Ok it is now officially done- now I am going quilting!

So here it is -the final piece of work on the patio.  DH did a lovely job of cladding the bench around the sink.

All ready for a month or more of outdoor eating, until the weather breaks. 

Now I am going to start a new quilt which has got me very excited.  Here are the blocks on my design wall -I am calling it "afternoon tea with mum" and it will have tea cups and butterflies and pretty pinks and blues and violet colours. Hope to spend some quality time on this one this weekend.

Making it happen

 We put the furniture back on the patio, but we are still waiting for the cladding for the bench around the sink. Nevertheless we are very pleased with the transformation!

 The creamy yellow walls make the place a lot brighter.

 The coffee table was stained and sealed and now looks like it belongs with the rest of the furniture.

 The path towards the patio now is nice and smooth and clean. DH borrowed a high pressure cleaner from a mate which was able to clean the limestone steps too.

 We have a theme of kookaburras around our house. The front door has stained glass kookaburras, and now there is a lovely tiled feature on the wall on the patio featuring the same bird.

The pea gravel reminds me of the colours of pindan -the colours of the north west!

 

 I have been reading cook books to get inspiration for some entertaining outside. Still quite a bit of summer to go!

Hopefully the cladding for the bench will come this week, and then we can declare the project finished!

Patio makeover progress

So we are making progress on the patio.

You can see that the walls have been painted and the structure of the bench which surrounds the sink has been constructed.

The floor has been painted.

We have spent a bit more than the $350 we had hoped to spend. A major unforseen expense was getting the pest control company to move the white ant bait stations -a $230 cost we had not anticipated.  The floor paint was a bit more than expected, too.

Nevertheless it is going to look good for some time to come. 

Soon I will be back with an update once the floor has had a second coat and we have returned all the furniture and finished the bench!

Patio makeover the beginning

 We are so lucky in Perth, that we have a long hot summer and short cool winters. This means that we have about 8 months at least when we can enjoy being outside, particularly in a shady outdoor room or patio.

Recently we took a long hard look at our patio out the back, on the southern side of the house and decided it was in desperate need of a makeover. We aren't using it -why? Mainly because it is not very welcoming.

It has some good points -- the roof is gabled, with some Alsonite panels which let light in, so it is quite bright out there. We have some good furniture to sit on.

However, as you can see from these 'before' pictures, there is a lot which could be better.

The eaves have probably never been painted in the 30 years since it was built, and now are stained and yukky.  The outdoor sink we installed is very useful, but ugly without the cupboard surround we always meant to install around it.  The painted concrete floor is worn and tatty.  We have been pondering painting those dark brick walls too.

We have two wooden window frames in the house -both of them face this patio, and both need repainting as the paint is yellowing and flaking.

The yellow pine coffee table is useful but the wrong colour.

 The garden love seat bench is now grubby and the wood needs cleaning and resealing, and there needs to be new cushions made for it.

We have set ourselves a very small budget of $350 which will cover the basics -paint, potting mix, paving paint, and a piece of mini-orb to clad the sink cupboard. One day we would like to install a new surface to the floor -maybe it would be stamped concrete or wooden decking, but that is not a priority at the moment.

The tiny budget means that we need to be very creative and resourceful but we are enjoying the challenge. 

For example, the chairs around the table could do with cushions. I was lucky enough to score these cushion inserts and some fake suede fabric from a neighbour's 'hard rubbish' pile so I have the resources to get started on the furnishings.

 My DH has done a lovely job painting the eaves and they look so much better now.

 This is the entrance to the patio -the hydrangeas are looking nice but you can see how bad the floor is now.

 The wooden window and door frames are now painted and the flyscreen security door has a new wire panel. 

 I have been potting up some plants which I hope will one day make the patio less bare and more lush looking. I have only used plants I already have -lemon grass which is supposed to deter mosquitoes, and should become lush and verdant soon. I have some cannas in a pot which should provide lovely green leaves with purple under-sides.  There is an umbrella plant, a prayer plant and a pelargonium with patterned leaves.

The plants in the white buckets will go in two of these large ceramic pots which also came from neighbour during a previous council clean up.

