My Creative Space

Just working on a name pillow for a birthday girl - deadline tomorrow - so need to get on it!!!





Although i'm just itching to start on my Single Girl preparation for the Single Girl Quiltalong hosted by Katy, Nova and Megan. And get on with the quilting of my Tokyo Subway Map quilt.

Echino Irish Chain

Here's the Echino fabrics which I ordered from Fabricworm and Lucky Kaeru Fabrics. One day soon they will be chopped up and sewn back together into a Single Irish Chain quilt.


I'm itching to get started, but so far my will power is winning and I'm concentrating on finishing some of the many projects which have been lying around!


Hopefully my fabric stack photos are getting a little better, after reading these posts about uploading from flickr and editing in iPhoto

WIP Wednesday

I'm slowly working on the hand quilting on this quilt.





But it hurts my finger : (


So I only do a line or two every few days! In light of this I've reviewed my expectations on how many hand quilted lines I will do! Then onto the binding!

First finish of 2011

My first finish of 2011 - and amazingly it's part of one of my goals for 2011!!



Bunting for Sophia's room...



And some fabric covered canvases - really easy to do, you just need a staple gun.

So that's the first two projects of my pretty-fy the girls rooms goal.

Also on the list is:
   new quilt for Sophia
   coordinating pillowcases
   mini unicorn canvases
   name pillows for each of the girls
   finish off Harriet's quilt (currently in the WIP pile)
   pompom  mobile
   matryoshka embroidery
  
And anything else I think of along the way.

2011 Goals

Already a week into 2011, but I thought I would put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard) and cement my goals for 2011. It will be fun to look back a year from now and see what I actually acheived!

1. Get better at photography - I'm totally inspired by all the fantastic photos and photographers there are out there in blogland. When we bought our camera (Nikon D90), I was tasked with reading the manual. Well we've had it two years now including a replacement after losing the first one in Thailand, and I still haven't got past the first page of the manual! I think I'll start with this book.

2. Single Girl Quilt - king size for our bed, hand quilted like this, and in a colour palette inspired by this and this. I'll make it all from scraps or pieces cut from lots of different fabrics as I find it too hard to collect the 32 fat quarters the pattern recommends.  I think this will be a long running project, but I hope to get it done before the year is out.
                   






3. Pretty Up the girls' bedrooms - the girls rooms are plain white with horrible boring white curtains, so my goal is to completely prettify them! Harriet has a quilt mostly done, and a pompom mobile started (if you'd call one and a half pompoms a start!)


4. Advent Calendar - I've been meaning to make Elizabeth from Oh Fransson's quilted advent calendar as posted on Sew Mama Sew for the last two Christmases but have just never got around to it. But next Christmas Sophia will be three and that seems the right age for an advent calendar. I figured if I start in July I stand a better chance of actually making it! I saw some great ideas this December for activities to write on cards in the pockets - much better than chocolate!


5. Echino Irish Chain Quilt - I was totally inspired by this on Heather's design wall, it kind of reminded me of an Irish Chain quilt, and i thought how cool it would be to use funky, bright, modern Echino fabric to make a traditional pattern like an Irish Chain.


6. Finish all my WIPs! There's so many I think they warrant a post all of their own!

Happy New Year, Happy New Blogger!

Well, here we go.......

I've been meaning to start a blog for about two years now, but just never seemed to get around to it. But what better day to start a blog than New Years day. And whilst having a one month old baby and a two year old in the house may not be the best of timing for starting a blog - I thought why not!

Sew Mama Sew's fabulous giveaway day also gave me that extra push to get started. Reading so many fab and inspiring blogs really made me want to join the wonderful world of craft blogs. One problem I may encounter is a complete lack of photographs - I have a habit of finishing gifts 5 minutes before giving them and dismally failing to photograph them!

I see this blog as a way of documenting what I achieve during naptimes, keeping check on my goals, and sharing my creativity with anyone who might be interested!