the big sell

Well, well, well, well...we meet again boxes and packing tape! Yep, I've started packing up the house, little by little sorting and storing our lives into boxes. Sigh! And along with sorting and organising comes de-cluttering, already I have done two runs to the local charity shop laden with bags and boxes. 

My sewing room usually looks like a bomb has hit it, but I've tidied it up enough to realise I have way. too. much. fabric! So to Craftumi I went and listed some bits and bobs, if you are interested pop over to check it out. I have my minky for sale (in hot pink, lime green, red and black) which I have loads of yards of on bolts. This minky I buy from a U.S. wholesaler and isn't available in Australia (Spotlight and Lincraft have started selling minky dot in pastel colours, not these colours though). 

 

I am also over on eBay selling my soul our stuff. Go there for a bargain too ;) 

I am slowly but surely adding items as I find things in random cupboards and under beds. Stay tuned on both my Craftumi and eBay accounts as I still have lots of crafty items like flowers, buttons, beads, more fabric to list, as well as some things Mr M wants to sell on eBay (LED camping lights anyone? UHF radios?) and I have an (expensive!) Big by Fiona Scanlon girls tutu skirt bought from David Jones and missing a receipt to return! To eBay it shall go.

Right, back to the packing tape and newspaper...

get your craft on #4: super dooper burpies

Once upon a time I started a little regular series here on my blog called Get Your Craft On. 'Regular' being the choice word there, turns out not so regular! But I promise I'll try and fix that - I am hoping to do a Get Your Craft On feature post once a month, so here goes...

With my sister and two friends all expecting little babies to either start or expand their broods I needed some gifts to throw around. As soon as I heard that the stork was paying a visit, and knowing my friends and sister don't want to find out if it's a boy or a girl, I stocked up on unisex fabrics from some Etsy suppliers I frequent: Sew Deerly Loved, Cottonholic and Fresh Squeezed Fabrics, as well as my local Kmart to pick up some affordable but super absorbent bath towels in neutral white for a little sewing project.

I like to try and at least give somewhat practical gifts to expectant or new parents, although not being a mother myself I wonder often if I miss the mark?! This time I had some burp cloths in mind, just in case one of these new babes was a 'chucker'. Not just any burp cloth would do though, one which could be easily thrown over mum or dad's shoulder, was ample length so that the dreaded projectile was somewhat caught (sorry to be graphic, but it is what it is) as well as contouring to the parents body to fit in their neck, chest, back and shoulders. 

So, to get started here are my supplies...

1 x white bath towel

Gender neutral fabrics in a fun elephant print, one in green and one in orange.

My trusty sewing machine armed with co-ordinating thread.

Equally as trusty sewing scissors.

A dinner plate to create a template and a pencil to trace outline.

Using the dinner plate as my circle template I traced an almost complete circle onto my fabric, leaving about a quarter of the circle 'open'. Then I measured on myself where I wanted the burp cloth to start and end, from my chest over my shoulder and down my back, about 40cm. I folded my fabric in half and measured a 20cm straight line down to the fold and cut out that shape (see below). I then used my orange fabric as my template for my towel, which I folded also to create a symmetrical shape.

After cutting out the white towel shape I now have my two burp cloth shapes, one in the orange fabric and one in the white towel, I pinned them together with good sides facing and sewed around the edges with about a 2cm seam allowance and a 10cm hole which is going to allow me to turn the burp cloth back the right way.

You should end up with something that looks like this image on the left (below), trim any excess fabric or towel away and turn right side out again through the hole that you left. Your burp cloth will then look a little something like the image on the right - not pretty! Iron it all out to make the shape a bit better.

Iron the hole closed using any remaining fabric left over from your seam allowance to fold under, your hole should look like the image on the top (below). Now to close the hole and make your burp cloth edges a whole lot neater and more professional looking, top stitch around the entire burp cloth starting and finishing at the hole. It should look like the image on the bottom.

Ta da! Your super duper burpie is now complete and should resemble something a little like this when folded in half, with your absorbent toweling on one side and your fun fabric on the other. I then made a second one from the green elephant fabric to make a matching set.

 

Sorry for terrible quality last photo, I hate winter with it getting super dark super early! :( I hope you've liked this month's installment of Get Your Craft On, and that you might tackle this little project yourself for a new mumma or bubba in your life. If you have any questions please leave a comment.

Happy sewing!

Images by Emma Durkin for Cinderella at Brindabella

welcome to my sewing room, my happy place

After literally months of living in total sewing-room-squalor, hardly being able to push open the door due to the piles upon piles of fabric, random craft supplies and unhung artwork, I have a sewing room of sorts back again. 

