Retro Clock

A nice retro finish this week. I was Wombat Stew-ard for the month of March and my theme was Modern Mid Century  (MCM) for the girls. This clock pattern comes from the Quiet Play 'Sew Retro' series found on Craftsy. You can click through to this $2.95 pattern through the 'I'm a Craftsy Designer' button on her blog.

So far I have Kristy's 'Front Door' block to match with mine but the other wombats are sure to sew and post theirs soon. I love Mid Century colours too. Most of my 'And Sew On' blocks are from this palette.

You can see Gemma's MCM TV block here. She just made it this week. She's getting very clever with her paper piecing designs and may even come up with a fab retro sofa pattern for me to make to go with my blocks. 

Lara is making a block of her own Mid Century house! It should be pretty cool. I would love to have a MCM house. I just love the clean lines of the flat or skillion roof, floor to ceiling glazing and the high windows. (I am starting to sound like Kevin McCloud off Grand Designs UK). 

Anyone else out there a Mid Century Modern fan? You can find my favourites here on Pinterest.

Linking up to TGIFF.

Thrifted Thursday #5

More from Yamba

I forgot to include these 2 weeks ago. That op-shop had so much to offer.

A pair of ladies khaki pants for me...

A book on Australian Wineries for my husband...

A fluffy (and washed) pink teddy for Frances...

Pink Ted and Piggy have become fast friends

Then across the road was a Beachside Bargains shop and they had this 'family values' canvas. I have been keeping my eye out for a good one since Pinterest first showed them. This one was perfect - well I don't like the last comment because it is the only negative one, and in Australia it's called 'whinging' not 'whining' - but maybe it's comical. It set me back $50! Lucky for the bargains at the op-shop!

I also went back to the camera store that is the local LEGO agent and picked up the 'Star Wars' and 'Friends' Advent Calendars for this Christmas.

They pointed out the bakery over the road that was economical and varied. I bought us all a hummingbird cake. mmmm delicious! Wish we had a bakery that good in our town.

Linking up with Thrifty Things Friday.

Handmade Secret Santa

With only 2 days left in July I was hard pressed to get this secret swap parcel out in today's post. I had planned on giving my swap partner, the 'Happy Couple Handwarmers'  which I made with the Zakka Style Sew Along however, research proved that she was from Queensland where temperatures in winter are pretty mild. I don't know Cate at all but she does have a blog called 'Life Behind the Purple Door'.Further research revealed that, like me, she has a 'thang' for felt Christmas tree decorations.


So I checked out Flickr and Pinterest for inspiration and set to work. I do like hand sewing.

I came up with this felt and button tree.

This Christmas house.

And I had enough Michael Miller selvedges to make a couple of these cute trees as well.


I hope that Cate enjoys adding them to her tree this year. She is hosting an event from September called '100 Days of Christmas' and she is looking for bloggers to 'guest blog' during that period. Details can be found here.

I have to thank Alyce from Blossom Heart Quilts for hosting this swap. It has added to my repertoire of sewing skills. I hope that a nice Christmas parcel makes its way to my house this week - I wonder who my swap partner will be?

An extra day!

I had a finish this week. My very long table runner, slated for the top of my bedroom dresser, was quilted and bound. I had planned to just shadow the ditch but it meant only 4 lines of quilting  and was very lacklustre. So I went to 2 blogs for inspiration: this block by Jess of 'The Elven Garden'

 and this block by Kristy of 'Quiet Play'.

From what I can gather both ladies did 1/4 inch distances between the triangular lines, however, I wanted to keep the fabric and design soft, so I opted for nearly 1/2" distances.

I knew that I needed something geometric to give the central strip some character and texture. So, taking my trusty 6.5" ruler I set to work making the diagonals with a washable marker.

I used a walking foot.

I was afraid that it might be too stark, so I put out a call to my online Quilt Club Australia' friends for opinions. No one though it was too minimal. 

I like the use of negative space in design. I did seriously consider a small triangle opposite the point of the negative space, but thought it might like too trite.

Then I used up some scrappy binding and added some more....

and was "this close" when I ran out. Dang! Inset new piece of binding and join the ends together.

Then instead of pinning, I decided to try a bobby pin method I'd seen on Pinterest. It seemed to work quite well and much faster but next time I will put them in upsidedown.

The scrappy binding looks much better then the tone on tone brown I auditioned.

The new look dresser table top.

Beside table - his

Beside table - hers

This week's stats:
Completed projects - 1 = Scrappy "Hope"  table runner 

New projects - 1 = baste and quilt 'HR Far Far Away 2&3 Fussy Fairytales' quilt

On Hold - 1 = Feb  scrappy log cabin quilt - once all the blocks come in

Currently in progress - 1 notebook cover,
                                             - 3 dolly quilts - 2 of them are now backed, basted and ready to quilt.

I am linking up with WiP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced....lots of other goodies out there today.

'Heather Ross Far Far Away 2&3 Fussy Fairytales' quilt top ready to baste.

My mum pieced this one and she altered Kate Conklin's pattern by making the coloured frames floating and adding more blocks. It is just gorgeous and the linen blend fabrics are so nice to work with.

Sorting at the Beginning

Our Academic school year began today. Tristan and Duncan moved up into Year 1 and 3 respectively. It was also the last day of Family Day Care for my daughter Frances. She re-starts Pre-School next week and also begins Pre-Kindy 2 days a week at the same school as her brothers. So it felt strange to drop all three kids off this morning and then drive home without them. It's a little taste of freedom I could not even glimpse at when this journey began nearly 8 years ago with a newborn baby's cry.

