Baby Crafts

At 35 (almost 36) I am pregnant with my first child. We recently found out we're having a girl which is exciting and terrifying at the same time. My husband and I definitely dragged our feet about starting a family because we were too busy living in Zambia or moving to Asheville and having a wonderful time as a couple. A few friends that had become parents tried to convince me that it was an amazing thing to do that would change your life. "You'll never experience such joy and love" yeah, yeah.  "It's so fulfilling" great but I feel pretty fulfilled already thank you very much. Nope none of this was convincing. There was one thing they should've said that would've got me on the procreating bandwagon in a heartbeat. "You will have endless opportunities to do crafts!" What??? "You get to design a nursery." SOLD. OMG the crafts! There are quilts to be made and pillows and little baby things. AND there's the chance to make maternity clothes. Consequently I pretty much live on Pinterest which is my new favorite thing.  In the next few months I'll be posting what I make.  Then when the baby's born I imagine there will be a long silence while we navigate the chaos. I've decided on a zakka themed nursery which makes me very happy. On the board below a lot of the fabric or color choices aren't my taste, but the projects are great.

Easy Facelift - for a room

I cannot get over how merely switching out cushion covers can change the feel of a room. We have inherited a really great, green leather sofa, but the covers we inherited with it were very dark, old fashioned and basically not very nice. The whole feel was jarring, as we have really tried to keep the room modern and airy. I finally go around to making a cover after a bit of a sewing machine saga (more on that for another post) and love the results. The burlap looks so good but is a little unstable because of the loose weave, my advice is to give yourself a seam allowance of an inch to stop any unraveling and consider lining it with a similar color of cotton because you can sometimes see the white cushion filler with ours.

I am definitely going to use more burlap in future.

Work Station

After over a year of planning and discussing we are finally living in Asheville. Our apartment is tiny but I love it. We are walkable distance from downtown with great views of the city and enough wildlife to make us feel free.

My plan is to find work - a hard task here - and in the mean time work on starting up my craft business again. However I am quickly tiring of pulling all my stuff out and then putting it away again to keep everything tidy. So here is the idea, to turn one closet into a work alcove or station. This closes looks small but is a good five feet wide and a couple of feet deep, enough for a small card table and chair and space to store stuff, it also has a lino floor which makes cleaning up pesky threads and what not easier, and a couple of power sockets - perfect!

Here are the before pictures, can't wait to show you the after!

Inspiring

New Good Links

Despite not having the internet at home, I have managed to steal a little time to surf and find some new design sites. These are fun and lovely to look at.
http://www.mintdesignblog.com/
http://pitchdesignunion.com/
http://www.okaygreat.com/?cat=1938
http://www.illustrationfriday.com/

Spring board

The season has been lovely so far, with blossom all over the place. One thing I missed a great deal was the singing of birds during the winter, hence the heavy bird theme of this board. The bird quilt in the top left corner is by Lululollylegs. The bird quilt in top corner and the dresden plate block beneath it are from Ritapizza, who also has a great blog - free-falling. A hearty thanks to both of these talented peeps for letting me reproduce their work.

Colour and Shape

I found these pictures of a trip my fiancee and I took to London just before Xmas. I think most of them were taken by said fiancee.

London Colour

London Shape

Mexican Inspiration

I have never been to Mexico, but felt compelled to make this board after listening to the wonderful Lila Downs. Lila Downs is a singer of tremendous talents from Mexico, who uses many influences including Jazz, reggae and Mexican flavours to create beautiful and evocative music.

The painting in the left corer is by Diego Rivera, and the portrait is of Frida Kahlo. The two quilts are by the Boodilly, a talented quilter. You can find more of her pieces at her Etsy shop. The lovely fabric postcard is by Mandie, you can see more of her work on Flickr.

Despite the fact I rarely use it, the workroom is coming along nicely! The collage wall is inspired by Joe Orton the playwright who embellished his tiny London with hundreds clippings. It was also prompted by finding out about the house of Khadambi Asalache an African writer and artist who decorated his house with elaborate fretwork and paintings. OK, my wall is far less impressive, but you just wait...

The second picture is of some postcards sent to me by an ex-student from Germany –Wassili Lepanto. The paintings are his and used to taught him on a Summer English course. We often butted heads over art as he is more traditional than I, so I was particularly touched when, after returning to Germany he sent me a huge package of info and prints of his work. I especially love the colours of the top right postcard.

Indian Inspiration

In honour of the success of Slumdog Millionaire at the Oscars, here's a little colourful inspiration.

The 'zipper' quilt picture is by kind permission of Mellicious at Flickr, and the lightning bolt quilt picture is by kind permission of Button Pom at Flickr. Thanks guys!

I have been a lifelong admirer of Saris and finally got the chance to wear one this week at a friend's when I was invited to dinner. She is from New Delhi and was generous enough to allow me to wear a very expensive silk one in magenta and gold. Pictures soon to come.

Inspiraton Board - part deux

Here are a couple more inspiration boards of fabrics, projects, colours and patterns that strike me. I love these boards even just as mood enhancers on a cold, wintry day. I also would like to thank whoever it was in the ever expanding world of the internet who turned me on to inspiration boards and how to do them using powerpoint, then saving as a jpeg. I am sure it was someone from the offbeat bride tribe.

Thank you to those out there who provide me with ideas and I have included here.

Inspiraton Board

A couple of years ago, I was living in Zambia as a VSO volunteer. There I met my now-fiancee and at the end of our placements we decided to do some traveling together. We went to Zanzibar and Namibia. Here is an inspiration board put together of those times around the colour orange. Orange has become one of my favourite colours to quilt with because of its vibrancy and edginess.
While in Zambia I bought a lot of chitenges - these are pieces of cloth the women wrap around their waists as a kind of sarong. They come in a myriad of colours and I am currently mulling over how to make them into a quilt...