When we moved to Brindabella the sewing room was pretty far down on the list of things to sort out, and so it sat unloved and messy. Oh so messy. We think that the sewing room, the back porch area and the dining room (which also has the same lean-to roof) used to be one big wide back verandah, one day I'd love to reinstate that, currently though I need the space as my sewing room and the dining room can't be reincarnated somehow else in the house. But I digress...

One weekend not too long ago I got stuck into the messy sewing room whilst Mr M was away camping, it took me literally days to wade through the fabric and rearrange the furniture to perfectly fit the space, but I think I'm happy. It needs loads more finishing touches (like curtains, a lick of paint, hanging some pictures) but this is it in it's raw state - functional as well as being a little bit on the pretty side.

This is the view from the door, out the window I look out to our garden gate and I get a lot of afternoon sun (you will see a lot of my still life styling photos set up with that Ikea table birch background!) I used my Ikea desk from my old workspace in the cottage as my main sewing table, with my sewing machine,  Maude the mannequin and my overlocker on it. The shelving underneath the desk was built by Mr M to fit especially for my old workspace in the cottage. My trusty Ikea gateleg table acts as great storage with it's drawers and folds out to be ample cutting space. If I want more floor space I can wheel out those white drawers and fold the side of the table down also. My clothes rack just fits in nicely, so when I finish a piece I can hang it straight up. You can also see I keep my wrapping paper in a $3 Ikea rubbish bin, in the bottom is packaging tape and gift tags so if I'm wrapping a gift or order I can grab it all in the one place.

Facing back towards the door I have put two cupboards on either side of the door which we got fairly cheaply at Bunnings as part of their pantry range. When we lived in the cottage the big cupboard stood in our bathroom and acted as a linen press (as we had zero storage), now it holds lots of smaller pieces of fabric, my bolts of minky and any blank art canvas which is quite bulky. I also put three Ikea baskets on top which hold pieces of felt, MDF letters and shapes and my craft projects in progress. Of an evening I grab down my work-in-progress basket and just take it in to the lounge room to sew/craft, and try and keep everything contained to the basket so I don't have random cotton reels and needles all over the coffee table!

The smaller cupboard holds a lot of packaging supplies like bubble wrap, mailing bags and boxes, as well as blank onesies and t-shirts I am yet to adorn. My big fabric scraps bag also lives in there. On top sits my Ikea shelves I got for a steal in the bargain corner for half price (love me a good bargain corner find). These shelves hold all of my larger pieces of fabric which can be folded neatly and any current projects live on the bottom shelf. These days most current projects are wedding related, if you spy closely you can get some sneak peek's at some velvet millinery roses, burlap and glass votive candles. 

This room was pretty much perfect to be my sewing room as it was just the right size: not big enough for me to just fill with 'stuff' but enough space to be a separate room and not crammed into a spare bedroom like I used to be. It also has these cool in-built shelves which are perfect to have above my sewing table. On the open shelves I have my Martha Stewart ribbon organiser, as well as jars and storage containers full of more ribbons, bias binding, zips, lace trims, buttons and hair clip supplies. My fabric letters still are a feature of my sewing space, made by My Name By Design, and are the inspiration for the colour palette and patterns I eventually want to throw around in here: lots of duck egg blue, pink and touches of red (like the wrapping paper bin) with hints of Cath Kidston-esque florals. Also on the open shelves are all of my paint tubes sitting in colour order. In front of the window is my cutting mat and rulers. I have one cutting mat in inches and one in centimeters.

Here's a closer look at the shelves:

Underneath my sewing table is the shelving unit on castors which Mr M made for my old workspace in the cottage. It now holds all of my crafting and sewing books as well as all of my patterns which I have filed in a pink binder. All of my knitting and embroidery supplies live in the white basket (from Officeworks) and my scrapbooking and paper supplies live in the white gloss paper box (from Kikki K). There is another white gloss box above my books which holds a lot of random children's craft items, when my nieces or any friends children are at our house I just pull out the box and let them go nuts with colouring books, pipe cleaners and stickers.

I am not ashamed to say that the inside of my fabric storage cupboards are looking pretty darn organised, if I do say so myself! In my big cupboard I have little plastic tubs, each with a different colour group, there's one for blues and green, one for pinks and reds, one for neutrals, one for reds and yellows and one for random prints. I also have tubs for cord or denim, minky or jersey knits and toweling, satins, furs or speciality fabrics like that, as well as a few bolts of minky dot for blankets I make for Little Miss Emma (currently on holiday due to sewing room crisis!) On the shelf above my clothes rack and cutting table sits an op shop vase which cost me 50c to hold all of my paint brushes and some fairy wands I am yet to get around to making for my nieces.

