Stuffed

I'm getting there! All the 12 dolls for my UFO-swag are stuffed and the first one is assembled. Well, almost.. They are all headless so far, but I just had to take a picture of the little pile of bodies - it's almost grotesque :-)
Couldn't help sneaking in the little bowl I gave myself as a xmas present. It's the excact colour I want to paint my living room walls and has the caption "The glow of a happy cat" painted along the rim along with the back cat. When I put a night light in it, the cat seems to be embracing it and is ever so sweet - it cheers me up no end, and that can't be bad, can it?
I'm going to collapse in front of the TV in a minute, but as I never can be idle for long, I've got my sewing kit ready to stitch some more bodies. The woodeb beads are the heads which are to b stuck on with glue later on, and I have some white and orange wool ready for hair and beards. I might be able to meet the challenge of finishing them before the end of the month!
It's been a busy week at work so I'm really looking forward to a fun weekend with my fellow quilters - it's "quilt till you wilt"-day tomorrow and we have all been challenged to make something yellow to remind us that spring is getting closer and the days are getting brighter. I've decided to make a small purse to keep my sunglasses in. It will look like a sun folded in half with a zipper along the fold. More about that tomorrow. I hope it works out, but zippers aren't really my favourite thing... Some pentagon coasters with stars are also on the agenda - a bit difficult to explain, but I'll take some pictures along the way.

Some new cards

Romantic card 4
Originally uploaded by crafty mathea.

Here is one of the cards I made for a recent exchange. I searched for photos of old manuscripts and old buildings and printed them on to fabric. I added victorian clip art, also printed on fabric and appliqued the bits and pieces on Fast2Fuse, added muslin backing and satin stitched around the edge. The idea was to create visions of love letters in a historical setting, maybe Victorian or going back to the days of Jane Austen - cant't wait to see the new film, by the way. There's a secret romantic lurking inside, trying to emerge, these days...

The forgotten kit

A friend challenged me to finish and old kit in January. "Oh, but I never buy kits" was my quick reply. However, my subconcious knew differently - a few hours later it dawned on me: didn't I buy a kit when I first started out as a quilter? In one of the first Keepsake catalogues I laid my hands on there was a Christmas swag of snowmen and Santas that I started on, but never finished. Quick search through all the boxes in my craft corner, and sure enough there it was. For some reason I had decided to make not just the four figures included in the kit - why not make twelve!!! What was I thinking?? They are quite big - 8" tall, so a swag of 12 of these will need a bigger mantlepiece than mine... Well, I could use them for presents, I suppose. On further inspection it turns out that I have stitched all the twelve bodies and 24 legs and stuffed most of the legs and one body. I think I ran out of stuffing and that's why they were put out of the way. But seriously, there isn't that much work involved, so I should be able to finish them before the end of January. Isn't it great to start christmas preparations early? ;-)

Time to start sewing

The holiday decorations are going down tonight. I need to get everything out of the way so I can get back to my cutting table ' cause I'm itchin' to be stitchin'! I've decided to be ever so good and finish one of my UFOs first of all. I started making a tree skirt for xmas in '04, but I became too ambitious and made far too many presents. This time around I decided to buy all the presents, but lo and behold: there I was stitching away again! So once more my tree ended up skirtless... But I've decided to grab the bull by the horns: I'm going to finish this@# treeskirt now in January, then I'll be sure to have it finished in time for xmas '06! As a special treat I'm going to make myself a new tote bag after the tree skirt is finished - all in turquoise, mmmm...

Amaryllis tree

I can't stop looking at my amaryllis tree! It's not actually a tree, but a decoration made of cut flowers. There are nine stems all bunched together in a pot filled with florists' foam and topped with glass marbles. The stems are gathered with a big bow just below the flowers, and to keep the stems straight I have put bamboo sticks inside. It looked like a modest little thing to begin with, but as the flowers (there are at least three to every stem) have started to bloom it has formed into this huge globe of white flowers - Isn't it stunning?

So many choices...

In life and in crafts there are so many options and I still haven't found the website where extra time can be obtained ;-) This means leaving some frogs unkissed. So this is what I have decided not to do in the forseeable future: crocheting, candlewicking, woodcrafting...
Quilting and embroidery are the two crafts that take up most of my time, but I have recently rediscovered knitting and dabbled a bit in papercrafts - there are so many things I want to try, but I have come to the conclusion that I am "allowed" to leave things unfinished if I lose interest along the way. Sometimes they will be joyfully rediscovered somewhere along the way and finished or included in a new craftproject, or they might just be chalked up to experience: "Been there, done that". And thats going to be OK. No guilt trips, thank you!