My favourite shabby quilts

As much as I love quiting and quilts it's never something that I really got into making myself besides a couple of real simple ones. I've tended to buy them along the way.
Here are a few of my favourites.

 

And my most favourite is about 6 years old and I use it most nights. It lives on my recliner and when I sit down and relax at the end of the day it just becomes automatic to put it over me...a bit like a security blanket. I always take it whenever we go away as well. It's so soft. I've always hand washed it in velvet soap whicih makes it smell nice too!

A few posts ago I featured my sister at her art class working on some tulips. Here is her finished piece. Not bad for something that was meant to be a test piece.  Excuse the photo as it was taken off my phone, so not very good quality.

Quilt Hangers

Our second son is a qualified furniture/cabinet maker with a local business. In his spare time he is kept busy making various items for people. He was approached by a local retail outlet to make some white compression quilt hangers, which he has done.

There are many wood stained hangers out there but those with shabby chic quilts might be interested in these Antique white ones he has made. They are a simple design which goes with today's minimilistic type style. Here are a couple of pics, one with the different sizes and one just to show how the quilt is held.

The compression quilt hanger is designed to hang your quilt, wall hanging or tapestry firmly across the width of the hanger. The material is held securely between 2 pieces of timber that are compressed together by tightening the knobs. Your quilt will not come into contact with the screw thread of the knob, ensuring that your quilt is not damaged. The back piece gets screwed to the wall with screws and fittings that are supplied with the hanger. The screws will not be seen.

The quilt hangers come in three sizes, 900mm, 1200mm and 1500mm and there are 3 x 60mm screws, 3 x 50mm wall plugs for brick walls and 3 wall mates for gyprock walls also included.

If you are interested just email me and I'll provide more details. They are available to Australian residents only.

Easy cushion cover

In the November edition of Notebook magazine there was instructions to make a cushion cover with a shirt-front. It's super easy. I wanted to use the shirt-front as the back for my cushion as I had a nice piece of fabric that I wanted to turn into a cushion for our guest room.
Simply find a shirt that complements the colour of the front of your cushion.

Cut the shirt-front to size.

Place right sides together and sew all the way around. This is the great part, because all you do is undo the buttons to turn it the right way out and place the cushion insert inside.  Whalla a new cushion cover!

I have seen one on a blog with a pretty white ruffled shirt which was used for the front of the cushion but I couldn't find it to show you.

Hope you are enjoying your weekend.

This and that

At a recent wedding the bride and her mother made, iced, decorated and wrapped some lovely shaped biscuits and wafer thin butterfly's for each guest at the wedding. Contained in the wrapping at the back of the biscuit was a lovely thank you message from the bride and groom.

And now for something completely different....Our friends have converted a child's cubby house into a very cute home for their chooks.

Through the glass door

On the top shelf of our hutch I have a mixture of pink and green cups, saucers, plates etc that I've collected at various places over the years.

Here are a few shots of what is in one corner. The cups, bowl and plate came from an old church that was closing down. I love the subtle curves and shape of them.

 

 

A sweet little dish!

The other week I bought this cream dish at a garage sale.

 

I popped it away in a cupboard to bring out and use when the time required it. However last night when I was taking off my jewellery and putting it on my bedside table, strewn along with other pieces I wear regulary, I thought of that dish and how it would make a nice holder for that jewellery!

Just right! And here is a close up of the little love heart shaped jewellery holder that I fell in love with many years back.

Box pleat cushion cover

A couple of weekends ago you might remember I bought a cute little cream chair.
After seeing some cushions made with box pleats at the blog of Much to do with Nothing I was inspired to want to make one for my chair.

It was a big ask for me as I'm a very amateur sewer but loved the look so much that was prepared to give it a bash!  It wasn't without headaches as I will explain later!

I happened to have quite a few metres of a white cotton fabric which was great as I needed a couple of metres in length for the pleats. As I wanted an off white colour, I coffee dyed the fabric and it turned out just the right colour.

