Alexa Chung

British style icon Alexa Chung designed a collection for Madewell, and it arrived online today! Everything is feminine, graphic and amazing. See it all here.

I love that scarf!!

Found via A Cup Of Jo

Random pics

Some photos in Smashing Magazine I found.

This seagull seems to have its own personal understanding of human’s rules.

That's a little scary!! This shot is taken on a Norway’s cliff Prekestolen.

Two ways of looking at a fish.

Free tutorial @ Make Baby Stuff.com

You can get the free tutorial for these pants at Make Baby Stuff.Com. Plus plenty of beautiful things to make.

Hanging Book Sling

Found at Penny Carnival - Go check it out.

Tools:

-A 47-inch by 42-inch piece of fabric (I used Amy Butler's daisy bouquet). (When you're buying the fabric, ask for 1 1/3 yard, then wash and dry it before cutting it to 47" x 42". It will shrink a bit.)

-Two double curtain rod brackets. I bought mine for about $5 each at Lowes.

-Two, 4-foot long wooden dowels or curtain rods that fit into the brackets. Shouldn't cost more than $3 each.

Drill and drill bits

-Level

-Stud finder

-Pencil

-General sewing supplies, like a sewing machine, thread and scissors

-Optional: paint, paintbrush and sandpaper (options 1 and 2) and wooden balls or other end caps for the dowels (option 3).

Steps:

We’re bonkers for books at our house, but allowing our 3-year-old daughter to choose her own every night before bedtime can be a lesson in patience. She’s a dilly dallier as it is, but what makes it harder is that her bookcase, like most bookcases, only displays the spines of the books. Since she can’t read the book titles, she pulls every book off the shelf until she recognizes the cover art of the one she wants.

I made this hanging book display to help solve that problem. It’s modeled after school-grade book display cases that show the fronts of books, and hopefully will make choosing a bedtime book easier (and faster!).

Instructions:

-Fold the fabric lengthwise, with right sides facing, so you are working with a double thickness rectangle that is 47 inches by 21 inches.

-Using a 1/2-inch seam, sew the fabric together around one of the short sides, the long side and about half-way down the other short side.

-Turn the fabric right side out through the opening, poking out the corners with a turning tool (a pencil will do—just don’t poke all the way through).

-Sew the opening shut by folding the raw edges toward each other, then top stitching down that short end of the rectangle.

-Now you’ll need to sew casings for the dowels on the two long ends of the rectangle. Working with one side at a time, fold the long end over so it overlaps by 2 inches. Pin, then stitch all the way down the length of the fabric. Repeat on the other long side.

-It’s time to hang the hardware on the wall. Locate two studs 47 inches apart on the wall where you want to hang the book holder. (Note: my studs were four feet apart. It’s not a bad idea to find your studs before you start the project and make a book sling that aligns with your studs. Or just use those little plastic things they sell to hold screws in the wall. The bracket packages I buy come with them.)

-Using a level, mark the locations where you'll need to drill lightly with a pencil, then drill the holes for the screws.

-Screw the brackets onto the wall. Hang the fabric on the dowels, then insert the dowels into the brackets. The brackets should come with tiny screws that tighten onto the dowels, holding them in place.

-Load with books. If you screwed the hardware into studs your book holder should be able to handle a good amount of weight, but don’t go too crazy.

-Option 1: Before getting started, you could paint the ends of your dowels a color that matches the décor of the room or the fabric.

-Option 2: If you don’t like the color of the brackets, you could paint that, too, with a paint that adheres to metal. Sand the metal first so the paint has something to grab onto.

Option 3: In addition to or in place of the tiny screws that hold the dowels in place, you could cap off the ends of the dowels with a cute wooden ball or some clever object. I plan to do this but haven’t found the right thing yet.

Option 4: The brackets don’t jut out very far at all, but if you’re worried about someone bonking their head, sew slipcovers for them with a little padding inside.

Option 5: If you have enough wall space, make four or five of these and install them above one another. It could be cute to make a rainbow-like display—red patterned fabric for the top one, orange for the next, then yellow, blue, green, and purple.

