Category Archives: Our Flat

Posts about where we live – our current home and the two before that. Proper house tour coming soon!

decor tweaks DIY Our Flat

Lace window treatment with cornflour

April 18, 2013 – 7:06 pm

Lace cornstarch window treatment10Oh my goodness, this was the quickest, easiest, cheapest project ever but I’m 100 per cent in love with the results. You know those little upgrades that just make your life both better and prettier? This is one of those for our bedroom.

So, privacy. This bedroom has delectable shutters, which I adore, but it makes window treatments kind of hard. You either have to hang curtains in front of the whole alcove (we can tell by the holes in the trim that this is what our predecessors did) or not at all. For the last year and a bit, we’ve opted for the latter option, except for the tension rod light blocking curtain above the shutters.

Lace cornstarch window treatment05

The shutters are great at blocking all natural light, which is great for lie-ins. But, this room gets crazy beautiful morning light and it always seemed a shame to be getting dressed in artificial light just for privacy.

Anyway, the other day I was browsing the Manhatten Nest blog (looking for something else entirely), when I stumbled on this post of yore about using liquid starch and fabric for privacy in glass windows. Boom!

Obviously, my mind went straight to lace (because my mind always goes straight to lace) and I thought ooh, I gots to try that out one day!

Serendipitously, we headed to Ikea earlier in the week to scope out tea-light lanterns for the wedding. Even more serendipitously, Ikea has JUST started selling lovely scallop edge lace fabric for a mere £1.50 per metre. Boom boom.

Lace cornstarch window treatment08

Anyway, I got home from work one day and mixed up the starch jelly. I ended up mixing 2 tablespoons cornflour (that’s cornstarch across the pond) with about an equal amount of cold water, then mixing that in about a cup and a half of boiling water from the kettle. I mixed it in a lunch box and the resulting jelly is both spooky and somewhat non-newtonian.

(Random interlude – my first lady boss once told me that some men – ie. our coworker at the time – are like custard powder mix – the more you stir them the more they resist, so keep a light touch. It’s been remarkably useful advice and obviously applies to lots of women too!)

Unlike Daniel, I didn’t soak my fabric in the mix. It just felt like a messy and icky idea so instead I painted a thick layer of gloop on to the window pane.

Lace cornstarch window treatment01

Then I cut out a rectangle of lace using a template I’d made earlier. I didn’t iron it first but the one piece I had where there was a crease was the hardest to apply so do iron your fabric if it’s creased at all.

Lace cornstarch window treatment04

Then I applied another thick layer on top, being sure to get it right into all the corners. I tried working top to bottom, centre to corners and a few different ways, but there wasn’t a noticeable difference in ease or result. I did notice that there were sometimes brush marks if I did it too regimented so I ended up going for random patterns of brush strokes.

Lace cornstarch window treatment02

The best thing about using lace (with holes in) is that there are automatically not air pockets so you don’t have to both squeegeeing them out, which is good because I’m really bad at that sort of thing. The other good thing about lace is it’s very forgiving. On one pane, I ended up with a gap in one place, I just cut a small strip and starch-glued it over the top. I can’t even tell where it was now!

Lace cornstarch window treatment03

Et voilà! Done. This took less than an hour from start to finish.

Lace cornstarch window treatment13

Except I’m going to go back and add a row of scallops in the panes just above it. But I figured if I waited to post about it until I’d done that then I’d probably never post about it.

Lace cornstarch window treatment12

The best thing about this is that to remove it, you just wash it off with warm water, so it’s perfect for renters. My other favourite thing, that doesn’t really show up in pictures, is that it keep the texture of the lace, so it doesn’t look like fake lace contact paper.

Lace cornstarch window treatment07

I noticed Dan got a lot of comments wondering if this could be done in a hot, humid room like a shower. To that, I’d say it wouldn’t work somewhere that gets directly wet. As for humidity, it probably depends just how humid, but this is so cheap (£1.50 of fabric, probably less than a penny worth of cornflour) and easy to install and uninstall that you should just give it a go and let the internet know how it works out!

