the curtains that were!

I'm back with the second installment in my curtain saga...(catch up here if you missed the boat).

So we had our fancy butterfly screws (due to the crummy fibro sheeting the dining room is built out of and worrying normal screws would just pull the wall to shreds), then upon measuring, measuring and re-measuring we realised the screws for the brackets would just be going into studs anyway! Basically I couldn't hang them widey-wide like I wanted to because these curtains were only just going to meet in the middle if we put the brackets on the edge of the window frame (i.e. not about six inches out like I had originally planned). So good-bye fancy butterfly screws, we don't even need you after all.

Up go the brackets. Then we have to measure the rods and cut to size using a hack saw. Because the windows are so wide I had to get two rods per window plus this crazy joiner thing-o. Bobs-your-uncle and rod's are in place.

Up go the curtains. Now, I tried to explain to Mr M that it's 'on-trend' to have extra long curtains that 'pool' on the floor but he just thought it was super dumb. I had to admit they were a tad on the long side, there's 'on-trend' and then there's just plain annoying when you're vacuuming and mopping around them...

I must admit though, things were looking a whole lot better in the dining room, long curtains and all...

But to the sewing machine I must go - hem, hem, hemming! So. Much. Fabric. I ended up cutting 10 inches off the bottom and then putting a one inch hem on them. Let's face it, for some of them I cut too much off (!!!!) and they ended up not skimming the floor. Oops. By this point in the months-and-months-long curtain saga I was over it and just pretty excited to have some curtains hanging, let alone less than desirable length.

Moral of the story? Don't sweat the small stuff, the curtains turned out fine, even if according to my list at the start they don't match up, they are still looking mighty fine! Making our dining room much more homely and cosy like our lounge room.

Happy days :)

Images by Emma Durkin for Cinderella at Brindabella

get your craft on #5: easy peasy baby beanie

Now say that five times with a mouthful of Doritos! Or is that just me? Anyway...I'm back with the latest installment of Get Your Craft On, I know I missed one in June but am hoping to do two in July? At the rate time is flying by I think I might have to do three in August! I know, crazy.

With the babies currently sprouting up in my life (latest edition Pepe and my sister is pregnant at the moment) I thought I'd do a quick tutorial on how to make a little new baby gift. I make these all. the. time. Like literally always have a few floating about on my sewing table. I started making them as 'sales boosters' for when I did markets with Little Miss Emma. Basically my big ticket items were canvas's and minky blankets, but a lot of the time I needed smaller and more affordable items for mums on the run to buy without thinking too hard about the family budget. Plus they cost me next to nothing to make in materials and labour. Winner.

To start you will need the following...

- a baby beanie 

- baking paper to make pattern

- pencil to trace pattern

- scissors (fabric scissors and paper scissors - don't use your nice sewing scissors to cut baking paper!)

- a stretchy-knit fabric like jersey

- pins

- co-ordinating thread in your trusty sewing machine

Originally I got this pattern out of a library book, now unless you are near the Murrindindi Shire Library in Yea (anyone?) I suggest you pick yourself up a little beanie to use as a template. I bought this spotty one in a discount store for $2 to use as an example. Then you can make the pattern and have it forever and make thousands more beanies, all from starting with your $2 one :)

Get some of your baking paper and with your pencil use your beanie as a template to trace around it - add about 3-4cm for seam allowances and about 10cm to the bottom, you'll find out later why. For the top of the beanie I like to do a pixie hat which I will later knot. I think they look super cute and add a bit of a difference to an otherwise plain beanie. As you can see I just freehand drew mine, trying to make it as symmetrical as possibly and rounding the top off. If you like you can precisely measure yours but I'm a freehand kind of sewer/pattern maker! You can always trim down your pattern piece later. 

Cut out the shape, you should end up with a pattern piece like this:

Now using the baking paper pattern you just made pin it to a folded piece of your stretch fabric (so that you get two pieces when cut out). I used a bright pink and watermelon striped jersey but have seen lots of great gender neutral knits in greys, whites and reds around lately perfect for a baby shower gift. 

Once you've pinned your pattern to your folded fabric, cut it out and you should have two beanie pieces (front and back)...

Now you can pin them together all the way around, except for the bottom which will be left open. Off you go. Pin, pin, pin.

Next step is to sew it all together. Start at one end and go up over the long pixie-hat and down the other side. If you're not used to sewing a stretch fabric go slooowly, it can be super frustrating the way the fabric rolls and won't sit flat like a nice simple quilting cotton. I am no stretch fabric sewing expert like my mum (she has a certificate to say she is a 'Knit-Wit'. Yeah. All over that.) 

Once you have trimmed some excess fabric away you might have something resembling this...

