DIY Custom made Ironing Board for my Studio !

So this DIY Custom made Ironing Board was our project today! insprired by many similar things on Pinterest.

Requirements:

• Reusing items we had already if possible
• Specific size  - 45cm wide  but not too long, and higher that normal as I'm quite tall
• Easily movable
• Maximising storage

We did have to buy wood for the top, casters, wadding and metalized ironing board cover BUT re-used :

• An ikea unit that had been given to us and which we had modified.
• Old shelving wood left over from out kitchen refurbishment
• Fabric that I had already 

It was a joint project !
OH cut wood to shape, bolted on lockable casters and added wood panels on each side to increase height.

I came up with the design and then - using my SO SO useful staple gun - added wadding and ironing board cover to top and then finished it with a pretty cotton fabric. TOP TIP - if you are going to staple a cover on remember you don't want staples to catch fabric if you are in habit of ironing items over the end of your ironing board hence I covered the under side with some handstitched fabric ( not the WHOLE underside just the end piece ! )

Very pleased with the new addition to my studio! I think the total cost was about £40 for the new items.

I may paint it but it looks pretty good as it is so that may never happen!

A New Kitchen with actual NEW things for a change....albeit still a bit RETRO!

Now if you follow this blog you will by now know that I am very keen on a bit of vintage/recycling/upcyling. This applied to my so called 'temporary' kitchen 7- 8 yrs old. We  used Ikea Varde freestanding units because we'd had them before and they are ACE. Some from ebay, one as a sale/second and a couple new. We sourced a sink from ebay and reused all kinds of beech worksurfaces - all different height! and we reused exiting appliences .  It cost us about £1400 in total.

And jolly nice it was too! .... but my slightly dodgy back demanded a higher oven ( when it's bad I have had to kneel down to get stuff out of oven and lift up on to counter ! NOT GOOD!)  and I had a 25 yr savings plan to play with so....

We are working on a new kitchen !!!

This is the progress so far - I am awaiting granite ( whoop!) worktops and then my builder ( and good friend ) will be back to do lots of inventive carpentry finishing touches. We have no working sink in the kitchen yet and no hob BUT we do have a utility sink and a working dishwasher and new oven so not slumming it by any means . I STILL have more painting to do !

Upcycling is still a feature to some extent - one Ikea Varde unit remains in place and will get a blue paint job. Two other Varde units and some shelving has  moved to the shed to form a work table/area. Several other kitchen items have been popped onto ebay to continue to serve elsewhere :) Kitchen bits! 

I will name check all our suppliers when I post a final update when it is finished - but they have ALL been excellent so far.  I will also cover what inspired the colour choices ... hint: that car boot £1 vintage wallpaper that you can spot on right!

I have a deadline of the 25th Sept as I am hosting a Macmillan Coffee morning but I think we will make it....

I've been making clothes from curtains again ....

So I've been hoarding this curtain fabric for a while now ... lush isn't it !

FINALLY I decided to get on an make something for an event at which I had a stall. It usually takes something like this with a deadline to make me get on with a project! I must say I was pretty pleased with how it turn out and I got lots of lovely comments.

The dress was adapted from a combination of a couple of pattern and the cape pattern was from Sew Vera Venus  found on a great resource called The Vintage Pattern Files 

( Edit: Since making this cape I've had lots of requests to make more - however the pattern is not one I created so I asked the lovely Jeanne of Sew Vera Venus  if I could use it to make some to sell on and she has very kindly given me permission. A very charming and talented lady - I do urge you to check out her site. Contact me if you would like a cape in one of my vintage fabric! )


NOT SHOWN: With it I had a vintage leather handbag and green suede 40s style shoes - the latter came from Hotter shoes who surprisingly do some lovely comfortable styles that work really well with a vintage look!

The outfit was finished with a red hat I commisioned from the talented Sophie at Imogen's Imagination 


( photos courtesy of my lovely friend Sheila of Sheuniquevintage )

Studio update - nearly there !

A quick update!

The roof is on and the next step is putting the windows and doors in .

And my quest for recycled furniture continues ....  the trolley was £2 from a carboot BUT may end up in my kitchen ... and the map chest was £90 , it had a date ot 1969 stamped inside :)

Lots of furniture renovations to do!

The builders are in..... and working hard on my Sewing Room!

Exciting times ahead - no longer will my poor family have to put up with piles of vintage fabric EVERYWHERE...

The builders have started! and I will soon have a dedicated hobby/craft room with a HUGE cutting table and all my vintage fabric will be in one place. When I make a dress I will no longer have to do the 'house sewing circuit' - YOU know the one... cut it out downstairs on dining room table, sew it in tiny box room, try it on my bedroom and repeat.. and repeat....