I would say it’s probably not great for a window that would get dirty a lot (like above a sink) because you probably can’t wipe it down. If this window gets dingy, I’d probably remove all the sheets and run them through the machine in a lingerie bag. It’s that easy to apply.

Hopefully I’ll get the scallops up soon and will post back about those!

PS. To see the stunning view this is blocking, click here.

PPS. A few more pictures

Lace cornstarch window treatment14

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Our Flat

The bedroom

April 11, 2013 – 2:41 pm

bedroom 1

When you walk into our flat, the doorway to our bedroom is the view that greets you on the right. It’s also what you see from the sofa if you turn your head to the right down the hall.

Our bedroom is teeny. Our bed has to be pushed up against the wall. There’s a tiny cupboard (seems to me like an average American hall linen cupboard) and no room for a wardrobe. But, it’s filled with light and has a huge lovely window.

bedroom 7

That green curtain at the top is green ikea fabric plus a closet rod.
Mr V had to risk his life to put it up (it’s a 11 foot high and he got
it up by climbing the window frame), but it’s worth it to not get
woken up by the light as soon as it’s up.

I’ve decided it’s time to love it exactly as it is. We’re nearly-newlyweds, living in a teeny flat is par for the course! My future-mother-in-law was telling me that their newlywed flat had huge gaps between the floorboards that let in freezing cold air and they’d get ice on the inside of the windows. It’s okay! We’re still just starting out our lives together.

The whole flat looks nicer with the bedroom door open (because then light is coming in from both directions), so our bedroom is a lot more “public” than it would be in some other flats. This makes me pleased that we’ve been able to sort out the hot mess that the bedroom used to be.

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Before > After (I’d hope that was obvious!)

Ah, that’s better! I’ve written before about adding the rast dresser, but the garnityr hanging clothes cover has really helped hide even more clothing clutter from view.

bedroom 9

But the real reason I wanted it was that our clothes were getting crazy dusty. I don’t know if it’s the high ceilings or the fact we’re living in the city centre (beside a pretty busy road) but this flat has more dust than anywhere I’ve ever lived. You can dust, turn your back and it’s covered in thick dust again.

bedroom 3Drats, everything moved slightly in a recent shuffle and I forgot to recentre this poster!

bedroom 8

That bluey thing you can see down the side is an Ikea hanging storage thing that I can’t find on their website,  where I keep my tights, belts and slips. Mr V’s work shirts don’t get dust protection because they get worn and washed weekly, which is just enough to keep them clean out in the open!nook

 

Oh weird nook, you are weird. I would love to make a feature of you but I need you for storing underwear, art we don’t have room for anywhere else, Mr V’s grandma’s handbag, a knitted rat muskateer and the homemade chewbacca I sewed for Mr V. Those hooks I added under the overhang are handy for worn-but-not-dirty clothes and the lint roller. I painted that mini chest of drawers in those two colours as swatches for something else, but ended up liking the way it looked just like that!

bedroom 6

Favourite map and curtain bought for €1 a few years ago are both from French brocantes (long before we moved to this flat). Globe lamp shade from a local toy shop! Badly made bed courtesy of the fact it’s up against a wall and our duvet has lost all its poofiness.

bedroom 5

See? No poof. Sad duvet. This picture also shows our incredibly handy tall and narrow tables (one is tucked under the other). I bought both of these for £4 when we were first moving in together and they’ve been endlessly useful as we live in these tiny flats. I may give them a lick of paint one day (the tops are all kinds of cruddy) but they do an okay job of hiding their flaws (and I like that they’re already ruined so it doesn’t matter if I spill water or coffee on them). bedside tbaleIkea lamp, bunny night light (the best for late night toilet trips), five year diary, pens, Anthopologie catch-all bowl. This picture illustrates how tight a fit our bed is in this room! Also, check out that lovely molding. I still need to show you the original (1745!) molding in the front room, it is ridonkulous (about three times the size of this!).