Go ahead and turn the hat inside out (or right side out...confused?), iron it all out nice and flat and tie a knot in the long pixie-hat. You'll see now that the cornering at the top point of the hat doesn't matter too much as it is hidden in the knot. No need for perfect sewing? My kind of sewing.

But what about the bottom I hear you ask? Well, like I said earlier when you made the pattern piece, if you left a bit extra then you should be able to fold the bottom up, and then again you should see some nice neat stitching like so...

...and still have a big enough beanie for a newborn. Simply hand stitch two stitches on each side of the hat to secure the fold-up bottom, or if you are an embroidery wizz you could even do some French knots along the fold, and voila! The perfect new baby gift or something to quickly whip up for a baby shower. Once you get going on these beanies I swear they will take you ten minutes tops, and be quite addictive to get rid of some scrap fabric lying about.

Happy sewing!

Images by Emma Durkin for Cinderella at Brindabella

a quilt for pepe

Our friends recently welcomed their third precious little girl into the world, a babe with a head of dark hair and adored by her two big sisters. They named her Penelope Rose, or 'Pepe' for short. And I made her a quilt.

One of my new years resolutions was to make a cot sized free motion quilt (inspired by the likes of Corrie). Well I couldn't find the needle to exactly work with my machine for some free motion action, and seeing as though I was fairly new to this whole quilting game I thought I'd play it safe with some straight lines.

I'd attempted some quilts before, all have been unfinished and some even disastrous attempts at 'stitching in the ditch' (what was I thinking?!) This quilt had to be unisex as our friends weren't finding out the sex of their third bambino. I chose some organic cotton solids and funky jungle inspired prints of bright hippos and giraffes, seeing as though this family actually do live in the jungles of Papua New Guinea. 

I made strips of various blocks the width of a standard cot size, then sewed them altogether until I reached the required length. I backed the quilt with a simple linen and quilted using a contrasting white thread. I tried to keep the quilting as simple as possible with a 1/4 stitch each side of the horizontal seams.

Once I was finished quilting I must admit I was running seriously short on time before I was going to visit Miss Pepe - so I hotfooted it over to my mum's armed with the quilt and some white bias binding. I knew Mum could bind the quilt in half the time it would take me, and with about a thousand times the quality of craftmanship. Thanks Mum!

Ok so my first (finished) quilt isn't perfect, there's a few bumps and bruises, but it's handmade and I think that makes all the difference. Doesn't it?? It's made with love, a fair few hours of cutting and pinning, as well as a few choice words when I was quilting it all together and stuffed it up a few times! But mostly love.

I hope Pepe likes her quilt and gets to snuggle it, roll and play on it. I had fun making it for her :)

Have you been making anything lately of the quilting variety? Are you a quilting novice like myself, a seasoned pro from way back or have you just dipped your toe in ever so slightly?

Images by Emma Durkin for Cinderella at Brindabella

my diy bathroom curtains

When I last shared photos of our bathroom with you all (just prior to us moving into the ramshackle farmhouse), it looked a little bit like this:

I'm still sad I don't have a full before shot - without the new tiling, new vanity and new toilet. But here is what the bathroom is rocking these days...

...some new grey gingham curtains handmade by me, a new mirrored door cabinet above the sink (from Bunnings care of some Christmas vouchers), crisp white towels, a hand towel ring and the faux-timber lino has been put back in place. Trust me, that stuff looks a thousand times better in photos than in real life, it has a horrid soft sticky vinyl texture and we plan to rip it up (one day) and polish the original boards beneath. I also want to put a gooseneck light above the mirror cabinet but need an electrician to do this as apparently this light isn't 'earthed'. Whatever that means.

But back to the curtains.

Because our new vanity, toilet, towel rail and tiling was all very white and modern I wanted to bring some country charm to the sterile space. I originally planned on making the curtains in a blue toile print but we decided we would like to paint the walls (the not tiled above the picture rail parts) in a dove grey, and somehow repair the original sash window as it is currently painted shut. Enter the grey gingham fabric I found on special at Spotlight, actually a quilting fabric.

There really was no method behind my curtain making madness. I simply measured the window, added about half the width again to accommodate for the fullness when gathered and made two panels, with double hemmed sides and bottom. The top of the curtain panels I made a little casing for the rod to slip in, I used the original piece of dowel that was already there and just spray painted it white. Trusty Mr M then screwed in two curtain tie hooks (also from Spotlight) and I used some random pieces of white grosgrain ribbon as tie backs.

