Nursery Print for Nicholas

The work that I have been doing in illustrator has re-ignited by interest in graphic design. In Year 12 I did Graphic Communication and loved it. Mind you, back then it was all about analog and not digital techniques! 

I have done this nursery print for Nicholas' bedroom. He has a frame with the first picture of earth from outer space and I wanted a piece that would compliment this picture. I am still futzing around and making improvements, so it is likely the final product will change some more.

Is the black too severe?

I'll probably look at popping this into a Ribba frame from ikea, the silver one.

What do you think?

My creative space

I ordered some bits and pieces from Lupin Handmade and thought that they might spark some creative interest for the craft day I am off to on Saturday. They are 4 inches across in diameter. For the first time in a long time I am hoping to have some dedicated crafting time.

What do you think? What would you do with these mini embroidery hoops?

Are you playing along this week? What does your creative space look like?

My Creative Space

I have been looking forward to my next market and my first one in over a year. Konstant Kaos will be at Made n Thornbury on Saturday 5th May, 2012.

So my Creative Space this week is full of bits and bobs, necklaces and roses! My creations often start off as something that I would create for myself and then they take on a life of their own.

Saturday 5th May seems to be a great day for Markets, after going to Made n Thornbury head on over to the Sisters Market at Northcote Town Hall (or vice versa).

Want to see more creative spaces? Head on over and take a look.

My Creative Space

Life has been a bit frantic this week leading up to the 4th Birthday of my daughter. Lots of creative things happening including a moment of quilting indulgence using some vintage Sesame Street Fabric.

Baking has also been high on the priority list, playing around with making gingerbread pops for my daughters birthday.

More creative spaces here ...

My Creative Space: Sewing Room

I am slowly getting there with the sewing room. I was chuffed when the letters went up on the wall and even more pleased when I noticed that my Flowerpress Hottie fitted on the wall next to the window.

My larger space was way overdue for a sort and chuck, things that I had been hoarding for decades. Consolidating things into a fixed space has been a good exercise for me. The space still looks like a bomb has hit it, but it is slowly coming together.

I ended up purchasing some Ikea wardrobe organisers to put my fat quarters into in black, however I still have to properly colour sort and press my collection. I still have to get some blinds to put in the room and a few other things up on the wall next to the window. The coloured noticeboard that was in the old room is shorter than the shelf above it. That is going to annoy the crap out of me, so I will be making a new one!

On Tuesday, with Nicholas strapped to my back in the ergo, I tackled my costume box and chucked half of it. Most went to the op shop, but some hats gloves and skirts went off to childcare. I have kept a few costumes for either sentimental or rarity reasons.

I guess to sum it all up, if it is not functional or beautiful, I'll be finding a new home for it. For more creative spaces, head over to Our Creative Spaces.

In other news, our old cat Anastasia has spent the week at the Vet. She is 16 years old, has kidney disease and a tooth abscess. So things are a bit tense here at the moment. She has had a good life, but I am not ready to loose her yet.

My Creative Space: Slow and steady wins the race

Moving the sewing room is happening slowly (perhaps too slowly). I've been down with a cold this week so energy levels are unpredictable.

An impromptu trip to Ikea last night resulted in some more storage containers for my *stuff*. Did you know that Ikea sell pretty good pinking shears in their textiles department for just $10?

De-cluttering has been fun, but has lead to arguments with my daughter. I've been dropping off my excess fabric scraps, ribbons and bits and pieces to her Kinder to use in craft, but little miss doesn't really want to share! I have explained to her that there is plenty of fabric for her to play with at home .. plenty!

This week I have finished putting my scraps into tubs (see on the bookcase!) and have acquired some pre-loved wardrobe organisation containers for my fat quarters. I am still not convinced that this is the way to go with the fats, but it is a workable solution at the moment.

We have another Billy to put up on the wall above the computer desk and pin boards to take down and re-locate. The old sewing room is starting to look a bit forlorn with empty bookcases and 60 litre tubs full of material ready to go into "storage".

I've got some more presents to make this week, so there should be lots to post about next week! Check out Our Creative Spaces for more ...

My Creative Space

The relocation of my sewing room is happening so slowly. Nicholas is sleeping a lot better since he was put on Losec for his reflux which means that I am getting more sleep and therefore functioning better during the day. But he is still quite a high-maintenance baby compared with his sister.

I've started to sort through my scraps of material into colour stories. If it is large enough to be turned into a hex it stays, else, it goes off to Kinder for their craft box.

I feel like a real quilter having colour scrap boxes and I wondered why I didn't do this task sooner! I'm looking forward to grabbing two colour boxes and knocking up a scrappy quilt from what I have got.

More creative spaces can be found over here!

My Creative Space: Quilt Blocks

I managed to steal some time yesterday in my sewing space and I allowed myself the luxury of blocking some of the fabric that I got printed by Spoonflower. The iPhone picture is a bit dodgy ...

I am happy with most of the designs, but will probably tweek them a bit more to make them a bit more workable. I am going to make a little dolls quilt for Tori and see how the Spoonflower fabric washes up.

To see more creative spaces head over to the Our Creative Spaces blog.

My Creative Space ...

My creative space as been filled with the obsession of felting an old jumper for the Hottie Challenge over at Curlypops.

The first jumper I got didn't really felt, there might not have been enough wool in it. All the tags had gone and it was only a few dollars, so I thought I would give it a go. I used my front loading washing machine on a 90 degree, heavily soiled wash.

I got a bit rough with the second one. Having used up all my dirty jeans for the attempted felting with the other jumper, I threw in a pair of Tori's old canvas shoes. I figured that the weight of the shoes would give the woolen jumper the pounding that it required to felt. I know that I could have felted over the stove top, but I have a 4 year old and a 4 month old ... the "hand" approach was never going to happen in my house.

