Ikea fabric love - no 3.

Just when I think I have an all-time favourite Ikea fabric another one comes along... I've made only bags out of this so far, but I'm thinking it would also make a great a great A-line skirt, a cuff (of course!) and maybe a cushion cover.

(below & above) A sort of overnight sized bag. Made to take my stuff to hospital when I went into labour with bub. Simple shoulder strap design with zip closure, lined in green cotton.



(below) The first baby bag I made. Lined with dark grey heavy cotton, and using recycled clips, buckle & zips. The fabric started to fade quite quickly with all that strong Australian sunlight from many hours spent in the park, so it's now on restricted use! (it's my favourite)





And a little zip purse lined with red light weight cotton and adorned with a ringed zip and little grosgrain tag.




The fabric
Heavy weight 100% cotton. It's another one from the "Gunilla" collection. The black background with bright flowers is so attractive to me... then add a bird or two and it's just perfect :-)

Ikea fabric love - no 2.

Carrying on from the last Ikea fabric love post, here's another of my favourite prints, and another chair, this time the grown-up version. I loved covering this chair just as much as the other, and as I'm not as precious about this fabric I'll be happy to recover it in a different print when I get sick of this one. I think the whole chair only cost me about $30 in fabric, so a pretty small investment. It's quite a feature in the lounge room, and I must admit that when I'd finished it I wasn't sure if I liked it or not "is it funky or Nanna?" - not that Nanna's can't be funky!! It was 1am when I finished it afterall, maybe that had something to do with it. But I settled on funky, particularly after a couple of friends whose style I admire said they loved it (just call me a sheep).



Now this odd horse shoe-looking thing above you may know is a breast feeding pillow. I made it when pregnant with no. 3 from a pattern from the fabulous Lotta Jansdotter book Simple sewing for baby. With the first 2 babies I'd used a pillow or nothing and got sore shoulders with those numerous feeds that newborns demand. It was also intended to be used as a baby sitter type thing where it would support the baby and toys could be hooked into the ribbon tags I'd sewed into the outer edges. But alas my boy is not the sit there and ponder type and was off crawling soon after he sat up.

I also made an Amy Butler sun hat, which turned out OK but went a bit too floppy in the brim... more interfacing needed.



The fabric
Heavy weight 100% cotton. I think it was from the "Gunilla" collection. That's one thing about the Ikea fabrics, if you see something you like, buy some of it, as they change the range quite often. What I love about this print is the beautiful organic shapes. I don't know if they're based on real plants or not, but the shapes and colours are gorgeous and I never get tired of it.

Ikea fabric love - no 1.

I unashamedly love Ikea fabrics. Recently I read a post where a crafter noted that there seems to be a stigma about using Ikea fabrics. I think she's right but it's also crazy - in my opinion they are fantastic; they are generally made from cotton, the weight of many is heavy enough for projects around the home, it's very affordable and most importantly, there are some beautiful designs. So I thought I'd show you some of my favourites around our house.



The chair above was given to us (with another, both covered in white cotton), by our lovely next door neighbours when I was heavily pregnant with no. 3. As anyone who's spent time with a pregnant woman knows, she's generally a powerhouse of ideas and activity ("nesting"?), though physically it's hard as she's meant to be resting! Needless to say, I HAD to recover the 2 chairs at 39 weeks pregnant, and stayed up until about 1am two nights running to get it done. Hey, I wasn't going to be getting much sleep soon anyway! And here's one of the recovered chairs (show you the other later).

The fabric
Heavy weight cotton Dala Horse pattern. I bought a few meters of this fantastic fabric about 8 years ago just because I loved it (you know that feeling), certain that the right project would one day arise.



When my first baby arrived and I started to decorate her room I pulled it out of the stash and considered:
• curtains (no, fabric would spend most of it's time pushed to the side of the window, unable to be seen),
• cushions (no, not enough of the full illustrations would be seen)
• doona cover (no, fabric too heavy duty).



Then the chairs came along and bingo! I knew this was the project! I had to hold myself back long enough to A. buy upholstery tacks B. buy Scotchguard so that my hard work wouldn't be dirtied in 5 minutes and C. take a breath and think about how I would approach it. It ended up being incredibly easy and very satisfying, and most importantly I LOVE it.

I really strongly feel that it's good for us to live with things that we love looking at. Good for the soul!

* stripey curtain fabric in background also Ikea :-)