WOYWW #752: October Round-Up

I'm writing this blog post on Tuesday night, the last day of October, just so I could stick to my blogging schedule of one post per month. I'll link up with the WOYWW crowd on Wednesday morning - I'm saying "crowd" but it's really just a cosy gathering of a few crafty friends these days. 

I've been super productive throughout October, participating in tasters, challenges, Facebook groups and working on various self-imposed, ad-hoc projects. I'll just cycle through some of the highlights quickly:

First off, there was the LifeBook Taster sessions, which I participate in every year. This one was my favourite lesson in this year's line-up by Angela Murray. I used a clever app to see what it would look like on the wall as a large canvas - the actual painting is on an A3 sheet of watercolour paper.

Next, there were several sessions of gelli printing - and it's not like I haven't got enough gelli prints already! Here are the results with some bright paints in the first photo and some alcohol inks in the second:

I've also made some eco-prints with autumn leaves - there's a good tutorial here if anyone's interested.

I've rusted some fabric and turned it into a journal cover. This was for the October project within Roben-Marie Smith's membership programme 'The Nest' (fun fact: I bumped into  Mary-Anne in the FB group!) 

Apart from this Nest Journal, I've made two other smaller ones, also with fabric covers and yummy coffee dyed papers inside: (perhaps you recognise my elephant fabric from years ago - finally I had a chance to use it!) 

Here's a side view of all three journals:

and that's in addition to the 'Transitions Journal' made with an old book cover following Roben-Marie's tutorial, which is available free on her website here.

What else? Oh yeah, I've done some fabric bleaching as well (these were some failed, dull eco-prints to start with and I turned them around by stamping some bleach on them):

And then there were some tags and journal pages - see some samples below:

Most recently, I had a go at Francisca Nunes Wanderlust 2024 Taster lesson of sketchy watercolour flowers, which you can find on YouTube here.  In a crazy moment, I signed up for Wanderlust 2024 - and in the meanwhile I also found all my downloads of the lessons from 2016-2018 that I never completed - so I'll be a busy bunny next year for sure! 

So there you go - lots of photos but not that many words. I hope you enjoyed your visit and I look forward to visiting you in return! Happy November! xx

WOYWW #747: I'm back!

What better day to return to WOYWW than #747 - jumbo jet day! I've been gone for so long (8 months, in fact!) - it wasn't intentional - it just happened. During this time I didn't really do anything creative, though I kept myself very busy doing other things. This had happened before, so I wasn't afraid of losing my mojo - I knew it would come back with a vengeance and that's exactly what happened! 

Anyways, long story short, here I am again to share my desk with you and catch up on the current creative affairs of other desks! I'll just do a quick recap of my recent projects -

There were several challenges and free events that reignited my creative spark in September. The first one was #findyourjoy which was all about abstracts - definitely something I want to explore more! 

Using my sewing machine as an easel here!

Then there was Laly Mille's annual #paintwithlaly retreat, where we also created some mini abstracts:

I've also made an ad-hoc art journal out of a couple of used envelopes - here are a few sample pages - it's about half full now. I just leave it on my desk and randomly stick a few bits and bobs in it whenever I feel like it. 

I signed up for Wanderlust 2024 on a whim (just couldn't resist the early bird offer!) and #therobensnest, which is an online subscription community of Roben-Marie Smith, whom I've been following for years. More about these in subsequent blog posts. That's my creative news in a nutshell! 

In other news: my son has recently turned 19 and Oreo is at the grand old age of 8 years! It's easy to remember because my son was 11 when we first got him (the cat, not my son LOL!). He's now off to uni (UWE in Bristol, where my husband works, which is a handy safety net!) - it's all very exciting and nerve-wrecking in equal measure. I made this fun cushion for him to brighten up his student digs and to remind him of Oreo. 

Speaking of Oreo, here's a picture of him lounging with me in the Summer House earlier this month when it got really hot, if you still remember that far back. It seems ages ago to me! It's the best place to hang out on a hot summer's night and we didn't get many of those this year, did we? I'm not complaining, by the way - I love a cool summer!

And that wraps it up for today! There's a lot more stuff on my Instagram. I can't wait to find out what y'all been up to - I will be visiting soon - if not today then during the course of the week! See you then! xx

WOYWW #712: Hello 2023!

Although it seems ages since new year's eve, it's my first blog post this year, so happy new year, everyone. Here's what I've been up to in January so far: 

I finished my December Care Journal with some additional pages from the Ugly Art Club challenge. Here it is on my desk and a few of my favourite pages inside:

Currently I'm working on JJJ (Junk Journal January) in another journal but I'm only doing some selected prompts. This was the "barcode" prompt:

I've also finished my second quilt! This was made with the same strip piecing method as my first one, using Moda's scrap bags, just a bit bigger. I'm testing my boundaries size-wise and this is pretty much bordering the upper limits of what I can squeeze under a regular sewing machine while quilting. Maybe I can go just a little bigger!  I got into a bit of a pickle with the layers shifting during quilting, even with the walking foot, but got some good advice online about how to reduce the puckering. It turned out ok in the end! 

