I've been tidying up ...

Usually, if there's something to do other than cleaning & tidying I'll ditch the housework and have fun elsewhere. But occasionally you have to accept the inevitable and drag the vacuum cleaner around. My sitting room was looking like a bombsite, overflowing with crafty stuff, while the front bedroom wasn't much better. That was being used as a dumping ground for the crafty overflow. I blitzed both rooms, brushing carpets, wiping surfaces, binning what wasn't worth keeping and bagging up unwanted stuff for the charity shop. I also rearranged my bookshelves. Bringing together from various places all my craft books and - blimey! - I seem to have acquired rather a lot. I didn't realise I'd amassed so many.

Well, I shouldn't run out of inspiration any time soon, should I? Not with all those reference books to hand. I also shouldn't buy any more books for a while ...

I bundled lots of paper scraps into this pink storage tub, then played around with an idea I'd seen on Instagram, for making homemade washi tape (of a sort).

That diverted me for a few minutes. (I'm easily distracted.)

You can stencil and use ink pads and printing stamps to add interest to your tape. I would've made more, but I needed to crack on with the cleaning.

With a tidier house and a virtuous, even slightly smug glow, I settled down to my stitching. This little fishy piece is nearly done. The colours are more vivid than in the photo, which has kind of washed them out.

This is another completed page for the Ann Wood 100 days stitchbook challenge, and below is the page I'm currently working on. Day 67, would you believe! I'm so looking forward to making up my fabric book and seeing all the pages displayed together.

Anyway, there's not much more to tell you, so I'll keep this blog post short and (reasonably) sweet. Having finished reading 'The Mad Women's Ball', set in France, I've returned to 15th century England and Philippa Gregory 'The Kingmaker's Daughter'. It's about Anne Neville, daughter of the Earl of Warwick, who grows up to marry the man who'll inherit the throne and become Richard III. Once I've read that I'll only have a dozen books on my once-towering To-Be-Read pile. Slowly but surely I'm getting through them.

Hope you're well and enjoying the Spring weather (assuming it's springtime for you too, that is.) Bye for now.

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Fabric bowls & electrical cables ...

To add to my seemingly never ending list of works-in-progress, I've started making a fabric bowl. Or should I call it a fabric basket? I'm not sure. Anyway, I've made the odd bowl or two before, like this blue & white one that I keep cotton perle in. I decided to use upholstery material, which has both advantages & disadvantages. On the good side, it has a certain stiffness, which helps the bowl stay in shape. On the irritating side, the kind of material I'm using frays like mad, and I'm forever picking up threads off the carpet. The bowl's a simple construction, and I've used a circle of cardboard covered with brown felt for the base. It'll look much better when I've embroidered and stitched into it. I've made a start on that, and appliqued on a rectangle of plum coloured velvet for extra interest. When not stitching, I've been catching up on my reading. I finished C J Sansom's 'Dark Fire'. Real...

Threads of Freedom and charity shop bargains

It's Saturday afternoon, and I haven't done half the things I'd meant to. Partly because I spent most of this morning messing about with paints, stencils and the gell plate. Never mind, everything on today's 'To Do' list will join tomorrow's 'To Do' list ... it's hardly life or death if I don't haul the hoover around the room or pull up weeds in the front garden. I thought I'd show you what I made on Wednesday. I'd gone to my monthly StitchArt group, and this time we did something a little different. There's a project called 'Threads of Freedom' which is working with various community groups across the city. It's about creating little stitched pieces, some of which will be included in a textile panel to go on display at Leeds art gallery. There was lots of fabric we could choose from to sew with, and I picked this vintage tray cloth with the roses embroidery. My own embroidery's not a patch on those flo...

Another fabric bowl & what's starting to look like a craft room ...

Hello on what's been a beautiful autumn day. Bright blue clear sky, a chilly start but warming up in the afternoon. I've been on a long walk around a local nature reserve, not wanting to stay inside when it's so lovely outdoors. In the last week or so, I've been finishing this fabric bowl, and have started making another. But mainly I've been having a bit of a change-around in my house. I've hauled furniture from one room to another, clutter-cleared cupboards and bagged up things for the charity shop, and generally hoovered and cleaned all those dusty corners. I'd finally made a decision about turning the dumping ground of the front bedroom into a craft room. It's taking shape, though it really has taken some effort. Larger pieces of material are stacked on shelves, grouped into colours. Lower down is my Sissix machine and die cuts, and at the base of the shelving are beads and jewellery making supplies...

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