Tree Fall

Summer skirt

I made this skirt for Bella last week. She had her first proper visit to her new school, for a couple of hours to meet her teacher and classmates and that gave me the push that I so badly needed to finally make her the new skirt she's been asking for.
She's been taking a much more definite interest in choosing fabrics, which is great but also a little frustrating, because she has the taste of a 4 year old! This combo was decided after a trip to Ikea, when she grabbed the bird print and demanded that I buy some to make a full length dress with (!).  I explained to her that, well duh, I already had that fabric at home and promised that I would at the very least make her a skirt out of it.

Bella wanted to team the print with a bright pink fabric, but she happily agreed that the green would look lovely with this purple Liberty print (phew) so away we went!
This skirt pattern is so straight forward and easy that I truly have no excuse for the fact that Bella's wardrobe isn't full of them. Especially when she has chosen a huge pile of fabrics to make skirts out of.

I think this is possibly my favourite skirt yet. I love the combination of the Ikea print and the Liberty, and at only £2 per metre plus a tiny piece of Liberty, it makes it a really cheap skirt too, especially when it took less than a half metre. The only thing I would say is that next time I'll probably line the skirt as the Ikea cotton is just a little thin. But as a summer skirt it's fine the way it is.

We took these photo's last week  (the poses are all Bella's own idea - she makes me laugh so much!) but she's wearing the exact same outfit today, which is a good indicator of how much of a hit the skirt is.
And at the risk of boasting just a little myself, I have to say that she was the coolest looking kid at school! But of course, much more importantly, she absolutely loved the couple of hours she spent there and once again made me incredibly proud of how grown up and confident she is. Such a relief to know that we made the right choice for her first school too.

The pattern is my all time fav by Liesl and can be found here (right hand column under Lazt Days skirt). I use fabric binding rather than ribbon and I think I'm going to change the waistband slightly next time, but you can honestly run one of these up in less than an hour.

Days

Every minute seems to be pre paid for at the moment. D you know what I mean? It feels like it's all already owned by someone else. I've got so much to do and have to admit that I'm not succeeding at most of it. Childcare is still an issue. I had hoped that Lily would start a day a week at nursery in September but they can't find a place for her (I'm just too awkward a parent!) so that's not going to happen. And in the meantime I have the perpetual struggle of no time and too much to do. Alongside the knowledge that I'll never get these days back and should be spending them with the girls.
That said, the sudden and very welcome appearance of an actual summery summer over here in the UK does at least mean that I can sit outside and sew. Therefore fooling myself in to thinking that I'm relaxing whilst actually working.That's what we call multi tasking in these parts.
Oh and whilst I'm 'relaxing' (working) I can still look good (see, yet more multitasking) in my new Toast sandles. Swoon.

Happiness

The fabric cabinet, her new favourite place to sit. The apple didn't fall far from that tree (in sooo many ways!).

Inspiration.

 

Scrap pack from Of Paper and Thread.

July's issue of Country Living.

Shelf in the front room.

These are all inspiring me today. And are all giving me ideas for our bedroom. The new wallpaper is ordered and a new bed is about to be purchased. We haven't had a proper bedroom since Lily was born, so I'm excited about this.
I'm thinking yellow, grey and a hint of orange, on a pure white background.

garden

I've been desperate to sort our garden out so that we can take full advantage of the wonderful summer we're having so far. It's a tiny space (you're looking at almost the full width in that photo), but it's all we've got (well, along with an even smaller space out front) although we do have plans to make it a little bigger (in the near future hopefully). In the mean time though I've been really wanting to buy some flowers and veg and get planting, so that we could both make the best of what we have and make the most of it, by growing some of our own food as well as making it a lot prettier.

One of the problems though has been a lack of time and confidence. Weekends are a bit of a conundrum for me these days. On the one hand Jim's around so I should be working. But on the other hand Jim's around so I want to be spending time with the family. And then of course there's the housework and the decorating and the cooking and everything else that I want to do in those precious two days. So gardening, which is something that I have little experience of, is always bottom of the list because I never really know where to start.
Today though I went shopping with Hazel. We started at Ikea and bought succulents, hydrangeas and purple things (no idea!) and then went to B&Q and bought carrots, lettuce and purple sprouting broccoli as well as some Dahlia's and some different purple things (still no idea!). Then when we got home I opened a beer and watched as Hazel very patiently planted up most of the new purchases with the help of the girls. How's that for friendship? Seriously, that Hazel's a good egg!

