Not a total write off…

In its usual, relentless, fashion the summer holidays have steam-rollered through July and August, resulting in the usual lack of summer makes. On top of that, while the children were away for the week, I developed shingles, and spent about 8 days flat out in bed. A week on, and I still haven’t made it back to the machine (tbh, been a bit busy – family days out, and all that).
However, before I was struck down I did manage to make a couple of things. First up was a dress for Piper (she wanted to be involved in making one from scratch). I used one my Mum’s uncut patterns from the 1970s and positively whipped up a little princess line number from a rose patterned St Michael’s sheet. And lined it with the final remnant of “the sheet which kept on giving” (off the top of my head, I’ve used it to make a toga, interline a bag and line three reversible aprons).

This was followed by a partially successful attempt to make my lounge curtains (I have had the fabric put by for a couple of years now). Our lounge is a through room with a bay at one end and patio doors at the other, so the plan was to make a wide pair for the bay, and a long pair for the doors. I (mostly) made the pair for the bay, and I am very happy with them. I just held off hemming them because I couldn’t tell how much they might drop. At this point I fell ill (and about time too – turns out curtains are really dull to make!) so the other pair will have to wait a while, just hopefully not another two years.

My highlight of the summer though is my Bronte top, in a dark murky grey, with mother of pearl button. As yet un-photographed (I tried a few mirror shots, but they always end up unflatteringly wonky), it has fast become one of my most worn t-shirts, and I already have the next one lined up to make. This top was brilliantly easy and the extra sewalong tips really helped as this was my first time sewing with t-shirting. Best of all my Mum loved it so much she has requested one too!

Not a portal to Narnia*

We recently invested in a wardrobe for my son’s bedroom – but it had to be small enough to fit underneath his IKEA loft bed. And cost almost nothing. So Ebay it was. After three days of searching and bidding I then got the wardrobe I kind of wanted from the beginning (main criteria being size and price). It does need some love though. Aside from repositioning the hanging bar inside, we want to do something special with the outside.
We asked Matthew what he wanted and he responded “cogs and pulleys!” Robert’s response was “ooh, steampunk!” but I was a little more cautious in embracing this notion as:
a) Matthew is 7 and he hasn’t come across steampunk yet and
b) if it doesn’t contain bright colours he doesn’t want it; brass and sepia just don’t fit into this picture.
After a little more conversation I had a clearer picture of brightly coloured stencilled cogs connected by the occasional belt. A further search of Ebay, and a couple of hours later I had these:
Watch this space… possibly for a really long time, nothing happens fast around here.

* the actual portal to Narnia lives here. (no, honestly, just scroll down!)

Stopping by…

School holidays this month, so we have been very busy in not obviously productive ways. Apart from the sheer number of name tapes I have been sewing into school uniforms now that I have two in school from next month. Haven’t got around to checking the length of the new school trousers and sewing turn-ups yet. That can wait until the night before.
In addition I have half made a handful of dresses, but nothing to show as progress.
This month’s sewalong is aimed at the UFO – unfinished objects – but I’ve got a bit sidelined as I don’t really have any sewing UFOs, just DIY ones. Our biggest one is our lounge. We massively renovated it last summer, but  that left us with a bare room, which we managed to paint in time for Christmas. This year we took the floor up (again) to fix the wobbly bits we didn’t notice last year, and we have installed 2/3 of the skirting board. Now we just have to install the final 1/3 (which involves moving all the really big bits of furniture) and then paint 22 metres of board.

We have also built three radiator covers (I say we, I mean Robert) and am in the process of painting those too. Another few weeks and most of everything should be finished.

Lovebirds

Well, in an unusually consistent burst of productivity I have an fact managed to complete the curtains for my girls’ bedroom – in less than a week!!

This was a real labour of love as we started with a pair of black and white Ikea Eivor curtains that I bought for a specific project a while back which didn’t come to anything, so they have been lurking in my stash ever since. However, there were a couple of problems with them as they stood….

1. They were too sheer, so needed lining.
2. They were far too long.
3. They were tab tops and needed a curtain tape header.
4. While pretty and charming they were very monochrome.

The outcome of all this was that I kept the bottom hem (it seemed like a good idea at the time), cut the tops off, and undid the side seams. This made it pretty to easy to attach a full lining, and add the gathering tape.

However the real fun was in adding a splash of colour! Piper and I worked out a colour scheme for each of the birds, and I then a spent a day colouring them in with fabric paints. And apart from dropping a pink paint brush on the fabric it all went very well. (Pink paint crisis averted by widening a branch with some black paint).


The curtains have now been hung, and Piper and Robin are delighted with their new roommates.

Now I have nothing to stop me from embracing the 20 something metres of fabric destined for my lounge and dining room windows… would that count as stashbusting? ;-)

August…

You might have thought from my extended absence on my blog that I had been enjoying the summer holidays and making the most of the sea-and-country-side in which I live. Not so.
Our August project (while the children had a holiday with their grandparents) was to strip out our lounge and repair all the damp related damage before redecorating. In our plan this was going to involve about a week of very hard work. Instead, having done all the prep and most of the remedial work (replacing joists and floorboards) it turned out we were also going to have to re-plaster immediately.
What with the plastering (which is beautiful) and Robert having to go back to work it took until the 31st August before we had the new laminate flooring down in this room, and properly September before we actually had furniture in it. This meant lots of eating in the garden or in the kitchen, and cosy rainy afternoons, snuggled up on my bed with the children, watching “Herbie Rides Again”.

We still need to paint, but that is going to have to wait for real life to recede again (and for us to make our minds up!).

Painting and Decorating

By which I actually mean demolishing and rebuilding. Despite the children going on holiday without us, this last week hasn’t been spent in a flurry of creativity, but instead has been sheer hard slog.

While the children were away seemed a good time to decorate my son’s bedroom which was sporting a decrepit lilac carpet and pink woodchip walls.
We knew one of the walls was going to be a challenge (I accidentally poked a hole in it months ago) but it pretty much matched our worst fears.  So we stripped it back to nothing (which seemed to take forever) and then panelled it!

Before	After

And then we patched other bits of wall with plaster. Filled holes. Painted. Collected the children. Painted again. Painted another colour. And Again. And then did it all again. Painted some skirting board (badly). Smudged some paint and then laid a new laminate floor.

Finally we got to put a new bed in and some other furniture and called it finished. I am very happy with the end result – and so is my little boy!