Off the road... or off roading...?

What do you do with a few spare jeans and idle hands?

Thats right hack and make... a bag?! Yes a bag,

and using a really gorgeous pillow case as a lining it looks really lovely now, infact I am so incredibly pleased with it, that it will be going shopping with me from now on.

A very very deep bag, that is strong, as jeans are, may not be waterproof, but thats not an issue.

Why should I follow the protocols of 'normal' hacking and remaking? the legs will be used to make a quilt of the frayed variety. This left the tops of the jeans, one doesn't wear shorts anymore as my legs aren't as beautiful as they once were, old mother time has caught up with me on that one.

That was the project of the 'funday' tomorrow is Sunday and this will see me making rectangles for the quilt. It's going to be very heavy, so fingers crossed it will be alright?...

If any of you fellow bloggers have any experience of making a denim or jeans quilt then please would you get in touch with advice please?

thanks in advance

Encaustic what?

Today at my Mixed Craft class we did another week of 'encaustic art' - art that involves wax that is pigmented and an iron - for want of a better description.

You place the wax block onto the iron once it has reached the correct temp; then wipe the iron across the medium you're 'painting' onto....

Me having as much artistic ability as a dog does opening a can, was not looking forward to it at all. I did it two weeks ago and found that I really really didn't get on at all with it. My art looked like a Jackson Pollock - more like swapping the P with a B! It was hideous really hideous... so this week I was expecting just the same....

Well actually I was pleasantly surprised, I actually made a scene, although me being me, couldn't just leave it as it was, I had to attempt to touch up and be perfect... that's when it started to turn into the blob, take a deep breath and relax.... leave the painting alone...That as it turned out wasn't an option either, we then 'transferred' the painting onto fabric. 

I knew we were doing that so had taken some with me, I selected a neutral linen, but, didn't counter for the texture of the linen, in hindsight a smooth cotton blend would have worked much better, for a 'flat' picture, however, mine turned out looking like an oil painting and I have to be honest I was actually very impressed with myself, tutor was equally as impressed with the fact that I was able to paint the little birds with the nose of the iron without turning them into blobs or pterodactyl's ( spell checker's a great tool)

Will I take it up as the next best thing? NO but I tried and it was not quite as bad as having a filling done, so next time, I won't go along with the not so certain attitude I went with today... 

Today's note for the day -

Try anything once, you might just enjoy it x

Computer Genius - definitely not me then

Computer Genius

Follow the link to the facebook page or profile of this gentleman who is (I have to say it) a genius when it comes to the computer world... His fingers can flicker over the keyboard quicker than 'grease lightening'...

Though I have never seen grease lightening, let alone see it flicker across a key board!...

anyway... I had best get on with cutting up jeans... I've a frayed quilt coming on... hot sweats kicked in already! Am I the only quilter that creates winter thick quilts as summer is coming into season?... maybe not, but then thats me and I am not likely to change in these late years am I?

a fabulous and very talented quilter has painstakingly made this!

One day... I may, ahhh I can dream can't I?

Where did Today go too?

Wow a flurry of here there and every where!

I can't tell you what I have done really that took up sew many hours in the day leaving me unable to produce anything but a pink themed BubbaGemz necklace and nothing else... oh apart from the envelope that I wrap the necklace in...

I was in such a caffuffle that I didn't even take any photographs like I normally in order to keep an eye on what's trending and what's not so hot!

I have a lovely thick linen upholstery material that has woollen embroidery embedded into it, a fantastic fabric that is just screaming for me to do something with it... I just don't know what! ? Another cushion is most definately going to be one of the items, however, surely there is something else that can come of such a gorgeous piece of fabric?

If you know or can think of anything that would look good... maybe a throw for a super king size bed... or a bed runner? oooo I like that! yes a cushion to start and a bed runner for us... Thanks girls :-)

"Confronting the "unknown" makes it "known" - therefore reducing the fear"

Lib ME!!!!!

Ah, with a stash of fabric and a baby boy stuck to your hip, look what you can do???!!!

Baby Girl was out today with her child-minder, our boy isn't quite ready to be separated from mummy for any length of time... He's like a blood hound when it comes to sniffing me out, not that I stink! But I do smell of Baby Heroin... Breast Milk!!!!! ooooo yes, my son is sew finely tuned to the scent of my milk that I can be in the study quiet as a mouse and he will appear at my feet, then pawing at my bra straps!!!

Any way I digress..... These two came to me in a wave of inspiration... I absolutely love the butterfly material in the middle of the top block, I mean really really love it... My life was sew well flat, before I bought it :-)

Then the four block lime and lilac... this was born of four pre cut squares I had bought off Ebay. An expensive way to quilt, and patchwork, but, if like me you've a chronic back injury its the only way to get cut up material en masse.

Both are liberated blocks, none were made following a pattern or a real design, not one had an end design in mind either, in fact, when I had got to the 'ended' state on the lilac/lime block - I realised that something was definitely missing... hence the green butterflies at each corner... they cover up the lack of fabric at each end....

All in all and despite a raging cold that is threatening to turn my nasal passages into the Suez Canal, I did a blinking good job of getting them done and finished to a point that they can be used in a - dare I say it - quilt!

I feel sew liberated!

As you can guess from the title, I am liberated - not in the free from jail type though.

June sent me an email, that email contained the instructions for the libRR, which aren't that difficult to read and understand... that is for the normal quilter, they hadn't counted on having me as the read-ee.

Read, and read again then read some more, still not sinking in....

Leave it for a few days then go back to it... nope still not going in at all, asking several dull questions and still not understanding...

Tonight or infact this morning with a grotty baby on my hip and snot coming from god knows where, I re-read the instrucitons and .... as if an epiphany, it clicks...

So give me half a minute to sort out my spare scraps and I will get creating my block to start the liberated RR quilt x