And of course now that it's started I'm overly excited to keep going with it all. And I'm really excited about growing veg and teaching the girls that we can grow our own food, especially as Bella's at the "where does it come from stage" (did I mention that she asked me the classic "but how do babies get in your tummy" question the other day? Always a good one!). And Hazel's promised to keep us on track, which is good because this stuff also makes me a little nervous.

Belated Birthday Thanks..

I bought this new purse a couple of weeks ago with my birthday money. I've wanted an Orla Kiely purse for a long time, but haven't been able to justify the kind of money they sell for. But this one, which may not look particularly special in that pic, is perfect for me. It covers all of my purse storage needs (!) and was half price! Score.
But whilst I do love it sooo very much and whilst I do want to share my love with you, that's not why I'm posting about it. The actual reason is that I have been a really bad neice and grandaughter and haven't thanked my Aunt or Nana for the money that allowed me to buy something that I've wanted for so long.
And I know that blogging a thank you is pretty slack, but at least it's a start!
So thank you Gillie and Nana! I really love my new purse! xx

Deer me..

This is the second in my new line of vintage bibs, using the same green vintage print as last time (love it) but this time teaming it with a vintage orange gingham that I also love. I'm pretty happy with this new collection and in particular with the fact that it totally repurposes vintage fabrics.

This week hasn't quite worked out to plan so far. Bella, Lily and I have all come down with colds and yesterday (whilst feeling pretty lousy myself) I spent the day at the hospital with Bella (and Lily) whilst she received treatment for her chest. We came very close to having to be admitted, but a course of mega steroids, nebuliser and inhaler meant that no long stay was necessary. She's still sounding wheezy and still looks a little bluer than I would like, but hasn't got any worse.
Today has been a wipeout though, with nothing more than the absolute basics being achieved. Although a big up for Jim, who cooked a fantastic chicken casserole from Apples For Jam. He's not a cook, so it was quite a deal. And it was nicer than when I've made it...but don't tell him I said so.

Hopefully the rest of the week will pick up, or quieten down, whichever way you want to look at it. I have a couple of days of dedicated work booked in, but that's really dependant on Bella's health, so we shall see.

Thanks so much to everyone for your comments about UK fabric shops, but I know there's a lot more out there, so please, if you haven't shared where you shop yet, please do. Also please do mention the post on your blogs, with a link back so that we can get as many recommendations as possible for fabric shops in the UK. I may even, as suggested by one commenter, start a frapper map. Uh huh!!

The new bib's in the shop.

The Fabric of Life

I get a lot of emails asking where I find my fabric, particularly from the UK readers that suffer the curse of play safe UK distribution (the reason we have very little decent fabric over here).
I've spoken before about buying from US websites and still highly recommend it. Obviously you have to be a little patient, as well as taking a bit of a risk that you might not like the fabric up close. But the patience thing is easier than you'd think and in all the time I've been buying fabric from the US I've only had two yards that I didn't like once it arrived.
That's not to say that you can't find great fabric here in the UK, you just have to work a little harder for it.
Here in Leeds we have a couple of fabric shops ( two branches of Samuel Taylor) that sell your run of the mill polycottons, alongside the most basic and ( in my opinion) dingy quilters cottons and the usual mix of slinky polyesters and machine embroidered linen mixes. They do also stock the occasional gem though and they're great for your general haberdashery needs, but most of the time they just don't have anything that gets my heart racing.
One of my most frequently visited fabric shops is The Shuttle, about half an hour away in Shipley. Which, whilst it still falls foul of some horribly dull cottons, often stocks Liberty at half the normal price, has a great range of plain jersey and jersey ribbing (very hard to find in this country), a really beautiful collection of linen at around £8 per metre and lots of designer samples.

The shop itself is a bit of a jumble, but it's really not too difficult to find some truly lovely fabrics. I particularly like their shirting cottons and seersuckers that often sell for £1 per metre. If you're in the area, visiting the wonderful Salts Mill maybe, then I recommend a quick (it won't be) visit to The Shuttle - but be prepared to dig a little. Equally if you're in London then you have to visit Fabrics Galore (owned by The Shuttle owners son), which has some of my fabric collections of fabrics around, including Boden and Liberty as well as a great selection of wools.

I'm also becoming more and more of a fan of Ikea for fabrics. Especially now that they've launched their cottons (rather than the usual linen mixes and cotton ducks) at only £2 per metre! And they've got some really great prints. The picture at the top is Ikea oilcloth, which is strong enough to use as a table cloth, but soft enough to turn in to totes or purses or anything else.
They're also great during the sales. Yesterday for instance I picked up 25 metres of stripey cotton duck (below) for £25 and you just can't say fairer than that.  I also love Ikea for their bedding. Which is another way of finding really great fabric.

