Pretty Everyday Items or Gifts for the Nest

I made some "house warming" presents for ourselves when we were in the process of buying this house. I needed to have these items anyway, as the old plastic bag tube was worn out and the arrangement for my clothes pegs wasn't suitable for this house.

I love old textiles and linen tea towels are no exception. This was a tea towel, which already had a hole in it, but there was enough good fabric to make a bag for my pegs. I made the strap and the channel for closing strings of a fabric from my stash, in this case shirting from Elf Husband's old shirt.

 

I left the original embroidered initials on the bag, of course.

 

The plastic bag tube was made from IKEA fabric left over from another project. I gave our kitchen door key a "ticking" string to match the other items. I like my everyday objects being pretty and homemade, bringing me joy while doing my mundane housekeeping chores.
 Have you given yourself gifts lately?

New Crafting Space

Tadaaah! Isn't it LOVELY, loverly, LoverlY (cue Eliza Doolittle)??? I like it SO much and my heart slightly skips every time I see it.

Soooo....we have moved in, hence the long silence. The last two weeks before the move were manic, trying to get the new home ready(ish) and pack up all our stuff. In the end I was exhausted. I also managed to hurt my knee, possibly quite badly during the summer. That might need a doctor to have a look at. It was quite horribly achy during the last push and I was sedating it heavily with painkillers. Not a course of action I would recommend for anyone.

There is presently only one box left to unpack and that is matter of getting shelves up over Elf Husband's work station. I have primed the shelves and the brackets today, so I assume, that they will be ready to put up latest in the beginning of the next week. We try to avoid drilling and making racket in the weekends to be nice to our neighbours.

We are still lacking a shed, so tools and such are piled in a mountain under the stairs, not in the most stylish arrangement.

Our chosen route was to get the living room and the bedrooms ready, so we had place to work, sleep and relax in. The jobs were also relatively cheap, mainly sorting the walls and the floors.

You will get a bit by bit report in coming months and years...

I have managed to use my new work space already. While I was setting up I sorted the magazine holders by gluing some of my polka dot paper on the ends and then labelling them. These holders are rescue ones and had some old labels glued with an industrial strength glue. Even when the labels came off, the glue still left marks behind. I think it had melted the plastic. This course of action meant that I didn't have to remove the labels at all.

I wanted to make a new picture to hang with Mandy Pattullo's bird. Before I had my embroidered Mama Elf's hut, but wanted a change now. I went for a deer and used a little table runner. It was a factory made one from a charity shop, but very soft and hence not so easy to work with. I don't often use the hoops while I embroider, just prefer to hold the fabric in my hands.

Elf Husband named the deer Rudolph the Rednose and of course I cannot get that out of my head! I made a mistake by not photographing it before putting it in the frame, so there is the glare from the glass  (and me taking the picture, ehm).  Hope the picture gives you some idea though.

I love my new work space. There is really great floor space to do cutting in and all my fabrics and many other bulkier items are held in the walk-in wardrobe. (Which holds only few items of clothing and lots of other unsightly stuff.) I will show you the whole room when we get the shelves up and when the light is better for picture taking. I had lots more today, but light was too rubbish to publish them.

Hopefully I have time enough now to come more often to report on my progress!