And that brings us to the end of this little room tour. I hope you liked it. The room is too small and has been too cold all winter, but I do love it. The light is incredible and those silly-high ceilings keeps it from feeling pokey or claustrophobic. Plus, we’re only young. There’s plenty of time for bigger bedrooms!

For now we love where we live enough to deal with the compromises. (Enormous living room means all the other rooms are tiny. Location makes us so, so happy. The rent is really, really affordable.) I’ve been idly looking for our next place (one where we could get a dog) and none of them have anywhere near as good a balance of size, location and cost that our flat has, despite the many downsides of this place.

I guess it’s like anything else, it doesn’t have to perfect to be perfect for you in the here and now.

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Two new lamps! (affiliated)

February 8, 2013 – 9:33 am

It feels like ages since I’ve updated you on anything to do with the home. This is partially because things are changing a lot less around here – we’ve been in this flat for nearly a year now and most things just work as they are. There’s only so many changes you can make in a one bedroom rented flat!

But, there were two things that weren’t working. One – I’ve got really into embroidery lately and I didn’t really have anywhere to do it after dark! Our massive sitting room is lit by one rubbish fixture in the ceiling. It has four bulbs, but one is out and we’d need to move the massive sofa and borrow a massive step-ladder in order to change it. So that’s not happening anytime soon, which meant things were pretty dingy. (These are the sort of “problems” we’ll take if it means we get to live in a house built in 1745 ith 11-foot high ceilings!)

It wasn’t really a problem – we have massive windows that keep things nice and bright during the day and we have lots of lamps that we use to make the living room all kinds of cosy for evening time, but the only spot light was over on the table, and I felt a bit silly embroidering over there behind the sofa, not to mention it wasn’t all that comfortable.

The other issue was a silly one. Our bed has to be pushed up against one wall of our bedroom. Mr V heroically agreed to take the wall side, but at some point in the last year it got really annoying that that side of the bed doesn’t have a lamp. I’ve had my eye out for a pretty lamp that could clip onto the bed frame so that he could read in bed without sharing my pillow or turning on the (predictably horrid!) overhead lights.

So I was thrilled when Argos offered to send me two lamps from their Habitat collection to review. For my American readers, Argos is a UK-based furniture and homewares shop, that also produce a massive catalogue that we pored over as children to pick toys we wanted for Christmas. Habitat is one of my favourite shops (where I got the cushion that appears later in this post and this clock), and it was recently bought out by the owners of Argos. Hooray for everyone! When my clothes inevitably outgrow my little Rast dresser, I’ve got my eye on one of the nice tall (but still narrow) chest of drawers from Argos.

Anyway, here are my two lamps!

Habitat bobby lamp

This angle-poise style floor-standing lamp a is perfect for lighting up my work when I’m stitching in this chair. When I get the chance, I hope to sort out some extension cables so it can stand behind the sofa, but it works well in this lesser-photographed corner of the living room for now! (This lamp isn’t online anymore so I can’t link to it.) It’s a little smaller than I was expecting and the “elbows” don’t work as well as a true anglepoise lamp (with the springs), but I do love it.

(Yes, ugliest radiators ever! This one is nicer in summer when I put pretty things on top of it to try and make it go away.)

habitat bobbie clamp lamp

Here’s the bedside lamp we went for, the Bobby Clamp lamp. I love it. It’s really sturdy and the metal finish is beautiful. Plus, we’ve read in bed every night since we got it! (I was reading the newspaper in the picture above.)

This might be where you’d expect me to show you a picture of this lamp in daylight, but we don’t have daylight in our bedroom at the moment! Since it’s been so cold, our drafty old shutters (see 1745 problems I mentionned above) have been keeping the bedroom pppretty frigid. So we put a blanket over the gap when it’s really cold. Anyway, Mr V risks life and limb every time we do this (the top of the shutters are about 9 feet high and we don’t have a step ladder so he climbs up the side of the window, it’s terrifying). So we just leave it up until it warms up a bit….

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It looks pretty stylish, as you can see.I think it’s the little details like this that makes this blog so inspirational, you know? You can pin that image….