Two of my most commented on fabrics were actually bedding sets. The hexagon fabric that I use to line the cabinet in the kitchen was from Habitat - I got it on sale (thanks Ros!!), so it worked out really well priced for a lot of fabric. And because Habitat use cotton with a high thread count, it's a really good quality.

The other print I get asked a lot about is the curtain that hangs in my studio, which is actually an Orla Kiely double duvet cover. It wasn't cheap (£65), but because my studio window is pretty small and the fabric cabinets butt right up to it, I only wanted one curtain. Which meant that I haven't even had to cut the duvet cover up! I've just used curtain clips and hung it as it is! So when I want something else, I can still use it as a duvet. And if you did want to cut it up you would get 4 metres of extra wide  Orla Kiely fabric for £16 per metre, which is pretty good when we're not able to get the cheaper Target range over here.

Tea towels are another great source of fabric, particularly for cushions or totes. The two prints below are tea towels that I bought from Habitat yesterday. Again it's not always a super cheap way of buying fabric, but places like Habitat and Paperchase sell some amazing prints that are worth buying. And the tea towels available on Etsy are absolutely wonderful and a really good way of buying some original printed fabric at an affordable price.

Of course there's also thrfting at car boot sales and charity shops, for bedding, linens and clothes that can all be repurposed, or if you have a little more money, there's antique shops and auctions.

All of that said, there has been a definite increase in both bricks and mortar fabric shops here in the UK as well as UK based internet shops. And they're all beginning to stock more and more exciting prints.

They're still a lot more expensive than Stateside (not the stores fault) and we're still mainly only seeing designers under the Westminster umbrella - Amy Butler, Kaffe Fassett, Heather Bailey etc. But there's definitely more on it's way. Micheal Miller fabrics are becoming a lot more available as well as a Kokka and a number of other Japanese fabrics. The trick though is finding these stores.

Which is where I thought we could maybe work together. Because I would like to put together a directory of UK based fabric shops so that we can all plan our holidays and day trips around them (if only that were a joke!!) and so that we can all give UK fabric shops that support they seriously need if we are going to convince the distributors to really commit to selling their wares to the UK market.

I'll start by saying that if you're looking for a really good range of Japanese fabrics, then it's worth having a look at or dropping by The Eternal Maker, who sell both online and in their bricks and mortar shop. Anna (who is now the Editor of Sew Hip) is really passionate about fabric and has some really nice prints available.

So if you know of any fabric shops, or if you're a shop owner, please leave me a comment with a little info (types of fabric etc) so that we can all see where to shop.

And in the meantime I'm going to be interviewing Jo and Fran of UK based online store Saints and Pinners in the next week and will be offering a fabric giveaway too!

*edited to say that I have just removed a comment and I wanted the person who left it to know that I haven't removed it because I disagree or because I think they shouldn't have said it, but because I have removed the sentence that you commented on, which means that your comment no longer refers to anything. If you hadn't left an anonymous comment I could have emailed you to say that I wondered about that too and that's why I have now removed what I said*

Landing

The landing at the top of the first flight of stairs has always been an annoyingly awkward space. It's not big enough to put to any real use but is too big to leave completely bare. It also suffers from a lack of natural light and two different floor levels.
Up until recently I had a narrow book case on the landing which did little other than make the space look crowded and messy. But once I painted it gray and it all looked lovely and clean and fresh I was determined not to clutter it up with furniture again.
So I've just stuck to hanging a number of my favourite prints in an attempt to give it a bit of identity without taking up any floor space.
I've used different coloured frames, hanging them in an abstract design and used my beautiful 50p mirror as the main focal point to the display. I've hung it at a height that means that when you look in it your reflection looks just like another print.

I'm really happy with how it's turned out and the fact that the space looks so much bigger and brighter. Now I just have to tackle the actual stairs, which are completely enclosed and almost impossible to make look nice!
I'm thinking  melamine plates.

You what??

I have spent the entire day today thinking that it's Monday. Which is strange when you consider that I spent the whole of yesterday convinced that it was Friday. But even worse than that, I got up at 8am this morning after Lily woke me up, played with the girls in their bedroom for half an hour or so and then came downstairs to start breakfast... to discover that it was actually not even 6am!!! And I had already been up over half an hour.
What the????
I have no idea how I mistook 5am for 8am but figured I may as well take advantage of an extra 3 hours in my day and decided to take the girls to the beach (it's almost two hours away so we don't get there often).
The three of us had a great day but I am so ready for bed now (I know that I said that yesterday too, but back then I didn't have a clue!).
So...tomorrow? It's Wednesday yes? Right.
(the pic is what's sitting on my shelf above my sewing table at the moment)