Love the Weekend!

Ah this weekend is definitely a good one! My gorgeous sister and family are down visiting from London, it's my friend Becca's birthday and all systems are go at CFQ!!

I had fun picking a new outfit out from my rail of clothes for my display mannequin this morning. I've gone with one of my handmade tops, a cute sailor collar and some revamped shorts! What do you think?? I know its the end of October but it's warm inside!

Yesterday I thought it would be fun to get the ol' spray paint out and re-do a frame that I've had kicking round the house for ages. It was a gordy gold and not very appealing; much better now!

I made a birthday handbag for Rebecca too! Craftster have some awesome tutorials on making things and I used this one as a guide for the bag. I cut up a beautiful old pillowcase and found some plain bright cotton for the lining.

Also at CFQ this week I revamped a lamp with a couple of pretty braids and I painted a few arrows on the door showing people the way!

Come say hello!

Sunday Afternoon Lampshade

A few months ago my Grandparents gave me an old lamp stand and shade. The stand was originally made by my Father's uncle (i think) and has always been in their living room for as long as I can remember. They're now in a little flat so it's a tad large for the room so I gladly took it off their hands! So today I finally got around to giving it a make over! It was covered in a creamish silk with matching trim and had a small rip in it, apart from totally not being in my taste it definitely needed some tlc. So I choose some complementary fabrics and went on ahead. I even used a fabric that I'd printed last year.

I chopped up the original cover to get the pattern pieces, It just took 4 pieces like this one.

Then stitched them all together! Well first I stitched them, then over locked the edges. I knew it was going to be tight pulling it back over the frame so i wanted to make sure i didn't pull on the seams too much.

Next I over locked around the top, folded it over and hemmed it down. Over the top of my stitch line I added some trashy lilac trim.

Around the bottom I over locked the edge and then sewed this delightful lilac fringing on top. I'd picked this up on sale in the fabric shop I used to work in, I always knew I'd find a good use for it......

To jazz up the fringing I also added some turquoise rickrack. I wanted it to be an overload of colour and pattern but tastefully done, I hope I've pulled that off!

It was quite a tight squeeze...

Love this blue and black polka dot :)