Liberty Lovelies

I bought some beautiful liberty fabric squares on ebay and they arrived yesterday. I was planning to use them for vintage fabric badges but I have had so much trouble cutting fabrics with the badge cutter I have given up. The point is to cut a perfect circle but the fabric seems to blunt the cutter and the circles are not properly circular so the badge machine doesn't properly press them into the fittings.

In summary the badges look great but they fall apart which isn't going to be good for customers!

The badges in my etsy shop are made of fabric but these fabrics are much thinner cotton and they worked out ok.

So I think I may just hang onto these fabric samples as inspiration as they are really gorgeous fabrics! Liberty is one of my favourite shops in london and I especially love going at Christmas to see their window displays and their whole department of decorations. The only thing is the shop is so old it isn't that easy to manouvere a pram around the floors!

Family Photos

hello for a bad littlechook who hasn't blogged for days now. Mainly because of a rare night out in london on friday which involved cocktails and bucket loads of rose. The cocktails in a tapas place in shoreditch was very sex and the city but we had to take the fancy leaves out in case we poked our own eyes out.

Anyway, I was able to do some printing today using my butterflies screen to add to a flower garden design and the result is quite lovely and I'd blog more about this if I could upload a picture but I can't find my lead to connect the camera to the laptop.

And for some reason I am feeling all nostaligc this weekend so today's pic is of my two favourite family photos. On is of my daughter Katherine sleeping in the garden of our old flat when she was about 10 weeks old. The other is of me and my gran. I think I am about 4 and it is a strip of pictures from a photo booth (way before digital gave you four of the same photo). My aunt found it in a bundle of family pics she went through recently and the strip has been folded in half. I wonder if it was kept in her purse? It makes me remember what a lovely, strong and kind woman she was and how she would have loved to meet my Katherine.

I've seen walls of family photos in quite a few featured homes in interiors mag such as elle decoration and living etc and I think it adds a real personal touch to a home. I am planning to do this in our hallway over time so that Katherine can see her family members as some live quite far away and we don't get to see them that often.

My first attempt at a montage turned out well using photos from the bundle my aunt gave me including a picture of my dad with us in the 70's with a Borat style 'tash - it's a classic. I love all the 50s and 60s shots of my grandparents on their holidays especially loving the floral prints on my grans dresses.

Anyway that's me for tonight, off to update my neglected etsy shop.

littlechook at home

I've been in the studio all day today working on layouts for new screens. I am going to the East London Print Studio on Thursday to use their equipment to expose the screens so I need to have four designs ready.

Also worked on more t shirt designs last night and washed them today. The flock is even more fluffy once washed and looks great. The colours are really bright.

Having bought Living etc, Elle Decoration and Real Homes recently I have been thinking about our house and how we should decorate it. My plan was to paint everything white for starters but I am actually really liking the wallpaper even though it is quite old fashioned and 'country cottagey' which isn't me at all usually. I think the living room paper is Laura Ashley.

The carpets are all a bit old and scabby but instead of replacing them I am thinking a good steam clean would help them look nicer.

The fact that we have no money after our move is also curbing my design enthusiasm!

The house though does have some beautiful orignal victorian features like cornicing and ceiling roses. Alot of the 'ladder' houses got the 70's treatment but ours didn't thankfully! The Harringay ladder houses are row of victorian houses on a set of roads all running parallel (hence the name 'ladder') and they all have unusual names. I'd love to know more about why these names were chosen but google hasn't yielded any results.

The community noticeboard though does refer to a 'seafaring theme'. Would like to know more about this!