New

A new camera body and lenses have come to live at our house.  A lovely macro lense is rocking my world, I have a whole new way of photographing the world around me up close.

The curls of my baby's hair.

The seedlings I've been planting in my garden.

And I've been playing around with exactly how close up I can take a picture of a piece of fabric.
Just because.  Look at the weave on that chicken!

Much fun.

What's new for you?

Ticking off the list

Before I allow myself to start anything brand new I am forcing myself to finish things from the great pile of the unfinished and getting down to a few "must do" projects.  I've sewn buttons back on shirts and cardigans, lengthened a dress, whipped up a pair of baby pants for a friend's newborn and dedicated a whole day to creating a costume for my boy to wear to the school fete.  My sewing machine has been purring along out on the back deck.

Scraps of fabric from bag making and previous forays into pants making were crying out to be combined into a new pair of shorts for the babe.  

And I'm trying to finish a cover for my third Ikea chair.  It needs a tiny bit of tweaking before it's a perfect fit.    I didn't care to finish the cover off this afternoon though, I was too busy chasing my cheeky one around the chair with the camera.

 

Hopefully once my chair cover is done I'll be free to launch into making a few new items for the shop.  Yipee!

Hello, sewing machine

 My sewing machine has a new home at the moment - outside on the table on our back deck.

This is the only place that I can sit and squeeze in a bit of sewing erstwhile attending to drink and snack requests, lost toys, nappy changes, sibling argy-bargy, cleaning up of spills, wiping of tears and other general small child requirements.

What's got me sewing again?  I put my hand up for making some items for the craft stall at the up-coming school fete.  The fete is only a few weeks away now, and a promise is a promise after all.  I'm not exactly zipping through the work, more like a steady plod, but I am getting there.  

About a month ago I was given a plastic bag stuffed full of fabrics that were donated for the craft stall with a request to turn them into handmade goodies...but to be honest most of the fabrics were rather ugly, and to be super-duper honest a little bit stinky of somebody's storage cupboard. I gave them a good wash and an airing but I didn't have the time to make something from all of it.  The most useful fabric was a fairly large amount of mid-blue curtain fabric with a blockout backing.  

The curtain fabric made five nice tote bags with exterior pockets made from drill fabric I picked up from  Spotlight.  I also bought the header tape for the handles.  Sure, it cost me a bit of my own money to make these but I believe in doing the job properly.  Don't want to be giving craft a bad name now, do I?

With the rest of the fabric I trimmed up the pieces and tied them into little bundles with labels.

Who knows, there might be a fabric addict at the fete who finds these little bits of fabric to be just what they need!

This outdoor sewing thing, I could be onto something...