Some completion

One finished quilt. Now I'll wait and see if it's adopted - no guarantees!

Piper took this one of Jas...

I made two Oliver and S Lazy Days skirts, a mermaid one for Piper, and a pink/green apples one for a friend turning five - forgot to get a photo of it before we'd wrapped it up! It was VERY satisfying to wake up in the morning and come out to two finished skirts, completed the night before. This pattern comes highly recommended for its ease, and I love that it's free - love the generosity of the craft community... Note to self: buy more fun ribbon!

Drawing today, loving watching Piper's creativity in action. She doesn't say she can't draw anymore, which is ace. I always love what she comes up with - today, dressing up a rubbing of a queen, above, and drawing lions in cages and a witch in a cave, with lights and darkness!

I attempted some too, but added too much, in the end. Still, the simple process of drawing is good in itself, hey...

Our art line in the loungeroom, to respect the creative output of my children and be inspired!

Piper's first softie!

Today Piper and I met Sharon and her kids at the fabric shop - Sharon wants to make a quilt and was there to choose fabric. I enjoyed watching the process, laying a heap of bolts on the bench and whittling down the choices. On the way home, Piper commented that she is learning to sew, and what she meant was, she has a cardboard shape with holes around the edge that she threads a shoelace through, for practice. I asked her if she wanted to do some sewing with me, and she said, "YEAH! On the sewing machine!" This wasn't quite what I had in mind - I was thinking hand-sewing - but I ran with it anyway!

We had to wait til Jasper went to bed in the afternoon, so in the meantime, after she'd crossed some days off, Piper wrote SEWING MACHINE DAY on the calendar. I was excited for her, for one, that she wanted to mark the occasion, and two, that she knew most of the letters and was able to write all of them without getting burnt out halfway through. The other day she wanted to learn how to spell my name, but gave up halfway through (and we were only writing BEC!). Just depends on the day, hey...

So, Jasper went to sleep. Piper had decided she wanted to make a horse, a girl horse. So we printed off a colouring page of a horse off the internet and cut it out to use as a pattern. I kept the legs simple, not four, but two pairs. She chose some ballerina fabric and traced around the horse.

Then we used the sewing machine! She sat on my lap, I pushed the pedal and together we guided the fabric towards the needle along the line she had traced. She got the hang of raising and lowering the presser foot - that became her job, although I kept reaching for it out of habit!

Then I cut around our sewing line, and turned it inside out. Piper helped stuff it, although I did most of it, cos getting cotton balls into the corners was pretty tricky. And next time I'd make a bigger creature, then stuffing would have been easier for her too.

Jasper woke up then, and they had fun pretending the cotton balls were snow. Piper was pretty hyper, not in a bad way, but as if the experience of creating, bringing something into being, was revving her up. That was my take, anyway... I was glad for her.

Once the horse was stuffed, we took her upstairs to sew up her belly.

We took turns putting in the stitches. Piper was pretty good at it - I really should do more sewing with her!

Belly all closed! Then I sewed on two buttons for eyes, and wala! A ballerina horse! Perhaps next we'll make a tutu! A soft toy in less than two hours. Not a bad effort!

Finished rag quilt for Piper

I managed to finish the rag quilt for Piper that I started in early April, I think. A rag quilt is a simple project, but still required putting in the time. For example, cutting the seams so they would fray in the wash took me around four hours, I think, but I did most of it in the car on the way to the Narcisse Snake Pits and back.


I underestimated how good it feels to have made something like this for Piper, some tangible love for her to wrap herself up in. It adds so much to my sense of 'home'. Makes me think I really should make one for Jasper, seeing as that was the original plan. I was inspired by this one on etsy, but when I was shopping for fabric, I couldn't find the green/turquoise/chocolate/animal fabric I wanted, and hence Piper got lucky!

Catchup!

This blog is sorely in need to some loving attention! I ran out of oomph to keep posting my Thing-A-Day efforts in February, but thought I'd put up a few pics of the creative projects that have continued to happen, despite my lack of posting.

Five CDs with covers, a belated Christmas gift for my mum. For the covers, I sewed 5" square scrapbook paper sheets together with a decorative stitch.