All fabric over a yard or of a fairly square shape (and therefore easy to fold) I neatly folded up and stacked in my el-cheapo Ikea shelves. I was going to try and colour co-ordinate the fabrics to create a rainbow effect, but who am I kidding, these probably won't look this organised ever again! To store my growing collection of cotton reels I use a glass apothecary jar I got from Target (not before dropping and smashing one juggling Easter eggs and said glass apothecary jar! Sorry Target teenage boy who had to clean up my smashed glass mess). The floral tin I got from the op shop for 20c and it holds all my elastic.

And there you have it! My sewing room, finally coming into shape. It's fairly 'bare bones' at the moment but I'm hoping to add some artwork to the wall, make a new cover for my chair, sew up some pretty floral curtains and generally inject some more personality into it. No doubt I will come up with more functional ways to use the space as I get sewing - which is exactly what I'm off to do now! These bathroom curtains won't make themselves...

Happy sewing everybody! I hope you enjoyed my space, I'd love to see yours. I am doing a happy dance with all of this neatly folded fabric :)

Photos by Emma Durkin for Cinderella at Brindabella

sugar please

Corrie over at Retro Mummy (also known as suuuuuper mummy to four kids including a very busy little girl, toddler twins and a baby!) is giving away some of my favourite fabric range which I am hoping to deck my new sewing room out in.  

But sssshhh. You didn't hear that from me.

organised chaos

Apologies for the deafening silence around here - between engagement bliss, sorting out our impending big move, being the ultimate Mary Poppins and running Little Miss Emma as well as my photography business I have been a little preoccupied!!

Preparations for our move are under way, we went and had a massive cleanout at the new house (which is looking like an absolute 'renovators delight' at the moment!) and I am slowly but surely thinking about packing up all of our worldly belongings. This has inspired a bit of a Spring clean at the cottage and I am in the process of overhauling my little sewing room cum spare bedroom this week.

I've made a list and I'm checking it twice of all the things I said I would 'one day' organise, sort, file, fold or make for my creative space. So out come the storage solutions: jars, containers, who knew I had so much lace, ribbon, buttons and elastic?! First job ticked off the list is a new sewing machine cover to keep the nasty dust out of my Singer baby. I purchased this fabric from Retro Mummy a few weeks ago and I do not know why I waited and procrastinated so long, this took me literally 20 minutes to whip up.

I love the print with the vintage sewing machine, dressmakers mannequin, scissors and buttons. Mr M says I should make one for my overlocker as well but am thinking I would like a contrasting fabric? I wonder if this fabric comes in other colours...

Have a lovely sunny day xxx



{ New Singer Baby }

On the weekend (after the market and the sitting in flooded traffic for 2 hours) Mr M got me a gift: a bright and shiny new Singer sewing machine! As you might remember, my machine which my mum bought me when I moved out of home died a sad death last week. Now, the new Singer isn't anything fancy but it goes forwards and backwards, which is the general needs for my sewing skills!

And do you spy the fabric samples? I ordered them last week from No Chintz to get some inspiration for my #1 project on the to-do list: curtain for my exposed shelving in the cottage kitchen. I initially liked the candy stripe blue and white, but the blue is not how I imagined so I am swaying towards something like the plain blue linen or the blue stripe on linen (very top sample). I am definitely ordering some of the plain linen for another project on the to-do list. Stay tuned ;)

This image is also my (very late) entry for the Interior Styling February Challange. Click on over to flickr to see some of the other entires, I am starting to get ideas for the March challenge, perhaps I will have that one ready in June?!!

{ Image by Little Miss Emma }

{ Scones and Tea }

After 18 months of living in Murrindindi I still can not get over the fog! Both mornings on the weekend the fog didn't clear until midday - so depressing and makes me feel so unproductive as the cottage is so hard to heat until that midday sun breaks through and hits the north facing windows. Ho hum.

So a lazy Sunday afternoon had me cutting fabric, organising fabric, trying to get Tessa to stop chewing fabric...but I wasn't very inspired, was just sewing for the sake of sewing. Aha I thought! I will bake! I get very spur of the moment ideas like this, as as you can see I literally brushed aside my fabric cutting implements and got going on some good old fashioned Aussie farm favourties: scones.

Cliched? Probably. Scrumptious? Definately.

