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. There's also space for a storage tub of crewel wool and another of ribbons & cord.

This corner's home to a huge roll of polyester quilt wadding, plus storage tubs of cardstock and envelopes, and an old laundry basket full of brown paper and packaging materials, most of it waiting to be upcycled or re-used for postage.

I've strung up this 'washing line' and used mini pegs to hang felt and embroidered birds from it, plus other little dolls and oddments.

There's a padded leopard's head, a tweedy bird and my Woman of a Certain Rage doll, complete with scowling face!

This is a small quilt I made, and it's good to display it on the wall instead of leaving it folded up and out of sight.

I love this crazy lady with her hair standing on end as if it's full of electricity, and also her gold embroidered angel wings. Though what kind of angel she'd make I couldn't imagine.

Another wall hanging, this one made for a church display on the theme of 'creation'.

There's so much stuff on top of shelving units and wardrobes. This will never be an Instagram-ready craft room. Nothing matchy-matchy or aspirational here. But if it can be a useful, practical space that'll be the main thing.

Right, that's all for now. Oh, just more thing. A very silly paper doll I made today, to go inside my mammoth junk journal. She's got a magazine illustration for a skirt, a chocolate wrapper bodice, foil from another chocolate bar for her collar, and stick-on gems for her jewels. She's all dressed up and raring to go!

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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...

Sari scraps, PVA, a couple of books and a necklace

I'm typing this as snow's falling, and has been steadily all day. It's not settling to any great extent, though I bet by tomorrow morning the paths will be slippery with ice. Which always makes me paranoid about falling over and at the very least looking undignified, but at worst breaking a bone or twisting an ankle. Oh well, it's ideal weather to stay inside and craft, isn't it? I finally got around to listing packs of sari scraps on Etsy this morning. I only made up six bundles as I've no clue whether they'll sell or if I've set a reasonable enough price point. Time will tell. This is a link to the listing, if you're interested. This vaguely pink fabric isn't from one of my Etsy packs. It's from a bit of experimenting I was doing yesterday. I'd seen a post on Instagram showing how a DIY version of batik could be done without using hot wax. The Instagrammer used PVA instead, and I wanted to try this out....

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...

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