The hardware in the bathroom is now a bit of a mish-mash of silver. The towel rail which was put in just before we moved in was obviously in keeping with the new modern style (read: not our style at all). The toilet roll holder seemed to be a different style again. We wanted another towel rail to go behind the door as well as a little hand towel ring, we got both in a style more befitting of my country chic bathroom I had envisaged (see below right). I wanted to get another towel rail in the same more traditional style we liked to replace the modern one, problem is the traditional towel rail style isn't the same length as the super-sleek modern one (see below left) so we can't just simply replace it due to the holes in the tiles. Dang. It's the little things that annoy me!

But it's also the little things that make the difference, like just putting some of our sweet camellias in a little vase on the vanity. Now when I walk from the kitchen to the bedroom down the hall I catch a glimpse of them. All in the detail.

Images by Emma Durkin for Cinderella at Brindabella

monty turns six

Once upon a time I lived in a wee little cottage, I was (and still am) a photographer, a livestock assistant / steer wrangler / calf puller / embryo transfer-er / ute-horn-blower / motorbike navigator / vaccine injector / horse-riding-hooligan / chef / maid to Mr M, and also a nanny to one busy little boy who lived over the hill (and often his way-too-cool-for-school big brother would join us too). We would spend our days on the hills of Ythanbrae, making forts and BMX tracks through the mud, having picnics with Lily, races on the silage bales and baking up a storm in the tiny cottage kitchen. I still have the recipe in my recipe journal: 'Emma and Monty's Perfected Cupcakes'. We had those cupcakes down pat I tells ya. I taught him to crack an egg and he taught me not to be scared of roosters and the big drake that would flap and quack at me getting the eggs. ("Don't be scared Emmmmaaahh, he's a friendly little fella!") We were a team.

I started looking after Monty when he was just a teeny tiny three year old, then he went off to kinder and I would pick him up three times a week laden with his paintings of tractors and 'them big cheeky bulls' and his half eaten honey sandwiches. We would toddle off down the main street of Yea for a hot chocolate (for Monty) and a latte (for me), and everybody we passed knew us and shouted out and waved to us. We were an entity - Emmaandmonty. Then he would fall asleep exhausted on the way home and I would let him snooze whilst we waited for the school bus and his big brother. Then we moved to Brindabella, and Monty went off to school and became a big boy. And this week he turns six. How does that even happen? He still seems like the cheeky little two year old I met for the first time at a bull sale, itching to get in the ring with his Dad. 

One thing is for sure, Monty-moo loves tractors. The bigger the better (I really hope he still believes it's 'Massive Ferguson' not 'Massey Ferguson' haha) So for his birthday this year I whipped up a John Deere inspired long sleeve shirt (for those chilly Yea nights) and a cushion for his bed out of a quilting block I had stashed away in my sewing room for such an occasion.

Happy birthday to my main man Monty, I miss your guts out you little ratbag xxx

Pssst....my survey is still going until the end of the week if you want to join in - there are only 10 questions, mostly multiple choice and I would love the feedback! Thanks :)


Images by Emma Durkin for Cinderella at Brindabella

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

local crafty knick knacks

I don't mean to bang on about the joys of living near some major towns now that we have moved home to Gippsland, but seriously - when we lived at Ythanbrae the hour and a half round trip just to get to the nearest crummy town with an equally crummy Target (Target Country no less, the horror), was doing my head in for just general supplies. Let alone craft supplies.

Now whenever I go to nearby Warragul (our nearest 'big' town) I stop in almost every time at Yarragon, a smaller town on the way. You see, Yarragon has the sweetest little patchwork, quilting, fabric and craft store. It's down a little laneway and is full to the brim with oh so many fat quarters, lace trims, cute buttons and delicious craft books just begging for me to take them home. I always go in there 'just for a look' and come out with an armload of things. Not for any specific purpose or project. Just some pretty things that caught my eye, and just because I can. How indulgent is that?!

My most recent loot included some fat quarters of pretty girly fabric I am thinking of making into a cot quilt for some impending babies in my circles (and hope like hell someone has a girl?!) I also scored some vintage wooden buttons, some resin roses and swallows to make into bobby pins and a lovely Scandinavian book featuring lots of home projects and embroidery. Hence the pretty shades of embroidery thread. I don't even embroider! That's how 'retail blind' I was. 

 

I'm looking forward to sitting down in front of the fire to attempt some embroidery and cross-stitch this week. I've also vowed to really get knitting this winter (same as last winter, and the winter before...), so we'll see how that goes. Perseverance is not my strong suit.

Now just to sort out the mess of my sewing room and I will have somewhere to put all of this...bringing more in is definitely not helping to clear the clutter! 

Images by Emma Durkin for Cinderella at Brindabella.


P.S. As much as I like the 'civilisation' here I do miss the quiet of living in the middle of a 1200 acre property with a five kilometre long driveway. You win some, you lose some I guess.