Random sewing and journalling

I have a slightly random set of photos to share with you which sort of reflects the random nature of my crafting. The first photo is the 1929 manual for my Gran's Singer sewing machine, I thought it might help me with the project below.

I have now pinned - or basted as I think the technical term is - the three layers of my quilt and all I need to do now is quilt it together. I have the foot just need to try it... Looking in the 1930 manual I found this advice.

I have been working in my art journal or maybe I should say therapy journal and its not for sharing but I did try out multiple layers of journalling and overwriting and I can share this uncompleted page about pluses and minuses in life.

As I am in the throws of compulsive craft obsession - quilting I decided to make a granny quilt for my niece's birthday in July. She likes pink but wants to be more grown up and told her grandmother she is thinking about moving onto turquoise. As a new quilter I have a very small stash so decided to use 4 different colour blocks and then play with the colours in each set of blocks. I have deep pink and turquoise done.

To create variety I played with the colour placements which has altered the appearance of the Granny block but is still quite interesting. I am now trying a pinker lilac version.

And this picture shows I should concentrate more - I didn't even spot the mistake until I began to square up the block... the solid is a scrap from daughter's school project and does not sew well or maybe that is me.

Can you see my many mistakes?

Thank you for dropping by.

Obsessive crafting tendencies

First off I know I've not been around much in the last two months. It's a combination of work and blues - with the blues caused by work. As a teacher I expect to get some grief as teenagers are a bundle of hormones. However a little while ago I was the victim of an unprovoked attack by a pupil I don't teach. Wrong place, wrong time. I always thought I was strong but this flattened me and it took me awhile to actually admit how badly it affected me and deal with the stress. I'm better now and getting back to crafting. Which brings me to the title of this post. I seem to suffer from obsessive crafting - I find something I enjoy and get totally hooked. At the moment it's quilting and I am now immersed in fabrics. Does anyone else suffer from obsessive craft tendencies?

Sew Mama Sew Giveaway - Edited for winner

The Random Generator chose comment no 38.

True Random Number GeneratorMin: Max: Result:38

The winner is Emily and I will email you to get your mailing details. Thank you for all the lovely comments (When I did this with random generator - overseen by Lens Guy - I set it to 1 - 87 but somehow on the blog it has reverted back to 100. Can someone let me know how to fix this for a future time?)

Emily23 May 2012 16:57

How cute!!!

ReplyDelete

I have been spending too much time looking at all the quilts in the Bloggers Quilt Festival and discovering so many fabulous blogs and inspirational quilts. If you do not know about this fab event you can drool at all the lovely quilts by going to Amy's blog and clicking on more than 500 submissions for the quilt festival... I found the Giveaway hosted by Sew Mama Sew and decided I should get involved as I have enjoyed looking at all the quilts and other items. I am linking to the Handmade Sewing and Craft Supplies - Willing to Ship Internationally to winner. You can find many more wonderful Giveaways at the Sew Mama blog.

I am addicted to these little bird pincushions and have made too many. I added some crocheted lace around the base of the pincushion and found some pretty ribbons and pins to go with it. All you need to do to be in with a chance of this giveaway is leave a comment and I will use random comment generator to select the winner after May 25th. I will email the winner by May 27th (you will need to have reply option available on your comment box.) 
For those of you who looked at the start of my first quilt in the post below I can say that I have now finished the quilt top. I deviated from the pattern as there were some scraps left from the jelly roll and I pieced these together with some of the grey from the border. Youngest daughter assisted with the photography but I think she needs some training as it is not perfectly straight...

I think the grey border makes it less rustic and helps tie the different Japanese Taupes together. She had to stand on top of the bed (perhaps why it's a little blurry) to get enough height. It is approximately 56 inches x 80 inches wide.

I think you can see the border here when it is draped over the door. Once pay day comes I can buy my walking foot and attempt to quilt this (once I basted it etc). I have been playing with the back too. For those of you who said I would not be able to stop once I started you are right. I have been trying out some Granny Squares from the tutorial here. I don't have a design wall but this sort of works...

 Thank you for dropping by - I don't use word verification as it drives me mad when I try and comment on blogs that have it. If you like the bird check out this link to Efemera ink's blog who kindly gave me the pattern in the first place. She has all kinds of crafty goodness on her site.

First ever quilt in progress

If you pop in here from time to time you will know that I have been wanting to create a quilt and extend my beginner sewing skills. I bought a book called "Jelly Roll Quilts" by Pam & Nicky Lintott and a jelly roll of Japanese Taupe fabrics, a cutting mat, rotary cutter and ruler...

I carefully cut the strips and sewed and cut and even did a little chain piecing (sort of worked...) until I finally had 40 blocks. Lens Guy and youngest daughter then got involved and helped decide the layout of the blocks and I began to sew rows together.

 I still have the last three rows to sew on and if you don't examine too closely it lines up pretty well for my first attempt. I have a solid grey border and a deep red binding but before I get to bind I need to quilt and I need to buy a walking foot for the machine. I can see quilts getting to a certain point and then I chicken out of the quilting.My next project will be a granny square quilt for my niece. My Mother in Law is the one that has got me interested in quilting and this is her first ever quilt she made for youngest daughter.

I love the one she made below for eldest daughter which has a temporary home here whilst she is living in Singapore but I think the silky material and appliqued hearts drove poor MIL mad.

If you popped by looking for art journalling I have been busy but the pages are not for sharing as I have been having some dark days.
I'm linking this to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced where I go for my weekly fixes of inspiration.

Gothic Arch Spring

This fortnight's challenge is Spring at Gothic Arches here. I used a selection of images from Graphics Fairy to create a layered collage, liberal applications of distress stains and created a stylished spring flower by layering up three sections of flower sketched out on yellow paper.

Art Journal

I created this page at the same time as the tag for the Stampotique challenge as you can see by the similar colours. I began by transferring a photo and had to glue pages as was a bit gunky and then added gesso and china blue distress stains.

More distress stains and splodges and wet wipes

Some doodling and mini butterfly stamped smudged with posca white pens, I stamped a Paper Artsy flower over the thistle image in black felt it was much to harsh and added some titan buff paint and white doodles.

I hid the more personal journalling under the paint layers and then added the title. I stamped Paper Artsy Butterfly and Dragonfly on some paper I had altered with paint.

SDC52: Oodles of Doodles

I created this tag for the Stampotique Challenge here, set by Kaz Boughton that asked for oodles of doodles. I have been experimenting with creating a wood distress finish for another finish and on this tage used layers of distress stains and titan buff acrylic paint for the background. I stamped Smushasha onto the tag and then coloured her with watercolour promarkers. I doodled the title "Sometimes life's a beach" with gel pens and posca white and then doodled the seaweed over the stamped image.

I then added some of my large collection of sea glass and beach finds and some seam binding. To hang the tag I threaded ribbon through a holey shell.

My imac is having memory problems at the moment as I have too much stuff on it and even though Lens Guy set up a hard drive for me I haven't quite got round to moving stuff onto it. There is always something more interesting to do...