In the meantime I am acquiring 'projects' to furnish my space DAILY and each fabric I pick up is THE one on which to base my colour scheme , until the next one comes along that is ...

Now whilst you might think 'lucky girl' ... well ... yes indeed!... but.... this is the result of a savings plan that dates back  25 YEARS !!! .... so I have waited a while ;)

My objective is to furnish it as much as possible from recycled items and thrifted finds but even so the pennies only stretch so far - and realising just what an INSANE amount of fabric I have I have been selling some on via ebay - if you like vintage fabric you might like to check it out ?


This is what I have listed on Ebay this week !


At the moment I am on the lookout for a Architects Plan/ Map chest - to store my patterns and my artwork . The latter is 'stored' under an armchair at the moment - NOT ideal.

I'm also after either an Ercol or a Lloyd Loom chair as well. Then - in theory - I am sorted ( ish... famous last words .... )

Watch this space ....

Sometimes you gotta LET IT GO....

So the thing is I've been lucky with my vintage thrifting/hunting recently....

I found this lovely set of Poole Twin Tone in the colour that I collect in a local charity shop
 ... and - as usual... I've been TOTALLY unable to pass by some fabulous fabrics...

but my cupboards can only hold so much so I've gotta LET SOME GO...

If you check out my ebay page I got some great items I'm 'releasing' back into the world!

I've listed lots of Vintage fabric DIY cushion pieces - which are being snapped up - and some great bundles/job lots like these....

I've also got some vintage clothes for sale, some of my WittyDawn items and I'm FORCING myself to rationalise my china collection, so these items are up for grabs too !

Why not check my EBAY listings out ;)!

A little revamp DIY project - Footstool Makeover!

A very satisfying and quite quick revamp / renewal of this little footstool
From this rather sad looking thing ... to this smart little stool with a super vintage Sanderson fabric :)

I really should have taken more pictures of the stages involved BUT if you are interested this is what I did ....

1. Remove feet and strip bank to wood - the old foam etc was rather yucky and NOT for reusing! I didn't bother removing all the tacks on the edges of the wood base as I had a cunnng plan to cover them up and in any case was going to use a staple gun to tack fabric on underneath the stool .
2. I used the wood base  to create a circle tamplate - I used this to cut foam, the polyester wadding circle/strip, and the lining fabric circle and strip and another circle of fabric to sew on underneath to cover up base at the end . I made sure that the side strips of wadding and lining fabric had a generous overlap of fabric to allow them to be stapled to underside of stool base - about 5cm deeper than foam.
3. I handstitched the circle of wadding and side strip of wadding over the foam - now you COULD just use foam by itself BUT the wadding gives a smoother finish - also any roughness in foam edges is masked AND those tacks that I couldn't be bothered to prise off are also covered up :)
4. I machined sewed together the circle and strip of lining fabric - I always prefer to line upholstery projects like this but you could just put your top fabric straight on. You could just use one piece of lining fabric and staple it on BUT if you fit the lining fabric it minimises the pleating/fabric gathers when you come to staple it on-  I think it results in a smoother final finish.
5. Making sure I had a reasonably tight fit I put foam on base , put lining cover on and stapled it on with an upholstery staple gun ( such a useful bit of kit!). Staple underneath at one point first , then pulling fabric fairly tauntly/firmly directly opposite staple again. Do the same but at right angled to you first pair of fixings - so basically you have staple at each quarter of the circle ( sorry this is a bit of a rubbish explanation! you then can work between each set of staples aimimg for lots of small gathers/pleats, rather that one or two larger ones, to get a smooth a finish as you can. What you DON'T do is start stapling at one point and work your way round! you will end up with a huge wad of excess fabric at the end - trust me on this....
6. Then I stapled on my top fabric in same way ( a great vintage Sandersons one - was actually an apron when it came to me!) and trimmed off excess fabric underneath . You will see that I didn't make a fitted cover as I wanted  a single piece of fabric to show off the design. You do have to do a bit more gathering and pleating but it's not difficult if you remember to do lots of small ones :)
7. Finishing time ! I hand sewed a hemmed circle of lining fabric underneath covering up raw edges of wadding/lining/fabric /staples. I then had this very pretty embriodered/scalloped edged floral bias binding which I hand sewed on the bottom edge - it didn't NEED this to cover up anything but it is a good finishing touch. I screwed legs back on through the lining fabric underneath - ALL DONE

When I read it back this looks like a lot of work - it really isn't ! although if you aren't keen on handsewing ( I like it) you might want to skip some of the finishing BUT in my opinion it is those bits that make for a neatly finished project.

