My Creative Space...

...this week is a lesson in perseverance. As you may remember, I have been trying to master the art of crochet, for quite some time now. I fell in love with the Granny Shrug, printed out Lara's pattern, dilligently read Kirsty's fab instructions, purchased some Paton's Wilderness in Mulberry and a rather large hook, and have practiced and practiced. All I seem to make is a big pile of Mulberry Tangles. I have finally come to the disappointing realisation that I suck at crochet.

Determined not to be the biggest loser in the yarn battle, I have taken up a new weapon. I learnt to knit as a teenager, and to be honest, I wasn't very good at it. Probably because I found it a bit boring and time consuming, when really, I much preferred to spend my time at my besty's place, crimping my hair, dancing madly to 'Papa Don't Preach' and singing into a hairbrush.

These days my priorities seem to have changed somewhat (thank goodness, I hear you say), and the thought of sitting quietly, enjoying the rythmic click clack of the knitting needles seems like heaven on a stick. Okay, so I haven't knitted for...a really long time, and when I did knit, I never actually completed anything, but nothing was going to stop me now!

...except when my stitches strayed so far that the pattern was barely recognisable. This was how far I got on my first attempt before deciding to unravel and start again. And let me tell you, I don't knit very fast, so this attempt took me hours. Unravelling it was awful.

My second attempt was unravelled before I'd invested quite so much time:

Can you see the big hole and tangle where a stitch is supposed to be?

Here's my third attempt right before I unravelled it: 

Honestly, who thought that knitting a scarf would be so difficult??? It's almost enough

to make a girl dig out her Best Of Madonna CD from storage.

Okay, so I persevered. Which is not something I usually do. I'm more of a 'do it perfectly the first time or don't bother at all' kind of gal. Which, all in all, is not a very productive attitude. So here I am, in my creative space, persevering. And actually enjoying it a little...

For more creative spaces, visit Kirsty, who's a whiz with yarn and hook.

My Creative Space

In my Creative Space this week I'm getting back to nature, playing with some flora...

and fauna...

(I'll show you when it's finished...which was supposed to be yesterday...but I keep getting interrupted when I'm trying to sew!

Click here to visit some more lovely Creative Spaces. As always, thanks to Kirsty for hosting My Creative Space.

My Creative Space - Reversible winter weight Pinafore

I'm not at all sure why I jumped into the 'Pinafores for an Orphanage' cause so enthusiastically, considering that I've never really made clothing before. And I've certainly never made a dress before! A whole lot of optimism and a 'Have a Crack' attitude I presume!

Armed with new confidence after my unexpected success in turning out 3 lovely (if I do say so myself) pinafores for the orphanage, I have whipped up another Pinny for my niece's 2nd birthday. This is a winter weight dress made using embroidered corduroy.

I even had a go at pockets on this one using this great tutorial from Made By Rae.

I have to take it in a bit under the arms (she's a tiny little thing!) and it still needs hemming and some buttons. Hoping to finish it today!

For more Creative Spaces, visit Kirsty.

My Creative Space

1 awesome quilty friend

1 oversized quilt top*

3 layers of quilt sandwich

361 basting pins

1 walking foot

1 rather large blueberry danish & a packet of Twisties

Making progress on my very first quilt? Priceless.

*I added a border. A rather large border. This quilt started out as a baby quilt. It almost fits my queen size bed. Ambitious? Deluded? You decide.

My Creative Space

This week my creative space is about making space to get creative...get it?

My 'space' has been in complete chaos and I haven't been able to find anything let alone actually make something! I really needed to organise my stash, but don't have any shelves to store it on as my space is part of the Sewing room/Study/Library/Music room, so there are many competing interests for the available storage.

So I got creative and found some plastic tubs that used to store kids' toys and started folding. All the fabric is grouped by colour and I actually know what I have in there! Excellent. I have also sorted my stash of zips, snaps, elastic, binding, ribbons and scraps. Now maybe I can find something to take to S.I.T. this weekend...

Thanks for hosting Kirsty, click here to see what everyone else is doing in their space this week.

PS. Would you like to make a little Pinafore for a really worthy cause? Click here for the details!

My Creative Space...or is it?