It was our turn to bring food to storytime at the library. The theme was dogs, so I decided to make cheddar cheese dog biscuits. This felt like a creative effort, for one, because I don't have a food processor, so I spent a long time mooshing the cheese, butter and flour together by hand, and two, I don't have a dog-bone cookie cutter, so I cut each of these out using a paper stencil! Bit too much effort for some three-year-olds I hardly know, but still, it was fun!


Piper and I decorated an Easter parcel for Pippa and Poppa.


I tried my hand at rainbow wrapping paper for Olivia, a two-year-old friend.


I made Piper a dancing skirt for her 4th birthday, earlier this month. Came together at the last minute, but she wore it for four days straight, so I know she likes it!


Finally, photos of loved ones on the wall, to watch over us as we eat! This is one of the few collaborations Gord and I have undertaken, and we worked very well together - made the most of the strengths and motivations of both of us. The photos are mounted on insulation foam, which Gord cut using a table saw. He painted them red (only the edges matter - they're the only visible bits). I cropped the photos, arranged printing, cut and glued them to the foam using permanent sticking tape, like what you use for scrapbooking. Gord banged in some nails and mounted the finished products just this morning. Took us at least a month to pull this idea together, but it feels very satisfying!



This week Piper and I have been decorating eggs for Easter. Crayon and food dye process.




An ongoing creative endeavour is my photography. I continue to try and take a photo a day, to capture some of life here in Canada. I post those here, and it's one of the reasons this blog is a bit neglected! Here's a quintessential red barn...

Cupcakes

Thursday the Fourteenth, Valentine’s Day: Piper and I made lemon coconut cupcakes with pink icing and loveheart sprinkles! I employed a bit of lateral thinking and used a tiny bit of beetroot juice to bring the icing to its blushing state. Felt good to avoid using red food colouring, even though the sprinkles weren’t so healthy, no doubt…

Dyeing paper with Piper

Monday the Eleventh: Piper and I dyed tissue paper, after I saw the idea in an old Martha Stewart Living mag I found at the self-help for 25 cents. The colour turned out totally pastel, and I was a bit grumpy while we were doing it, cos I was trying to keep Jasper from tipping over the bowls of dye (ridiculous, I know, to attempt projects like this with a crawling baby around, but oh well!), but Piper seemed happy enough when I took the photo (admittedly a day or two later!).

Tuesday the Twelfth: I worked on the mitten.

Thing A Day

I signed up for Thing-A-Day recently - attempting to do a creative act each day during February. Seeing as this is my creative crafty blog, I thought I'd post my thing-a-day posts here too. So here goes...

On Friday the First, I helped Piper finish making (decorating, really) a calendar for herself. When I kiss her goodnight, she always asks me what we're going to do the next day, and I thought she might appreciate being able to anticipate certain events a bit more. She coloured in all the birthdays of family and friends, and I drew a few little pictures of things coming up in the next couple of days (visiting friends, Gramma & Opa Snowbird coming home from Texas, etc.).

On Saturday the Second, I made two loaves of bread. I have been making bread remarkably consistently since the beginning of the year, a bemusing pleasure - the pleasure at the thought that I can maintain the discipline, the pleasure of feeling the dough beneath my palms and the simple pleasure of creating something from nothing (nothing you can eat straight, anyway!).

On Sunday the Third, we hosted a Stuperbowl party (that's what I was calling it, anyway!). About half an hour before guests were going to show up, I decided to whip up a curtain for the kitchen window. I'd been mulling over the idea for a little while, after my husband built the shelf for plants above the sink. I love the colours of this fabric (City Park, by Alexander Henry) - I think I'll buy another yard so I can have a bit hanging on each side, when it's open, and so it's more ruffly when it's closed. I love how it changes the feel of the sink area, and I love the idea of having plants there. I'll paint pots to match, and blog about that another day sometime soon.


And today, Monday the Fourth, I took the time to make myself a healthy, yummy lunch - kind of a stirfry - inspired by a book I'm reading on detoxing. I'm not fantastic at lunches. I don't really do sandwiches, and usually hope there's leftovers in the fridge that will work for me and the kids, but today, I put the effort in, and felt the emotional benefit of that for the rest of the day. I was planning on painting the pots to match the curtains - I bought some paint today - but by the time I had the space to do so, it was feeling like a chore, not creative at all, so I took myself off to bed for a kip before dinner - a better choice!