Bit poorly, weather uninspiring .. perfect time to quilt !

So I've been battling a cold and I'm feeling a bit rubbish ... so I've been quilting!

I'm passing the time working on a hexie quilt  for us ....  ALL handsewn so goodness knows how many hours have gone into THIS one so far ! I think if I were to work it out the labour alone would run into £400 plus!

... however it IS a very pleasent way to pass the time :)

I've also been been finishing some projects to pop in my shop  on Folksy -WittyDawn  

Why not pop over for a look ?

January SALE ! - 30% off in my Etsy and Folksy shops!

Better check it out folks!

EVERYTHING is 30% off when you use code 30OFFWITTYDAWN in either my :

ETSY WittyDawnUK shop

OR

Folksy WittyDawn shop

For example - Mice will be reduced from £9 to only £6.30








 Owls will be reduced from £19 to only £13. 30




My popular BOHO bags would drop in price to around £17.50 !

And it would be a great time to get some new cushions for your home in time for Spring!

Remember I make everything from Vintage and thus eco friendly , recycled fabric - good for the planet and great for a unique look too.

Do you like Vintage, Retro, Midcentury Homewares - check this out!

There's only SO much fabulous ceramic delights I can fit on my shelves and in my cupboards ... so time to move some on to new homes....

Check out my Etsy shop for a selection - just like these fabulous things !

A bit addicted to making things with this 60s pattern

With it being a lovely hot summer and with holidays coming up I've been making some things for myself with some vintage fabrics from my stash.

This pattern has been perfect ! suits me and pretty easy too - also great when trying to 'stretch' a small amount of fabric to get a complete garment as the panels in it make mixing fabrics very easy.

SO far I've made myself 4 dresses and 3 tops ( only one shown) with this reissued Simplicity pattern so it has proved to be great value for money :)

If you want to venture into making your own vintage style clothes I'd recommend this one. You will need to know how to insert a zip but there are lots of great online tutorials showing a variety of techniques.

I have adapted it slightly to use bias binding ( in some cases bought but often bias binding I have made) as I like the contrast.

You might be interested to know that the green/white one is made from charity shop/gifted table clothes - total cost with zip was less that ten  pounds!

Fabric weaving - another way to use my scraps

I've been on a bit of a quest recently to sort and put to good use all my fabric scraps .

Over on BritishCrafters I have seen someone who make pin cushions from woven fabrics ( I will pop a link/photo on for them when I find them again!)

Ah HA ! I have a basket FULL of strips of fabric - these are the hems from my repurposed vintage fabric - wider ones have been turned into patchwork piece but as you can see I had all these narrower strips.

So I've been having fun weaving them!



I now have a few 12 inch square pieces - what to do with them ? what do you think ? I can turn them into 12 inch cushions, make them a little larger for bigger cushions or just bias bind the edges to make them into table mats. I like the latter option myself. I'm also going to work out a basket idea - I'll let you know how that works out :)

Tidy ( ish...) at last , the fabric sort out is done ( for now...)

Blimey if I'd've known how long this was going to take I'm not sure I would have started!

However 6 bags of vintage fabric are now stored in the loft and the rest is reasonably tidy.

I've gone through all my scrappy bits and processed them into ...

Cute Animals - some are stuffed and  awaiting eyes, ears, wings etc and a whole lot more mice/rabbits/hearts/birds are ready to sew and next to my machine - I must have about 50 more to make up but this is the sort of thing that is very popular and with a few fairs coming up I won't have to worry about stock!

Patchwok - I've hundreds of patchwork pieces s squares, rectangles and hexis ready to us and lots of strips that I could either sew together as patchwork or
turn into binding/edge trim. It'll be great to have all these ready to use !



I've also given one bag of scraps to a local collage artist, I've another bag for a the very artistic daughter of one of my friends and yet another bag to take to my local primary school


Phew... time for a cuppa!

More Thrifted Vintage Furniture

OMG how I LOVE this.

As it was a tad 'out there' I did feel I should show it to OH before I bought it though - however as usual he totally gets the idea and thought it was pretty fabulous . So for a massive £25 we bought it...

SLIGHT problem , he went to collect it and arrived back rather shamefaced ... one of the glass doors dropped out whilst being loaded to the car ...opps

However I do still love it, looks great in our bedroom and I'm sure we can get another glass door made ...meh... it's not like we paid a massive amount for it :)

PS. the mirror was another local charity shop buy - I think I paid about £8 for it - they look pretty good together I think :)

Some recent 'treats' for me :)

Now at the mo' I am developing some nw products for the shop and TRYING not to invest in more fabric .

