A cake, a cat and a quilt

Cake - My eldest made - and decorated - an amazing birthday cake for my birthday this week! I had a lovely afternoon tea on Saturday ( except I completely forgot to take any photos of the table, laid out with my lovely embroidered table cloth, lots of vintage plates, flowers, and of course all the yummy treats!

Cat-  I bought my eldest a satchel bag from an op shop earlier this year, and he has been using it to carry homework in. He took it to his grandparents' house on Anzac Day- and their cat went crazy for it. She rolled around on it, slept on it and it ended up covered in cat fur!

Quilt- my MIL - owner of the cat! - made me a beautiful quilt for my birthday (which I have just realized I haven't taken a photo of yet, so I just took a quick one now, but it does not really do it justice!).  I will have to take some proper photos in the daylight!

There's a "new look" chair in there (part 2)

Tah dah! Here is my made-over chair.  I used some lovely grey upholstery fabric off-cuts, from a bag of bits bought from Rathdown Remnants a few years ago. There was just enough to cover the seat cushion  with one piece, and the back cushion with another- using another piece for the side seams, but they match the slip cover for the back frame of the chair. (Which wasn't actually planned, I kind of hadn't thought about the back, but it all worked out fine!)

Then the next day I decided the chair needed a cushion, so I used an offcut ( long term stash, I think it actually came from a box of offcuts from Nicole Mallalieu's workshop in Brunswick years ago!). A little touch of vintage style floral for my " new" vintage grey chair! Yay!

There's a chair in there...( part 1)

Many years ago when I first moved to Melbourne, our lounge room furniture consisted of 2 deck chairs and a sofa bed couch.  We still have the deck chairs (updated January 2014) with wood stain and cushion covers)  and the couch ( also recovered). 
Then we discovered the giant Brotherhood store nearby in Brunswick, and started adding more furniture to the house, including 2 60's recliners. I covered them with cream fabric ( purchased from the original GJ's fabrics out the back of Barkley Square. dyed darker cream with tea & coffee).
Then we bought our house, moved to Coburg, had 2 kids...and needed more seating in the lounge room!
I found a great blue couch at Salvos, but didn' t have space to keep my 2 chairs, so I swapped them for the couch.  But I always regretted getting rid of the chairs.  I loved their lightweight, the timber frames, and the way they reclined when you lean back on them.
I have seen similar chairs in scandi furniture shops for upwards of $200, so when my neighbours put this chair out for hard rubbish I couldn't resist!

It looked like it had been a bed for a cat, and had several layers of covers in a range of colours and fabrics!

Definitely ripe for a makeover!

Sewing spirograph circles

Long term readers might recall a little op shop treasure  I found a couple of years ago- a janome "spiral stitcher".

The instructions left a bit to be desired, but I managed to figure it out. The tricky bit was getting the speed right- the instructions say to sew at half speed but my machine doesn't have that option.

They turned out really well, so cool!  Now I just have to think what to do next- use it on a bag, or maybe for a pocket? And I need to try some rainbow thread  next time too!