Isn't every week a busy week? This week saw some more of that renovation stuff happening. I painted doors this week. Twenty-three of them! The doors in the photo are some of the ten doors I am working on at the moment. I utilise an unfinished hallway to paint doors for the storage George builds me. I love the look of painted MDF and George loves to build with it, therefore I love to paint it! My colour is Wattyl Orchid. (Hey! It's lucky I haven't finished the hallway, huh? It was a plan!!! Really!!!)
This is another room in my unpainted house. We call this the "big couch room" at the moment. It is the original lounge room in our early 1950's timber frame house. Some previous occupants opened this room up and it is now a large room with living area, dining and kitchen incoporated together. We have a corner couch in this room from Ikea's "as is" department, hence the name - big couch room! George has built toy cupboards either side of a large window and window seats inbetween. He still has a little building work to finish (
really) before I can paint. This week I sewed the first cushion covers for the window seat. I'm very pleased with them because I think they look like someone else made them! I guess I was nervous about doing this job because I have never sewn anything like this before, but they fit and everything! I am now working on the remaining four sets of cushions. I guess the fact that the texile part of the job is more advanced than the painting part tells you where my passion lies!!! Although I do really enjoy painting too.
The same cushions again! I don't know why I put this one in. Perhaps just to show you that it is a sunny window seat. It's going to be a great place to read on a sunny winter's day! The fabric is not my favourite, but a $3 a metre special from spotlight a couple of years ago. It's 1.5 m wide upholstry fabric and a great bargain. I knew I wanted a window seat somewhere in this house so I snapped the fabric up. George always says it's not a bargain until you actually use it, so I'm really pleased to be using it! Renovating on a budget! Such fun!
This photo shows off my cushion yet again (must change the title of this post to BORING! or Guiness World Record Attempt-to talk about a cushion for the longest time in a blog!) and is proof of our homeschooling status. For those of you who don't homeschool I will explain. We in the homeschooling community know that to be serious about homeschooling you need to have a seriously large lego collection. All the drawers under our 2.9m long window seat contain lego of some description. Okay, maybe it's just the geeky homeschoolers who have lots of lego, and if you are considering homeschooling please don't think the first thing you have to do is buy lots of lego. Not unless you are a geek, anyway.
For mother's day Picklestick sent me a fabric postcard. She sent one to all the mothers in her life. It's so cool to receive a fabric postcard! I was discussing the joys of it with her this week and she said "Well, I wouldn't know. No-one's ever sent me a fabric postcard!" I was crushed. Here was proof that I had neglected my parental responsibilities. Imagine a mother who had never sent her child a fabric postcard! So this week I resolved to right this wrong. I have made a stack of postcards and the first one is going off to Picklestick as we speak. You can see it above, along with the back of the one she sent to me.(On my Ikea bedspread. I love that fabric!) I'm off to sew more cushion covers, to save more money, and to right more wrongs! (This post feels so superhero at this end! Can you tell I haven't been well and feel a little outta touch with reality? Here I come, to save the day!!!!!)
The patchwork apple had it's thirteenth birthday this week and to celebrate they had a sale. I've been thinking I might get there all week but it didn't happen until today. I have been going to the patchwork apple since Xam was tiny and he's just had his thirteenth birthday too! I just love this shop. Jane is always so friendly and her shop has the nicest feeling of all the quilting shops I have been to. And she has lots of fabric! Picklesticks wasn't well today so I didn't have an excited volunteer to go with me. I talked Lucy Lou and Murray into going with me so that I had someone to go "ooooh" and "aaaah" with. Lucy Lou is a sewer of clothes so she can appreciate fabric and Murray is just like Picklesticks, but twelve years younger. She is a maker and designer of all sorts of things despite being only ten.
This was the best table at the patchwork apple today. It had fifty percent off bargains on it. To cheer Picklesticks up I grabbed some fifty percent off fabric for her and put it in a "showbag" for her. Delivery is tomorrow!
More fish pouches! The blue fish pouch was made by Dax. He drew and cut out the shape, then Picklesticks sewed it and he sewed on the eye. He wanted his zip in his fish's back because he didn't want his fish to be put upsidedown every time he needed something!
This fish pouch was designed, sewn and beaded by Murray. She has a compulsion to make things all day everyday and even all night. She gets her best ideas just before bedtime and then it's a struggle to get her to bed!
This is my workspace in my "making, doing room". It's not exclusively my room. The bench runs the length of the wall so we have room for other sewing machines and drawing and writing etc. We have a table in the middle of the room and a wall of cupboards to stash things like fabric and paper and clay and lots of UFO's!
