Quick change, Fresh look.

It seems it happens to all of us from time to time. We caught up in the outside world, that our own little world falls into a pit of despair.
My poor dining room chairs would fall into this category. When we moved here it was time to recover the chairs, and being the thrifty person that I aspire to be, used the drapes that had been left by the previous owner and recovered the chairs.
Fast foward to present day and the fabric is falling apart, not to mention it looks rather disgustingly gross.


The one on the right is the before. It doesn't look that bad, but I picked one of the better chairs for the picture.

This fabric was actually a bargain at $20.00 a meter. The bargain comes into play when you get 2 extra meters for free! This gives me more then enough because each chair takes 1/4 of a meter to cover it.

Recovering this type of dining room chair is something anyone can do. Its best to take off previous fabric so you will need is a pair if pliers and something to remove old staples, a flat screwdriver will work, and a staple gun.

Heres a shot of what it looks like underneath after the new fabric has been added.

And a closer look.

To do this, make sure that you start stapling in the centers all the way around, then working your way from the center to the corners pull and staple. Check your work along the way by flipping it over making sure your getting the desired effect. When you get the corners is where you will usually have excess fabric. Fold fabric into corners, staple, fold, staple, until you have a smooth corner looking from the top.

I only have a few more to go and then its one more thing off my to-do list, before..ahem..Christmas. :)

Wrist Warmers

As mentioned before my fetish for BBC programming led me to watch the Pbs mini-series "Little Dorrit" by Charles Dickens. Since I'm always on the look out for new ideas while watching these shows, I noticed wrist warmers in wool and lace were worn by actresses. Looking up a bit of a history on them its seems they've been around for centuries and worn in colder climates of the European North. The best explanation as to why wear a wrist warmer is very similar to that of a hat. It traps the warmth in the wrist thus keeping your fingers warm and able to carry on working, even outside.
Over the last couple of years they seem to have come back into fashion again, with patterns for them popping up on the internet and pinterest, so not exactly new, but I have not attempted them yet.

So sitting by the cozy fire last night, listening to the wind howl, I grabbed some wool and a crochet hook and made these. (yes they are the same height hehe)

For a first attempt and no pattern I'm ok with this. I added a little ruffle to them along the bottom to finish it off, and it only took me an hour to finish the pair. Hmmmm Stocking Stuffers??:)

A little Late, but ever so Thankful.

This past April was my mother's 80th birthday, and through much busyness, we couldn't seem to find time to gather together to celebrate. So each sibling did their own thing with her to celebrate.

Enter Thanksgiving.
My sister Angela graciously invited us all to her home for thanksgiving. She suggested that we take some time out of our Thanksgiving Festivites and surprise Mom with a round of "Happy Birthday" and a cake. Lets face it, we would not be gathering together to be Thankful if not for our parents, so really it seem fitting to do this for her at Thanksgiving.

I asked if I could make the cake, since playing with food always seems like a fun thing to do.
I started by making Marshmallow Fondant. There are tons of recipes for this on the internet and its super easy to make. It also looks like the professional fondant that cake decorators use but is sooo much cheaper then buying it.

I tinted half the batch in purple, leaving the other white, mixing them together to get a marble effect.

Then I decided cupcakes would be the easiest to transport and made those. Now while they were cooling I began making roses.

Since working with fondant is like playing with play-doh, I thought these would be pretty easy to make, and I was right.

Start with a center,  then make some petals by flattening out some of the fondant, some larger some smaller and wrap your petals around your center. I made a couple of rose buds as well, with a center and two petals.

Not all the cupcakes were going to have flowers I wanted some with coloured sugar. I just happen to have a very coarse sugar. I mixed some of my purple colour with a very small amount of water and mixed in the sugar. From there I let it air dry, mixing it around to keep it from sticking together.

I iced them first with a butter cream icing, and then added the goodies.

The finished product!

And the Birthday Girl! 

A very Happy Thanksgiving to All. :)

Infinity Scarves,Cosy Warm Wraps and The Forsyte Saga

Its the time of year when all I want to seem to do is crochet. Like with many of the things I do, these things come in spirts, so eventual it will be taken over by something else. But for now.....

First up the Infinity Scarf

M'lynn really likes these scarves so I'm sure I'll be making a few more for her and couple of extras to give away. I think she likes them because they are so easy to wear. Just loop them around your head as many times as you see fit. This one has been looped 3 times.

Next my Cosy Warm Wrap

My model is missing, she's in BC, but I can tell you this wrap is like wrapping up in a blanket. I made it fairly long for this reason so I could feel warm and toasty and warm and toasty I feel, at least thats how I felt in the house.

None of this could have been possible without The Forsyte Saga on Netflix. Well thats not entirely true but it made it a lot more fun. I adore historic British shows. Lots of pomp and circumstance and they keep me highly entertained.

Since I found my next series to watch Little Dorrit, I think I'll make a hat!:)

A Wedding!

My niece Breagh was married over the weekend. As as she began down the aisle a whole lot of memories started flooding back. You see Ashley and Breagh are 3 weeks apart, so when ever we got together the two were like glue. Where one went the other would go and so I held onto tears until after the wedding when I was alone with Roger because when you see someone you love take those steps towards the one they love with all their heart, you still see this.

Breagh is the one on the tricycle, Ash is hitching a ride.

Now as they grew interests changed, and both spread their wings in different directions. But the bond they shared seems to still be very much intact because a very cool thing happened.

Just as my sister and I were pregnant with the two of them, they too became pregnant at the same time, with Ashley being due in June and Breagh in September. But Breagh's Maddox would have none of that. He decided that he was to be born the day before Leah, in June. And I can tell you from trying to keep him entertained for a short while on Saturday, he is a very busy boy.

Here they are with their Great Oma.

So now the very sad part of this wedding day was that my pictures didn't turn out quite like I wanted them too, so I had to borrow this one from Brent Foster Photography

Breagh has grown into quite the beauty and we wish her, Denver and Maddox all the happiness in the world. :)