Jumble sales rock!

If you are friends with me on Facebook then you will know that last weekend was our annual trip to the jumble sale. It's on for a few days but Saturday is the day to visit as it's 'fill a black bin bag for £4' day. I remember when it used to be £1 a bag but that was a fair while ago :) I got two bags and Matt got two bags - both full of stuff! I'm not going to show everything (most is still waiting to be washed/sorted) but imagine jumpers, dresses, skirts, hats, scarves, plates, books, bric a brac, toys, bespoke suits that fit perfectly (oh yes!) belts, braces (for me - I'm channelling Dr Who!) shoes, pillowcases, linens etc.

Two things that I got that filled up half of one bag (works out at about 40p per item) were these two bed items. The top one is a handmade patchwork single duvet cover. It needs a bit of mending but I am going to use it to turn into another cheat quilt.

I love the fact that they used different weight fabrics and it's a bit wonky :) Will be perfect for snuggling under as the other cheat quilt was relegated to a chair cover!

And I am so pleased I decided to pick this up - it's a vintage feather filled quilt (what I would call an eiderdown) It's a gorgeous coral colour on one side and a salmon colour on the other and it's so soft. It too needs repairing but I'm thinking that some new patches of Liberty fabric would look fantastic. It is destined for use in Taz and as I'm staying in Taz for BCTF in April I'd better get a move on repairing it!

A couple of things

It seems that Harry approves of my messy desk! I didn't look at his face while taking this so I didn't see if it was disgust or joy at my messy desk. Or maybe indifference, he is a dog after all!

I also did some mending. This dress has had a stain on the boob for a while that was really obvious (I think the previous owner dripped tomato soup down herself!) and while I wore it a couple of times, it was glaringly obvious. The pocket came from an old apron that had a hole in it (the rest has been used for chickens which you will see soon) and while it doesn't match at all, it looks quite good. It doesn't jar quite so much in real life :) I'm probably going to wear it today so I'll try and grab a photo.

That's my two things - do you have anything nondescript and not that exciting going on in your life at the moment?

Mending Monday :)

I actually did some mending and adjusting on Friday but it's Monday now so I'm going with Mending Monday as my title :)  When I put the Christmas decorations away I found another bag of clothes that needed altering (some have been there for a couple of years!) So I decided to get busy and redo some of them.

I bought this skirt at a jumble sale two years ago and all it needed doing to it was the hem taking up. By 15cm but still, it was only a hem!

I decided to go fancy with the hem and did a triple hem :) I went very carefully and slowly so that it wouldn't wobble too much.

And here it is modelled - not a great photo but you get the gist!

This dress only needed the buttons changing on it - done in 5 minutes!

This dress was more of a problem. The patch you see in the photograph is a result of a previous Mending Monday but I'd developed two holes under the arms that were a cross shape. The dress is made of a light cotton so tears easily if a hole develops and that is what happened here. I LOVE this dress and have had it for about six years so I don't want it to break just yet. I mended the holes by lining them up as best I could, pinned a similar fabric behind the hole (right side out) and sewed like hell over the top of it with my machine! It has worked so far but I've already seen another small hole - better get to it before it develops into a much larger hole!

I also covered up a corporate label on a thick canvas bag that Matt got from a conference in December with some pretty fabric but I haven't taken a photo yet. It needs some pretty buttons and trim adding first.

Do you mend clothes? Do you alter clothes? Is your mending pile as large as mine?

Sunday Snippets

I made some robot garlands.

I tidied my craft room - the desk really is tidy, honest!

I turned 35 and my sister sent me this cool card she made :)

I contemplated stealing these pillowcases from my mother in law but I think she might notice they are missing!

I modelled my newly shortened skirt - more on it tomorrow :)

My Creative space

With the girls being off school at the moment I'm not getting as much work done as I would like. However I seem to be going through a mending phase at the minute. In the past 24 hours I have fixed a tee shirt for Matt, shortened the straps on a dress for Anya, sewn buttons on a dress and a tunic for Tara and fixed a hole in a pair of leggings, also for Tara.

Said leggings! She put them on this morning, discovered the hole and I whipped them off and mended them - and it's still only 10am! I'm obviously feeling organised today :)

The home of Our Creative Spaces.

In my future - part 1

While sorting out my scraps basket (it used to be a mending pile too!) I came across this bag that was accidentally broken by sister in law in a pushchair incident a few years ago. I have decided to use the embroidery threads that I have recently sorted to mend it.

I thought about mending it discretely with similar coloured thread but I am going to go for bright!

I'm thinking some sort of jazzy stitching too but we will see!