Some pretty finishes......

 My eldest daughter has been in desperate need of a new pencil case for a while now so I whipped this one up for her on the last week of the holidays. She chose the fabrics, designer fabrics I might add :-) She definitely knows what she likes and doesn't like this girl  :-)

 I found the free pattern and tutorial over here at "A spoonful of sugar" I like the triangular shape because it's just a bit different to your everyday pencil case shape plus it sits nice and flat. The pattern is a little on the small side so I made it a couple of inches longer mainly to accommodate the larger zip that I had on hand.

 I also gave it more of a scrappy look and added some pretty machine embroidery stitches too.

 

And I finished covering this lampshade last week using up some of my scraps. It was a pretty quick and easy project plus I had fun putting all those gorgeous fabrics together :-)

I love how it turned out but I'm not quite sure where it's going to go yet. I think it would be perfect for a girls room so might have to look for a lamp-stand for it to go on.

And here's a sneak peak of a couple of cushion designs I'm working on this week. I spent yesterday morning brainstorming and sketching and now I have more ideas/designs than time which is a good thing really. 

A work in progress....

 I made the most of the sunny almost summery weather we had a week or so ago during the last school holidays and hauled this very old bedroom chair out onto our deck to strip off the old fabric ready for its makeover.

 This is my first re-upholstery project. I've had this chair for nearly 20 years as it was left behind in the first house we purchased. It's previous owner was an elderly lady who was moving to South Africa and I think was a bit overwhelmed with the big life changing move she was undertaking. Anyway she left us a lot of her junk that she didn't know what to do with. A lot of the stuff was definitely just 'junk' but there were some treasures amongst it and one of them was this chair. Even though it was covered in ugly stained fabric I could see it's potential then. I had originally intended to get it recovered professionally but could never afford it so I made a slip-cover out of white calico and trimmed it's skirt with a blue and white gingham ( oh so 90's!!)

Taking out all those tacks took so very very long but I got a bit of tan from the lovely warm sun and definitely an upper body workout too :-) plus as I removed the fabric I could see how it was put on in the first place. Now I just need to get some advice on how to add a new layer of foam rubber to the seat and back before I add some pretty fabrics to it.

Little piles of inspiration....

I have a wee project that I started last Friday afternoon which involves the above pile of bright and colourful scraps taken from my overflowing scrap basket. When I was searching through my scraps for the right mix of fabrics for this particular project I couldn't stop myself being inspired by the eclectic mix of fabrics I was sorting through so.......  

 .......here is another yummy and pretty pile of fabrics that I put together for a future project yet to be designed. Quite a few of these fabrics have been in my stash for a while so I think it's time they were brought out and made use of  :-)

This pile of green and pink fabrics have been gathered together, sitting on my sewing attic floor for a couple of months now whilst I finish other projects and decide what it is I'm going to turn them into. I'm thinking they would be perfect for a little girls quilt.....what do you think???