Friday, April 15, 2011

Lurgies & Creativity Renewed

I have had a bronchial lurgie since mid February but finally seem to have gotten rid of it. Hooray. The worst part of feeling ill is that the creative ideas seem to disappear, which is even more depressing. One of my strategies to get past that feeling is to do some sorting and cleaning in my sewing room and NO, I AM NOT SHOWING A PHOTO BECAUSE IT IS SO BAD I AM TOO EMBARRASSED. ARE YOU LISTENING TASHA. The upside of cleaning up is finding lots of half done or discarded projects. Rather than just toss them either in the bin or the op-shop bag I challenged myself to come up with a new purpose for them.





 
One project is some lozenge shapes  that I had hand pieced a quilt from and then started a cushion cover with the leftovers. I have now unpicked and resewed some of the pieces to make a long skinny piece for a tablerunner. 
(The lozenge shape is from a book by Christine Book called Stitched For Us Folk.)







I also found some pretty strips of fabric left over from these pretty pin cushions so my grandaughter and I foundation pieced some more pin cushions. She is a brilliant stuffer.






Leftover country fabrics strips are going to be a couple of needlebooks for Kris Kringle gifts and then I found a reject block from a quilt I made five years ago and as I looked at it, I thought "what if I add a vine and some tendrils. It could be a cushion or a wallhanging or even added to the quilt I am designing now.








So I  have a pile of things that I am inspired to work on again even though it wasn't what they were originally going to be and those creative ideas are flowing again.  There are never enough hours in the day to achieve all that I want to do.


Till next time,

Therese

Monday, April 11, 2011

Haven't we been here before?

Hello, long time no post!

I have been moaning about the lack of projects that I would like to make in the magazines, so I decided to do something about it.  I put the thought out there that we would love to do a project and what happens?  Two different magazines want projects! 

Jenine and I said that we could assist one magazine that needed a specific project in a hurry.  So off we went, cutting, sewing, more cutting, more sewing.  We loved the project.  So much so, that we didn't want to give it away!  So, back to the drawing board.

Jenine and I are still working on the original quilt, but another design needed to be done and quickly - we only had a week to go before it was to be finished.  Could we do it?  Yes, we could. 

Over a weekend, Therese and I sat and sewed our little hearts out - my fingers were sore from all the blanket stitching we did.  Therese put the top together and quilted it over a couple of days, I did the binding and it was done.  Did we like it?  At the start, no!  But by the end we were very happywith it.  The magazine love it and will be using it as a project later this year.  Keep an eye out for more details (I promise to keep up with the blog!).


Sneak preview of applique blocks!

What do you think?  Cute, hey?






Till next time,

Tasha