(The blanket really does work though! Mr V’s mum said that when they were newlyweds she sewed blankets on the inside of all their curtains to keep things warm. )

Argos provided me with two lamps to review, all opinions are my own.

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decor tweaks Our Flat sew sew

Instant French bistro

October 29, 2012 – 10:29 am

Hello blog friends! Here’s a quick and silly post for a Monday morning. I hope you had a lovely weekend.

My mum and step dad came over for Sunday lunch yesterday (Mr V roasted a chicken, yum). I wanted to lay the table with a table cloth, but we didn’t have one that fit our table, as in our old flat we had a smaller, square one.

But! I did have three metres of Ikea’s Berta Ruta fabric in my stash. So… I draped it over the table, cut it off (neatly along the line of checks….

…et voilà! Instant French bistro dining for four. All it needed was a jug of red flowers to complete the scene.

I liked it so much that I intend to sew it up properly for future use. (I think I’ll round the corners and edge it with bias binding, but more of that when it’s done).

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decor tweaks Our Flat

Rast saves the day

October 25, 2012 – 2:05 pm

We’ve lived in our flat for over six months now, but I still haven’t properly shown you our bedroom! Sure, it’s popped up here and there, but never really properly. That’s partially because it looks like a slobby teenager’s room most of the time.

Man, I wish I’d staged that photo to look extra messy, but no. That’s an honest to goodness before picture.

Anyway, space in this room is pretty tight thanks to our extra long king size bed. There’s no closet and no room for a wardrobe. so we keep our clothes in the small built-in cupboard and on the clothes rail.

When that wasn’t enough, we moved in those metal Ikea shelves that we already owned, but it never really worked or looked good. Those shelves are great for some things (we used them in our last kitchen) but they really didn’t work here – they’re just not meant for storing clothes.

I wanted concealed clothing storage like a chest of drawers, but, as I said, the space is really tight. I was pondering this late one night (thanks, insomnia) when I remembered Ikea’s Rast chest of drawers. It’s super shallow, which we need for this space, and the fact that its only £20 and real wood sealed the deal. (But first I emailed the only person I ‘know’ who as this bit of furniture to ask if they’d work for storing clothes – thanks Ainhoa!)

Luckily my friend was going to Ikea just a few days after making this decision, so she picked me up a set of drawers and I assembled them yesterday.

Anyway, enough talking, let’s get to some pictures.

 

So… I like it but I don’t love it. That’s ok, I knew this would be the case – it’s a solution to a problem and it’s much better than it was. I feel like the room now looks like a college apartment bedroom, which is a step up from a slobby teenager’s! Even so, I’m wondering whether a lick of paint would help.

I figure I could either paint it white or a pale grey in the hopes of helping it visually disappear as much as possible. I could paint it duck egg blur, or Mizzle like the living room cabinet, because it’s a nice colour, it could work in here, and it would help tie the two rooms together a little. Or, I could paint it a bold emerald colour to go with a few other green things in the room. For emerald, I really like arsenic by Farrow and Ball (I also considered Green Parrot No 2 by Dulux, but, uh, you’ll see why I ditched that idea). I used Pixlr, picmonkey and a colour picker to knock up some extremely rough mock ups.

What do you think? Mizzle came up looking grey and nothing like it looks in real life. It’s such an odd colour… It’s more similar to the pale duck egg in the bottom row, but with a hint of green. I love it in the living room, so I might just give it a go… Arsenic looks great but I don’t know if it would draw too much attention to a pretty dull bit of furniture. White is the safe bet – but could I get it to match the white on the walls enough? So maybe grey? Or just leave it as it is?

Help! What do you think?

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Our Flat sew sew

Annabel Vita’s Secret Stash

October 19, 2012 – 1:19 pm

So this is our living room:

Please excuse the bike and the clothes drying rack. The bike is temporary, the drying rack sadly a daily feature.

I thought it’d be fun to show you how I stash all my sewing stuff around the place. It’s not as secret as it was a week or two ago (due to some changes that I’ll show you another time) and I don’t think it’ll stay this way for very long – taking these pictures has actually given me some ideas for improvements – but I thought I’d show you how I stash things right here, right now (and maybe one day this will be the “before” post, right?)

