VINTAGE CURTAINS

Some days ago, I was rummaging through some drawers and came across my old curtains, pictured above, from my childhood room in the early eighties. A good reminder about the fact that I wasn't exactly born yesterday, as they had a very vintage feel to them. How about you Dear Readers; can you still remember your childhood curtains?

Anyway, as we are planning to go camping this summer, I decided to turn some of the fabric into a little sleeping bag for my daughter, pictured here above. Originally, on my wish list was a rabbit print sleeping bag from a British brand called Anorak, but this is a more affordable option. And as it has rabbits on it, which my daughter loves, all the better.

Talking about vintage curtains, I recently found this lovely pair above from a vintage shop in Hebden Bridge, a charming little market town here in West Yorkshire. They were manufactured in the sixties by a company called Duro. I am usually devoted to Marimekko curtains, as I use to work for the company quite a few years, but as these vintage curtains are so pretty, they ended up in the window of my daughter's bedroom. I wonder if she will remember them 30 years from now ...

BABY RATTLES

I just realised that I might have been admiring the subject to my previous post, the Daisy and Ulla plates, a bit too much. Take a look at these baby rattles I have made, flowers with smiley faces, just like the plates. Only now do I notice that I must have been influenced by the plates subconsciously when I started sewing these rattles.

Good friends of ours are having a baby and that made me start thinking about all the nice things you can make yourself as a gift. I made one of these rattles and just couldn't stop. Now I have quite a few of them. I love doing cross stitch. To me it feels like drawing, just a needle as your pen and a thread as your ink. These rattles have a face made with cross stitch and petals that need just a little piece of fabric with a nice pattern, something I have plenty in my cupboards. A good way, moreover, to use those little scratches of fabric that one ends up having from other sewing works and can't really bear to throw away. The handle is a wooden ring covered with solid coloured fabric and finished with an edge string. Inside it has a padding with a little pouch of gently playing jingles.

In a short while I shall be opening my own little shop at Etsy. Since I have more than enough of rattles now, I will have some on sale there as well.