It will take a while for these plants to grow to the size where they will make the kind of impact I would like on the patio, but I am sure they will get there if I care for them.

We have given ourselves a month to get this makeover done, so I hope to provide some encouraging 'after' photos in a couple of weeks,

Sewing year review 2012

 As 2012 comes to its end, I have been going through my pictures to see what I have achieved this year in my sewing room. These pics are not in any order. It is amazing to see what I have achieved this year, when it all is put together!

I have consistently used what I had, before buying things. Mostly what I bought has been batting and backing  and border fabric. Annabelles' baby quilt did entail some special fabric though.

The first pic  above is of some scrappy cushions which I made to revamp our outdoor bench -used up some nice 'leader/ender' scrappy squares and some op shop sheeting.

 This baby quilt for my  grand daughter (above)  was a very special finish, and it was lovely to take it to her and her lovely mum and dad when she was born in Melbourne.

 A pretty little frock - I hope the first of many I will make for her!

 A scrappy quilt -one which my cat Dora loved all winter.

 The "Give More" quilt banner.

 "Out of the box" came out of its half-finished state and was finished! 

 My darling DH made me some new shelves in the cupboard of my sewing room, and I have re-organised my stash, which is getting smaller as these projects were completed.

 "Pictures at an exhibition" a wedding quilt for my niece in New Zealand -nearly a year ago now! 

 Six Christmas stockings for the new mantle.

A Christmas burlap wreath.

Finally, 'remember this" -I hope you all have a wonderful new year!

Christmas wrap

 The light shines in the darkness...Christmas 2012. 

The stockings I made were a bit skinny for getting presents in, but fortunately there was room under the tree! 

The Christmas table -op shopped table runner made the right length with the addition of some Christmas fabric panels and lining. Op shop table napkins. Op shop coffee cups for the cold gazpacho soup which started the meal. The menu included roast pork with a rhubarb and rosemary jam, potato salad; beetroot and  carrot and orange salad, and a green salad. Followed by some very cute cake pops made to look like reindeer by my daughter in law!

We have had days and days of feasting with family and friends this week. It all started with Christmas lunch at home, made extra special with the presence of our son and daughter in law and baby grand-daughter who had travelled over from Melbourne for the first Christmas with the baby. We have had further parties with extended family on both sides, and with friends who were celebrating the birthdays we have around this time of the year.

All of this under a blaze of heat, as the Perth summer has provided us with a heatwave of temperatures in excess of 35 degrees Celsius for over a week-often it has been over 40 degrees.

Fortunately our house is well protected from the worst excesses -we are able to have indoor temperatures much cooler than outdoors even though we have only passive cooling from shade sails, sun blinds and the like.

We have started our routine of walks at Mullaloo beach every day, early -this is something we love to do at the start of our summer holidays. Then I spend some time at the sewing machine, followed by reading novels and watching DVDs, until it is cool enough to emerge again and get active.

The weather should cool off next week -just a little, so we will be more actively enjoying the time off by going to visit places such as our museum and art gallery.

Hope you have also had a great Christmas!

Christmas Stocking time!

Each year I try to add to my collection of Christmas decorations.  Over the years that has added up to quite a collection, and it now takes many hours to put them all out, in several rooms of the house.

Sensible people may scoff at the effort involved.

I reckon if there is fun to be had, why should we miss out? There are lots of ordinary days in the year, but  I love Christmas!  

I like to make as many of the decorations as I can, and this year, inspired by this great tutorial I found on Pinterest, I made Christmas stockings. 

They were fun and quick to do.

I have one for each of us -my Dear Husband (DH) my Dear Daugher (DD) , my Dear Son (DS) my Dear DL (daughter in law) my dear grand-daughter (DGD) and me of course! 

 I used some music fabric I had and also some lovely naive Christmas images. 

When I was little, we were threatened that if we were naughty, Father Christmas would only put a lump of coal and a carrot in our Christmas stockings! If we were good though, we found a tangerine in the toe and some chocolate money wrapped in gold paper, and some coloured pencils and probably a comic book.

I wonder if Father Christmas will be bringing me something this year?