However that doesn't mean I can't treat myself to some Vintage goodies for me , here's a few recent'ish buys

Some jewellery ! I've become a bit addicted to clip earring having been shown how to wear them without pain - Gently pull your earlobe taut away from your head and clip the earing right up close to your head - where your earlobe joins your head. So basically the cilp is not on the fattest part of your earlobe . You can then wear them all day !

I'm not so much into 'chinzy' china - but I did need lots of cake stands back in the Autumn for a Macmillan coffee morning so I made a few like this one - much more my style really.

I was also thrilled to get this tray recently in Pat Albecks 'Daisy Chain' design - one of my favorite designs and I have many fabric/colours of this one.

A Vintage Hunters Guide to Cirencester

I am lucky to live in the pretty Cotswolds town of Cirencester. It's not a large town but it has an interesting mix of indepent shops and great places to eat.

For quite a small town we are pretty well able to cater for the vintage hunter if you know where to go! not to mention about 13 charity shops - well run with good quality stock too. For example we have bought many bits of funiture from the Sue Ryder shop ( near the town center Tesco )  - like this display cabinet.

SO vintage fans if you want to visit Cirencester here's a few places you might like to check out !

• Sheila at SheUnique . Although Sheila has closed her shop now she is still involved in many local vintage events and also provides vintage makeup and hairstyle makeovers - very much in demand for weddings and hen dos! her facebook page is here  https://www.facebook.com/sheuniquevintage.cirencester?fref=ts&ref=br_tf.
• For 20 century Furniture you need to head out of town to the Love Lane Business park to Mark Parrish's place. A treasure trove of great funiture ( that chair in the photo above came from there as have several other pieces of our furniture) here's a  selection of Mark Parrish's items. If you want to see what he has make sure you contact him first to arrange an appoinment !
• In the Market place there is a great antiques center with a coffee shop , The .Cirencester Antiques Centre people are very helpful and there's a great range of items. Open Mon to Sat.
• Every Friday 9 - 3 pm we have a great Antiques Market in the Corn Hall in the Market place directly opposite the Cirencester Anitiques Center
• If you have a nice bit of furniture that you'd like repainting to get that Shabby Chic look head out of town towards Stratton on the Gloucester Road / Cheltenham Road junction to the Lavender House Interiors and Coffee Shop  . The ladies there do a great job renovating old furniture AND you'll get a great coffee too AND they usually have one or two items from me!
• We also have  Lavinia's Tea Party  based in Stratton. Amongst other things they can hire out vintage tea sets for wedding and hen dos - very pretty things.  
• I noticed last week  that the little Jewellery shop Joli Beau run by Nicole near the Post Office had a cabinet FULL of the most devine vintage jewellery so I'd advise you to check that out! 
• There is often a lovely lady selling vintage clothes on a stall in the market place, and my friend Carole https://www.facebook.com/vintageupcycling often has a stall in the Corn Hall.  
• For General shopping info here's a good site Cirencester Shopping 

 and OF COURSE if you want to see a great range of vintage fabric for fabulous cushions , bags and other homewares contact me for an appointment - I'll put the kettle on !  I am based in Stratton - a mile outside of Cirencester Town Center - as well !

Events

 'Vintage and Artisan Fair'

 At the Corn Hall, GL7 2NY  Cirencester Sun 29th April 10 - 4pm . Organiser : Augusta Wreay 07970859703 - I believe some stall slots are still available. Lots of other shops. pubs and cafe's are open on a Sunday in Cirencester so you can make a day of it!

'Vintage Heaven' 
At the Organic Farm shop  Now Being planned for next Autumn, pencilled in for 15th Nov 2nd 2014 .
It was such good fun last time and Emma / Hilary did a great job organising it - lots of charity money raised too. Details to follow nearer the time !

'Cirencester Toy and Train Fair'

Organised by Ronnie Rocket , who also has toy stall each week in the Corn Hall Antiques Market each Friday. Details are here http://www.cirencestertoyfair.com/ . I think the next one is on August 2014 . The last one had about 40 stalls so it's worth a trip if you are a toy / train collector .

I do LOVE a vintage fabric washing line

It occured to me that I really don't mind washing when the result is a pretty washing line.

I then relised that I have a LOT of pictures of washing on my line! so what the heck lets share 'em

 

This is becoming something of an obsession - this morning I found myself considered the order in  which I arranged my washing on the line to get the best photo.... OPPS!