 

Then I cut out the seat shape and the width for the pleats. I doubled the fabric over for the pleats and ironed it down. I was now ready to pin the pleats on.

All was going smoothly...had a few issues with the corners but not too bad. Once pinned on, I sewed it in place. That's where the headache started!!  Can you pick from the above picture where I had gone wrong?  Yes I had pinned and sewn the folded edge of the fabric to the cushion....aaaahhhh!!!!  I was really frustrated with myself and was in a quandry as to whether to start all over again as I had plenty of fabric, or sit for ½ hr and unpick the tiny stitches....I made a coffee, put something good on the TV and unpicked!!! 

I won't make that mistake again.

Anyway sometime later I finished it. As you can see I didn't get the corners quite right, but I'm happy enough with it.

 

 Before the cushion!

 

I fell in love with this outdoor seat when i was in the hardware store on Sunday. Hubby liked it too so it came home with us and has made it's home under our large Claret Ash tree. I just need to remember when our boys dogs come over to take the cushions off!!

I'm quite happy with the show the pink butterflies are putting on around the birdbath at the moment.

Hope you're having a great start to the week.

i

Art Class

I went down to Adelaide Thursday afternoon as I had to be at the Adelaide Airport at 6am Friday morning to pick one of our sons and his girlfriend up, who were arriving back from a week's holiday in Bali. The had a great time...couldn't spend all of their holiday money as everything was sooo cheap!!

I stayed with one of my sisters who has been attending art classes in recent times. I went along with her on Thursday night as an observer and had so much fun. There are only 7 in the class, and they get on really well together. Their tutor who is very talented and has a great sense of humour, casually roams around to them, giving gentle instruction and assistance with whatever project and medium they are working on. Bronny is doing pastels.
Here is a pic of her at work.

She's currently doing an abstract style and is working on Tulips

This was by the end of the night

 

This is her first pastel that she had framed - a lilly pad. We picked it up from the framers just before class so she could show everyone. It's not a good photo as I've got the light reflecting badly but you can get the idea, it looks very lifelike.

Bronny was so excited about having her first picture framed she brought along Champers and nibbles, so I played waitress!!!  I'm not usually a champagne person but I really liked this one, it was called Jansz Premium Curve...yum!

  
Chocolate Crackles with a twist!

You've all probably made Chocolate Crackles, they are so easy, kids love them and they are great for fetes and parties.

This is usually how they look, placed in patty pans.

My mum always did hers a bit different and so I've always done them that way too and that is by adding Pascall Marshmallows to the mix and placing the mixture into a slice container, so they are then cut into square pieces.

For those that don't have this recipe here it is.

4 cups Rice Bubbles

1 cup icing sugar

1 cup coconut

5 tbspns cocoa powder

250gm copha

1 pkt Pascalls Marshmallows (I use the pink and white ones...of course!!!)

In a large bowl combine rice bubbles, icing sugar, coconut, cocoa and marshmallows (you can cut them up if you wish, but I use them whole) .

Melt copha in a small saucepan over medium heat. When completely melted, pour over the dry ingredients.

Mix well, ensuring all ingredients are covered with copha.

Spread into a large slice container and set in the fridge. When set cut into pieces.

These are my father-in-laws favourites, so I always make a batch and take down to them when we visit.

Mmmm....a whole weekend ahead of me...what am I going to do....haven't decided yet!!
Hope yours is a fun and productive one.

Vintage Classics

One of my friends was given some old Women's Weekly's. It was really interesting looking through them and having a few laughs at the fashion. However the old saying 'everything old is new again' was evident in some cases, where decor from back then is re-appearing in homes of today.

Contained in one of the above magazines was this white croteched pant suit. Can you see yourself wearing that?

I have received a few emails over time with some humorous adverts from a time gone by. I can imagine there would be huge uproar if some of these adverts appeared today.

How times have changed!