Jingle & The Singing Creatures

Hello everyone, remember way back I said I was going to have a go at paper mache creature, inspired by Julie Arkell? Well I finished her a while back but wasn't happy with the face so didn't post it.

Her name is Jingle (she has a bell for her tail) and she has had three different faces since she has been made! Anyway I don't think she's had enough face lifts now, so here she is!

And remember the lovely handmade creatures I bought from the Southwell Craft Fair? Here they are in their new home - situated next to the mantle in our lounge, much to the annoyance of my OH :0)

Umm thats wax on the wall from where I blew the candles out too hard...

Hexalong progress!

This week I have fitted in a bit more hexie time, I managed a couple of sneaky hours at the weekend (when the rest of the family were watching Despicable Me) hidden away in the sunny conservatory,

and I've been taking hexies along with me when I've been watching them at gymnastics club. This is where I'm up to now!

My plan is to fill in between the flowers with a single colour probably white. I think I'm halfway there with the flowers? I'm aiming for a single quilt size. I'm enjoying doing this, but its something I like to pick up and put down in between other projects rather going at it full on if you know what I mean, so its coming along at a steady pace but might take me a good few weeks to finish.

For anyone else interesting in quilting I've been really enjoying listening to some American podcasts while I've been hexing away, (both on iTunes) Pat Sloane at Creative Radio (link on her blog), and Mark Lipinski - Creative Mojo. I've also like Thread Banger who do really good video podcasts. If anyone knows of any other sewing or crafty podcasts that they can reccommend I would love to hear!

Hexie time

This week I have fitted in a bit more hexie time, I managed a couple of sneaky hours at the weekend when the rest of the family were watching Despicable Me hidden away in the sunny conservatory,

and I've been taking hexies along with me when I've been watching them at gymnastics club. This is where I'm up to now! My plan is to fill in between the flowers with a single colour probably white. I think I'm halfway there with the flowers? I'm aiming for a single quilt size

For anyone interesting in quilting I've been really enjoying listening to some American podcasts while I've been hexing away, (both on iTunes) Diane Sloane at Creative Radio, and Mark Lipinski - Creative Mojo. I've also like Thread Banger who so reallly good video podcasts. If anyone knows of any other sewing or crafty podcasts that they can recommend I would love to hear!

Springtime

I love springtime!

A quick jaunt around the garden this morning with a pair of scissors and look what beautiful springtime flowers were in bloom.

So beautiful and uplifting! All this lovely warm sunshiney weather has brought them all out together.

I had to take some pics of them altogether before I go and distribute them around the house!

Enjoy your weekend!

Ribbon Love ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

I wanted to share with you a fab website I found for ribbons!

I needed some pretty ribbons to finish a project for a friends birthday and came across Fantastic Ribbons, who do a really good selection of ribbons at what I think are very reasonable prices. I bought 10 reels of ribbon for £15.

They arrived today! Can you just see the lovely stripey one?

Now I'm going to get busy finishing my present! Will show and tell soon!

Enjoy this gorgeous day!

Washing day ...

Today I have been washing and ironing some half metre lengths of fabric and some charm packs of 5" by 5" fabrics that I bought a while ago ready to do some quilting with.

Note to self... do not wash little squares of fabric or they will fray away and come out a lot smaller.... Oops. Oh well, we're always learning...

Lets have some fun with the sewing machine!

*(I have been doing all my normal washing and ironing too!)

The Best Day Ever!

The much anticipated Julie Arkell workshop day arrived and I woke up uncharacteristically early (especially considering the little people were away for the night!) at 6am to blue skies and a lovely spring morning. I pottered around and finished my crazy patchwork folder cover that I made to use up some of the mountain of little scraps I've saved.

And then headed off to Hope and Elvis for the day!

When I got there it was such a wonderful surprise to find the lovely Debs there from Two Bones And a Bagle, and she gave me a totally unexpected present beautifully wrapped in this lovely fabric!

Inside she had put together lots of lovely pieces of fabric for using in my hexie quilt, so pretty, including vintage feed sacks which I was really interested to learn all about!

Thank you Debs, that was so kind and generous of you and I will be hexing with it this evening! Debs also brought her hexie quilt to show, which was much bigger than mine (!) and looked stunning.

Not long after all this Julie arrived looking so pretty and elegant (with the most beautiful english rose skin I have ever seen!) with all of her things which she displayed so beautifully. Would you like to see?

Flower brooches

Suffolk puff brooches (how about that knitted swimming costume!)
I loved this one
And this one

And the creature brooch was my favourite!

We soon got started making the suffolk puff brooches (aka yoyos) which were really enjoyable to make, although production on our table wasn't particularly fast but that could have been all the nattering and tea drinking...

This is what I made (using some of Louises lovely Liberty fabrics):

I also made a tic toc watch, but I need to finish it, so you'll have to wait for the pic of that one!

It was a brilliant day, JA is such a lovely lady, and wonderful teacher (and she even signed my book!) and Louise gathers such beautiful fabrics and treasures for everyone to use for all her workshops. The next exhibition at the Harley Gallery is the The Smile Exhibition which will be showing some of JA's work so I am definitely looking forward to seeing that soon.

I couldn't finish this post without showing some pics of the Nora Fok Exhibition that was on in the Harley Gallery which I popped into next door. Nora Fok makes jewellery from acrylic, (knitted or crocheted - you have to have a look at some photos of the process of how she makes it here - it is sooo detailed. The process)

She makes stunning pieces like this

My photo doesn't do this justice at all, but it is a huge wrap made out of dandelion heads! (Better pics are on her website).

And this is a neckpiece made of tied honesty heads.

The exhibition is called Cloud Nylon, and whilst its leaving the Harley Gallery it is visiting other places.

Cloud Nylon The Jewellery of Nora Fok

Thats it for now, have a happy monday peeps!

Roofless!

My workroom is a bit draughty at the moment, would you like to see?

Yes I have been working in there with no roof! Yesterday there were just two empty holes and I was practically working outside, today felt has gone on, and hopefully tomorrow tiles! (The veluxes are being taken out and a picture window is going in where the shelves are now, so I'll have a view when I'm working :-))

Not that I minded the draughts, you see I was DESPERATE to be in my crafting room...did you spy the reason why?

Yes, its my beautiful new sewing machine!!! OMG, OMG, OMG!!!!

She is a dream to sew with and I am well and truly in love with her!We've only been together for two days so far but I can tell this is the start of something special!

There will definitely be lot of exciting projects coming up next week!

Thank you to my brilliant husband xxx

ps. That's why I'm a bit behind in the hexalong this week, I have only managed a couple of flowers, but I'm still going! Debs is doing really well!

pps. I'm going on a Julie Arkell course on Saturday, can't wait! Will post all about it next week!

Treat Myself Thursday

Ssssshhhh but I have been treating myself this week. And my parcels arrived today. Yay! Two of them for me.

Would you like to peak inside?

Isn't it beautifully wrapped!!! Do you know who its from? The very talented Henhouse.

I spied this on her blog this week and HAD to have it. It is beautifully made, just look at the lovely fabric on the back too. It has an flavour of Julie Arkell about it, who I love!!

I had to put it on straight away of course! What do you think?!

If you're liking this is as much me she has several different ones and other beautiful pretty things to buy in her Etsy shop, go and have a look!

Oh, and in the second box (a necessity but a treat nonetheless)..

Bare Escentuals make up (which I buy from QVC when they have a Todays Special Value, much cheaper). Love this stuff as you can slap it on with pretty little technique (and it still looks good) just like the Annie Sloan paint!!