Zakka start to the year

I felt I needed something to start the school year with. I love the japanese idea of Zakka, making something extraordinary out of something quite ordinary ...

I am all excited over this computer keyboard material I got through a few weeks back ... I am IT teacher after all!

So, a good opportunity to play around with my covered diary pattern again and make some more improvements to my product.

I decided to wrap around the keyboard fabric around the front of the diary.

The back of the diary has a flap that can be used as a divider or you can tuck it into the back band for a more "traditional" cover. Surprise lining inside, circuitry!

I also put some elastic on the cover to close the diary up!

I also had a strip of black canvas left over, so I thought I would try my hand at a quick bag to carry all my important book writing stuff in.

Straining a bit because there is lots of important stuff in it!

Mothers Day wrapup

We had a lovely Mothers Day at the Collingwood Children's Farm.

We met for lunch and then had a leisurely afternoon strolling around the farm with Tori discovering a whole lot of new things, including feeding the goats.

For the first time Tori also said "Nanna", so that made the day extra special! The one characteristic that I have inherited from my Mum is the ability to try anything once.

Whilst my Mum doesn't see herself as a crafty Mum, I can clearly remember when I was young her making dancing costumes, fancy dress costumes and easter hats for us. Perhaps she has lost her crafty way ...

For Mother's Day I embarked on a marathon sew-a-thon and I made Mum a patchwork scarf with some of my Kokka Ouka Japanese Linen blend fabric with a faux fur backing to it.

I made my Mother in Law a fabric basket to keep her crochet and crafts in from linen and a Moda Fabric. The idea for the fabric basket is from the Zakka book that my hubby got me.

Zakkalicious

My husband knows me so well (or perhaps he reads my blog!) ... he got me these glorious books for our wedding anniversary.


But the story goes that he had ordered them for my Birthday when the V&A book was "running late" as a substitute, and then they didn't arrive ... we tend not to do anniversary gifts, rather we go out for some fine dining at one of the glorious restaurants in Melbourne that we love.

Zakka Sewing (english instructions) and Handmade Zakka (japanese instructions)

I think that my first project from the book will be a linen peg basket using the lingerie fabric I got the other day from Patchwork on Central Park as a lining and a nice red on the outside with some embroidery. Not sure what I am embroidering yet, it might just be something simple like "pegs" or something like that.

I know I won't be attempting the bunny pencil cases, although the same idea could be applied to some dragon pencil cases or some fishy pencil cases .. Bunnies are just a bit too freaky for me!


I love these place mats and the embroidery on them, definitely on my "not important but nice" to do list! I'll need to see where I can get some reasonably priced linen from.


Ahh, there is never enough time in the day to do all that I want to do