A better blind

Now that #2 is here, #1 is in his big boy room. The Mr spent some serious time in there transforming the mission brown wardrobe, pinky/creamy walls and blue ceiling to a much nicer color scheme of white (sorry - Lexicon) walls and ceiling, and charcoal for the window frame and wardrobe. It looks so much better and bigger too.

His room faces has the best view in the house, it looks straight over our backyard. The sun streams in and it is a really nice space. But not too good when you want your toddler to have a day time sleep. So we had a crack at making some roman blinds. I chose the fabric, a beautiful Echino print and the Mr did a series of complex calcs to come up with a plan. It took us forever to make them. Roman blinds have ALOT of boringness in the construction. There is hardly any sewing - just straight lines. The most important part of the process is the measuring and the marking up. Ours was double trouble: the window is really big - over 2m wide- so we needed to make two identical blinds.

Now the blinds are up and we use them every day. I love them, the print on the fabric is great. It isn't too kiddy so should last for a long while yet.

Here is a closer look at a small part of the pattern:

Aren't the colors great? The zebra is my favourite.

Crochet love

I've always wanted to learn to crochet. I remember my mum made a crochet blanket out of all of her scrap wool. I LOVED it. There was a lot of blue, a smidge of orange and lots of other great colors that she had left over from other projects. I love granny square rugs and all that kinda thing.

At Brown Owls Aunty Pat did her best to teach me how to get the hang of it all but to be honest, she was quick sticks with the crocheting. You know when someone tries to teach you and they say 'I'll do a few stitches so you can see how it is done' then you hand over the tools and their hands fly in the air so fast that they are practically a blur - well that is Aunty Pat. She is a whizz when it comes to crochet. And very kind and patient too.

So I knew I needed to practice before I could play with the great wool I bought at the Calico and Chintz closing down sale. Lucky for me, I have a friend who is v good a crochet and helped to start me off and remind me of a few tricks of the trade. Anyhoo, the beginnings of my first beanie were falling nicely into place. After a few nights of stitching....voila!

The beanie is for the Mr. I promised it to him last October for his birthday - and here it is. 8 months later.

The wool is called Free Spirit (I think). It is lovely. The colors are so autumn like.

I think I increased too much at the beginning so it is slightly too large but thanks to Lara's advice, I think I'll handwash it in some warm water and see if it shrinks slightly. If it all goes horribly wrong, I guess Herb will have a beanie!

Lighting up a winter's day

I made this lovely lamp for a friend's wedding. I used Lara Cameron's lampshade tute which was really clear and easy to follow. The fabric is Japanese and it is a really nice weight and weave. The funny thing about it is that there doesn't seem to be a 'right way' up for this pattern. Some of the flowers are right way up and some are upside down. But overall, I'm pretty happy with it. I hope it is happy in its new home.