posted by Lily on cooking, family, homely, sewing

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Oh my.  Last week, my glee over our successful weekend “hard-rubbish-thrifting” led to me embarking upon several new projects.  Painted goods were lined up on the front porch.  Fabric and stencils were mounded up on the table on the back porch.  I spent the week dirty, paint smeared, with dust in my hair, and glue under my nails.  It was bliss :-)

However – there’s always a however – nothing was finished and today, I must admit, everything looked a little overwhelming.  It was time to “tidy up” and cross finished projects off the list.

The hot glue gun needs to go back into it’s box and downstairs – yo-yos stitched, glued onto the lampshade, lampshade finished. Excellent – lots of tidying up done.

But it’s not really a lampSHADE is it?  I stripped off the daggy, dirty cream satin with gold braid number, scrubbed the frame down with methylated spirits, wrapped the frame with 1/2 inch strips of patchwork fabric (modge podged on) and then added the yo-yos.  I tried not to – but I think they make it look ever so pretty :-)

It still needs rewiring – but after spending an hour trying to wriggle the cord up the base, I’m leaving it for Julian – definitely more his cup of tea than mine.

Now, time to put this morning’s cookies away – cocoa and cranberries.  Our cookies have been living in the sweet little ebay canisters – in plastic bags.  I don’t like to have the food touching the inside of the aluminium containers – they are a bit pitted – but I don’t like using the plastic bags either – yuck.  So, in order to put away the cookies, they needed a bag.  Stencilled osnaberg.

Boy oh boy, am I loving freezer paper stenciling – before long, everything will be yo-yoed AND stencilled.  It is foolproof!  Truly!   And when you add a bit of embroidery and a bit of applique it is so pretty.

All done – cookies away.

And a bag for the five stones.  I used the two back pockets from Julian’s old jeans.  I stitched them together along the old stitch lines, added a draw string and five buttons.

And look what Abby’s brought home – an order list for more five stones – 11 sets!  They were a huge hit at school!  For those who haven’t met five stones before – they’re like knuckles.  I was introduced to them in primary school in Malaysia.  Everyone made their own from scraps of fabric, filled with rice or lentils, and hand stitched across the top.  To play, you sit in a circle (like you would for marbles) – you toss the five stones into the middle, pick one up, throw it into the air and snatch up one of the remaining four and catch in the same hand.  Repeat this until all four have been collected.  On the next round, you have to pick up two at a time.  The third round, you pick up one and three.  And the final round, you pick up all four.  Any misses or drops, you lose your go and it passes to the next player.  It’s a lot of fun :-)

A productive day – much tidier – and happiness all around.