Frilly, flouncy and flowery

I needed a break from my Christmas quilt, which is my biggest undertaking so far, so I made an apron for my friend Julie with some Tanya Whelan fabric from my stash. It was great to do something without a scant quarter inch seam allowance!

Flouncy apron modelled by Lara -it's a bit too big for her!

Sunshine on a rainy day...

At last we're seeing a little sunshine in the UK, hoping it holds out for the Olympics.
I managed to get to a carboot sale on Sunday, dodged the rain and bought a lovely old manual Singer sewing machine to ornament my craft room.

I paid £10 for it, which I thought was fair because it has obviously been well used and the re are bits missing, but I think it is really beautiful.

I made a Kindle case for my daughter this week, it is a little too big because I used mine for the measurements and the new ones are smaller. She loves it though so I can take my time with a replacement.

Excuse the feet that got in on the act in these pics!
Since finishing this I have found a brilliant tutorial on finishing off binding which I tried out and I think it will improve the look of my projects a lot. It is on youtube, Quilt binding: Joining ends, Marci Baker of Alicia's attic.

My daughter and her boyfriend are off to Mablethorpe for the weekend so I bought them rain ponchos.They are always game for a laugh....

Restoring an antique printer's tray.

I've been looking for an old printer's tray for a while now. There are always a few on ebay but very expensive. I spotted this sad and lonely example on a carboot sale last week. It looked like it had been in a damp cellar for years, filthy, warped and split. The woman selling it was really rude and unfriendly and generally I would have told her to f..forget it, but I really wanted it so I parted with my £5 - which was probably £4 more than it was worth - and brought it home.

Cleaning it up was a real challenge, I'd say I probably spent 6 hours on it in total, but I really enjoyed working with wood. It felt like I was bringing it back to life.Anyway here's what I did:

I forgot to take a 'before' picture but this after the first soaking so you can get the idea...

'

I used Pledge soapy cleaner for wood, but in a much highe concentration than I would use for general cleaning, a toothbrush and a bottle brush.

I used the garden hose on high pressure to try and remove the filthy paper lining clinging to the corners.

I used linseed oil to recondition the wood, it took 2 generous applications, and used cotton buds to work it right into the corners.

 

Ta da! Just need to find lots of teeny tiny treasues to fill it now.