My first vintage...

You may recall that a couple of weeks ago in my search for the perfect Advent Candle holder I began frequenting some establishments that I had hitherto never entered before, namely the second-hand store.....and then be still my aching heart for a mere 20cents each I found these!

Two of them I purchased because I think I may actually sew something from them, the others well - I couldn't leave them there with images like that! Now can you guess which ones I'm referring to?

A bug's life

I just love, love, love buying the fabric for the little bibs in my etsy shop. My local fabric shop sells 30cm offcuts from bolts which are perfect for the job.

My current two favourites are these two buggliest of bug versions!

Back on the etsy wagon...

I think these two new owls that sit on my kitchen window sill have given me the courage to re-open my little etsy store and stock it with some new infant bibs.

Here are three packages with orders waiting to be posted sitting under the watchful eyes of these two wise friends.

A wintry sewing project - door snakes

In Canberra people talk about the "Labour Day long weekend" as being the last of the frosts that we can expect for the year, and this happens to be this weekend. So I must post about a very wintery sewing project that I made some weeks ago before this last frost is to appear.

The need for a little protection from drafts became a bit more important after our move in May to a much older house. One of our solutions was to use a few door snakes around the place to trap the heat and keep out the cold, cold, cold. Yes I know I could have gone to the local hardware store and bought some cheapo crappo door snakes....but I was after a bit more style you see, and being the mother of two small widgets I thought a sturdy version could perhaps be a bit more practical.

So here is my door snake sewing "method":
1. I decided to make an inner snake out of calico. I laid out the calico as per the picture below, then folded the fabric again in half to create a double layer of calico snake.

2. I then overlocked around three sides.

3. Before filling with sand and sealing the calico snake, I cut out the outer fabric for the snake. For this I found some Ikea fabric in my stash which was just the perfect weight, nice and thick and sturdy! I cut it out around the calico snake piece like this;

4. Fill the inner snake with sand, overlock/sew and reinforce with top stiching.
5. Sew/overlock up the sides of the side and bottom seams of the outer snake. I used my overlocker to finish the top of this snake as well.
6. Finally I added some snaps to the top of the outer snake, so that I could remove the inner one and wash the cover, because I was sure that at some point these door snakes would be seconded off for an alternative use by some small child and dragged around the house....and I was right!