Fabric Love

If I didn't have a fabric stash that was at complete capacity I would really like meters of these beauties...

Walkabout - Cloud nine Fabrics

Blue birds - Cloud Nine Fabircs

Echino of course - can't you tell 


And you know I didn't even notice the bird and blue theme until I had all the pics  loaded up and ready to post!

Still Rag Rugging Along

Ok, I have learnt that although sewing the ends together does make for a nicer finish it is dreadful to  plait with great big piles of cotton.  Even rolling it into balls didn't help too much.  I managed to preserver with the help of iview (I watched a diabolical program on pregnant UK Mums behaving badly OMG whata show.)

Looks so nice, but O so hard to work with.

This is Rag Rug Yoga

It got much better as the balls got smaller 

and smaller

I am a bit surprised that lined curtains from a 1.2 x 1.6 window
 only got this much rug but I still like where it is going.

*Sorry about the blurry pictures we are having very serious camera issues.

More Rug-a-Long

I am having a great time with the Rag Rug-a-long malarky my Primary Carers duties have been thrown to the wind.  Although I did break my golden rule of not having food or drink anywhere near a project, and paid the price when I dropped my while cotton into my cup of tea!

I am hoping it is just the outer layers that are now tea coloured.

Could have been so much worse, imagine if the cup had gone over - Oh No

When I started sewing my spiral together I getting these messy bulky bits from the
 the excess fabric in the strip joins.  I was using the join method shown in the Bake 
shop tutorial.  So instead I sewed all my strips together on the machine and trimmed 
off all the excess fabric, much neater. 

I now have three great big bundles to plait with.

I definitely agree with other Rag Rug- a-longers that it is best
to sew it together on a flat surface to keep it all sitting nicely,
just keep cups of tea away!

Rag Rug-a-Long

The very talented Jodie from Ric Rac  posted a few days ago about making a Rag Rug, and suggested people might like to make one along side her, a Rag Rug-a-long.

This is what I am aiming for, and is an image from the
Moda Bake Shop tutorial that Jodie suggests is used for the Rug-a-long

Now this just so happened to coincide with a big room rearrangement going on at our house.  Everyone knows that when people swap rooms and rearrange furniture it is the best time to update curtains and clean up 8 year old cheap and nasty carpets that are well on their way out.  What better way than avoid re-carpeting than by putting down lovely rugs.  I quite fancy a big old Rag Rug in Miss M's room and I now have the old curtains (that aren't good for much other than the rag bag) Perfect!

The old curtains all in strips, I very neatly cut one strip but that was never
going to be sustainable so the rest were torn to size and
the fabric handled this well.

This is my plaiting technique, very complicated I know
 and I agree with Jodie it is a challenge not to plait too tightly.

I think this just may work!

Totally Redecorated House

I am constantly dreaming up redecorating ideas for our house and am constantly shot down by Mr Daddy.  I would love to dabble with some wallpaper, we have this one little tiny upstairs room that is home to only one little toilet.  The room is so boxy and dull how cool would it be to open the door and find the wildest room in the house?  But it is not to be, no matter what powers of persuasion I use or promise.

So instead I thought I would wallpaper an old doll house of the girls using all my old scrap booking papers, what a great idea, what a great holiday project and what a great Mum.  So we got down the well loved wooden house which had been relegated to the back of a cupboard.   Over the years the girls and their visitors have all had a go at decorating this house so there was a bit of sticker peeling and washing to be done.

Outside - Before
Do you think that is supposed to be a big yellow lizard on the front?

 Inside - Before 

All the children had a go at painting but surprise, surprise
 I found myself alone finishing things off.  Lucky I can multi task.

Inside After 

After 

The Funky Flamingo lounge room 

Mauve Bathroom

Any house with a mauve bathroom needs a yellow kitchen.

Blue and Green master bedroom.

And of course a pink and pretty attic playroom.  


I think I lost my "Good Mum" kudos when I refused to let every room be papered in pink.

Next we will be focusing on soft furnishings and floor covers, I am on the hunt for Contact with a wooden print.  I must also say that my urge to wall paper any part of our family home has now well and  truly past.  

2012 Happy New Year Bag

What better way to celebrate the New Year than a Happy New Year bag....  I ordered this gorgeous calendar fabric from Spoonflower.  Just incase you haven't been there yet, Spoonflower is this awesome place anyone can go to and have their designs printed onto fabric.  Or you can buy fabric with other peoples very clever designs.  It is great to just go and get inspiration too.

Anyway I ordered this calendar fabric and had planned to hem the edges and make it into a tea towel for my friend. When it arrived it was even more beautiful than I could have hoped so I turned into a bag instead!

"Lets Ride" by Beck and Lundy Spoonflower ID - Pattysloniger127

Side A 

Side B
There will be no excuses for forgetting a date now.

And inside. 

Home Sweet Home

We are back from our camping sojourn and it was heavenly, soooo relaxing, soooo good to need and want for soooo little.   Having said all that it is also really nice to be home too.  I love walking around my garden after we have been away and noticing all the changes.  It all seems to have gone berserk in the short week we were away.

Enormous Zucchini (see the seedling punnet for scale)

The ginger flowers are stunning, will have
 to have a play arranging them as cut flowers...

Beneficial insect attracting boarder is humming with life.

Mangos!!!  This tree has only ever produced 1 mango
 in its whole 8 years so two at this stage is very exciting.

The basil has taken over, might
 have to let the chooks in tomorrow.

Not sure if I will get much time in the garden until kids back at school or until it gets a bit cooler but I am feeling a bit inspired by all this fabulous growth.