Knitted Pinafore Dress - Mama made Monday

 

 This is a stash-busting attempt!

I have a rather large amount of a bobbly yarn called Sirdar Fresco; I was lured in by the pretty pastel colours and soft fluffy bobbliness but it turned out to be a pig to knit with!

But not to be beaten I decided to try knitting it with a strand of plain blue yarn - just a cheapy acrylic dk.

I'm quite pleased with the look of the two together.

And this is the finished pinafore, looks rather triangular in this photo!! The two yarns make the finished knitted garment quite thick - I might try making a sweater using more of the blasted stuff.

Here is my little model; I was worried it wouldn't fit but it is actually rather roomy and will fit for ages!!

Home Sweet Home; part three - the Living Room

 

The room with the telly. Everyone's favourite room - except mine!! I would so love to get rid of the telly, but I fear the rest of my family would leave me.

This is where my husband sits, goggle eyed, usually with the laptop on at the same time...
The painting was bought on holiday in Corfu, from a street artist.

I usually sit at the end of the sofa - there's my little table under a pile of cooking magazines and knitting. I made the cushion covers from some remnant fabrics.

 I don't really like ornaments, but we bought these wooden dodos on honeymoon in Mauritius so they are quite special.

 There are also more family pictures; these are my two boys, when they were small and cute about five years ago!

The living room is also home to a plant. I am very bad with plants, but this one has managed to survive for about 6 months despite my chronic neglect.

Upcycled Shirt Bag

I've made this bag from a man's shirt I bought in the charity shop.

I folded it to use the button band as the opening for the bag, and the cuff buttonholes make the little tabs which hold the cord at the bottom. 

It's lined with the same fleece as the butterfly motif.

Not bad for a prototype :)

Mama made Monday - flouncy skirt

My first item of clothing :)

A skirt for Poppy; she gets all my prototypes!!

You might recognise the fabric, it's from Ikea and it's already featured on this blog.

Yes, my daughter will now co-ordinate with the kitchen accessories.

I (more or less) followed the instructions on this lovely helpful blog ikat bag. Except my skirt is dual layered for extra flounce. The underskirt is a pink embroidered remnant donated by my mum.

Eeek! Shazronnie's Shop!

Selling stuff you've made is a bit scary.

What if nobody wants to buy anything?

What if they buy it and think it's rubbish?

Well, I've thrown caution to the wind and opened a little shop on Misi.

It's here; http://www.misi.co.uk/handmade/shazronnie.html if you want to look. 

It's rather low on stock (I'm working on that), but I have sold one bag already.

This little child's bag was my first sale, it's in the post and I hope the buyer likes it!

Home Sweet Home; part two - the kitchen.

Come into my kitchen, where yummy things are made!

I spend loads of time in here (baking cakes, making dinner, swearing when things fall out of the cupboards onto my head) so I decided to paint it my favourite colour - pink!! I can't say my husband was overly keen, but he only really comes in to put the kettle on occasionally.

The very hardworking kettle lives in this corner.

Oh, how I dream of a perfectly co-ordinated kitchen where all the mugs match!

 Oh, look!

There's a lovely fresh-baked loaf.

I blogged about my love of baking bread before.

And last, but definitely not least, is the end bit where the washing machine and tumble dryer live. I love all that fifties housewife imagery but I love my modern labour saving appliances more.

One more thing to show you in the kitchen is the sweet shop.

It was made by my father-in-law; it has a real scales, paper bags and lots of yummy sweets.

The children often have a few as a treat after dinner. Sweets aren't banned in our house and the children are very sensible with their sweet shop stash.

The 19p Tea Towel Challenge

 My bestest friend and I visited Ikea, and we both bought one of their 19p Tekla tea towels. We are both sewing machine novices so we thought we could practise by making a very utilitarian item into something lovely.

I edged mine with some other Ikea fabric, and appliqued three heart motifs to match.

And then I made a matching tea cosy!

Home Sweet Home; part one - the hallway.

I'd like to invite you for a tour of my house; a series of posts which will hopefully encourage me to clean and tidy for you, my virtual guests!
We're going to start in the hallway where this cross-stitch hangs - not made by me, but a wedding present 12 happy years ago.

Come on then, what are you waiting for?

We have this lovely original tiled floor in our hallway. The house was built in 1935, so it's lasted well! It was one of the things we loved about the house from the first time we viewed it.
The pine box is where all the shoes live.

 Here's the hatstand corner, and we have two little pegs on the wall too. In theory this is to encourage small people to hang their own coat up.
Look, there's my zebra shopping trolley! Invaluable for picnics and shopping trips with a baby in a sling.

Our hallway has many doors; pretty common for halls in general. Open plan living is not for me, I am far too untidy.
There are lots of family photos in our hallway, and the decor is rather tatty and dated. It's on the To Do list, but under the heading Big Jobs.

 And of course the stairs come off the hall. Not every 1930's suburban house has a set of antlers in their hallway.

And right at the end, just before the kitchen we have The Calendar. If it's not on The Calendar I don't know about it and won't remember it. It also incorporates the bulldog clip of miscellaneous bits of paper. (House filing system.)

And there you are, hope you enjoyed your tour. I'd love to look around your house sometime!

Upcycled Applique Bag

Ta-dah!

The house is a tip and the kids are half naked, but I don't care because I'm rather pleased with this.

It started life as 8 squares of denim cut from an old pair of jeans, a pillowcase and a pelmet. (Buying an odd pelmet with no price label from a charity shop was a bit of a Royston Vasey moment, I'm telling you!)

 

 I wanted to practice some applique, and ending up embellishing it with some old buttons and scraps of ribbon from my cardmaking box.

And I got to practise those tricky curved lines!

T-shirt dress

It would appear my sewing machine fears were ungrounded as I've managed to make this!

It's an old t-shirt with a length of material (sent by my mum in a bag of leftovers) sewn around to make the skirt.

I got the idea here but I have to admit I didn't follow her instructions exactly.

I think the applique heart was the most difficult part - up until then I had only sewn in a straight line!

Ooh, ooh, ooh, I made a bag! I made a bag!

Look! It's got handles and a pocket and everything!