A quiet day at home

Cooking Jeffrey's delicious and simple pasta sauce which is loved by all and fortunately makes 1.5 - 2 litres so there is some for the freezer to rescue me when I am disorganised (which is often so it never seems to last very long).

Knitting with the bamboo yarn I recently bought. It felt so nice I just had to start without anything in particular in mind. Then I frogged it and started practicing some ribbing. Still not sure what I'm doing but I'm enjoying it anyway.

Reading Life of Pi by Yann Martel. I'm not very far in yet but already it's the best book I've read in ages. I loved it from the first page.

Soon I'll be waking the boys for music but there's just enough time for a cup of tea in front of the fire with my knitting.

It's all about corduroy right now

At least for me it is.
And I'm seeing it everywhere!

1. Boh Tea Estate, Cameron Highlands, 2. long live grunge, 3. orange chair, 4. New Corduroy Bags, 5. sea of purple corduroy, 6. Hometown farm, Laurel, NY, 7. Blue with airplanes, 8. Overman Lounge Chair, 9. pants

I snuck Angus in there at the end because I'm seeing corduroy nowhere more than at home - both the boys seem to be wearing it all the time and I picked up a lovely new pair of cord pants for Rohan at the oppy today for $1. Great quality, french made, fully lined. Gotta love it.

I have some of that gorgeous Lara Cameron fabric from no. 4 above but in a different colourway. It was part of the pack from my lovely cousin and looks great there made up into a bag... hmmm...

I went back the the fabric superstore yesterday and bought some plain brown cord so I think I'm ready to just get the scissors out and go for it with the refashion job on the Levis skirt. There might even be enough leftover to experiment with a bag?

Work in Progress

Very much in progress

I bought this skirt from an op shop without trying it on because it was Levis and looked as though it had never been worn and I couldn't see a size on it anywhere. It was cheap enough that it didn't matter if it didn't fit which is good because it didn't. I later found a tag somewhere on an inside seam that said it was extra small!

It so didn't fit and was never going to fit no matter how long it sat in my wardrobe that it went straight into the fabric box to eventually become something else.

Then when we were well into April, and I realised I had done zero preparation to achieve my April goal of sewing an item of clothing for myself, I thought I might cheat and refashion this one by opening up the two seams at the front and adding new panels of some amazing fabric. I bought some fabric I thought would work last weekend; it's a fine gauge cord and I thought the weight of it matched the weight of the denim.

What was I thinking?

During the week I got the seam ripper out and opened up the seams, and today I played around with some stash fabric to test whether the panels should taper or not (not). And that's when I realised that not only is the fabric I bought totally wrong the whole thing might look totally eighties and naff even with the perfect fabric (which I'm now thinking could be a plain brown cord). I haven't given up hope but I've definitely stalled and I doubt I'll be finished by the end of April.

So someone's daughter is going to get a new pinny with butterflies this winter!

Sunday Stash

Two visits to the supermarket of craft stores today.
They are having a sale and I can't resist a bargain.
Woops...
The fabric at the top is for my April mission and I hope some of the others will appear as completed projects soon (but I admit that some are just for the stash for now).


The yarn top right is for my May mission and the rest was just a bargain. Foolishly small quantities I have realised already - a common mistake made by the rookie knitter (who in this case has never completed a garment, except a rather small scarf which I'm not convinced counts).

No excuses now, better get crafty!

Happy Easter

1. Wright the Jack Rabbit Love=Creature, 2. Rabbit, 3. White Rabbit Decoupaged Box, 4. Poc Poc rabbit!!, 5. RABBIT FOR LINUS, 6. Honey rabbit 1, 7. Young Rabbit 06a, 8. Melancholic Blue Rabbit, 9. Rabbit, 10. photos from my old rabbit book, 11. Spencer Rabbit, 12. rabbits. blank expressions, 13. Rabbit Lawn Sculpture Peeking Up Through the Snow, 14. rabbit companions flee scene, 15. RI RU RABBIT, 16. New Rabbits!, 17. Rabbit / Coelho 1, 18. Rabbits everywhere, 19. attempts at origami rabbit, 20. Rabbit Cookies, 21. Rabbit 2, 22. The Lion-Rabbit and his Friend Hormiga :), 23. Marimba Rabbits Oaxaca, 24. 13 fibonacci rabbit, 25. Wobbles the Rabbit

New pants a success

As with the last pair of pants I made him they are a perfect fit now so they may not fit him for all that long but they are just great, I'm really happy with them. I used a favourite pair that are now too small as a template so I had to guess at upsizing and I used this tutorial as a guide too.

What I really love is that they are so similar in look and fit to the outgrown pair I loved so much, even the grade of the cord is the same, except they are fire engine red rather than pale blue. Love it!

My new favourite tool...

...is the twin needle on my sewing machine.


I'd never used it before but I wanted to try it on a pair of pants for Angus. I love the finish of it.


You may recognise the material from a certain bakfiets seat, but I did originally buy the fabric (thrifted of course) for the pants.


Verdict: Very happy with the result, I'll be using it again for sure.