Reasonably happy with the felted result, I have cut out the shapes and now I have to work out where to put my leaves and the embroidery.

My Creative Space ...

Last night I started embroidering this Aunty Cookie Alphabet print. Intended on for Tori's room, I wanted to give it a bit of colour and depth.

The birds will be given feathers and the girls perhaps bows in their hair! A good activity for in front of the telly at nights.

Are you playing along this week? Head on over to our creative space ...

My Creative Space ...

I've finally managed to find the time to pin my Monochromatic Quilt to the backing fabric. So now it is all set to go, I just have to decide how to quilt it. So many options! I need to find the time to finish the last tutorial on the "night and day" block that is in the Sampler.

For more craft pursuits, check out Kootoyoo's blog

Kaos also has a giveaway, "I heart Patchwork" the book .. so enter! yes!

My Creative Space

I haven't had much sewing quality time lately and whenever I am in there, there is a 3 year old wanting desperately to help ...

She is a Virgo, and she likes to organize things. Between her and the cat, Natasha, who likes to pull the pins out with her teeth, it is any wonder I get any sewing done at all !

If you want to see some more craftiness, head on over to Kootoyoo and include your link in her player list

My Creative space ...

My creative space has involved lots of sleep this week ..

.. but when I had a moment, I finished off the edges to this robot flannel wrap. I'm getting a bit tired of the white and blue wraps that we have.

Are you playing along this week?

My creative space ...

My creative space this week has been mostly taken up with strategies for dealing with baby. As with most newborns, they like to be near, so I stole an hour the other night and whipped up this baby sling using instructions via the following site, Jan Andrea at home on the web. The pattern I used was the tube sling pattern and there is an excellent link to a PDF that talks about positioning baby in it.

Being a fabric hoarder, I had lots to choose from but decided on the lovely Ouka by Kokka in black and purple. It is a medium weight Japanese print and using it for something like this is a complete indulgence. But I figured if it didn't work out, I could chop it up for a quilt.

Have you ever self induged and made something for yourself from expensive fabric?

Interested in more creative spaces, check out Kootoyoo ...

My creative space ...

I really should rename this post, my daughters creative space ...

She wanted a paint set, so hubby headed off to Kmart and scored a water colour and pencil set for $15 with wooden box (who makes profit on this again?).

Sometimes she draws things and paints them, other days I draw things and she paints them. It has been HOURS of fun for her! Let's hope she continues to find this creative space attractive when baby arrives.

If you want to play as well, head over to Kootoyoo

My creative space ...

I've been working at breakneck speeds (as fast as a full term pregnant woman can work) to try and get this quilt finished before baby arrives. Which could be any day now given that I am past my due date.

My hubby has a theory that it won't arrive until I have it finished and I am relaxed ...

Of course, it wouldn't be me if I wasn't also writing tutorials for each block for my blog as well. I must be mad!

What do you think of the layout? There has been much debate on Facebook about the balance of a few of the blocks, how would you re-arrange it?

What is in your creative space today? To join in, head on over to Kootoyoo's new web site!

My creative space ...

I wanted to do an uplifting post using this image (below), which show the blocks I have finished so far for my Monochromatic Sampler Quilt. As you can see I have changed my design a little and the blocks are starting to take shape quite nicely. As I complete blocks I pin them to my bookcase so I can see them all together.

But the reality is that I have spent the last two days on these (below), having discovered that I had not one but two infected teeth in my mouth which resulted in a marathon 1 1/2 hours of dental surgery today to remove the infection and plug them back up again.

The pain was so intense that I ended up at the Royal Women's last night for three hours for pain relief (morphine) and they monitored the baby to make sure that there was no side effects from what they gave me. I managed to get into my dentist today and hopefully in a few days time the swelling will have gone down and I can enjoy the last few days or week of my pregnancy!

I think that a double root canal should be on every new Mum's "to do" list as they are approaching the 39 week mark .. don't you?

Take a look at some other creative spaces over at Kootoyoo's blog.

My creative space ...

I've been struggling with trying to get my creative space cleaned up for this Saturday. I have a few quilting friends coming over for a day of frivolity, sewing and Colin Firth. I might have to enlist my hubby tonight for one last "push" so that I can get that floor cleaned and the cutting desk cleared.

One thing that I have move past, is wanting for everything to be perfectly organised the first time. So I told myself, so long as the material is folded and stacked, it is good enough. The next "round" of tidying will be in similar colour collections and similar sizes. The fat quarters seem to be under control, but the yardage needs a good going over and serious organisational thought.

The days are ticking by and I am 20 days outbound from my due date and boy does it feel like it. I had all these dreams for what I wanted to sew when I stopped work, but I seem to be quite sore on the front of my belly (placenta at the back this time), which means that sitting at the sewing machine is not as enjoyable as it was last time I was 8 months pregnant.

For more creative spaces, click onto Kootoyoo to see who else is playing this week.

My Creative Space

I am trying to get some quilting done today.

These blocks are just ideas and might turn into something one day ...

Not happy with the way that the gingham is sitting on this one, but you get the idea! (btw, spotlight have 25% off Gingham at the moment with VIP card)

If you are interested in some other creative spaces, then head on over to Kootoyoo and play along.

My creative space

I'm doing lots of writing at the moment, so in my study I sit with Vlad our newest addition to the family purring away on my lap. My workdesk is pretty messy at the moment!

I am looking forward to the Modern Quilders Guild meet on Saturday in North Melbourne. A whole day quilting ... just me, my rotary cutter and my sewing machine - bliss.

And if you are playing "My creative space" this week, don't forget to pop over to Kootoyoo's blog and leave your name.