So, starting in the left of the living room and working around.

Here is the table where I do my sewing. A few things to note about this image:

  1. The old radio, skittle and telephone are not a charming vignette, just some stuff that’s ended up on the table without a home. (Except the telephone does live there most of the time)
  2. That big mess of cables is the foot pedal for my sewing machine. It lives under there most of the time. That one bit of messy laziness makes it feel like less of chore to lug out my machine, so I live with it.
  3. I normally sew at the drawer end of the table, and in that drawer is some magic!

Behold!

Ta da! I use an old fake-printer’s tray display case to hold sewing tools. Sewing machine feet, replacement needles and the screwdriver needed to change feet live in this prime front row spot where I can reach them while sewing without moving. Huzzah!

The rest of the tray is full of odds and sods. You’ll see that a lot of the stuff in here could now be consolidated with collections of the same thing stashed in another place, but this is all a work in progress!

Yeah, this space could definitely be better used. Not pictured: metal rulers live down the side on the left, instruction manual and random tools I don’t really use at the back. The threads are random ones I’ve inherited and would use with caution as they’re mixed quality.

Moving to the right a bit… I’ve never shown you this console table we bought from Ikea. (Excuse Mr V’s shoes, I wanted this post to be real, so the shoes stayed!) We love how this sideboard is a handy addition to the sofa (it’s normally littered with mugs etc) but also packs a punch for storage without weighing the room down, thanks to the airy white and glass combo.

I don’t think we’re using the glass-topped bit of the table to its full potential but we keep pretty plates in the top right and top left is the temporary home to a lovely print Mr V bought me that we’re waiting to frame.

Apart from the wine rack, this stuff is ALL secret sewing stash! And Mr V Wonders why I love mini-suitcases and wooden boxes so much… The mini suitcase and wooden box on the left hold fabrics that I’m keeping separate from the general stash.

Mini suitcase full of heirlooms from Mr V’s grandma:

Wooden box holds fabric that I’ve already decided a use for but worry I’ll accidentally use for something else:

On the right of the console table, my sewing box holds my most used tools, threads, buttons, needles and my engagement ring box (see why here):

Aaand, the suitcase under there is scraps from projects, and old bodice muslins in the elasticated pockets. Currently I organise my scraps by wrapping the smaller bits up in the largest piece of each fabric, but one day I might move to a per-size system:

Leaving the console table behind, there are some shelves by my desk that I’m using to hold the rest of my stash. The shelves were made by my mum (seen in our old flat here) and I know that they’re not pretty stuffed with fabrics and mismatched boxes, but they’re mainly hidden behind the sofa so this system will do for now!

(Don’t fret sewists, a sewing machine cover is forthcoming.)

Here are the shelves a little closer up:

On the far left: overflowing box of non-sewing junk that hides here behind the sofa too! The small labelled Ikea boxes hold patterns, interfacing, zips, and bias binding etc. The magazine folder holds patterns that won’t fit back in their envelopes and now live in A4 plastic wallets, and the large Ikea box holds scraps that I’ve earmarked for wedding bunting!

Along the bottom are old clothes that either need to be fixed (left hand pile) or refashioned/cut up and used as fabric (right hand pile).

Here we have fabric, top shelf is prewashed, bottom shelf isn’t.

On the top of this set of shelves is my sewing machine, and this basket, which holds a mug full of odds and sods that I keep out when I’m sewing, and my pattern weights in a le creuset dish:

In between the bookcase and the shutters I keep a new addition to my kit:

A tabletop sewing board from Ikea that my mum picked up for me for £4! My hope is that using this for all the little bits of ironing during a project will keep my sewing a little less contained than this scene of chaos. I love our main sewing board, but it’s massive, made of wood and a bit of a hefty beast to get out for one seam.

Oh! And here’s the latest addition to my sewing arsenal:

A huge self-healing cutting board! It’s A1 size and was on my Christmas wish list on Amazon, but when I noticed it had been reduced to £11 (from £88), I thought I’d treat myself. Anyway, that lives under the sofa. Say hello!

