Straight to the third bottom

I confess, I have successfully contributed to the size of my third arse in the space of just a few hours. I have always felt bad about wasting those pieces of fruit and vege that we buy and fail to eat. Having just thrown out some wrinkled soft old beetroot, I was loath to toss the bananas. Hence the banana loaf (c/o the Edmonds Cookbook).

I melted dark chocolate and butter to make the icing. I swear, it is so rich its to die for - and indeed may cause a heart attack after just one slice.

Yummo.

A new lease on life for that fav old t-shirt

I have a particular T-shirt that I have loved for quite some time. It has an image of a wee girl on it - that classic type of image that was always on writing paper sets ..... when I was growing up and receiving writing paper sets was the norm. Its got such a little girl charm about it.

However, in the last few years I wore it less and less. The length of the t-shirt meant it hovered just around my waist and this always made me nervous. Not only do I feel more comfortable in layers and lengthy tops, but its my theory that no one wants to see the midriff of those of us over-30 years old, unless you are in the bedroom, on the beach in togs, you survive on a diet of lentils and hours of yoga, or you are a belly dancer. So I wondered if I could hold on to my treasured t-shirt but give it a bit of a length-update to see if it was then still wearable in an over-30 type way.

I plonked for a somewhat slap-dash approach of adding a thick ribbing waistband at the bottom. I used the theory that the ribbing should be about 2/3 of the width of the distance you are sewing, and simply overlocked it to the base of the t-shit. It has added length and I've worn it all day. Yay- the t-shirt lives again. An excellent way to avoid having to survive on a diet of lentils and hours of yoga.

(Yip, I'm wearing my PJs in this photo)

Recovering that old bedside Lamp

Well, very excited about my first trial of recovering a lamp.

I can't remember where I got this lamp, its just been kicking around for ever and I pulled it out of some storage boxes when we returned to NZ. It had this textured red fabric which I had got very used, but was - at the end of the day - kinda ugly. So I thought it needed a new lease of life and would be a good practice run.

It currently sits by the bed so I was conscious that I wanted to cover it in a yellow, orange or red fabric to keep a warm glow to the light it emits (lets face it, who looks pretty in blue or green light?). That being said, I just couldn't help myself. I was given some fabric samples by a colleague at work and the blue one was simply crying out to be used. So whilst I may not look pretty in its glow, the lamp itself will look gorgeous. Such stunning fabric.

I didn't employ any smart and careful techniques with this. I just cut and yanked the existing fabric off the underneath roll - this one was laminated paper but could be plastic if purchased - (rembered to take the "before" shot mid-way through yanking) and then glued a line of fabric vertically to the paper shield, rolled the fabric around the lamp, glued another nicely folded-under vertical strip, tucked under to top and bottom, and glued to the metal circular surround.

What I would say in hindsight is have regard to which way you look at this lamp. For example, this one sits on a low table and therefore I will more often look "down" on it. A tall standing lamp in contrast, you are more likely to look "up" into. Make sure you have enough fabric at the top / bottom to produce a nice tidy edge when you fold the top / bottom into the middle of the lamp. If you need to prioritise one more than the other, then prioritise the most "looked at" side. I, of course, was cutting the height of the fabric a bit fine as this was a sample scrap, and then prioritised the wrong edge. The edge that looked tidier was at the bottom (prescribed by the metal framing), which never gets seen at all. The messier edge was at the top, and was looking a bit rough and ready. So, to tidy up the top and make it look a little less Craft101, I glued a thin piece of ribbon around the inside to hide the scrappy edges.

It won't win any prizes for the most masterful execution, but it looks so lovely sitting there.

I am now quite excited about making the change to a different light fitting in my sewing cave. I'll give you a before and after of that at some point because the current fitting has all that charm that our Purple Palace exudes and it really (really) has to go.

Only minimal productivity

Dear me, how the days just roll by. I cannot believe its July this week. What has happened?

I have accomplished so little in the sewing world since February, I am always feeling a touch guilty. There is a definite lack of focus. The weekends are taken up with weeding and clearing - and boy have we weeded and cleared - and as one sinks into the chair at the end of the day, groaning softly at Gardener's Back Pain (never before experienced) and covered in rose bush scratches, there is just no energy for creative spurts.
I have only managed two projects in the last wee while.

