Weird and windy

I never really thought about it before, but it is really unusual where I live for it to be windy. The sun is shining, the sky is blue but its blowing a gale out there. There are wild, noisy gusts of wind rattling round the house and finding every loose and squeaky thing. It’s a little unsettling, at least that’s what I’m going to blame for my weird mood and the fact that I can’t seem to get stuck into my to-do-list today. It’s like there’s a primitive part of my brain that is trying to understand why the weather is different all of a sudden and can’t make any sense of it.

My mood isn’t helped by the fact that I am feeling extremely uncreative at the moment.  What with work and a work course to study for, Christmas preparations to be made and my garden to get back in order now we’ve had enough rain for the weeds to start growing again I haven’t had a lot of time for making stuff. A couple of weeks back I bought a cutting machine, which I can see is going to be hugely useful for a whole lot of things but it’s going to require me to develop a fair bit of expertise. So I want to play, and I made the test project that came with machine (see below) but I have an awful lot of learning to do before I am going to be good enough to make it work the way I want it to work. Which is a little frustrating.

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Summer’s almost here

It’s getting towards that time of the year where I have to camp out in the one room of the house that has air-conditioning and I am trying to muster the energy to do the things I need to do before it gets too hot to do them – like get my crazy garden in order, finish painting those last two windows and getting organised for Christmas. Which of course, is why I spent most of yesterday on the couch, hand quilting a quilt instead of tackling anything on my to do list. However, I’m determined that next year is the year I get my groove back (or actually get a groove, because I’m not convinced I’ve ever actually had one).

Pictures of the hand quilting will have to wait until it’s finished, so for now you will have to make do with a picture of the hat and scarf set I just finished knitting.

Sorting things out

I have had two weeks off work, and what with overseas relatives staying and a brief trip to Sydney things have been a little chaotic, fun but chaotic. Off course while I was away the weather was apparently perfect but the day I need to do what feels like 10 loads of washing it is overcast and threatening storms. There is however some blue sky out there and I’m hoping I can get a couple of loads at least dry on the line before rain hits. In the meantime I will focus on getting the rest of my house back into a semblance of order before I have to go back to work tomorrow.

Here are some pictures of my trip. I loved the coastal daisies I stumbled across while on a walk along the coast. They were almost iridescent. I am trying to think of ways I could capture them in textiles.

 

Halloween

A friend I used to work with recently challenged me to 31 days of Halloween craft. The idea was that we would post one craft related thing on Facebook every day during October with a Halloween theme. So I have been busy, and it has been fun. After months of avoiding my sewing room I am starting to feel like I am getting my mojo back. I have been making some old favourites as well as trying some new things including origami for the first time.

I am stretching the definition of Halloween just a little by including some day of the dead fabric, but it was just too nice to resist.

I am also still knitting. In addition to the little pants I finally finished I am in the process of knitting a baby hoody. I will save a picture of the hoody for next time as it isn’t quite finished yet. For now you will have to make do with pictures of my Halloween related stash.

Some actual sewing

With some trepidation I went to my first stitching day out on Saturday. Trepidation because not only is attention to detail in hand work not one of my strong suits, the days seemed to be themed very much along the lines of pink, flowers, shabby chic style work. Totally not my style, but it was a nice day out. It was a pleasant environment to sit and sew with a decent sandwich for lunch, and snacks to snack on. I think I came away with more stitchery patterns than I know what to do with, and I didn’t really follow the instructions but I think it looks alright. Plus it’s close enough to actually finished that I might get round to finishing it.

Being out all day Saturday meant that Sunday was mostly about chores, but I have been trying to restore some order to my craft room and last week I picked up some cute balsa wood containers for storage. I spent Sunday afternoon decorating two of them. I painted one of them and used fabric decoupage on the other. I did also manage to finish the pair of baby pants I’ve been knitting but think I am going to deconstruct again as I am not really happy with the making up.

 

 

 

Creative Urges

For the last couple of months I have been doing some serious adulting. Grown up stuff like painting my house, un-clogging my drains and getting a new stove.  All of which have been serious accomplishments in real world terms but have been taking a lot of my energy, and even more of my money, and haven’t left me with a lot of creative time. The most crafty I have been for the last month is knitting half a pair of baby pants and I am feeling a serious lack of creativity in my life. So much so, that on Wednesday I went rogue and turned the team meeting PowerPoint into a comic book. Thankfully my boss thought it was cool.

Deciding that I need to relax a little I have booked myself into a stitching day 3 weekends from now. I’m not sure that the work they will be doing is really my style as it seems very pretty, delicate and embroidery focused, but I figure I might learn something that I can apply in my own way later on. And…I’m looking forward to a break from the house stuff.

This is the new stove

Baby pants in progress

 

Baby pants in progress

This is the new stove

 

 

Still painting the house

It feels like I have been house painting forever even though it can’t have been a month but I am definitely making progress. I have one more long wall of the house to do which I think I can polish off next weekend and then it is just down to fiddly bits. Windows, my house’s crazy knocked together porch and of course going round and fixing all the edges where I haven’t quite got it right due to my absolute lack of finesse with a brush.

I’m making equally slow progress on the quilt I started, but am doing ok considering I have pretty much only been doing a half hour a day. It’s a pretty straightforward design five inch squares and ten inch squares all from my stash of batiks. I’m hoping I might be able to rummage and find enough material for a backing so it can be a total stash quilt.