Who needs a boring black office chair?

I lashed out and bought myself an office chair for my studio so that I could be comfortable and have good lumbar support when sitting at my work table.  And it's got wheels which is fantastic. The only thing is office chairs usually come in boring black like the one below or bright blue or red.

My solution to a boring office chair is to attempt a slight makeover.

I made a semi fitted cover for the back of the chair and for the seat I sewed strips of fabric together into a square shape and then trimmed the square edges to a roundish shape.  A hem was sewn and then elastic threaded through, pulled tight and sewn.  Hey presto a fairly respectable looking seat cover.  The green fabric with circles was from an op shop as is the bold patterned fabric.  The darker green fabric with the red flowers came from my quilting fabric stash.  I'm really happy with my amateurish attempt at making over my chair.

Somehow Sophie managed to get in the photo above without me noticing probably because just at this point of taking the photo I heard a loud explosion type noise followed by a long drawn out rumble.  We apparently had an earth tremor measuring 2.7, about 10km underground occurring a couple of suburbs away from where we live.  Nothing was damaged, the studio didn't shake or move although Genevieve told me the house did.  Just a bit of excitement for a Monday afternoon.

Anne  xx

Lucky find

Tuesday on the way home from the weekly grocery shopping, I drove past a local op shop and something bright hanging on an outside display caught my eye.  From  distance I was fairly certain what is was.  Closer inspection revealed I was correct.  I paid the grand sum of $8.00 for these two blankets and after a soak, good wash and dry on the line, they have come up looking lovely.  Worn but very acceptable.  I couldn't leave them there in the shop knowing how much work had gone into them.

You can never have too many crocheted blankets.

Have a lovely day everyone,

Anne  xx

110

Hi everyone and welcome to my new follower.  I hope your weekend has been enjoyable, perhaps with some sunshine, none of which has appeared in Melbourne the last two days.

Remember the fabrics I showed you in my last post,

they have been cut up into 110  6 &1/2 inch squares ready to sew into a quilt.

I purchased a few more pieces of fabric last week to give the colour scheme a bit more pop and I'm quite happy with the colour combinations.  So all these squares are pinned together in rows and numbered so I remember the right order in which to sew them.  Sorry about the rubbish photo.

Late last week I had an overwhelming urge to have a good sticky down in the local op shop.  I came home with a few bits of pieces, a dress with fabric that is gorgeous and will cut up, a few pillowslips which will be turned into something else and this little china jug which cost me the grand total of 50cents.  

It's just perfect for displaying some autumn hydrangeas I picked from the garden today.  I suppose the hydrangeas are really too big for the jug, but do I care?  Nope!  It's all about what makes me happy, not about being perfect.

This afternoon I took my dog Sophie for a walk around the streets of the neighbourhood which was a lot of fun because tomorrow morning we are having a council hard rubbish collection.  Anyone who has stuff to get rid of has put it on the nature strip and what stuff there is.  Some of it is just rubbish, but I saw so many things I could have come home with.  Wooden chairs that could have been sanded down and painted, an old tiered garden stand and this which I did bring home.

  I'm not exactly sure what it is but it was sitting next to an old broken cast iron fire place grille.  

I have a weakness for wrought iron and I just couldn't leave it sitting on the grass.  I will use it as a display somewhere in the garden.

Well I'm off to iron hubby some work shirts for the week.  I hope your week ahead is a good one.

Till next time, take care,

Anne  xx

One little bird and some lovely finds

Yesterday I sat down and decided to make a bird.  Yes a bird.  If you are familiar with the work of Kirsty at sixty one A, you will know just how cute her birds are.  Kirsty lives in Cornwall, I live in Australia so to have one mailed would be quite expensive.  So what to do?  I searched the internet and came up with this free pattern from Spool Sewing.  Here is how my bird turned out.

This little bird will be roosting in Miss G's bedroom and will be joined by another soon.  A few might roost in Miss C's bedroom too.  Sewing the little bird was quite easy.  The difficult part was pushing the stuffing through the tail section which is quite narrow.  When he was all sewn up, I decided to add some small buttons for eyes.

While I was out and about today getting my knee X-rayed, I made the most of my time by visiting some op. (thrift) shops and a vintage shop which has been in the area for a year but slow old me has only just discovered.  At the vintage shop I found these.

Retro owl salt and pepper shakers.  How cute are these little guys?  I LOVE owls and owly things.  I also found the little tray they are sitting on in the same shop.

The tray seems to be a type of hard plastic, an old type of melamine perhaps.  I intend using the tray to take cold drinks (lemon squash perhaps), out to my garden room in the summer.

My other finds were these.

A lovely embroidered doily which will look gorgeous on my loungeroom coffee table and this tablecloth which is very good quality and in excellent condition.  The tablecloth was only $5.00.

Hope everyone is having a great day.

Anne

A dress and a tablecloth

Hello there.   I hope you've had a lovely day with nice things happening.  Things like sitting down for a few quiet moments with a latte or a cup of tea, a good book or crochet hook and some wool.  These would be very nice happenings in my opinion.  I've had the latte today but not the good book or crochet yet.  Instead I went out to do pleasurable things like shop for a birthday present for a family member, a hair appointment and dress shopping.  I can say the dress shopping was pleasurable because I FOUND a dress to wear to the ballet.  Here it is.

I was hoping for colour but this dress was in a style that was flattering.  After the success of the dress purchase I had just enough time to duck into the op shop and found this bright and colourful tablecloth for $3.00.

There is one little worn spot, hardly noticeable and a few marks which I'm sure spot laundering will remove.  I love the pattern and colours.

Have a lovely evening everyone.  See you tomorrow.

Anne  :-)