Take it Further - Admiration

I have submitted before February! This is the first (and hopefully not the last) submission for Sharons Take it Further. The first theme asks who do you admire and why.

At first I found this a little difficult. A name didn't pop up right away - I had one idea but it wasn't developing very well. My next idea came and stayed. This may be a cliche, but I really admire all of these crafters who are able to accomplish so much in they're lives. We all have our own list of these people (and they may even overlap), but these are the one who are crafty, creative, have beautiful families, blog and the million other things that they do. Some days may go smoother than others but there's always a grace in what they do.

My inspiration came from the illustrations by Tomie dePaola in a children's book called The Clown of God. It still needs a bit of finishing but the main parts are done.

The background is tiny bits of cut up fabric quilted under toile. Each ball is done differently. I tried a few new things, and some old tricks as well.

A Weekend of New

This has been an exciting (and busy) weekend. First I got a new toy. My very own embelishing machine (a Pfaff)- I played with it a bit, but I need to sit down and really try things. For those who don't know what this does, it "felts" fabrics together in a very similar fashhion to needle felting, only with a motor. I really loved what it did to ribbon (flat ribbon became ruched!).


I also went to a free(!) bookbinding workshop but on by the Church of Craft at The Workroom. This was my first trip there and it was a beautiful, creative space.

Here's my book. It was really easy to make. The cover is a postcard, and we used random paper (including from deconstructed books) for the pages. I have a feeling more books will be coming in the future...

New Year, New Motivation

It's amazing what re-organizing your sewing room will do. One feature that I created was some shelves where I can lay out my current projects. Now they're off the floor and just below my eye level so they can remind me that they're still there.

Well their gentle reminders worked. For the last day of my Christmas holiday I spent some time working on a few of these. I finished my yoga bag. This is an Amy Butler free pattern. I added a drawstring to the top rather than leaving it open like the patten.

I also finished a quilt I started at a workshop by Lorraine Roy. It's basically a collage of tiny pieces of fabric quilted underneath netting. It was really easy and really effective (we were working on sunsets).

I also worked on my Guild Challenge quilt (I'll show you later) and an applique nutcracker that has been sitting around. Now I'll have to put a few more things on that shelf.

Christmas Thrifting

During our Boxing Day shopping the Mister and I ended up at Value Village (a large chain of second hand stores) looking for some bargains. I didn't find any emboidery (which is what I usually look for), but I did find this...


I've always been looking for a tree skirt pattern to make, but never did I expect to find one this FANTASTIC!!!

After a quick bath, it's ready for next year's tree.

Beginning 2008

After a brief sabbatical (that's what I'm calling it) and Christmas holidays, I think I'm ready to blog again.

The thing I love about blogs is the openess and sharing of ideas and inspiration. I thought since I'm tapping into this great resource, I needed to give a little back. I knew blogging was work, but I think my ideas about my blog were on the grandiose size - being inspired by many of my favourite, beautiful blogs. I found that blogging slowly began to be a chore, and I was getting disappointed and a bit overwhelmed with other commitments - and so the sabbatical.

Now 2008 has begun, and the amazing Sharon has started a new challenge called Take it Forward. This is a monthly challenge and all the work is shown on your blog/flicker - and so I introduce Frog Stitch version 2.0 (which looks very similar to the original).

Other than Sharon's challenge, I have a few other goals for 2008.

1. Try to post regularly (weekly maybe) - shorter posts may be the best option.

2. I need to take up music again - I played violin all my life up until 4 years ago when I started graduate school. Now it's just been sitting in my sewing room. I think it's time to pick it up again.

3. I want to learn how to tat. I keep wanting to put those cute little rings on crazy quilts - I just need to learn how to do this (if anyone has a good resource please let me know).

4. I want to finish some of my UFOs - I don't have many but they're just sitting there taunting me.

5. I would like to make a conscious effort to tidy up more (ie do dishes promptly). Okay, this one has nothing to do with quilting/crafting, but it needed to get written up.

Those are all my big ideas so far.

I hope everyone has a happy and creative New Year!