Progress on cheeky girl quilt

I am nearly Finished my cheeky girl quilt. 

 She is looking great.  

I have added texture to the book 

with stamping and printing and 

now I just need to finish  Quilting it.  

This is the original sketch of the quilt

The fabric painting without stitching

The first part of the stitching

The face with the finished quilting.  

I am feeling so excited about this piece of work and I can't wait to show you the finished product.

Quilt progress and adventures

We have school holidays here at the moment.  They came at just the right time for everyone. Everyone has been so tired and we have all have had enough of running around and not having any time at home. I love the holidays.  I love not having to be places and nor having to stick to a schedule.  It is fun just doing what we want to do when we want to do it.

The only thing I really find a challenge is to be able to work every day at my art work. So I have started to work from 6-10 am every morning so the rest of the day is free to do what ever we want to do as a family.  I have a sign on my door that reads artist @ work do not disturb and I have told the children I am not to be disturbed unless their is smoke or blood.  We will have to see how this goes.  I had 3 or 4 'emergencies' this morning of what can I have for breakfast?  and I have to show you how I ride my skateboard etc. I think it is going to take a while LOL

Today I worked a little more on my quilt of my cheeky girl looking over a book

I have added little circles and flowers around the rims of her glasses

and texture to the eyebrows and the side of her forehead.

I also painted a paper quilt of a face with lots of textures around it.  The face is a wee bit dark but as it was just an experiment with textures it served it's purpose.

I added lace prints around her face to blend the background a little more with the hair rather than have it completely separate. 

The colours under the paint have come though slightly giving more variety and interest to the textures

By adding a lot of different colours to the page it has given the face and background more depth and more for they eye to look at.

I'm going to add stitch and paint stick to the piece of art to see what other effects I can make on this face.  

After being in my studio this morning I went to a hike in a limestone rock area with the 2 boys and my sisters family.  It was a wonderful experience for all. I got some amazing photos and we had a great time exploring some caves and seeing some amazing rock formations.

A small cave we explored

This wee hole led into a few small caves to explore.  They were pretty neat. We will be going here again. 

Happy Easter

Happy Easter to you all

Wishing you a happy,  safe and beautiful Easter with much love to you all.

Enjoy being with family,  celebrating our wonderful saviour and having a lovely rest.  

I have spent Good Friday and Easter Saturday making Easter treats for my children that are dairy free and low in gluten.  Yum!

The yummiest brownie ever!!

Ganache truffles.  Scrumptious. 

And home made chocolates.

The kids had so much fun having a cryptic Easter hunt today and eating all their goodies.

Photographs this week: Our special dinner

I have been so busy that I seem to be throwing down dinner and running out the door for weeks. I decided to flag everything and have a beautiful dinner at home with them all one night this week.  It was lovely to sit over beautiful food and to chat and to spend time together just enjoying each other's company and just 'being'.  My 9 year old set the table beautifully.

We recorded the event with a few photographs.  

Deep fried Tofu

Beetroot and pear salad

Lemon oiled drizzled over greens

Fresh bread and sparkling grape juice

My sewing machine actually got used for something other than quilting this week

It has been a week full of sewing. But unfortunately it has not been any quilting.  I have been having a week of catching up on all those jobs that have to be done but I never like to do.  I.E. Mending, altering curtains and altering clothes.  

Although they are jobs that I really do not enjoy it feels good to have full length curtains at my window all ready for the winter,  clothes that are no longer holey or falling to bits and trousers that actually fit me (I have a short leg problem :)) My closet looks fantastic.  I have chucked out all the clothes that were past it, too small or one that I am just over.  I feel like I have a closet full of new clothes.  I also feel like I have a new house with my new curtains up. 

I had purchased the longest ready made curtains I could find on special.  I bought one extra set of curtains and added material to the bottom of each curtain to make them long enough for my very tall windows.  This way I was able to get curtains for all 4 bedrooms and hallway for the same price as it would have cost for one room.

Close up op the curtain fabric.

Before in my room 

After. 

Before in the boys room.  Note there was only one curtain that pulled all the way across

After.  A full length pair of curtains.  I could only photograph one side as I couldn't find the other one due to some busy 'playing' in their room. 

Hallway curtains before

After.  I added a strip of contrasting fabric to lengthen the curtains that I found on special.

I just have to adjust one more set for the last bedroom and I am all done.  

Progress of my new work

My new quilt is progressing well. To read about the progress so far read my blog post here I am exploring the subject of small moments in family life.  

This piece of work captures a small moment in my daughters life.  She loves to read.  It is a big part of her life.  One of the things I love to do with her is discuss literature and talk about new ideas.  She is so passionate about reading and she often encourages me to read new genre that I normally wouldn't read. This piece of work captures her great personality and her hobby

Before quilting

The eyes and lower face quilted

Close up of the face

Photographs this week

On the beach

Cheap and easy storage ideas

While surfing the net I have come across so many great ideas for storing art supplies and fabric.  

Storage can be very pricey and add up.  I also find it hard to find storage that works perfectly for the space intended. 

 

I have found making my own storage solutions to be the perfect answer to the problem.  

These ideas are all DIY and reasonably cheap to make

1heart organizing

These bins are just gorgeous and are made from fabric and boxes.

Media organiser

This pen and pencil organiser is made from foam board.  

Wouldn't you love to have all those pens?

Better homes and gardens

A great space saver.

Home talk

What a great way to re use all those cans.

Better homes and gardens

I love tube storage.  It is such a 

great way to store paintbrushes and pencils

Aunt peaches

Another take on the tube storage idea

Brit and co

I love this unusual storage design.  

Architecture art design

There are some nice ideas in this article. I particularly like this one for scraps of fabric,  a hanging rubbish bin or scraps of batting.