Opportunity shopping (indeed!)

Since have moved out to the burbs (see lazy blogging excuse number one) I have notice a high number of op shops.  Rather pristine un-hipster raided op shops.

I wasn't much fussed...until one day walking home from work was this dresser in the window.  After some husband wrangling (i.e. but even if we don't like it in a year we can sell it on ebay) I arranged to buy, and pick up this lovely dresser.  It needs some work, some of the drawers are damaged from so much use...but can you believe it actually came with the key for the door?  This is a one owner only dresser.

In addition, in waiting for someone to talk to about buying it...I found this awesome dress pattern (uncut) for the extortionate price of 50 cents.

So, 67.49 later..I'm very very pleased.  With two new projects.

Puppy coat

This weekend I had planned on finishing some pants and starting a dress and so forth...when somehow after taking our dog Misty for a walk, we ended up at the RSPCA.   Not leaving Misty there of course, but getting suckered into a new family member.  This is Hamish.  Hamish is a 4 month old german shorthaired pointer.  He's a smooch and remarkably (for the first 24 hours) not much trouble except for the upset tummy, which has meant we've gone through 2 rolls of kitchen paper today.

However this Melbourne winter is still a little cold for a pup, so I set about making a dog coat for Hamish out of an old cat polarfleece blanket.  If you're looking to make one of these, go to here for a fantastic pattern.  I didn't use the pattern directly, but as a guide to what shape the pieces needed to be, and then literally threw the blanket over the top of Hamish and started marking it for cutting.  

Being a whipped together sunday night project I'm pretty happy with the result (and the model), but I had to leave part of the neck unbound as to have some stretch when getting it on him.  I only had a polycotton to use as bias binding, which didn't have enough give.   Seeing as he will grow out of it pretty fast, it's not the end of the world.