Crafting with kids

We have had heaps of fun with the children creating different creatures with pompoms and pipe cleaners.  I am amazed how creative they can be and how they can think so differently from me.

Snake

A scary headband

A rattle snake with working tail (bell)

Top hat with buttons

Bandit

Mouse

Butterfly



I am struggling to download photos at the moment.  I'm hoping I can sort the problem soon.  It is hard to write a blog about the wonderful creations my children have made in the holidays without photos!!!!


Meanwhile.........I am really enjoying Leah Day's new videos on machine quilting. Even though I am a fairly experienced machine quilter going back to basics has been fantastic.  Over the years I have picked up some bad habits.  These videos are a great way to learn or re-learn how to quilt. 



http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.com/

She is truly inspiring with her work and her heartfelt blogs. Go on over and read her blogs, they are fantastic and very helpful.  Go leah!!!!

Sketchbook challenge

This months theme doodles is so much easier than last months.  I really could not get my head around trash at Christmas time.  I love to doodle.  I think it takes me back to scribbling patterns as a young child and then next to the phone as a teenager and in church in those teenage "boring moments".  Doodling in like a holiday for my brain.  My pencil just moves to where it wants to go.  I find it very relaxing and an escape from  the realities of life.



I decided to draw to music for my first page this year.  I chose to listen to Brooke Frazer.  Look her up on you tube if you would like to hear her music.  She is a NZ artist. I love her music.  Is is clean,  original and a lot of her music is very inspiring.  The first piece of music I listened too is called Betty and I felt to draw an exploration of I am who I am through who has gone before me.  I am am part of my ancestors as my children and grandchildren will be part of me. 

I see so much of my parents in me and some of my grandparents in me.  I am still unique but lives of others intertwine through me.

I am glad that I carry part of my family in my genes and in my make up.  I am proud of my roots.

My ancestors have helped create parts of me.  They have past on to me there idiosyncrasies,  some of there attitudes, and their values.



I have my fathers passion for music and love of puns,  my mothers love of fabric and hand work and her voice,  my Grandmothers tenacity and humour, my Nana's skills with the needle,  my Grandfathers skill of writing. 

I am who I am because of these amazing people before me.

This page was done in ink pen and watercolours.



Happy new year

Happy new year to you all.  I hope your Christmas and new year was safe and pleasant.  We had lovely celebrations and a nice time as a family.   All my children are well now and are really enjoying the holidays, time at home and as a family. 

The new year finds me reflecting on the past year and looking towards the new one. The year behind has been a challenging but fulfilling.  I have achieved my goal of sketching each day (mostly)  The last month of sketching didn't really happen but family commitments were just a little more of a priority through those weeks. 

My first page of the year



But I still drew almost every day of this year.  I have really improved on my drawing.  The biggest change for me has been the speed in which I can draw now.  I am so much faster and far more accurate.  It has been an exciting journey for me. 

One of my later pages of the year



I am going to continue to draw this year each day but rather than finish a page a day I am going to try to do a page a week with a little work done on it each day.  I


I made another goal to quilt more and enter more competitions.  I  made deadlines on 8 different competitions and exhibitions this year. I spent a lot of time on surface techniques.  I have loved the explorations and exciting results of my experimentation's.  I have really improve in my painting this year.  It has been scary to try new techniques and subjects but the practice has really paid off for me. 

One of my paper quilts this year

A personal quilt remembering the sacrifices of my ancestor in war.



This year I really want to improve in my quilting so I am going to spend some time a week quilting.  I hope to have a few samples made by the end of the year to use as a reference point.  I also want to get more accurate in my free motion quilting and more creative with the needle.

I want to spend more time studying other artists.  I am hoping that this will help me be more critical of my own work and to implement new ideas into my work.

I am so excited about trying new things this year.  What are you all doing to improve you art this year?  Leave a comment and let us know.

Photography this week

I took the children to the Auckland botanical gardens yesterday.  We had a a wonderful morning strolling through the gardens looking at the sculptures on display and all the lovely plants.  It was interesting to listen to their comments on the sculptures.  They were very critical of them but in a very nice way, which really impressed me.  Many of them were very beautiful and some just very interesting.  One I didn't like at all my daughter told me she love it because it made a very good statement about our environment.  It made me look at the sculpture in a different way and I could see where she was coming from.  It was a lovely morning together what Christmas is all about.

The children's favourite sculpture.  They were soft and squishy (15 year olds explanation) and really fun.



Sketchbook challenge

I have managed 4 pages this week which is much better than my past couple of weeks effort.  For the first 3 pages I tried using white pen on black paper.  This was quite a challenge to work in an opposite way.

An old soda bottle found in a park.  I challenged myself to do this in 10 minutes.

A collection of leaves around the swimming pool

Water patterns on the tiles around the pool.  I thought this could have great potential for a quilt idea.

The last page I did this week was a pen and watercolour page. 

 I don't really like this theme this month and I might just try doing what ever I feel like drawing.  I might actually get more done.

Christmas quilting

"It is almost Christmas....this week it is Christmas...I'll need to get to sleep really fast and every one needs to go to bed at 8 o'clock and get up at seven o'clock  on Christmas day"  I can hear my 7 year old in the background talking in a non stop monologue.  He is so excited about Christmas.  I hope his forecast about a 7 o'clock start on Christmas morning comes true.  It would be bliss but I know it will be more like 5 o'clock with bells on and rearing to go.   



I love this season of secrets, special smells, festive colours and crinkly sounds.  In New Zealand we celebrate Christmas in summer (although you would be excused for thinking it was winter after the weather the last 2 days.....it dropped 8 degrees (Celsius)  or 46 degrees (Fahrenheit) over night Brr)  I also love making Christmas things for people and making little quilts.  It is so wonderful to see people opening much loved and thought though gifts. 

This year I made a list and put a lot of thought into special handmade gifts and got none finished.  So my quilting for Christmas this year is in my head tucked away.  This is what I would have made if I had more time and organised myself earlier.

• A quilt for my boys.  They still don't have one for their beds even though the material has been sitting there for a year.  I did get a quilt top finished though
• A quilt art piece for my sister-in-law.  She loves my work and really treasures it.  I would have made a violin instead she will be getting a pile of scrapbooking supplies.
• A Bag for my mother for her felting supplies...instead she got a felting book and and quilting arts book
• A canvas of Christ for my husband.  He would have loved it but instead he got a subscription to a magazine
• I would have made a handmade Christmas ornament for each family in my extended family to put on their Christmas trees.
• I want to make 2 mini Christmas trees for me but I really don't think it is going to happen

So this year it has been a time of ideas which didn't come to fruition.  Maybe if I keep these ideas tucked up in my heart they will grow into something for next year.