Phew, well if you made it through that marathon post, here’s a round of applause for you! Hip hip hooray. Anyway, I just like seeing how people organise things so I thought I’d share how I secrete all this stuff around the place.

What’s your favourite place to hide ugly things in your home? And you have an unsorted box or pile of random crap hidden somewhere, right?

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Our Flat sew sew

A room of one’s own

October 16, 2012 – 7:48 pm

I sew in the living room, at our dining table. (I call it that, but we rarely dine there.) Most of the time, I’m happy with this arrangement. It means I get to watch TV at the same time as make things and be with Mr V even if we’re doing our own things. I’m thankful that Mr V is wonderful about letting me leave my stuff out on the table until my project is finished, and he pretends not to mind how noisy my clunky old sewing machine is.

But, there’s a huge part of my heart that yearns for that room of my own (although of course, Ms Woolf would rather I used it to write than sew!). From that part of my heart to yours, here are some of my favourite sewing spaces from the internet.

(You can find more on my “there she sews” pinterest board.)

Love this little nook, especially all those gorgeous scissors on the wall.

Um, sewing shed?! Yes please! (as long as it comes with a heater and I can insulate it! Brr.)

Source: flickr.com via Annabel on Pinterest

Ikea plus Orla Keily plus a trio of little red suitcases? Yes yes yes.

Ah, cool blues and peaceful whites, I love you.

I do wonder if I’d craft more or less if I had my own room to do it in. At least with sitting room sewing I tend not to leave projects unfinished for tooo long, because they’re right there in the main room of our flat. (I try not to pack away unfinished objects as it’s the kiss of death for them – I did that with my Cambie Dress and as I have mentioned many times, I’ve yet to finish it.)

I find how I feel about sewing in the living room tends to depend on which of these two pictures my sewing space looks like:

(Even though the neat picture is still pretty chaotic as we’d only just moved in!)

Where do you craft? Would you like a room of your own?

Do you have a craft room? Make me jealous with all the details!

PS. This week has turned into an impromptu sewing space week! I’ve got a sponsored post on the subject tomorrow then I’m going to show you where I secretly stash all my sewing tools around the house!

PPS. I know, but thank you for supporting me and my little blog!

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decor tweaks favourite things Inspiration Our Flat sew sew

Printer’s Tray

July 5, 2012 – 1:53 pm

Hello!

I don’t quite know why I haven’t posted for a week. Actually, that’s a lie. I do know why. I have become totally and utterly obsessed with dressmaking. It’s all I think about at the moment. And when I’m not actually working on it, I am researching all over the internet: understitching, stay stitching, yokes, plackets, invisible hems, fbas, etc etc. It’s a sickness right now! And I still haven’t finished a dress! My cambie is not a triumph due to fit issues so to keep my spirits up,  I’ve put it aside for a little while and am working on this amazing fit dress – that has different sizes for different cup sizes. Could be genius, could be a disaster. I’m using a very lightweight denim.

I did complete a wearable garment! Say hello to my Colette Sorbetto! It’s got some funky issues (the fabric wouldn’t iron, the bias tape is waaay too solid so it gives it a weird shape and it’s riddled with problems like raw edges in the wrong place and scrunched up bias tape), but obviously I love it beyond all measure and reason.

Plus, this cost about £2 to make thanks to some £1/metre fabric (thanks Brixton market!) and 25p/metre bias tape (thanks market in town!) and a totally free pattern. I’ve already bought some better fabric and more obedient bias tape to make my next one. I’m aiming for something I can wear in public (one of the major problems with this top is right at the back of the neck so it’s really visible).

Anyway, none of that is what this post is about! I thought I’d share some updated pictures of our printer’s tray, that I took before sewing took a hold of my brain! This is also something I love beyond all measure and reason. We bought in on holiday in France way back when we lived in one bedroom in a shared house and I love letting the things inside it grow organically as we fill it with trinkets and treasures. This time I added some origami paper from muji (also seen here) to the back of some of the squares to help with the patchwork quilt effect.

