Are you in Wellington this weekend? Do you love fabric? There's only one place for you to be this Saturday. St Anne's Hall, Emmett Street, Newtown. 9 - 12.30.

Fabric-a-brac is back. 40 stalls of vintage and new fabrics, buttons and trims. Oh the excitement.

And this year, I am selling my wares too. Mainly from my personal collection but I will also have scrap bags of Tea Pea fabrics from past and present.

Boxes and boxes of every colour, texture and weight of fabric. Loads of small pieces I'll be selling for $1 or $2. Yes, I have had a clean out and it's not allowed back in the house. It all must sell. Beautiful fabrics that I have been collecting for years but now, with the growth of our business, I have been forced to downsize the collection. And instead of feeling sad to say goodbye, it's a pleasure to know the fabric is going to good homes and will be used. For now, I just don't have the time to sew for myself and it has been sitting, waiting, in our workroom for years.

So there's a small snippet of what I am bringing on Saturday. There will also be longer lengths of fabric, twine and bias for sale. And maybe buttons if I can bare to part with some of the mountains I have here.

Hope to see you there.

Megx

I've been meaning to invite you in to our home for a while now. 

This is our third family home. The first, a 'straight off the front of a chocolate box' 1910 bungalow, was on the market three months after Griffin arrived. Buggy in the hallway, toys all through the small living room - we exploded out of it!

After spending weekends renovating the bungalow, we sort out a new home we could move into and reclaim our weekends especially now we had a baby to play with. Twice the size and with views over all of Wellington we sat back and enjoyed!

 But it wasn't long until we were looking around for a project. Tea Pea was thought of, and another baby on the scene but that wasn't enough. Time for a house to do up.

It took a year to find it. My brief, a 1950's house in original state on a large section in one of six chosen streets in Khandallah, was not an easy one to fulfil. But with the help of enthusiastic real estate agents, we found it. And it was perfect.

It was designed by George Porter in 1955 for him and his family, and it is his wife we bought it from, making us the first buyers of this 58 year old house.

I'm going to do a before and after in the next month or so. The original photos are a delight! But in the meantime here's a few pics of our renovations to date. This is a tart up, and we've not finished yet. Furniture in at the upholsterers as I write. We have plans, big plans, hopefully carried out in ten years or so but we are happy and loving what we have for now.

Welcome, come in. Coffee?

Our old phone. Otto, one of our cute pooches, howls at it's high pitch when it rings. The phone and peonies are sitting on a built-in radiogram.

This corner is waiting for another chair, in being recovered. Do you like the yellow pouffe?

A few of my 1950's Housekeeping magazines. 

The stairs, graduated magenta. And fancy art on the wall.

A wall in our guest room.

And here's a couple of pics in the workroom. I recovered those folding picnic chairs a while back. They are leaning against my pink chalkboard wall.

And out by the wood stack, the old scooter waiting to be turned into art in Griffin's room.

xMeg

We've got them. A perfect solution for new parents. Let them choose, from our well stocked shop, something they need or love.

Do you have a crafty friend? They will have fun shopping for twine, fabric and ribbon.

Out of town friends and family, and those tricky to buy for ones.... send them a gift voucher.

Our Gift Vouchers are emailed straight to the recipient, with a personal note from you. Easy.

Last weekend Scott, the kids, and I spent an action packed couple of day in Christchurch. Glorious weather, fabulous food and special outings were on the itinerary. Thanks to the fabulous suggestions from our Facebook fans we arrived armed with plenty of local knowledge. Friends lent us a car and we off! Well, off in circles for part of it - goggle maps hasn't updated the closed streets - so we got to know the centre of town quite well trying to get to where we were going! All part of the fun.

It was great to see building happening and although there is a tired feeling from residents I felt a wonderful pride in their strength and unity to rebuild and stand by Christchurch. It's a beautiful city. I am always impressed by the cafes, the shopping, the parks and the people. Even the weekend just been, with so much of the city as vacant land and displaced businesses.

We visited visited several parks, including the markets and Riccarton Bush, tragically, without bread.

And boy does does Christchurch have great vintage shops. Will be bringing an extra suitcase next time... Here's a small corner of Mr Mod.

On the way to the airport on Sunday we spent time at the Air Force Museum. 

Thank you Christchurch! We had a ball.

Megx

One of my many talented friends recently posted photos, on Facebook, of her latest project. A playhouse for her children. I thought I'd share these images as inspiration for those wanting to decorate a shed, hut or corner of a room as a play area.

With eleven colours to choose from now, we thought it was a great excuse for a giveaway. Buy two or more 219 metre spools and we'll also send 5 metres of each of the other colours.

 Offer ends this Saturday, the 31st of March.

Meg x

I love chairs. Ask my husband. He doesn't share this love, last year asking 'why do we have 84 chairs in this house??!'. So I said goodbye to a few. Husband happy. What he didn't realise - it was only to make room for a few more.

Children's vintage chairs are a particular interest. I have numerous NZ school chairs through the decades, Coolie chairs....

I was thinking my children's collection was complete when I spied these.

Rescued from a schoolhouse in Lille, France the chairs date back to the 1950's. Oodles of history before they even arrive at your door. Then it's your turn to add to the history - these are chairs to be passed down through generations.

 Available in Blue, Yellow and Green.

Meg x

OK, that's not entirely true, on two counts. I have made other patchworks but always for others (and nothing too big, or fancy), and secondly, well, it's not finished yet.

But hey I'm going to show you anyway. And making it public is a good incentive to get it finished. And this is big. Up until now it's been all about cot sizes.

 Yes, it's pink. I didn't set out for it to be quite so pink but that's the nature of patchwork, at least my patchwork. 

I have the most beautiful memories of my mother, who would have been about 25 at the time, making two matching patchworks. The fabric was left over from the clothes she made both of us so they have a gorgeous nostalgic pull for me. Not just because they were my bed covers as I grew up but also the memory of the sweet 70's frocks I wore.

I'm pretty sure we owned a sewing machine but for some reason the quilts are made by hand. I'm not sure what the system is called but Mum tacked the cut fabric onto card templates and then hand stitched the squares together before removing the card.

While visiting Mum a few years ago I noticed they were being used in a way less than ideal. One as a painting drop cloth, and the other I found in the dog basket, happy sleeping pooch on top. 

Successful rescue operation. Both are safe and sound in our house.

 They make great picnic blankets.

So my patchwork. It's now at the quilting, backing, binding stage, hand it to the experts stage...

Here it is half completed.

 xMeg

And so we ate. We lit the fire, we watched movies, and we ate. Oh, and a little sewing but I'll tell you about that later.

Scott and I were given Al Brown's new recipe book, Stoked, for Christmas. It's great. And although it's mostly meat and savory recipes it also has a good baking section. I made these chocolate chippie biscuits from it, with 1 and a 1/4 cups of butter - they taste great!

The gingerbread is a recipe I have been making for years. I noticed there's one is the Stoked book, but you know when you've been making a recipe for so long, it's difficult to change.

But the eating didn't stop there. Here's Sunday morning coffee.

 And then there were the cupcakes....

I did walk the dogs too. 

Meg x

We thought we'd show you a custom order we made a few weeks ago. Special cutters and interesting storybooks were selected and little piles of hearts were all through the workroom. There's that special feeling that accompanies anything to do with weddings isn't there. We were thrilled to play a part - ok a very minor part - of such an important day for the couple and their friends.

A fabulous idea surrounded the garlands. While the bridal party were having their photos taken, a polaroid was taken of all the guests back at the venue. By the time the bride and groom arrived, the pics were displayed on the garlands. Isn't that a sweet keepsake for them.