I’m suffering a bit from the sewing bug of late, so I went to Ikea last night in order to check out their textiles section, which I seem to have completely bypassed every other time I’ve been there.  It’s a revelation!  They have a really good selection of high quality fabrics, all for incredibly decent prices as well.  I’ve wanted to have a go at making my own cushion covers for ages, but have been pining after a sturdy material that can easily withstand things being dumped on it and cups of tea being spilled on it.  So I was both surprised and delighted to come away with this…

I love the colours and the interesting shapes of the leaves on this fabric.  If I ever succeed in making it into cushions it will go really well with the textiles I already have in my room.  You can (hopefully) get a feel for the texture up close – it’s really grainy and heavy-duty, which I like.  I tend to find that this sort of fabric takes to my sewing machine better than lightweight stuff.  And at 4.99 per metre, I’m quids in!

And this is the second print – how cool is this origami-type stag?  I can’t wait to do something fun with this, I’m thinking of making a tote bag (simple, but very useful!) for carting my many piles of rubbish around with me.  Unfortunately my sewing machine is a bit kaput at the moment so I’ll need to wait until the part I’ve ordered for it is delivered before I can get going.  I can’t get over how much I love this fabric though, I might just have to take it out every day to swoon over it until I’m ready to transform it into something wonderful (and amateur)!

Finally (this isn’t fabric-related at all), I picked up a funky orange letter-holder thing as well last night.  I’m still plugging away at my June ‘to-do’ list, although I’m aware of the fact that it’s now the 17th of June and I’ve only completed three goals!  Progress is being made in relation to at least three others, however, so I’m confident of a last-minute storm where I tick everything off at once and feel incredibly smug and satisfied.

This little thing is designed to make goal number 8 (paper cleansing) happen in an oh-so-stylish way.  I put it together last night, with a considerable amount of effort involved may I just add, and am now waiting for a free evening to get stuck into filling it up with important documents!