Here are some pictures of my favourite bits and pieces.

I quite often buy Mr V miniature plastic dogs. One day he’ll give in and let me get a real one! (He wants one more than me, he’s also just more sensible about the fact we live in a flat in the middle of town and aren’t quite ready for a dog yet). The St Bernard on top of the printer’s tray is a fave – look at his happy face!

My dad gave me the miniature magnifying glass (with little cloth case) when i was a child (how hipster would it be to wear it around my neck?). I loved it because it made me feel like Harriet the Spy. Wicket (the ewok figure) was in my stocking from Mr V.

How cool is this box of pins I found at a car boot sale? They don’t make them like they used to! (The pins themselves are gorgeous, black and very fine.)

More sewing supplies masquerading as decor! Cute button from the V&A, cute button cards from… hmm. Can’t remember! Maybe a brocante?

Swedish matches in a beautiful box, bought at this lovely shop in Holland.

Souvenirs from Paris! You can’t go to Paris without buying a tacky Eiffel tower keyring (trust me, I’ve really tried!). This one moonlights as a Christmas tree decoration. The mini vinegar bottle is from the marché aux puces (it took me about half an hour to choose – look at the selection!)

Hopefully I’ll be back to being a better blogger once my head isn’t full of dreamy dresses! To keep up with my thinking on dressmaking, you can follow this pinterest board (it’s, uh, recommended by StyleList) (I KNOW!)

What are you obsessed with lately?

PS. Here’s how the printer’s tray looked at our old flat.

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Our Flat sew sew

My new friend: vintage chil-daw tailor’s dummy

June 19, 2012 – 11:23 am

There’s a new resident in the Vita household:

Chil-daw tailors mannequin and secretary cabinet desk

Her name is Doris and she’ll be helping me out with my sewing, and perhaps blogging too.

She’s a tough old bird, from the 50s or 60s. I found her through preloved.co.uk – which is a more civilised version of ebay, gumtree or craigslist, just for second-hand furniture. I’ve been a long-term lurker there but never actually pulled the trigger.

Here’s the advert:

Vintage chil-daw pioneer tailors dummy

(Doris would like to apologise for the nude shots, ha)

And here are her close ups (taken from the ad):

Vintage chil-daw pioneer tailors dummyVintage chil-daw pioneer tailors dummy

Isn’t she lovely? Before we went to pick her up, I offered the seller £50, and she countered with £55. I was happy with this as I’ve seen this exact model go for over a hundred on ebay etc (this one was £220). Plus, these totally unadjustable polystyrene shop dummies are £40 (before postage). So I was happy with the cost and happy that, because she’s vintage, she looks good just hanging out in our living room when she’s not in use. I was going to make a cheapie gum tape dress form, but we don’t really have anywhere to store something like that.

The lady we picked her up from was lovely. She’s belonged to her mother-in-law, but she didn’t think it had been used in at least thirty years. It was the lady that called her Doris, but I like it enough to keep it. I like my things to come with a bit of history.

Chil-daw tailors mannequin and secretary cabinet desk

Her bust is a little smaller than mine, but my bust is big for my frame, so I think we’re going to get along just fine. I’ve read a few tutorials (one, two, three) for how to pad a dress form and will post my own thoughts once I’ve done it. Ideally I want to make a padded cover that zips on and off so that my mum and Mr V’s mum can use it too.

And, because I couldn’t find this information anywhere by googling, in case you’ve come here looking for how to adjust a chil-daw pioneer mannequin (I’ll try to get around to doing a whole post with pictures one day, for those three people in the world who might want it).

1) Reach inside and loosen all the wingnuts (they look like this) that are holding the horizontal plates together (there are four that help attach the form to the pole, ignore those!). Some WD-40 might help if they’re stiff.

2) Turn the dials where you want to adjust. Down makes it bigger. Ditto on the WD-40

3) Once you’ve got the size you’re after, re-tighten the wingnuts for stability.

4) Compare measurements and turn to the tutorials I linked to above to pad the rest.

