Dressew, how I love thee...

I was back at Dressew today - the fabulous sewing resource store in Vancouver, that I only discovered 3 weeks ago (after having moved to N.Vancouver nearly two years ago)!  I snuck a few photos to show you how good it can get...


Trim, ricrac, and zippers, ...oh my!

How good is this!!!


I bought some trim...

and some mesh for a project that my crafty sis has planned

(each roll is about 1m x 1m)and some other sewing notions.  

What a fabulous shop!

Thrifting Finds

Anybody who knows me well, knows that I have a thing for thrifting, finding funky vintage items, and getting a good deal....ok, some deals are better than others.  


I've been quite obsessed as of late, scouring thrift shops for funky fabrics.  Lucky me, there are 3 between home and work, which is a 10 minute walk, so I'm often stopping in to see what I can find.  


Check out what I got today!  

A genuine Le Creuset cast iron roaster for $12.99, in a vintage 70's burnt orange colour. And it's in great shape. What a deal!  The guy behind me in line was disappointed that I snagged it before him.  


Ok, so it's not really craft related, but seeing that I get so much inspiration and joy from thrifting, I figured that it merited a post on my blog! 

AONW - Snack Bag (and free giveaway)

I sewed up Another One Night Wonder (AONW) tonight.  I whipped up a little snack bag for my veggies.  

  

I bought some cute babushka PUL (polyurethane laminate) fabric and black rip-stop fabric for the lining.   It has a black velcro closure along the top. 

It's not without it's flaws...you'll see in the photo below that I have a fold in the pink PUL, and I think that I'll use pink thread next time.    

But otherwise I'm quite pleased.  I'll have to test it out to see if I like using the rip-stop as the lining. 

And now for my first free giveaway.  I will gift a set (snack bag and sandwich bag) to the first person who comments to this post - I'll try my best to fix the flaws I mentioned in the post, plus any other suggestions you may have.  

Crafty Inspiration

So, I just got back from a whirl-wind 10-day trip to Oz for my sis-in-laws wedding.  


While were were there, I managed to convince the 'Crafting Widower' to check out some crafty shops.  Oh, so many nice fabrics, softies, and other fun stuff.  I managed to exercise A LOT of restraint and only purchased one bit of fuzzy chenille fabric.  It is a light mauve colour.  Isn't it lovely?!?   

I have a project in mind...but it will remain a secret project for now...


Ballarat Patchwork was a great shop.  So many fun fabrics, quilts, patterns and even samples of some of the patterns.  There were some very cute samples made up from Melly & Me , Make it Perfect and Heather Bailey...plus others.  It was really great see samples of the patterns.  I could have spent hours in the place!  (Luckily we went in  1/2 hour before closing!)  


I also came across some cute softies mad by an Australian designer Alimrose when visiting some other shops. They make dolls, but also some cute hand squeakers for little ones.  Here's a shop selling some of their products. Cute.  


Lots of crafty inspiration!  

Another "1 night wonder"

It's my friend Jessica's birthday this week.  She's a crafter too...a knitter.  So, I decided to whip up a little knitting project bag for her.

I used some really cute owl and polka-dot fabric...

...and a couple of hours later, I was finished!

I found some lovely glass beads from Ghana to add to the pulls. 

(It's about 6"wide x 3"deep x 9" tall)  

That's my yarn and partially finished scarf taking the project bag for a test drive.

Another 1 night wonder...it had to be since our knit-night is tomorrow!

Crafting again...now that my Olympic hiatus is over

I got inspired when I looked through my pile of African scraps.  

So, I decided to do a wee project tonight.  

My project for tonight - decorating a boring old shirt. 

First I started cutting out some fabric circles and used this interesting technique that Anna Maria Horner shows on her blog.  You use aluminum foil to help turn under the edges of the circles and then iron.

Next I basted the circles in place, then zigzagged over top.  Then removed the basting stitches

The circles aren't totally perfect...

...but I think the shirt is a lot more interesting now.

Ta-da!

A fun little project.  

International Women's Day - March 8th

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I glanced at my calendar and realized that it is International Women’s Day today.  It is meant to be a day to celebrate the rights we enjoy and to bring awareness to the struggles of women, in a hopeful manner. 

While this day seems to slip by unnoticed in Canada, I have been lucky enough to celebrate this day in other parts of the world.  I first celebrated this day when living in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2006.  I arrived at work on March 8^th and was presented with an outfit to wear on this day.  The ladies in our office had bought some special fabric that was produced especially for this day and had an outfit made up for each woman at the office.  We were so proud to wear these outfits, to show that we belonged to a group, and that we had the support of each other.  

The culmination of the activities celebrating this day was a parade down the main street which continued to the town’s sports field (fyi - the 'town' population is about 200,000).  We marched in, in groups, each group wearing matching outfits, and sang songs together.  

(Note the muddy streets...and that's the prison in the background that we walked by)

Some presentations and speeches followed, celebrating this day and the achievements of women, but also talking about some of the struggles that these women, and their daughters, still faced.  It really was an inspiring celebration and what an honour to be surrounded by these women, the heart of their families and their communities. 

(Photos are a serious issue in Congo - note how I'm the only one smiling!)

Besides my fetching outfit, which I still own, I still have a few scraps of the fabric in my stash of African pagne (pagne = (French) a piece of fabric).  

I really should remember to make a wee project with these scraps next year.  

Happy International Women's Day to each of you!

The craft is back!

Yeah, the woodland draft buster is done!

(it's actually be done for a little while now...I finally got around to taking a few pics.

I'm still not totally pleased with the snail - it just doesn't look very 'snail like' to me

I might replace it with Ric Rac Sew's racing snail

Or maybe I'll just try making the racing snail game. 

My crafty corner

Ta-da!  My crafting cupboard.  

It still needs a bit of organising, but it  sure is nice to have a lot of my supplies in one place. 

(Note: that I didn't say ALL my crafting supplies)

I've still got to work on a chair...


How great is my new hubby (a.k.a. the crafting widower) - 
For letting me take over the 2nd bedroom for crafting.