Houses

House embroidery by dewberry workshop

I've always loved houses and buildings that look are all crowded together like your typical buildings in Amsterdam. I think it's the windows that seem all uneven and wonky that I particularly like. I've seen a few images lately on pinterest that have inspired me to make some of my own little houses out of lovely scraps of fabric.

Black and White Architecture

Abe Sakaya



These little wooden houses are so cute

First Drawing

Until now my son has just done a lot of scribbling when "drawing" but out of no where he just started drawing this little creature. I watched him carefully draw each of the fingers and then he described the mouth, eyes, nose etc on the face to me. Not sure what the scribbly line and bits are on it's head but they are quite delicately drawn as well! 

I know lots of kids do little drawings like this but being an art teacher, and his Mum, made me very excited when this was done!! I've been waiting for a drawing that's actually something! So cute.



Marble Fun

We've been making a few things lately out of left over boxes and cartons and a lot of sticky tape. (robots, owls, a coffee machine) I got the idea for this marble run from a great idea on the Made by Joel site called Cereal Box Marble Run. He has such great ideas that are really easy to make with little kids and often with bits and pieces found around the house.  I love his site for a bit of inspiration in creative play and making things.

The marble run was really easy to make and provided lots of entertainment. Our one is a bit wonky but it still worked! Even my 18th month old was interested and had a great time when his brother wasn't around!

Large Ball run from a happy wanderer.com

I saw this fabulous ball run on pinterest and repinned it to my site. (follow me on pinterest here)  It's from the site a happy wanderer , which had instructions on how to make it as well as other interesting crafty ideas. We just need a much bigger box than a cereal box!

Fabric Scraps



Being a bit of a hoarder of all sorts of things can lead to interesting collections of stuff/junk...   I hate throwing out anything...   including scraps of fabric left over from various projects. I'm sure you could do something with them! Well finally I came up with a good solution to get rid of fabric scraps without having to throw them in the bin myself ( too hard to let go!)  I have put lots of scraps in a container for my son to make fabric collages. He loves a bit of glueing... so then at least the fabric is used again... Now, what do I do with all those fabric collages of his??

One of the fabric collages

It is cute to see his collages, using lots of my favourite fabric leftovers from projects, like the yellow fabric I used for this giraffe.

Brought to you by the letter J

My son, who is almost four, is very much into letters and numbers, so I thought we'd make a letter J for his room. He also loves painting/glueing/crafting but what kid doesn't? I used a craft paper letter from Lincraft which we painted white. A lot of white paint was used....

He then chose the fabric he wanted on it....many spotty fabrics were offered but he must not have the same spot obsession as I do. So a subtle zig zag/chevron stripe was chosen. I cut it out and used iron on transfer paper to iron it onto the letter. It may not be permanent but it looks cute. I also roughed up the paint a little with some sandpaper to make it look a little shabby! Probably didn't need to do that as it will look shabby pretty soon anyway being in the kid's bedroom! Oh well, enjoy it.

Quilt as you go Cushion

Before I started quilting my original quilt top I thought I’d have a practice on a smaller item. I had read an inspiring “quilt as you go” tutorial on Nova’s a cuppa and a catch up blog and tried it on a cushion size. My son’s room features a lot of red so I got together red fabrics from the stash and a cute elephant print I bought recently, (not knowing what to do with it) and made this cushion. If you don’t look too closely it looks good-ish! Now I may be ready to tackle the quilt… or not. Maybe a few more tips and tricks of the trade needed.  I'll let you know how it goes!

Quilt - 12 years in the making

I finally got out my first quilt again to have a go at finishing it. I started it over 10 years ago in 2000!! The quilt is a pattern from a Kaffe Fasset book that I bought after going to one of his lectures, with my Mum (I met him and had the book signed!) He was very inspiring and  I loved his use of colour and pattern and decided to give it a go.

I worked on it randomly for 2 years, loved the process of choosing fabric and sewing it together but he had used the paper piecing method where you sew directly onto paper. This was great for sewing together without accurately cutting out fabric but you then have to spend hours picking it off the back.  The quilt had a three year stay at my mum’s house as she also made the same quilt (with very different results) and she slowly worked at picking off the paper for me!

Recently,  I have made a single bed quilt top for my son’s room, (fabric chosen 2 years ago) and was inspired to get this original on the go again and finish it! So with all the paper picked off and a new border added it’s time to start quilting…. Just have to work out how to do that!!

These photos of the quilt show it pinned up against a window, as Kaffe Fassett pinned his up and never quilted it. He liked how it looked like stained glass, so used it as a blind. It does look pretty. Very tempting to leave it like this but I want to finish it as a quilt more.