My Creative Space this week isn't really mine, I was more than happy to share it with my beautiful daughter and her friend.
I recently discovered this excellent tutorial over at Leonie's and I thought it would be a perfect project for my Junior Crafter to try with her new machine. We went to Spotlight where she and a friend each selected two fabrics for their reversible headbands and we came home to sew.

Pinning fabric

More pins

Ta-Daaaah!

And they are reversible!

Thanks Leonie for sharing the tutorial, and well done to two gorgeous little 8 year olds who persisted carefully with their cutting out, pinning, topstitching and thread trimming and had a wonderful time in My Creative Space this week. I'm so glad that my little girl loves making stuff as much as I do, and we have so much fun making stuff together.

For more spaces, visit here. As always, thanks to Kirsty for hosting this fun meme.

My Creative Space

My Creative Space this week is filled with fluorescent nylon vests, metres of clear vinyl, and some upholstery thread.

Our kinder has just acquired 60 Preschool sized Fluorescent Safety Vests for the children to wear in case of an emergency evacuation. (We live in a very high risk area for bushfires so evacuation is a real possibility). Each child has an Emergency Information Card displaying their name and containing inside all their personal information that they must wear during an emergency. Previously they have been worn on a lanyard around the neck (which did create some safety issues in itself). However, now that we have these very bright safety vests, each child's card can be attached to the vest itself. The (fairly expensive) vests were the bright idea of The Bloke Who Lives At My Place, and were acquired courtesy of a local government grant. Upon enquiring at a few alterations businesses he was quoted $660 to have a clear vinyl pocket sewn onto the back of the vests. $660!!! Don't worry, I said, I'm sure I can do it.

I'll keep you posted. Thansk for hosting Kirsty! For more Creative Spaces, click here.

My Creative Space

ooray, Thursday's Creative Space is back for 2010, thank you Kirsty for hosting this fab meme!

Today I'm getting creative with numbers. Do you think The Bloke Who Lives At My Place will notice the new column in this year's family budget?
To check out more Creative Spaces pop over to Kirsty's.

My Creative Space

Usually when I take a pic of My Creative Space, I stage it just a little. I tidy up. I make sure all the important elements of my craft make it into the shot (and the brekky dishes do not). So the end result is that it's a  concise and aesthetically pleasing photographic representation of my crafty adventures, rather than a picture of my space when I'm actually getting creative. Well, in the spirit of honesty, today you are getting The Real Deal.

Yep, this is how I create. In real life. Yes, that's my kitchen table. Yes, that's a coffee cup left over from breakfast in the background - you wouldn't want me to waste valuable crafting time by doing housework, now would you?
And because my creative space got too big for the table, I did some of it on the loungeroom floor.

Don't look too closely at the carpet, I haven't vacuumed in weeks.

I'm working on my Softie for Mirabel. For more pics of chicks avoiding housework Creative Spaces visit Kirsty.

My Creative Space - the first cut is the deepest

My creative space today involves the somewhat difficult task of repurposing some old books. I say difficult because I was brought up to love, respect, enjoy and revere the written word, and defacing books was not something I would ever have contemplated (with the possible exception of my Year 9 History book which contains a small number of scrawled notes of great historical significance, such as    "I *heart* Brian Mannix"  and
"G.D. 4 C.O. 4 EVA". In pencil, I might add - things can change quickly when you're 15).
Anyway, enough reminiscing, back to the task at hand. Where was I? Oh yes, defacing a book *shudder*.
I picked up a couple of books at the Op Shop this week with the specific idea in mind of cutting out some of the beautiful illustrations to make into cards. The books were already looking somewhat worse for wear when I bought them, but it didn't make it easier when it came time to actually cut the pages out. A deep breath and I dived in. After the first cut it wasn't so bad. And I'm quite pleased with the results so far.

Click here to be inspired by more Creative Spaces. Thanks Kirsty!

My Creative Space - Blogtober day 29

This is my first time joining in with Thursday's My Creative Space hosted by the lovely Kirsty at Kootoyoo. My creative space this week is an attempt at some stitchery and some piecing. My little Mr Jumping Bean has just learnt the days of the week (and loves to recite them endlessly). In a fit of madness (cunningly disguised as some attempt to support and encourage his learning journey) I thought it would be fun for him to have the days of the week hanging on his wall so he can read them.