So that’s my new dress form! (and my lovely vintage plaid dress from Vintage-on-Sea, Whitstable. When she’s not helping me sew, I thought Doris could help me out with some outfit posts from time to time, since I love all my clothes but have no interest in being a fashion blogger!

Chil-daw tailors mannequin and secretary cabinet desk

On the subject of sewing, I thought I’d update you on the progress with my Cambie dress. I spent a weekend fiendishly sewing and got the outer dress all finished (zipper and everything!) (sleeves don’t get finished yet so ignore those), but when I tried it on it looked awful.

See? (It looked way worse in real life – I think this picture might be after mum and I pinned out some excess). It’s all my fault – I sewed the size that would fit my bust, but I should have fit it everywhere else and then adjusted for my bust.  I felt so deflated that I needed a bit of a break before tackling how to make it fit properly, and then life got a bit crazy (Mr V and I can’t remember the last weekend we spent at home – it was sometime in May I think) so progress has stalled. It’s a lovely pattern and the instructions are great. Once life calms down, and with a bit of help from Doris, I should have it finished soon.

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Behind closed doors: filling the secretary desk cabinet

June 13, 2012 – 4:16 pm

Wahoo! You may have noticed in yesterday’s post that we finally liberated the top of my secretary desk from Mr V’s parent’s garage. Much as I loved having a spot to pop some flowers, I’m seriously loving having some shelves for my pretties AND some cool geometric glass panes to keep the dust at bay.

I still one day plan to paint or wallpaper the inside of the cabinet for a bit of interest, but I’m happy to live with in a while. My eventual plan also includes magnetic paint so I can pop snapshots and postcards on the “walls”. For some of the other ideas I’ve had, check out this pinterest board (mainly defunct since I decided to leave the wood mainly as-is)

But for now, here’s what I’ve put on the shelves.

I was keen not to buy anything I didn’t love just to fill shelf space (and I still have some stuff to bring over from my mum’s house, believe it or not!) so there’s some slightly random stuff in here as a placeholder while I slowly fill it with cherished lovelies.

There’s one shelf full of old books (most bought cheaply because I like their titles or contents – like this guide to etiquette for ladies and gentlemen and this French geography book). On top of the stack of books is an old jewellery box I bought in my favourite charity shop. I tend to just wear my engagement ring, watch and the same necklace everyday, so here is a fine place to keep it).

Top shelf is the most random: a stack of assorted fat quarters for a someday quilting project, three balls of bakers twine (I love that they look pretty and remind me of our trip to Holland), a bowl with some handkerchiefs in it (including the ones my mum made me for Christmas).

On the right of the top shelf, I have two needlecraft books I picked up this weekend (I’ll post more about these soon!) and some pretty tins of paprika (see what I mean? this sort of knick knack won’t stay forever but make me happy for now!)

Nestled in with the books, we have this tiny Delft blue jug Mr V bought me in Amsterdam. So teeny!

Moving on down, we have my beloved geese measuring cups, that used to stand guard over our stove. Sadly, I love them too much to risk breaking their slender necks while using them. The picture is my parents when my mum was expecting my brother.

Oh! I thought as I mainly use this desk to write letters, it would be fun to keep this book face out. Sadly, you can barely see it against the dark wood – it’s probably the main reason I might paint or put some paper up on the back of the shelf sooner rather than later! I stacked some recently received postcards in front. (I just love this mountain scene – my friend found it in a charity shop in a stack of genuine 1930s post cards.)

And an old charity shop teapot (I do use this one, but not all too often)

So there you have it! (The bottom shelf is family pictures and my pansy vase). I know it’s way too cluttered for most people, but my style has always skewed that way, and at least this way everything is dust free behind glass and not cluttering up every surface of the flat!

I’m sure everything in here will evolve over time and it won’t be long before I can’t resist tinkering with the inside with paint or paper, so I’m sure I’ll report back soon with an update.

What things to you like to display to make you happy? Or maybe you’re a minimalist who doesn’t like visual clutter? (I’m always jealous of you types!). What do you think I should do to the inside of the cabinet?

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