Update:

Option 6: Make the sling reversible, sew a pocket on the front for holding little treasures or applique an animal shape, alphabet letter, etc. Here are some of the slings I've made since I first wrote this tutorial:

This one was made for Finn, the son of Meg from Sew Liberated:

And here are some slings I've seen on blogs after folks followed my tutorial ...

By My Life is Written on an Etch-a-Sketch:

By Kunz Family:

By Little Dash:

Melanie's double book slings for her office/nursery, featured on Ohdeedoh:

Revoluzzza monster softie

A favourite blog of mine is Revoluzzza. There are so many gorgeous monster softies and dolls and a heap of tutorials and patterns so go and have a look. Revoluzzza.

Here's one of the gorgeous monster tutorials.

It’s a simple one and even if you are a beginner you should be able to do it.

If you have any questions while you are making the monster – just contact me. And you can make the monster with a very simple sewing machine – you only need a simple stitch and a zigzag stitch.

And the cute little monster I made during this tutorial – its name is Ninni – will be drawn by lot (my daughter and I like the RevoluzZza ribbon “lottery” that much that we want to have another “RevoluzZza lottery” ). Just leave a comment and on Friday my cute little daughter will draw by lot who will give the little beast a new home. Everybody can join – no matter where you live.

OK, let’s get started!

1. Download the pattern, print it and cut out the pattern. I chose to use different fabrics for the front and the back of the monster:

—

2. Pin the pattern on the fabrics and cut it out:

—

3. Serge the part which you will use later to close the monster with a blind stitch:

—

4. Cut out the felt eyes and sew them on the front fabric:

—

5. Now fix the felt tooth (or teeth if you want to give your monster not just one tooth) while you sew the mouth with a narrow zigzag stitch:

—

6. After you fixed the inner eyes you simply stitch a cross on the eyes by hand:

—

7. Stitch the felt heart on the monster front:

—

8. Now pin the front and the back of the monster with needles and sew the two parts together – but leave the part open which you will use to turn the monster inside out (the part you serged before):

—

9. Now you have to cut some parts of the monster: the ears, over the little arms and between the legs (like shown on the pattern you downloaded). Serge the monster with a zigzag stitch – narrower on the parts you cut:

—

10. … and this is the best moment when you create monsters and any kind of dolls and stuffed things: When you turn it inside out and see the final creature. Still a very flat monster – but already a monster

—

11. It’s almost finished. Now we only have to stuff the little beast with doll wadding and close it with a blind stitch by hand:

That’s it!

Fredrika fabric Trees

Tutorial from Revoluzzza. I saw these ages ago then as usual lost them. So I bought the Ikea fabric and finally found the tutorial again and now will attempt to make my own trees, there so sweet and I love those apples.

Let’s start:

1. Drive to IKEA and buy a piece of the fabric FREDRIKA with the cute trees on it:

2. Cut them out and neat the edges:

3. Decorate them – just as you like it. They look really nice even if you use them without extra decoration:

4. Put the two halfs one on another - face to face - and sew them together. Of yourse you have to leave a little opening to fill the wadding inside the tree. Finally you close the tree by hand with the blind stitch:

And – that’s it!

You can hang the tree into a window, use it as a decoration or even as a pillow.

Jimmys Beginning

It was my little boys 1st birthday yesterday. Jimmy's birthdate is 9/9/09. And I had him at 21:09 which makes it 9:09. Crazy eh. We made it in the The Herald Sun and I will put the article in soon but here is a few photos of him in the early days.

I lost my camera that had the birth photos and I had some really beautiful ones which is really disappointing, I still keep waiting to find it but these were from Michaels phone so they are a little grainy.

This was the night before, I was painting all the door ways. One of those nesting things i guess?

Jimmy Steel Mckenzie.

9/9/09 9:09 8lbs 14oz 51.5cm

It really was the best birth i could hope for. He was posterier and my midwife said to sit on the ball and lean forward and I did for about 2 hours and he turned around. Yay. I think it was 2-3 pushes and he was here. Which I found amazing because I was pusing for at least an hour with the other two. I must be getting the knack of the whole child birth thing. Michael was such a support, he did everything I needed him to do and Stevie is a little mama, so nurturing.