So summer is over you would have guessed…. another month of that:

Now that I have swapped my winter clothes for summer clothes in my wardrobe… typical!

Anyway…

So, finally we managed to find time to re-decorate our living room! We finally decided to paint it in two shades of grey.

The light grey is Dulux mineral haze 3 and the darker is Dulux steel symphony 3.

I got the telephone table from Dunelm Mill and just added a little heart shape i got in France. The lamp is from maison du monde (love their stuff). The curtains are from Alinea, a French version of Ikea just slightly more upmarket.

The curtain holders are from France too a great shop called Nadia in the Parisian suburb. It doesn’t look like much but they have everything for the home.

Most of the frames are from Maison du monde too. We are going to change the sofa and go for a dark grey one.

I’m just so happy we got rid of some ugly furniture and are going to replace them with some nice looking ones.

I want to go fabric shopping now to make some cushions. Different greys and maybe light blues… so that means a tutorial to come soon!

All this would not have been possible without the Queen (obviously!) therefore I would like to thank her for giving us some days off so I could get on with it!

Talking about queen and jubilee, I wanted to show you the Tees I made for my kids jubilee party at school.

I found this really cool website called wee birdy where you could print off some cake toppers with awesome logos and statements. I asked my geek to work his magic and turn the PDF into Word  doc and changed the letters from front to back.

I printed them on T- shirt transfers, ironed them on White T- shirts and they looked fab, without being over the top and too patriotic either (I have to say I’m surprised i participated at all… being French and all, but I want my kids to feel totally integrated and they wanted to do it so I supported them (since I’m such a great mum!)). They are going to another party tomorrow (this seems endless) so they’ll wear them again!

I’ll be back soon with more news about my parents’ quilt and other very interesting sewing relating topics. Toodeloo!

My little one is starting PE  after half term and as I made a messenger bag for my eldest to put his PE kit in, I though it was only fair to make one for his brother. I wanted to make an old fashion Duffel bag as I used to have one when I was little. Don’t you love the 80’s!!

for this project you will need about a meter of fabric, some interfacing, a 14″ zip and  the usual sewing kit:

Start by cutting one rectangle measuring 16″X23″:

Then cut two stripes measuring 4″X26″ and two circles measuring 7″ radius (about)

Iron some interfacing on the big rectangle and the circles:

fold your long strips length way and sew all the way down:

turn them right side out and double hem at both ends:

then top stitch all the way round:

put them aside and grab your rectangle, pin the right side of the zip on the right side of the fabric:

sew all the way, turn the zip and top stitch:

do the same for the other side of zip, it’s a bit trickier but pull the fabric when you sew.

you should end up with something looking like that:

now turn your bag inside out and you need to pin the circles at both end right side of fabric facing:

 sew all the way round :

turn it right side out and it should look like that:

now sew your handles. decide where you want them pin them and hold your bag to see if you’re happy. Then sew them in a crossed box to hold them tight.

I found that I pinned them too close to the zip, and the next one I will be doing I will sew them probably one third from zip.

Et voila! your bag is finished! My son was very happy it!