Feeling blue? How about grey?

All this horrible rainy weather is the perfect excuse to stay indoors, dust off the sewing machine, and get creative. And, I have just the fabrics for you ... two new lovely designs from the Leanika collection by Dena Designs, both in bluey-grey hues which match this wintery weather perfectly. The fabric on the left is Jardin and the one on the right is Paisley and both of them are available from the Fabrication store. Happy shopping!

Day 4: Tea Cosy

I'm not really sure if too many people still use teapots these days, but regardless every teapot could do with a tea cosy. This tea cosy is a piece of cake to make, is fully reversible and turns your boring old teapot into a fashion statement. 

I made this tea cosy for my ad in the December issue of Your Home and Garden (you can read more about that in my earlier blog on it here). All you need is some fabric (I used Circle Pane in Gold by Dena Designs for the outside and Candy Stripe in Berry by Annette Tatum for the inside) some ribbon and some stuffing.  Basically you just make two double-sided rectangles (each 28cm wide x 22cm high), stuff them, thread some ribbon through and you're done.

This is the perfect present for that tea drinker in your life - not only will it keep their tea warm, but it'll brighten up their kitchen at the same time.

Day 3: Christmas Tree Decorations

Gone are the days or boring old Christmas decorations that could only be red, green, silver or gold. Today, Christmas decorations are a chance to have fun and can be as colourful as you like. Good thing, because I just love these gorgeous, bright decorations lovingly made by my big sis, Janey using three fabrics from Jennifer Paganelli's "Pretty Please" collection: Ann Flower Mural in Blue, Jackie in Blue and Marie in Sky and a fourth fabric, Circle Pane in Green, by Dena Designs.

To make them you need some cardboard, a bit of padding (not strictly necessary, but used here), fabric for covering them and ribbons for hanging and embellishment. Then you just cut whatever shapes you like from the cardboard, stick some padding on top, cover with fabric and then whipstitch around the edge to hold them all together. Voila, you're done!

And, if you don't need any decorations yourself, box some up and give them away as a lovely Christmas present that will get used for years to come.

Ad time!

So, as some as you may have seen, I have been advertising in the directory section of NZ's Your Home and Garden magazine. I am an avid reader of this mag and love the way it offers gorgeous interiors and gardens, without all the stiffness (and massive budgets). So, when I set up http://www.fabrication.co.nz/ I instantly thought of advertising here. My first ad came out in the September issue, and this week I had to send in my pics for the Dec issue.

In the past my ads have just featured some of my current fabrics, but this time I wanted to show what you can do with the fabrics I sell. So, I spent last weekend making aprons (see my last post) and a tea-cosy (made with Dena Designs Circle Pane in Gold and on the reverse Annette Tatum's Candy Stripe in Berry) . Then I got my super-talented big sis (also modelling the apron) to help me with styling, and voila! We were going for a fresh, summery feel - hopefully we've managed to capture that.

Keep your eye out for the Dec issue of Your Home and Garden. It goes on sale mid-Nov.