Another Week Gone By!

For someone who used to post several times a week, I really am battling to do more than a weekly post these days! But I have a personal mantra that says that blogging is for fun and if you haven't got the time (or energy or inspiration) then you don't blog until you have! This week I had a few days in the northern goldfields a few hundred kilometres north of Kalgoorlie - glorious warm sunny days and cold nights (in contrast to the wet windy wintry weather we are suddenly experiencing here today). A nice change from the office part of my job although I came back pretty stuffed - all I wanted to do for a couple of days was sleep which was, of course, not possible.

As a result I haven't been doing a lot of creative things at night after work but I have started on my Green Fabric Inchies. Annie and I are running an exchange on Aus_NZartquilters so I thought I had better get started. This exchange is like the others I have participated in - each person makes seven sets of nine inchies, keeping one and swapping six. I like each set to be made up of nine different inchies so I have made all my bases and so far have finished the two types you can see here.

The first ones at the top of this post are made from cream damask type fabric (with a middle layer of felt and a base of the strong pelmet vilene). I have stamped dots on it in green ink. I've added some colour (using water soluble Lyra crayons and Glitz Spritz in green) to some cream paper flowers and added small metallic green brads to the centres.

The second ones are made from a patchwork fabric that has a lovely lacy pattern (the same one I used on these ATCs recently). I've added some lace I have hand painted in shades of green. These ones also have the felt middle and pelmet vilene base. I have found that the extra firmness really helps when you are stitching around the fiddly little things!

On Wednesday Annie and I swapped our May "things starting with the letter L" ATCs - isn't this a gorgeous limey, lacy ATC!

ATC by Annie Laing

Annie had also been to Perth for the Craft Fair and came back with lots of new serviettes and she is such a good friend that she has given me some of all of the them!


I have been trying really hard over the last few years to resist the urge to buy new products as they come out because I have so many art/craft interests and I am (a) running out of storage room, (b) already out of workable surface area, (c) not using everything I already have, including all those new things that just seemed to be so necessary, and (d) trying not to spend money! As a result I have not paid any attention to all the embossing and die-cutting tools that have proliferated over the years but over the last year or so I have seen some incredible stuff made with the Cuttlebug Machine and yesterday I finally gave in and ordered one and several embossing dies. I haven't bothered with die-cuts at this stage. I can't wait for it to arrive - hopefully by next weekend as we have a long weekend and I'll have some time to play. My Mum is coming up in mid June and I am having a week's leave so that we can have some time together so I think we will both have fun with the new toy! Expect to see lots of embossed projects.

And this morning in Target (I was buying a new kettle as the current one has decided to leak rather copiously) I found these gorgeous paisley brads and could not resist them! I'm going to try colouring them with alcohol inks but I love them plain. I remember now why I avoid shops!