Yellow Days

Well, I did it...a week without Facebook, blogging, compulsive email checking...I would love to say that I found it productive, calming, enlightening...but actually I found it quite isolating. As a stay at home mum, and full time home educator to my boys, I think I rely quite a lot on online contact to stay sane. It allows me to be "Viv" and not just mum, on those days when being home is a challenge. So, although I did gain some extra time and peace from my digital detox, I'm not planning to do it again any time soon!

Anyway, back to sewing and stuff :-)


I finished my April journal quilt, "Shine". The challenge for this month was to make a monochromatic (single colour) quilt. I was all set to make a green quilt, thinking of patchwork landscapes, but when I got my fabrics together they just weren't really talking to me. Outside, the sun was shining, the daffodils in full bloom and I just thought "YES! Yellow!!" After dyeing the fabrics I sewed them together in the strippy design, and added the hand stitching with pearl cotton. I was planning to applique the word "shine" onto the quilt after that but then the goddess figure came to me and insisted she be on the quilt. And who was I to argue? I have left the edges raw because I wanted it to be a bit fuzzy round the edge, I felt it was softer and more appropriate.



I have nearly completed the quilt top for my friend's baby quilt. I just have to add the yellow fabric to the tops and bottoms. Yes, I was planning white, but yellow is the new white, don't you know?!



I did a little stitch sample for "Horizontal Arrow Stitch".



And I've completed several spreads in my art journal. I have found the art journalling has turned into a bit of an emotional and spiritual journey, rather than just the creative journey I initially expected. To that end, I'm not sure whether this blog is the right place to be writing about it. I am considering starting a new blog for this stuff but not sure if I have the time and inclination to keep up both! Anyway, here's one of the pages, the others will be in my art journal set on Flickr if you are interested...

Digital Detox Week

I am taking part in digital detox week this week. I won't be blogging, Facebooking, Flickring, foruming...

I am sharing my recent journal pages here to give a bit of insight ;-)





See you on Monday 25th April!!

Viv x

Choo Choo Choose the Train

If I were to make a list of a few of my favourite things (feel free to sing to the tune from the Sound of Music) among them would be:

trains
bunting
crafting

So it was a no-brainer really to join in with the Craftivist Collective's plan to make train bunting for the Railway Adventure joint protest with Climate Rush. They are campaigning for affordable, efficient and environmentally friendly transport for the UK. What's not to like?!

Not living near any of the cities holding a sew-in last Sunday, my friend Kirsten and I took matters into our own hands and went on a little railway adventure ourselves. We sat on the train and sewed bunting. What fun ;-)

The carriages were mainly prepped ready to go (after raiding the scraps bag and the Box of Random Bits and Pieces for embellishments) and we sewed and wrote various slogans on them. I think Kirsten's "Choo Choo Choose the Train" had to be the most inspired though:



Although 6 year old Woody's train drawing comes pretty close:



Here's a bunch of photos showing train sewing in progress:








And a bunch of photos showing some of the finished carriages:






These will be winging their way now to the Craftivist Collective ready for Sunday's Great Railway Adventure. Go ahead and read more about it here.

Bits and pieces

I've had loads of mail just lately:

Postcards from Robin and Vicki in the 3CS Gilded Age postcard swap:



Three more postcards from iHanna's swap. These are from Pam, Laurie and April. Go check out their blogs for some lovely arty inspiration.



And this postcard from Chris, for the Black & White postcard swap on Trading Fabric Postcards:



I've made my first attempt at dyeing using Procion dyes. This is muslin dyed with lemon yellow and golden yellow. I scrunched up and dyed in trays. I think I like the effect:



For April's journal quilt, the challenge is to make a single colour/monochromatic quilt. Can you guess what my colour is going to be?



Oh, and, inspired by this book, I have started an art journal:

March Colour Palette Challenge Quilt

OK, I lied. I couldn't wait until I had finished my friend's baby quilt before I started playing with my new solid fabrics. Especially not when I was able to pull together some colours for the 3CS Color Palette Challenge.

I made this little mini quilt, which is going to look lovely hanging in our hallway:



I started off with the little improv pieced log cabins (my fave blocks to make!) and took it from there. I machine quilted the wavy vertical lines, then added a little hand quilting to emphasise the one the butterflies are on. Then I added the buttons and hand quilting swirling lines around it. I used a pillowcase finish because I didn't want a contrasting binding, but had run out of the light green fabric.

This is the first time I have used solid fabrics, but I suspect it won't be the last. I love the look of them.

My first postcard received!

I got my first postcard in the mail. It's from Andria. Isn't it great?



And I made my first ever mug rug. It's for my mum for mother's day. I followed the tutorial at a cuppa and a catch up although I did need more strips than the tutorial stated...not sure if that's my inability to follow instructions or not though ;-)

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