{ Craft Studio Mood Board }

I absolutley love makingitlovely.com, I can't wait for a new post to appear in my reader from Nicole. I am in awe of how she puts things together in her home. I don't particularly subscribe to a lot of her style (I'm a bit more rustic/whimsical/not as modern) but it just works so well together. Nicole does amazing mood boards for her many projects she undertakes in overhauling her new home. I thought I'd give it a try... Click on the image above to see a larger version.

I am slowly taking over the spare bedroom to totally be devoted to my Little Miss Emma creations. My must-have, big-ticket item is a high bench to cut fabric on like the Stenstorp kitchen island from Ikea. I bought the gateleg table as a bit of a sewing station but have found it not high enough to cut on but good for sewing on (can reach the pedal whereas on a high bench you couldn't).

I didn't want it to be too pink so I think just a pop of colour with the raspberry chandelier (from etsy seller MyFinch) and some pink prints (from etsy seller HadleyHutton) would do the trick. Everything else is a bit too Ikea-inspired I'm finding?? I would like a French inspired Louis chair but thought that a swivel chair on wheels would be more useful? And just so happens that Ikea has one I like! Hmmm...not sure, looks too much like an Ikea catalogue?

The whole house is getting painted in the next month - inside and out - and I want the interior to be Antique White USA by Dulux. I'll be posting about paint colours soon though...

{ Crafty Workings }

What my life looked like on the weekend...fabric, minky, canvas, unpainted letters.

New black minky dot fresh off the bolt! Yay!

The 'Ethan' canvas is one I've been working on for awhile in a bid to have more canvas's for boys - and I am loving the Michael Miller Silly Circles fabric! Very bright and pops right off the black background. As usual all these creations will soon be in my etsy shop if not already.

{ Minky blankets and other things on the go... }

Today had me sewing up a storm and covering canvas with my new arrival of fabrics. This minky blanket I made (and is for sale on my etsy shop ), I love the combination of red and sky blue, and not just for boys, although it is conjuring up a pirate/nautical boys nursery for me...

The red polka dots I have used before for a peg board I made for my friend Ange's little baby girl, Saskia. I think it's a great print for funky little girls whose mothers are so sick of pink, pink and more pink! I did make Ange a lovely hot pink and black minky blanket as well for Sassy but didn't take a photo of it I'm afraid. Will definately be making more though! The peg boards like Saskia's are in the works to go up in my etsy shop for sale, under construction at the moment. Story of my life!

I did however make this personalised canvas (not a peg board one though) this weekend. It's also for sale in my etsy shop, and can be made with any name up to six letters, and can be painted blue or red or any colour really! I just am having a slight black, white and hot pink obsession at the moment.

{ Colour swatch time...for GIRLS! }

These are the main fabrics I am using for my upcoming range of minky baby blankets, bibs, name and letter canvas's and peg-boards. Hot pink and black! Enough of this pastel pink-baby-blue-only business for baby wear! The hot pink minky dot with the black and white damask is my favourite. Who said black isn't for baby's? This is obviously just the girls fabrics, I will be posting a swatch of the boys range soon...

{ Ah the inspiration... }

This is what I want! My own little space for my sewing/creating/painting and organising of all my fabrics, canvas, ribbon and mini-pegs that are floating around our poor little cottage. Ideally I want to totally devote the spare bedroom into a whole room for my craftiness, but alas I'm not sure whether this is possible due to us needing a spare bed for guests, and it's such a small space that a whole bed takes up most of the room. I am hoping that Matt will like the idea of getting a sofa bed when we buy a new couch? Then I could possibly get rid of the bed...


I love the little rail above the desk with fabric swatches hanging off it, I might see if I can fashion something similar above my little sewing desk, or why don't I just use one of my own peg-board designs? Hmmm...I have bought an ikea shelf that I want to put up but am unsure of what my limits are with a rented house? I'm finding it really hard to try and do all the things I want to because we don't own the house :( I'm off to google 'renters design nightmare' now...

AND - the table above was MADE by the very talented springchick (see her inspiring blog here). Oh lordy how I am drooling over this amazing workspace! It is high enough to cut fabric, something that I very quickly learnt is so important after purchasing my Ikea Norden gateleg craft table and it being too low! Springchick's table was made using Ikea kitchen benches (ingenius!) and spruced up with mdf moulding, top, a shower curtain (yep!) for the top and custom cut glass. This has CONVINCED me that I need a rail to hang fabric/wrapping paper and will possibly put my gateleg table on little legs to lift it a bit??? Oh if only I had the space for such a table *sigh*