Monthly Archives: February 2010

I decorated another 4 postcards (the two remaining cards have manufacturing faults so I’m not going to bother with them).  I scanned these instead of photographing them and they look more contrasty here than in real life.

I’m pretty chuffed to have used up some supplies! I’d love to send one or two out as postcards through the mail… if you’d like a postcard from me, please let me know in the comments!

I am SOOOO itching to get into my sewing room.  There are lots of projects backed up. I’m going to get dibbs on some baby-free time over the weekend so I can go crazy and sew, sew, sew.  I’m thinking I should do all my cutting out now…. so what do I want to make?

• Baby pants (finish one pair and make another)
• Pencil case – why do I keep my pencils in a plastic bag when I’m equiped and skilled to make a cute fabric case?!!
• A pair of shorts for myself (the pattern adustment project I started months ago…  I’ve adjusted the pattern so now I’ve got to make a muslin to test out the fit!!).
• A knit dress … a little ambitious for me, but I think I’m up for it!! 

I also need to think about possible hand sewing projects for times when I can’t get into my sewing room.  I just can’t decide what I want to make!  Arrrrgh!

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I’m proud that I said I’d get my pencils out and then I actually did it!

First I taped off my ‘frames’ and layed down a watercolour base.  Then I got busy with my pencils 🙂

This is very bumpy handmade watercolour paper from Creative Paper in Burnie, Tasmania (my home town).  We did a tour of their new home at the Maker’s Workshop when we were home in January.  The new facility has lots of potential and I especially liked the maker’s kiosks where you can meet and chat with the makers while they are creating.  The day we were there we spoke with a sculpter (paper mache figures) and a glass bead maker.

In my recent cull of craft supplies I got rid of all my art papers.  In future I’ll be buying small quantities for immediate use. I’ve got 6 more postcard sized pieces of this paper left and I think I’ll use the rest up this weekend.

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Here we have Jasper watching Chris mow the lawn. When we got back from our holiday some parts of our lawn were nearly taller than us.  Chris had to tackle it in parts over a number of days.

Jasper is pulling himself up onto furniture now, though he still doesn’t know about stepping.  He loves playing with doors, opening and closing, opening and closing.  Watching the top of the door as he moves it at the bottom.  Like some amazing puppet master.

I’m worried he’ll get his fingers jammed.  Today he got his foot awkwardly and firmly stuck under his bedroom door, I tried to gently pry it out but eventually had to use brute force…  I thought surely I must have broken it.  But it was just mildly grazed and he cried for about 30 seconds before moving onto more interesting things.

Tonight I’m thinking about coloured pencils… I’ve had a set of Derwents since I was 15 and I’m thinking that it’s time to USE them.  But first.  Sleep.

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This project seemed to go on for-ever.  My technique for hemming is too slow… hand basting the fold line, finger pressing the hems and basting them by hand, then mitring the corners and stitching THEN finally sewing the actual hem on my machine.  I’ve tried to ‘wing’ it before, but the hems become uneven.  If anyone has a quicker method please put my out of my misery and let me know!  This is the pile of basting threads that I plucked out tonight.

Though maybe it wasn’t actually my method that was the problem.  Maybe it was that we have been going through the trauma of controlled crying (which has worked, OMG it has bloody well worked and I’m soooo, sooooo, sooooo happy about it, but oh how I wish it could have happened without the crying bit… including MY crying)

AND last Tuesday night the power went off and the food in our big freezer defrosted. So last week I had to cook. A lot.

Just in case you were wondering.  My ‘intensive’ project has been put off for a week.

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I’ve been thinking a lot about patterns and shapes and I’m very happy to have found the textile designs of Mina Perhonen (via ah-yi).  Lots of inspiration for my first ‘week-long creative project’, which I’ll firm up over the next week and probably start the week after.

One proviso being that I’m getting enough sleep by then. Hopefully the pain of teaching Jasper to sleep is a long distant memory by then.  We are currently ‘in the process of’ and my heart is feeling very raw.

How cool is this little woodstack shack?   One day I’d like a crazy little retreat down the end of the garden.  Though I have a feeling I’m going to be house oriented for many years to come.

Onto more pressing dreams, I’ve been thinking about how I can make this place more functional for us.  I’d like to create a space that allows me to create while Jasper is awake or asleep (my current space doesn’t work in either situation!)

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We’ve been home for a week, but I’ve had trouble getting my act together to post.  You know how it is after a holiday, it takes a little while to get back into ‘real life’.

I overestimated the time and energy I would have during our travels to devote to my little doodle drawings.  But I did chip away at it here and there.  I think I have a 1/4 of the little book filled now.

I started doing whole page ‘designs’ rather than exploring a particular idea multiple times on one page.  But I think I’ll try to go back to the messier explorations which quickly push ideas in lots of different directions.

I hope I’ll have a couple of hours this weekend to do some tea towel stencilling.  I’m itching to get them done now so I can move on to other projects.

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