The Great Unveiling of the Grand Transformation

I have been threatening to do this for such a long time, and procrastinating so effectively, that I had honestly almost given up on it myself. I made flags for bunting, oh, three hundred years ago, and never sewed them together. I made a roman blind in the similarly distant past, and never hung it. But finally, with (almost) all the bits and pieces in situ, the Great Unveiling of the Grand Transformation can, at long last, take place.

Here, good people, is your before shot:

Not so awful, but just too girly for me, and it all just felt old and cluttered. It felt very much like a baby's bedroom, and my baby is very much a Big Girl now.

So, goodbye to over-saturation of pink and hello to clean lines and bright colours.

Goodbye to chaos and clutter, and hello to a well-stocked bookshelf and a sense of space.

Goodbye to poorly fitting blackout blinds and feeling like a long, narrow railway carriage, and hello to daylight in the day time, darkness in the night time, and a whole lot of feng shui.

The only thing missing is a shade for the ceiling light, which I am going to make out of the same fabric as the bedclothes when I next venture near an Ikea.

We're both pretty pleased with it. Here's to many happy nights' sleep.

Oh, and I'm going to tidy up the old bunting (which is not really 'old', just needs repressing and possibly topstitching because I was too lazy to do it the first time round!) and give it away on the blog, so watch this space.

Time travel, courtesy of some strawberries

I went back in time today. Approximately twenty years back as it happens, transported there by row upon row of warm, dusty red berries, nesting in straw. Who would have thought that a pick-your-own garden centre could have such a visceral effect, but there I was again, not much bigger than Ruby, with strawberry juice dripping down my chin and the sun on my back. I couldn't stop picking them.

And the peas, my other favourite things. Just to push me a little further down memory lane, Ruby and I spent a happy half hour shelling them into a sieve, eating half of them raw along the way. From field to plate in under an hour. Beat that, Captain Birdseye. It doesn't get much better.

In other news, the makeup bags have been at it again, breeding like rabbits. Honestly, they wouldn't be out of place on the Jeremy Kyle show.

In the oilcloth family way

Remember the oilcloth purse tutorial? Well, I made the mistake of not checking the sex of that first pair, and it seems that I inadvertently ended up with a boy and a girl. At least that is the only explanation I can think of, since the two of them have quite clearly been breeding. The dirty little buggers.

They have produced no fewer than four offspring. If that doesn't show a lack of self-control I don't know what does.

Like their parents, the babies are made from oilcloth with a shiny silver lamé lining, but their outer skin is a pretty Cath Kidston-esque floral which, frankly, has me doubting the paternity. And I don't know what they are feeding little oilcloth babies these days, but this lot are big. One of them could even be called obese. I blame school dinners.

We love them all the same though. Here they are, all together, the whole happy little family.

Le Quilt (aka. The Father's Day Project of Epic Proportions)

So, said the cat in the hat. So, so, so...

As promised, here are some pictures (as modeled by the small girl, who can never resist a camera lens anywhere in the vicinity) of the quilt I made for my beloved Baba for father's day, the secret project that has taken up so much of my time lately. You see, I wasn't making it up, I really was busy.

I made it using the Folk Dance Quilt pattern by Anna Maria Horner, and I love the geometric-ness of it. As a virgin quilter, it was a daunting project, but manageable. Very much a case of one step at a time.

It was machine stitched, hand quilted, and is made from 100% natural fibres. The middle of the quilt sandwich (anyone who knows the proper term for this, do please let me know - I have no knowledge in this area whatsoever) is a lightweight bamboo batting, machine washable, tumble-dryable, and perfect for snuggling up on mild summer evenings.

And so, 234 pieces, 13 yards of fabric, 60 hours of sewing, and thousands upon thousands of loving stitches later - the result is one very heartfelt gift, for one very special man.

And this is the man himself. Happy father's day, Baba. I love you xx

Welcome to the Factory

It seems that my house has metamorphosed into a production line. These thirty stripy little flags are all part of the Grand Transformation of Ruby's room. They were rapidly – as opposed to beautifully – sewn, but, since I am shortsighted and she won't care, I figured it doesn't matter too much.

The Grand Transformation is more significant than a string of bunting, but you don't get to see the other bits yet. Partly because it would spoil the surprise, but mostly because the small girl is asleep, and I don't think that going into her room, turning on the lights and taking a bunch of pictures would be particularly conducive to that continuing.

Incidentally, sewing diagonal seams on vertically striped fabric is curiously counter-intuitive, like steering into a skid. You really have to overrule your natural instincts.