A vintage treasure

I walked out to the letterbox the other day to check the mail.....

When I opened it I discovered a little box.
I wasn't expecting any parcels.

I've been trying to stick to my new budget, so I was racking my brain, trying to figure out whether I'd been online shopping and just forgotten!

But then I turned the little box over, and discovered to my great suprise and joy, that it was a secret gift from Silly Gilly

It's a buttonhole foot for my Singer 201K that I discovered on the side of the road.

I'll have to try to give it a road test on the weekend.

Thanks Silly Gilly!

Some well deserved thankyous

I've been a little bit slack lately with showing and telling about all of the lovely things that arrived in the mail lately.

I'm still in that 'grey fuzzy not quite homely' state - which when translated, means that I keep moving furniture around because I haven't worked out the perfect home for every piece just yet.

To facilitate the constant moving of furniture, I completely stopped unpacking boxes (figuring that the less I put away, the less heavy the abovementioned pieces of furniture will be when I move them).

Yesterday, I actually managed to take some photos to play show and tell.

To begin - the lovely Miriam from BubbaChenille sent me some gorgeous teatowels. They've been washed and ironed and ready to be transformed. This is just one of them.

I won a giveaway over on Kat's Creations last week. I have a bit of a beret obsession, and now that it's coming up to colder months, this will be absolutely perfect! Thanks Kat. It's more grey in real life but I don't have the good camera at the moment so everything is being washed out by the flash.

I received some more lovely tea towels in the mail from Jodie at Ric Rac with some sweet little selvedge key rings and a gorgeous card.

I have made myself a new little spot in the craft space for the selvedge collection just for Jodie!

Now onto some craft shopping - I couldn't resist this gorgeous bag from Cass at Snailblazer.

I have two boxes of handbags that are yet to be unpacked but I just had to have this one too!

I'm trying to stick with handmade for birthday pressies this year so I picked up these cute little ribbon streamers from Silly Gilly. These are for a friends daughter who will be turning three in May. I actually want to put them on and run around the garden myself (you'll be happy to know that I resisted the urge).

Eye Spy..... a discovery

Eye Spy is a little bit late this week, but I have an extremely good reason. I was busy discovering a new toy on the side of the road.

It's hard rubbish collection time once again in outer suburbia and I had absolutely no intentions of going anywhere to look for anything yesterday..... but then my sister came over to help me unload my car.

On the way to my house, she happened to spy a perfectly good portacot on the side of the road. I have a portacot already, but now I need another one for my house, so that the twins can be separated when they come to visit and it's time for a little baby nap.

Anyway, she wanted me to drive the car so that she could jump out and inconspicously pick it up in broad daylight. That trip took less than 5 minutes, so with the portacot in the car, we decided to scout around some of my local streets.

About three blocks from my house, out of the corner of my eye, I spyed a wooden box on the side of the road amongst a pile of rubbish. I immediately said to my sister that I thought that it might just be an old sewing machine. I reversed back, and she jumped out and picked it up and shoved it in the back of the car.

We arrived back home and opened up the case and found a 1950's Singer 201K sewing machine.

Thanks to Silly Gilly providing me with some links, I've been able to determine from the series register number (EJ653360) that it is definitely is a 201K. There were 30000 allotted from May 11, 1954, and it was manufactured in Clydebank, Scotland.

It still had the the sewing cotton and the bobbin threaded in the machine, so I plugged it in and switched it on and it sews like a dream!

There is a little opening on the right hand side of the case which opens up, and inside was the original instructions for the machine (sadly soaked in sewing machine oil which had spilled).....

It also contained all of these different feet and bobbins and even spare needles.

I can't believe that someone had actually put this out for the hard rubbish collection. Thank goodness I rescued it. I've found a copy of the original sewing instructions online so that I can have a proper play with it sometime during the week.

Thankyou so much to Megan for choosing this weeks theme... maybe that was the reason that I made the discovery before the garbage collectors. Head on over to visit Cindy to play along!

Come One, Come All

Head on over and check out the Silly Gilly auctions right here on Ebay.

All proceeds go to the Red Cross Bushfire Appeal as part of Handmade Help.

My apron is right here!

Love Fridays..... Love Silly Gilly & Craft Markets

Today I'm Loving Friday because today (or maybe tonight) is the day that Silly Gilly is starting her Ebay auctions as a part of Handmade Help. Silly Gilly sent me some more amazing tea towels last week too, but I haven't had a chance to photograph them yet.... thankyou Silly Gilly!

There have been lots of amazingly wonderful crafty things donated for the auctions, including one of my Tea Towel Aprons - you can see a photo here: I've used a vintage pre-loved 'Victoria's Great Ocean Road' tea towel with some vintage floral sheeting for this one.