I've already started working on a new quilt, but it's a year-long project: it's a temperature quilt! It involves plotting the maximum and minimum temperatures for each day working with half square triangles. I assigned cool colours to the lower temps and warm colours to the higher temps. By the end of the year, I will have a very colourful quilt top! It's too early to show you the process, but I can show you the colours I'm using: 

Update (September 2023): I had to give up on this project. Although I continued logging the daily temps all the way through till the end of August, I came to the realisation that there hasn't been enough variation this year to make this project interesting, and I would have had to buy a bunch more fabric in the greens and yellows without using any of the lovely magentas. The only time I wouldn't have complained about the heat, we ended up with a cool summer! Perhaps I'll have another go next year.

I've been using lots of the coolest colours this week! It's been frosty most mornings! 

When I spotted this fox on the front lawn, I quickly checked that Oreo was in the house! Thank goodness, he was safely snoozing in the airing cupboard. He doesn't go out much in this cold. 

Happy #712!

WOYWW #708: December Recap

Here we are, the last WOYWW this year, and as such, my last blog post in 2022. Hope you all had a lovely Christmas! I started writing this post well in advance on Christmas Eve, just to make sure I don't run out of time and I'll only have to press the publish button on Wednesday.  I've been working on both my mixed-media and sewing projects throughout the month, so here's a quick recap: (picture heavy but will try to keep the blurb to a minimum!)

Desk No. 1 - working on my Care December journal in an old book with ecodyed papers - I used a combination of fabric and paper - I got stuck on day 15, but plan to finish it before the end of the year or perhaps combine it with Junk Journal January:

I've also made a couple of these cool fabric bowls following a tutorial by Kristin at Altered States Studio here. It's a bit like papermache with fabric! 

Desk No. 2 - I've made a quilted cover for my sewing machine with some Moda fabric strips from a mystery scrap bag (caution: very colourful!):

I've also finished my first quilt, which made me super proud - I'll be working on one for my hubs next as he is now jealous and keeps hinting at being "cold and exposed"! 

I also completed these Christmas projects listed below:

- an advent calendar that was perfect for chocolate coins...

- a table runner for the living room side table (spot Santa in the background)...

- place  mats for the dining table (again using some strips from a Moda scrap bag):

I've also made this Tilda sausage dog - there's a free pattern here - and lots of other free Tilda patterns here. I'm developing a bit of an obsession with Tilda fabrics at the moment and got some of Tone Finnanger's books as well (she's the Norwegian creator of Tilda) - her books are full of creative projects:

Of course, we had some snow too earlier in the West Midlands - not as much as other parts of the country though - shame it didn't last until Christmas:

And our obligatory Christmas home improvement project, fitted the day before Christmas Eve by my DIY extraordinaire husband (it's a glass splashback purchased on Etsy to brighten up the kitchen):

I'll finish off with this mugshot of Oreo, who's wishing everyone a very happy 2023!

xx

WOYWW #704: November check-in

Hello again on the last day of November! I've been looking forward to this day, because it means I can start opening my advent calendars tomorrow! It's all very exciting and the countdown to Christmas always makes the cold, gloomy days of December a lot more pleasant. But more on that later. First off, here's a shot of my desk #1 (the messy one):

That's a little quilted, scrappy journal cover with ecodyed papers inside. Don't let the neat cover fool you -  it's pretty messy inside! It's almost complete now. Here are a few examples of the pages: 

Now onto desk #2 (the not so messy one):

I've  got some boxes to store my fabric in. On the right is my first attempt at crazy quilting with the quilt as you go method (it just happened to be the same size to fit the top of the box perfectly!). I've also made some coasters - this one's hand-pieced and hand-quilted with some lovely Indian batik fabric, which is quite different from the Indonesian batik - I love both! I'm a big batik fan! 

I've also been playing with fabric selvedges (selvages) - I got addicted to collecting Moda scrapbags, which usually contain the selvedge ends of the fabric - most people throw these away, but they actually make fantastic scrappy projects! You can piece them together to make a bigger piece of fabric, which then you can use like any other piece of fabric. Here's a sample - this is about an A4 size:

AND - I've also completed my first quilt top! This was done with a Moda scrapbag as well, which had slightly wider strips, so I was able to piece together a scrappy strip pattern: 

Now I'll show you my crafty advent calendars this year - there are two of them! First up, is this one from Devere Yarns - it contains 24 silk threads in different colours - I can't wait to start opening it! 

The second one is something I'm putting together myself - it's my old home made advent calendar filled with strips of fabric from Moda scrap bags - it's only half full because my orders got delayed by the postal strikes (so annoying!) - but I've got the first 12 days covered. I need two more bags to fill the next 12 drawers. It is a surprise as I open the scrap bags in the dark and place 4-5 strips into each drawer, so I don't know exactly what's in them. I think there's a trick there that the manufacturers have missed - imagine how popular something like this would be if it was available commercially! Well, I've made my own! 

I gotta run to the town today to do a spot of shopping but I will be back later visiting around. 

Happy #704 and Merry Christmas as I probably won't be back until after Christmas! 

Take care, everyone and enjoy the festive period!