Street Art #155

Today’s street art comes from an unusual source: my mother.  She’s travelled a lot in the past year but on her last holiday of 2016 she surprised me by coming home with photos of “gravity” (which is a great malapropism!).  She’s not a great photographer, and her memory is shocking so all I can say is that I think these were taken in Barcelona and/or Valencia.  Definitely somewhere in that neck of the Med anyway.  I love the cross-stitched ones (first and last photos), they’re such an unusual type of street art and I’m now sorely tempted to find a fence to cross stitch on!

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Street Art #154

It’s Queens Park station graffiti time again!  To see the previous incarnation click here.  This piece by Binty Bint appeared at the end of January.

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Happy Ostara

I’ll blog this properly later, and include the patterns I used, but for now here’s a photo 🙂 

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Beatrix Potter back in stock

Beatrix Potter notebooks now back in stock.  This includes a few Peter Rabbit ones, which are usually the first to sell out so grab them while you can! Click here to visit my shop.

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Street Art #153

More submissions from my friend Mark, this time from a trip to Belfast he made in December.  Love the last one 🙂

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Wednesday WIP

This is another ‘use it up’ project that I’m partway through. I’m mostly enjoying it, or I was until I hit a snag with a leaf.  More details to follow once it’s finished!

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Work in progress

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Fun with flags

A little nod to TBBT there, but that’s basically what I’ve been doing.  Last week I bored you all rigid telling you about my spring cleaning, and mentioned that I had put aside a load of assorted fabric to use in a project straight away.  Well, when you have lots of random fabric (ranging in size from scraps to whole half metres) and you want to use them up quickly then the two options that come to mind first are probably quilts or bunting.  I opted for the latter, given I already have one quilt that’s still unfinished and languishing in a box somewhere.

I’m going to ramble a bit now so bear with me.

One of the reasons I have so many half finished projects (or, dare I say it, ones that never got off the ground) is that I like to wait for optimum conditions.  This bunting is a really good example.  Of course the most efficient way to sew bunting is by using a sewing machine.  My sewing machine is still in need of a service and I daren’t use it until it’s been checked out (because of the alarming burning smell when it runs…).  All well and good, but that sewing machine has been gathering dust for well over a year now.  Which means I’ve been putting off various other things that require the use of a sewing machine.

You with me so far?  So ideally I would get the machine serviced and then use it to sew the flags.  However we know that the likelihood of me getting it serviced soon is very slim.  I could cut the flags and then keep them safe until the machine is fixed…but that’s not a good idea because things get lost.  Somewhere in this house is a bag full of quilt squares (and not from the half-finished quilt mentioned above!) that I cut out and then put safely to one side.  It gets slightly more complicated when I tell you that my mother has an industrial sewing machine – so she could sew it for me (her machine is super fast and scares the bejeesus out of me), but she was on holiday last week.

What’s a girl to do?

Suck it up, buttercup.  That’s right, I sewed the flags by hand.  BY HAND.  All ninety of them.  Possibly a little crazy, but a) it got the job done, and b) I was ill last week so not in a fit state to do anything other than sit and snuffle on the sofa.  Sewing flags killed the time between naps and doses of medicine.

They look good eh?  So I got them all sewn and pressed, and now I will do the sensible thing and ask my mother if she’ll sew them onto the bias binding for me.  Of course I have no actual immediate use for bunting, but I figure it’s bound to come in handy at some point and in the meantime it means I have reduced my stash and turned dead fabric into a potentially useful ornament!

Tl;dr – I had spare fabric and made bunting.

PS.  In the spirit of using it up the sewing was all done using thread I had picked up on sale a few years ago.  I got suckered in by the cute jar and it was cheap, but I already have plenty of thread so it’s just been sitting there gathering dust.  Now it’s all gone, huzzah!

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Street Art #152

At the start of December my friend Carla went off to Barcelona for a little jaunt and brought some street art back for me.  I have the best friends 🙂  I absolutely love the last one!

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Spring cleaning

Before

My studio gets messy.  Not just a little messy, it turns into a full on tip when I’ve been working on projects back to back.  I’m not by nature a particularly tidy person, and it doesn’t help that I have a tendency to hoard things.  It’s a small studio and when it’s crammed full of what seems like everything bar a kitchen sink it’s really cramped.  It was definitely time for a clear out.  I thought I might as well blog about it because pretty much every photo I see online of other workspaces makes it look as though everyone is super tidy.  This is so not the case!  I think people are also often curious about what someone’s personal space looks like: we are all fairly nosy by nature, and so I hope you enjoy this peek into my personal chaos!

After

This bench is a natural dumping ground for things, which is daft because when it’s clear enough to sit on I can enjoy a cuppa while looking out towards the garden!  Tidying it did have some unexpected benefits though – look what I found!

I also braved the Corner of Doom, which hasn’t been touched in three years, and made a cosy little den for my dog.

He wasn’t terribly impressed and decided he would rather sit out in the garden and sulk.  Ungrateful wretch.

Before

After

Probably doesn’t look like a huge improvement, but I had a much needed sort out of the cubby holes and things got put back in their proper places (often not actually in those nooks!).  It was a good chance, too, to take stock and see what little fixings and embellishments I’ve been hoarding.

 

This corner took absolutely ages to sort out, but it really was worth it.

I think this is the most ruthless clear out to date.  I’m slowly coming to terms with the fact that I simply don’t have time to make use of every little thing I’ve hoarded over the years.  It breaks my heart to get rid of some things.  No, let’s be honest, it breaks my heart to get rid of anything at all.  I can see the potential in pretty much everything that crosses my path, but I’m trying to be more realistic going forward.  A lot of stuff went out for recycling, some things went straight in the bin, and a box of assorted fabric was put aside for immediate use (more on that in the next few days).

Before

After

This area probably shows the least obvious improvement, but those crates were full of things that have now been evicted, and stuff from other parts of the studio have gone in there instead.  The debris on the desk is comprised of things that will be used within the next week – and if they’re still there then I’ll chuck them. Say hello to the new, ruthless, me.  You might be wondering if the inside of the desk is still in a state of chaos.  The answer is yes, as I’ve not worked up to sorting through there yet!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little look into my studio.  It’s not perfect, but then what is?  It was hard work parting with things but I must admit I’m a lot happier for this spring clean, and I’m hoping that I will be less inclined to hoard things in future.

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