The first was a top from the "Chic and Simple Sewing" book. Its the baby doll top. Not sure quite what happened here. I used the medium size but whilst it fits on the top half it simply balloons out from the boobs down - I mean there's 'flowing' and then there's just peculiar.

Clearly for this to be wearable it needs to be taken in significantly and perhaps given a tie for the back. A bit annoying really as I liked this fabric - I can handle when I stuff thing up the sewing myself but find it a bit more annoying when the pattern takes you to a place that you never expected.

However, before I do the alterations to try and save this top, I am going to see if a friend of mine who is pregnant wants this. Ballooning tops are fine for the woman with the beautiful stretching belly. I also finally did the overhaul on a chair that had been sitting around collecting dust for way too many months. I saw this at a seconds shop and picked it up for $3. It had terribly old gold fabric that had been mauled by a pet of some sort.

The fabric I used is the same design as I used on a seat last year, but different colours. The fabric is just lovely. I do tend to think that as the fabric is so strong the chair looks top heavy and you don't notice the lovely legs. Nevertheless, this will do nicely for a few dollars and the cost of the fabric (not cheap but lets pretend it was).

Right - what next?

A Fiesta of Wallpaper

So I promised some pictures of the wallpaper. This is after all why I will be muttering about decorating and painting for the next few months.

The walls are solid enough in the bedrooms but the wallpaper is questionable to say the least.

In some instances one might say its "vintage" and worthy of protection. That is of course easy for those to say who do not have to live within these walls.

To give a flavour to some of the more extreme wallpapers I attach the following photos for giggle value.

I challenge you not to snort.

Tenugui fabrics

When I was up in Napier recently I lucked upon a funny wee shop called Raku that sold all things Japanese.

I got quite excited about a selection of Tenugui they had there, pieces of cotton with various designs on them. These were by no means cheap but once I'd laid eyes on them I had to have one … or two or three.

I bought this fish design because I loved the idea of this in a cool aquatic room. I also thought it would look excellent as a light fitting around a simply circular shade.

I picked up the utensil one at the last minute. The thought of this in the sewing room was a must. Of course, this will be after the sewing room has been redecorated but planning for the future.

The Purple Palace

So the house we bought is a doer-upper. It is a hodgepodge of 70s' style. It comes with outer walls painted lilac, veneer doors throughout, textured glass feature windows, stained carpets (some with paisley designs), wallpaper that to a certain extent you have to take your hat off to, aluminium sliding doors and conservatory, tile ceilings, nasty curtains, astro-turf balcony …. well I could go on but you get my drift. (I shall post some wallpaper shots in due course - its worth it for a giggle.)

Boy o boy - we may have bitten off more than we can chew on this one. Whilst I'm keen to tinker and learn about DIY, my other half would rather chew his arm off. And given the scale of this, we can see weekends for the rest of our lives taken up with painting. Was this a prudent purchase? Only time will tell.

The parts which are nice are (i) the kitchen, (ii) the warmth (insulation is something we have sorely missed of late), (iii) the bath, and (iv) portions of the garden.
Hopefully the kitchen may encourage me to get back into doing some cooking. At this point I am painting the pantry shelves (which were a tad icky and freaked me out) so we still have bags of groceries all over the floor, but hopefully should do a final coat tonight and can put it all away in weekend. Then the cooking can begin.

In the garden, whilst there is a hell of a lot of weeding to do - and lets face it, gardening is a mystery to us - there is an adventure course out there. I spent a few hours in the weekend weeding the vege patches. We have some lovely raised garden beds for veges with really nice soil. - Oh God, is this a new moment in my life.? Am I actually commenting on having nice dirt? (I did get freaked out by a portion that had white stones and a tile laid out in the garden - and so I opted to leave that section in case I weeded up some dear loved family pet from the previous owner.) Anyway, I planted some lettuces and spinach that we'd been given as a house warming gift. Will be totally excited if we actually get a lettuce out of it. Grow lettuce, grow!