My creative space

A longer than anticipated visit to Bunnings on the weekend saw me come out with a stack of paint chips. I spray painted the back of them silver and they've been turned into bunting for our tree.

Softie for Mirabel

Can you believe it? One post after the other with the tag finished! Unheard of round these traps.

Friday night saw me with the house to myself and time to sew with no distractions. I worked on this guy during the week and realised that my overlocking around his ears wasn't quite up to scratch - gaping holes would describe it adequately - I pulled apart the work and started again on a new body. He's wonky, and not really all that owl-like (might have something to do with the mustache) but you know what he's a softie and he's ready to be named and fingers crossed, adored by someone come Christmas.

He's flying off to Pip on Monday.

Next time

Those close to me know I have an aversion to blue (I'm getting better I swear). Still, I do like the cover for the instructions to the hand-me-down Singer sewing machine Mum gave me.

I hope to spend a bit of quality time with the machine this weekend. I'm keen to finish off the owl softie. Which isn't going as well as I'd hoped, next time I'll follow a pattern! There's been far too much swearing.

My creative space

So along with many others, I've decided to partake in Softies for Mirabel.

I'm not the worlds greatest sewer, but I hope the recipient can tell it was made with love, even if there was some swearing involved. I haven't followed a pattern (hence the swearing), I got my inspiration from the Brown Owls badge because I thought it was kinda cute. I've opted to make do with the fabric scraps I have on hand rather than buy in new stuff, because I have too much stuff. Now I can't decide if he needs a beak or a mustache. Or perhaps a beak and a mustache. I have mustaches let over from my party you see. Decisions!

Lots of other creative spaces here.

Wrapt

I love the simplicity of brown paper wrapping and dressing it up with a little something. I have a whole lot of circle scraps left over from the paper flags as you can imagine, so I sewed some of them together to create a mini garland. Trialled it on the Golden child's present and now I figure I have my Christmas wrapping sorted.

Under clear instruction

Thank goodness for ridiculously detailed instructions on the overlocker. Changing the black thread over to white was relatively pain free.

Say goodbye to Sunday

And there goes the weekend. Had the most fabulous night full of laughter with the girls on Friday night. Saturday was spent on the bike (battling the wind) and visiting the most recent addition to the Beach crew, baby number one. While Sunday was about the market and shopping for soft furnishings - finally we have cushions for our couch, and then there was tidying. My sewing/drawing room particularly. I can see the floor now. And there's nothing on the spare bed. Woo hoo.

I found the pieces of European pillow case covers I started back in 06, maybe earlier. Time to finish them, they'll make a fine addition to the room. Toying with the idea of bleaching them slightly to wash the them out a little. Will see how I go.

I bet you can guess what comes next

Mr. T's old ironing board cover was a disaster. No sooner had you put the item of clothing you needed to iron on the board and it had slipped off. Drove me nuts. So for Christmas I gave him the material (from Ikea - appealing to my love of black and white and his of crazy patterns), promising to recover his board. As is my way (and something I'm hoping to change) it took me forever to get around to doing. But once I'd started it didn't take long to finish. Finally a functional ironing board!

I'm so happy with the finished result that I'm thinking of recovering my ironing board. Yes, we are a two ironing board household.

Momentarily stalled

So, the fake pockets are in my pants. I couldn't help but re-do one because it wasn't quite perfect. Now I'm happy with the symmetry of them. The pants fit perfectly around the waist and my derriere. The issue is that the leg appears to be a touch wide for my liking from the hip down. I haven't managed to take them in with any success yet. Patience is the key I imagine, and indeed a virtue I lack on occasion. Given that we missed out on Avenue Q tickets for tonight (thankfully secured them for Sunday afternoon) I might string together an hour or two to work this out.

More wip

Ahh, what a fabulous weekend. Breakfast in bed, some thrifty finds at Bunnings (more on that later), Christmas in July festivities, Flight of the Conchords, a market run, homemade pizza and a sewing project.

I've probably had the fabric for about a year, it had been washed and dried and it was ready to go. I knew I wanted to make a pair of pants, but I wasn't too sure what pattern to use. Probably because I hate patterns and tend to make it up as I go, which usually ends in disaster, or unfinished business. I've taken sewing lessons before and I remember my teacher encouraging us to take apart a favourite skirt/shirt/pants once they'd had their final wear. So that's what I did. I pulled apart my favourite pair of pants. At close to five years old they'd certainly gone the distance. They were well made too - it took me forever to unpick them!

I am close to finishing. It took me a while to work out how to do the fake pockets, but they're done and in. Pointless, sure, but a good exercise nevertheless. I've joined the legs together and just need to sew the waistband together and attached that. And then hem, which would have to be my nemisis in this whole process. Fingers crossed I can get it right. If all goes well, I will be tempted to make a pair in every colour!