Anyway...enough reflecting. Here's what I wanted to share. The art of sorting things out BEFORE they begin. The volume of school notes, awards and newsletters can get the best of me each year. So this year I was determined to put some structures in place to help me sort through as things come home rather than at the end of the term, or heaven forbid, year.

This is my favourite IKEA piece. You may also be familiar with the Expedit. In fact some ladies on Pinterest have boards dedicated to this particularly aesthetic and versatile free-standing shelf unit. So here is the one that stands adjacent to my kitchen and gets the most use.

Top left - Each child has a magazine holder for me to store any information regarding their school year.
Top middle - Address book, Order Book (Stripey Brain 2011), Bible and Bible Study.
Top right - large square boxes for card stock and paper craft.
Bottom left - Colour coded A4 folders and suspension files for craft/notes etc. (Not sure if this will work...but willing to try something new).
Bottom right - Envelopes and writing paper (stored in Ikea DVD boxes)

Bottom middle - A clear folder for all of their school awards and stickers in 2012.
The next 3 contain information and awards prior to formal schooling. The next 2 contain Academic Reports and the last 2 contain programing and planning for ASD support and therapies. (Both my boys lie on the Autism spectrum).

On the shelf above stands 4 jars of coins. Actually 5, if you count the half full jar of foreign coins at the opposite end (not shown). Duncan and I cleaned out our money dish next to the front door and sorted the coins into the jars.


50c coins - give
$1 coins - spend
$2 coins - save


Then we bagged up the rest of the 5c, 10c and 20c and totalled $65! Just got to find time to get them to the bank and divide the proceeds into the kids' 3 accounts.

The trusty knife and chopping blocks area got a tidy.

Then I organised our DVD series into an under-used shelf unit. We have a few including, Railway Journeys,  the Thunderbirds and Indiana Jones (no Star Wars yet!). 


My stash

The West Wing - brilliant script and acting but watch with subtitles to follow along,
Wire in the Blood - BBC psychological crime thriller starring Robson Green,
McLeod's Daughters - 'sisters doing for themselves' on an Australian farm,
Life of Birds - I love birds but I could watch any 'Life' series by Sir David Attenborough,
Into the West - brilliant Historical Fiction Series about the clash of the white man's and the Native American Indian's worlds. 
Lord of the Rings - Still love the books more but these are exceptional films.
Battlelines - WW2 documentary following the personal accounts and battles of both sides.


What I would like to add to my stash:

The Wire - Possibly the BEST TV series I have ever seen by HBO. Follows the police and the  drug runners in Baltimore until the lines become so blurred you don't know who really are the criminals. 
How the West Was Lost - I bought the CDs in 1993 when I was in the US but I have never seen the documentary series. 
Downton Abbey - Missed this because it was aired on a commercial channel and I just can't do commercials.


So what's in your 'Series' stash?

Cutting through the Clutter

I tend to accumulate clutter...well flat surfaces really - table tops, floors, and especially the kitchen bench. It is a constant battle and some days I win and some days I lose. I was alerted  to a great book called 'Cut the Clutter' by Cythia Townley-Ewer and a website called http://organizedhome.com/articles/cut-clutter.

I found that I fit more than one of the profiles of a clutterer - 'Hoarder - "I might need it one day"; Perfectionist - "Next week I'll organise everything perfectly""; Deferrer - I'll think about that tomorrow"; and Sentimentalist - "That belonged to my....". Four out of the five listed personality traits were mine...so I was in BIG trouble.

Plasticware

Yesterday I tackled the dreaded corner cupboard...always a difficult shape...but I had seen a great idea using an old cd rack on Pinterest and I put mine ("I might need that one day) to use. It turned out well. 

I also used an old Elfa shelf (see that came in handy too!) that was orphaned in our garage.

Kitchen

During the recent school holidays, a lovely friend gave us her old fridge for FREE, we in turn gave our skinnier version to another friend (love the 'pay it forward' attitude). But I was determined to make a fresh start. 

Using another  Pinterest idea, I bought some plastic shelf boxes with handles and made a tidy fridge. After 6 weeks, it is still holding up well under the demands of a family of 5. Can I also say that it is such a bonus to have more door shelves for jars and bottles too!

Loungeroom

Our dvd and cd shelves were prettied up with a couple of purchases from vintage stores...the tree and birdcage. 

Our sideboard top was covered in Christmas decorations and photos...so it got a clean and dust.

It has been 2.5 years since we moved in and I finally felt confident enough to unpack the good crockery (usually we find out that we have a new posting soon after I do this...so fingers crossed!) and hang a few pictures on the walls.

And I put the tea and coffee cups into the drawers. The two on the right come from my mum's crazy tea set collection. They include cup, saucer and a dessert plate. Beautiful.

About 2 months ago, we bought some Ikea 'Billy' bookcases for only $69 each. I decided to keep some topics together (Pre-Raphaelites, North American Indians, cookbooks, Tolkien etc.) but for the rest I sized and colour-coded. Having 2 bookcases meant that I could also break up the book stack with some frames (original painting by my preschooler) books on display.

My 'La Passion D'Adonis' J.W.Waterhouse frame was a bargain from a second-hand store.



Workspace

After 9 months, I finally got around to having the computer guy come and 'fix' the computers. It turns out that my computer  wasn't on the blink, but I had the monitor cable plugged into the wrong socket on the back of the CPU. 

Our Expedit comes in handy everyday. On hand are things like address books, envelopes, board games, scrapbooking pages, OT, Speech and visual aides. 

Lower left basket for cardboard boxes for preschool, centre left for wayward toys, centre right for playdough and mats and lower right for receipts. Upper right magazine holders have notes from Preschool, Kindergarten and Grade 2 respectively.