I'll be launching the Tea Towel Aprons and a new Handbag Design at the Made'n'Thornbury Market at the end of the month.

There'll be lots of other crafty ladies selling their wares as well:

Tinniegirl

Buttons by Lou Lou

Finki

Troischats

just to name a few

.....and there'll be coffee and baked goods and a kiddies craft table too!

Check out the home of Love Fridays...

Love Fridays.....Silly Gilly's Sweet Surprise

It's easy to Love Friday today!

I arrived home from my pulmonary rehab class to find a mystery package in my letterbox with no sender details on the envelope.... hmmm what could it be?

A gorgeous vintage tea towel from the oppy!

Gillian went on a road trip from SA to Ballarat last week for the Trashalou blog meet. Lucky for me, she stopped in at the op shops on the way. Thanks so much Gillian, this one will be absolutely gorgeous as an apron.

If you haven't already entered, then don't forget to head over to the Silly Gilly blog and enter this fantastic mystery giveaway to celebrate Gillians 101th (yep 101th - that's not a typo) post.

....and of course, head over to Tinniegirl to join Love Fridays!

Love Fridays & Blogtoberfest Finale

Well it's the end of the working week and the end of Blogtoberfest..........

I've finished Nico's brithday present. I made an appliqued t-shirt using the fabulous cowboy fabric from Stacey, and a pair of jeans (recycled from an old pair of Mr CP's jeans).


The cowboy t-shirt also matches the cords that I whipped up earlier in the week. Both the cords and the jeans were made using the pattern that I won from Silly Gilly. Can you tell that I love that pattern much?


I'm actually a bit sad that Blogtoberfest has to end....it's been so much fun! I've been introduced to so many new blogs (which hasn't helped my procrastination problems) but has definitely kept me entertained for hours on end. I could tell exactly how much time I'd been using and how many blogs I'd been reading when my internet virtually slowed to a halt with about 7 days until the end of month...aaaagggghhh! Surely 5 Gb per month is enough for a blogger? Anyhow, I'm hoping it will reset very early tomorrow morning.



Fantastic Blogtoberfest Fact:

There have been 49 giveaways listed on my sidebar. At least 4 giveaways were newly listed today so make sure you head on over and visit them all to enter.


Thankyou so much to Big Cat for hosting such a wonderful event....she's an ideas woman you know... you just wouldn't believe how many fantastic ideas she still has to come!
Thankyou to everyone who played along this month. Thankyou to everyone who hosted a giveaway. Thankyou to everyone who left a comment. I hope everyone had the chance to make some new bloggy friends.


.....and now on to a very good reason to Love Friday today.

On the 31st January 2009, I will be heading down to Lancefield for a lovely crafty day at Sewjourn. I've been hoping and wishing for this one all week long..... and I even checked the Sewjourn blog about 5 times today to see whether the winners had been drawn (am I pathetic?).

Lo and behold, I checked after dinner and found that I was one of the winners...yippee!

Sometimes, even though some really crappy things have happened lately, I really am the luckiest blog girl in the world.

Hope everyone has a lovely long (in Melbourne) weekend.....

Time to go shopping (under the cover of darkness)

If you didn't read Pottymouthmama's lovely tales of dump diving last week then you really should head on over and check out the motherload.....part 1, part 2 and part 3.

Then you'll understand why it's so exciting when the local council drops these little flyers into the letterbox....although we don't have much shopping time during this collection - less than a weeks notice! It means that people will put their unwanted stuff on the naturestrip this weekend, so it will have to be a very quick covert Sunday night mission....hmmm need to go and find my night vision goggles....

There are some very exciting giveaways happening too:

Silly Gilly has a fantastic vintage pattern giveaway happening (I won the 1974 pants pattern in her last giveaway and have made about ten pairs of cool 1970's pants since), and Hoppo Bumpo is celebrating her 100th post by giving away some beautiful vintage buttons and japanese fabric.

Silly Gilly Winner & The Great Pants Challenge

I know I promised that I wouldn't enter any more giveaways, but I just couldn't resist entering the giveaway on Gillians Silly Gilly blog for this vintage pants pattern from 1974 (the year I was born).....

......and I won again!!! Thanks so much Gillian, the pattern is so cool! I've been so lucky since I began blogging in January....it's hard to believe that it was only six months ago.


I've never ever tried to make any type of clothing before so I'm issuing myself with 'The Great Pants Challenge' (and publishing it here to make me do it). The challenge is that I must attempt to make a pair of pants using this pattern within the next 7 days. I will report back with my triumph or tragedy by next Tuesday....... as a little extra, I'm adding a little webpoll on my sidebar for 'The Great Pants Challenge'......click either 'Triumph' or 'Tragedy' to vote....... do you think I can do it?

Edit: My Web Poll wasn't working properly so I'm testing out a new Web Poll widget instead!