Wednesday 29 January 2014

19

A Winter Card
 
 
I am considering this to be a winter card as a) it is made for a winter Birthday and b) it involves the cold blue and white that are commonly associated with Winter.


 
This card is made for my dear, lovely Mummy, and I used it as an experiment for
 a) using fabric flowers (I quite like them)
b) using my new mini alphabet stamps (I quite like them)
c) drawing on a card (I quite like it!)
 
So all around, a very successful venture.
Except for the fact that the piece of cad that I used to take pictures on was cream and not white, so everything looks quite dark in these pictures. Apologies.
 

Saturday 25 January 2014

Mocks

My first week back at school (which was, admittedly, three weeks ago), meant that I had the delight and pleasure of having to sit my mock exams.
 
This was really scary.

 
Admittedly, I only had three of them, and art doesn't really count, but this is the last chance I'm going to get to sit in that hall and practise exam conditions before the summer. Which is a little bit terrifying.
 
I've always found exams a little daunting, and I full out panicked on my history paper last year, and I have now learnt the hard way that that doesn't work. I'm retaking that paper in the summer, and then I have three others. One A2 History, two A2 Physics papers. Art will already have been completed.
 
And then it's over.
 
But that all doesn't really kick off until June-ish, so I've still got time to prepare. Now is the time when I will start bugging my art teachers for how to get extra marks. My History paper was the first time we've ever been given a full thematic question and I need to work on them. Physics, we need to just learn the stuff (yes, it didn't help that topics appeared on our exam that we haven't studied yet).

Before anyone asks, my grades were really good, I got an A in Physics, and was 2% off an A in History, which is fantastic! (Art didn't grade us...)
 
I can do this. I just need to calm down.

Wednesday 22 January 2014

18

A Cushion
 
 
This is a cushion that I made for my sister's birthday, indeed complete with an embroidered TARDIS on the front of it. I co-ordinated the colours to match her room ( as well as, you know, TARDIS Blue) and it worked really well. It's just a simple envelope pillow in design, but then she doesn't really care about the back of it!

 
I found the pattern for the TARDIS over at the lovely people from Fandom in Stitches, and I'm so glad that they've started bringing in more embroidery projects, because paper-piecing terrifies me!!! To transfer the design, I merely pinned the paper to the top of the fabric and stitched around the lines.
 
And my sister loves it, so that's even better!
 


Sunday 19 January 2014

17

A Hat.
 
For Christmas, one of my friends expressly requested that I knitted her a green hat. With two pompoms. Daunted by this prospect, I used 9mm needles and basically knitted a rectangle with 4 rows of rib at each end, then sewed up the two sides. As far as I am aware, she is very happy with it.

 
I used 2 balls of wool for this, a green and a white, which I knitted together throughout to give the density of a chunky wool

 
Oh, and yeah - my sister made the pompoms because I am hopeless at them!!!
 

Wednesday 15 January 2014

Scrapbook 2014

Last year, I took a liking to scrapbooking. I found the December Daily Challenge exciting and I loved documenting the good times and the everyday. Upon research, I found that that kind of scrapbooking, picking up small pieces of everyday, fit better with Project Life than anything else. But I am broke, a student, and I do not like 12x12 pages.
 
So here is my alternative

 
I had an A4 black paged sketchbook lying around and I had no idea what to do with it. the pages are of good quality and should hold up well if I ever choose to embellish heavily. It also cost me nothing extra. And I can also use it to use up my stash of paper goods before University.


 
This is my sort-of title page. It sets the ground work and it looks good. The others may not look like this, as I plan to do these on a Sunday night to review the week, and occasionally dedicate pages to their own individual events. But I am at school, so nothing particularly happens. And, because I don't have a fancy camera phone, any photos will be taken on my camera, which looks really odd if you produce that in the sixth form centre.

 
 
So this is the first week! As you can see, much more basic.
I included a pocket made from tracing paper containing the confetti from the party popper that I used at Midnight to ring in the new year, and I have tried to keep it colour co-ordinated... The gorgeous London Eye sticker came from Accesorize (who'd have thought it?) and was bought with a Christmas gift, so completely guilt free!
 
I found this gorgeous 'this week' card on pinterest, which I printed out in black and white, that I hope to use for the whole year. I like the instant sense of what I was doing that week everytime I just glance at it.
 
Printables used in these pages come from:
 
Hopefully I can stick to it, and maybe I'll show you every week what I've been producing? Hopefully also, they'll get a bit more visually appealing!!! And perhaps someday even include pictures!!!
 


Sunday 12 January 2014

Secret Quilter (16)

I quilt.
And for some reason, I have ever posted them here. I have made a total of five quilts, of which I have three to show you.
 
  
 
This first one is actually my most recent one that I made for my sister for Christmas. It is a Cath Kidston inspired one, as she's obsessed. It's also great, as I hade loads of fabrics that matched her colour scheme. it's my most accurate quilt that I have completed to date, and she loves it.



This is my first quilt, that I made for my Mum, Christmas 2012. She was completely shocked and didn't expect it. The colours are red, with a patterned red and brown swirl fabric. It is backed with fleece and great to cuddle up with.
 


 
This last one is one I made for myself, and was made out of scraps that are used as fabric samples. It was great, as the squares were all the same size. I quilted this one by embroidering small crosses at intersections in coloured embroidery thread. It's lovely and colourful, and for that reason it will go with practically any colour scheme, which will be great for university next year (because who knows what colours the rooms will be?!?!).
 
My fabric stash is huge, but mainly consists of bits that are less than half a metre tall, and making quilts helps me to use all of these up. It's fantastic, and I hope to make many more.
 
Also, to contribute to my 50 Things to Make (which has now been extended to two years) This is counting as 'Something quilted'.