version of my sewing room. After being kicked out of my original room by my youngest wanting to swap.

I have taken over the spare room. It really needs a new paint job that has got to be one of the yukkiest greens I have seen in ages.

Looks quite good from the first angle. Not quite so good from this angle.

Another of last weekend's bargins. I bought this for a whole $5 from Trade Me. Unfortunatly the top turned out to be formica (yuk). Now all it needs a new top (maybe I could buy another desk with a nice top and rubbish legs), a good clean up, perhaps a paint job and some new handles. Then it is destined to be a new sewing and cutting table for me.

Some views from my sewing room window.