a macrame birthday

so since my last post, i have deliberately set aside two whole days to do crafty things - the plans i had, pillowcase projects, wardrobe refashioning, crochet, some stencil art... unfortunately things came up (as they do) and both of those days ended up being used for other things. oh well. on the plus side - one of the reasons i have been so non-crafty busy was that it was my birthday! *blushes* and i did get some lovely crafty presents from a lovely crafter. Including: the gentle arts - by jennifer isaacs (which catalogues "200 years of australian women's domestic and decorative arts") this great little beading magazine - for use with gay art bead loom. and this - how fabulous! a macrame nativity pattern book. for a full nativity set with macrame baby jesus a macrame sheep and even macrame camels (although i think they were being a bit creative - i can't actually make out the camel in this pic. a challenge made even harder as blogger refuses to orient this pic correctly. don't ya love fighting with blogger... ). i have no idea how to do macrame, but i am so excited - i have wanted to make a nativity scene for ages... yay for birthday fun!

crafternooning along

i love all the creative people i have in my life, friends and family who are also keen on making things. creating things. a few of us have gotten together and started having crafternoons - every two months or so. we pick a saturday, invite people along and eat and make stuff, and talk and laugh and create together. its so lovely. and it was yesterday. we have people doing all sorts of arty/crafty things... painting sewing wheat bags doing crochet (and no, this is not mine, i'm still much more beginner than this) eating much yummy food, and drinking Ethiopian coffee and for the first time - we also had a pottery wheel to play on it was just brilliant to spend a saturday in this lazy yet creative way.

my creative space

my creative space this week is filled with a combination of my two new favourite things. op-shopped vintage pillowcases and thread sketching... you have to believe gina when she says its easy - it really is. and play along with other spacers and the lovely kirsty...

so excited....

i love it when inspiration builds on inspiration... see, i was feeling inspired to make some more pillowcase veggie bags. i have been talking with some friends from my church about being more sustainable - including reducing packaging etc. and as part of the discussion, i showed them my veggie bags and from the positive result decided to make a few extras to pass around. but a few of my recent pillowcase purchases were fairly plain single colours. hmm, i thought - what can i do to make them a bit more interesting? the lovely gina from clutterpunk inspired a solution, with her thread sketching the other day - followed by a great tutorial today. so here they are (not quite finished - they still need draw strings, but i was so excited i had to share) note the pre-requisite bird on a branch (i suspect we will see this design popping up everywhere as a first attempt). big thanks gina!!!

obsession confession

ok, so. i may have popped into another opshop this week to feed my current pillowcase obsession. opps... (and actually, the floral one on the end there is from my fabric stash, but it happily joins the others). i can't wait for tomorrow - it will be pillowcase central round here.

a finished project!!!

eek! how exciting - i actually finished a project. who'da thunk it? see, i went to start a new crochet project today, and decided that instead, i would do some more work on my first ever crochet project. and i actually finished it. here 'tis - a doll's blanket ta da!