Let's Try Again!

Hello to each of you and can you believe we are already into February 2015! Time as we know it is passing so quickly and it seems like one can hardly pause to take breath and there's another day gone!

I have been missing you all whilst not blogging even though posting quickies on Instagram has kept me in touch with a few of you lovelies. Anyway, I am very happy to be once again feeling inspired to open up my little space and share with you just a few of the makes that have kept me occupied and out of trouble of late . . . .  yes, well, you know what they say about idle hands, and mine don't like to be without some sort of crafty project on the go!

I am really looking forward to seeing what you've all been up to in my absence, even though I have caught snippets here and there in the IG world. I should say at this point that I'm sorry if some of the info here is doubling up a bit on the IG scene!

Let's begin with the little creatures I made from patterns bought from aliciapaulson.com

I am so thrilled at the clear and precise way Alicia goes about sharing her information regarding making  Mr Fox, Miss Doe, and Miss Kitty and would encourage any of you who feel inclined, to go ahead and give these a go! They really are a lot of fun and I enjoyed every minute of putting them together!

I have also made up (twice) one of the lovely patterns from the beautiful Susannah of verityhope.com fame; meet my version of the gorgeous Pipi Lapin and her sister/friend/double - they have absolutely stolen my heart! Here they are all done up in their silks - little bits of stash that I've been saving for sooooo long ….. Here again, the pattern and method for bringing these sweeties together is so well written up and explained by Susannah that really, you can't put a foot wrong in the making of these little darlings!

Of course there have been practical makes too over the past weeks - bags of varying styles and shapes in the 'quilt as you go' method. Generally, I cut out the backing of heavy-duty interfacing and sandwich that between layers of iron-on wadding to give a bit of extra body, padding and softness, and then start stitching on little strips of fabric which gradually have to grow to quite long strips before completion of the bag!

First we have these two made with Japanese cottons, which I just love - the top two pics are the fronts and below those you see the back views . . . 

. . . and then we have three others made from a variety of quilting cottons. Again, on the top row of pics you see the fronts, and the back views on the bottom row!

Oh how could I nearly forget to tell you about my little coverlet which was included in the Readers Page of the latest issue of Australian Homespun! There it is and that's my little moment of fame! Seriously though, I was so surprised and excited to see it there when I picked up my mag from the newsagent a few weeks ago ...

I'll finish now with a little bit from our garden - and in case that painting on the wall has raised your curiosity, it's of the harbour in Kirkcudbright, Scotland, from whence I hailed a long time ago, and miss it still!!! 

  

It's been so nice putting together this post, just like old times! I do hope you decide to leave a little message for I love to hear from you, but in any case, please know that I appreciate you being here with me and taking the time to browse through my meanderings and show and tells!

Sending each of you my very best wishes,

❤ Joy xo

Being Sociable Again!

Hello, how are you all? It's certainly been a long time since I communicated through this little space - so long I have almost forgotten how to go about it!

Before going any further I'd really like to say a big thank you to you lovelies who have emailed to enquire about me! It really has meant a lot to me! The past couple of months or so have found me feeling a bit unsynchronised at times, so it's been better to just take one day at a time and not push myself to 'do' when what I really needed was to 'not do'!

Let's look at a few pics, shall we?

You may remember the little baby coverlet I had started after being inspired by  'The Sweetest Thing' from Australian Homespun magazine, May 2014 issue: here's my completed variation of it, much smaller than the original, but rather pretty I think.

And here's a little girl's quilt I made whilst playing hooky from blogland; I really had a lot of fun putting this together from little offcuts.

More recently this table runner has kept me busy, and interestingly enough this, as well as a couple of matching placemats, were produced from a little 'Scrappy Bag' of remnants bought recently from Textile Traders in Albany. The fabrics were so well co-ordinated, don't you agree? The backing fabric was one that I already had in my growing stash but seems to work quite well!

The placemats .. ..

I have been busy with a different style of sewing just recently too, but no pics yet, so will show you next time. Also I will make mention that, although I have not been too eager to spend much time on the computer of late, I have posted a couple of pics on Instagram and these you can see under Joyjinks if you care to take a quick look sometime.

On a particularly bright day a few weeks ago I noticed some very interesting shapes cast on the wall by the sun shining through the window and venetian blinds .. .. ..

Some birds make a lot of noise .. .. ..  like these White-tailed Carnaby's Cockatoos insistent on wrecking my next-door neighbour's lovely bottle-brush blooms .. .. .. This bird is unique to Western Australia.

Let's take a look in the garden, shall we? This is a wonderful time of year with so many blooms giving us so much pleasure!

Below you can see the native Irises: they decided to have a wee lie down but that's fine by me, I think they make a pretty picture relaxing on the wood-chips.

We love these little flowers - they close up when the sun goes behind the clouds and then open and shine when it reappears!

Do you recall my Clematis from last year? This plant only ever produces one (maybe two if we're lucky) flowers each season, but oh isn't it worth waiting for. The upper two pics were taken when it was young and fresh, and the lower two when it was older and faded, but still beautiful, don't you think?

Now to finish off I just must share a few of my gorgeous roses with you . . .

Below is 'Playgirl', one of my very favourites!

And last but certainly not least comes 'Blushing Knockout' which is still in a pot from last year and continues to bloom, flush after flush, and to me is reminiscent of a bride's bouquet.

Thanks so much for taking the time to be here, and for your lovely messages which always mean so much to me. Take good care of yourselves and I hope to catch up with each of you soon.

With love,

❤Joy xoxo

Just A Happy Mix!

Hello again dear friends and I hope you're all having good times and enjoying some crafting fun in among all the other calls on your time.

This past week or so has seen me begin a couple of new projects which will quite possibly be works in progress for some time yet, but then, it's nice to have a couple of things to fall back on now and then when the creative nectar is not quite up to scratch and it seems difficult to decide what to do next! 

Do you have such times? I certainly do and, although it doesn't happen very often, when it does it hits with a bang and for me it's a good thing to have something waiting in the background, something that can be picked up and put down when needs must!

Before I show you those items I really want to let you see what I finally did with the cute tea towel that the lovely Robin so kindly sent me some weeks ago. I've been pondering regarding the best use for this lovely cloth, and I certainly didn't want to dry dishes with it - such a shame that would have been - so it finally dawned on me (yes, I wonder sometimes where my brain has been hiding!) that it was ideal to make another of the fabric baskets I've been making up lately, but this one's for me whereas the previous ones are intended for gifts.

I included a wee pocket in this one for hook or scissors or whatever, and every time I look at the lining it's good to be reminded about kindness, loving and caring!

Okay, let's take a look at the ongoing works …. 

Since I recently put the final touches to the 'round the colour wheel' blanket, I've been aware that I have a stash of leftover yarn - namely Stylecraft Special DK - that I can now have fun with. When I bought this lovely big load back in May of last year I was so excited about all the wonderful colours and have really loved the way it works up, especially as I had had no desire before this experience to use acrylic yarn of any description! 

Anyway, I digress; it was time to begin a new blanket and the V-stitch had caught my attention but, such a job I had getting the look I wanted. Anyway, I finally realised that instead of working into the actual stitches from the previous row, I needed to work between the two stitches in each 'set' …. have I explained that properly? Anyway, I think you can see in the pics what I'm trying to say. I'm really enjoying the way this is working up and hope I have enough yarn to make a nice size blanket. I've had the kitchen scales out and weighed it all up, and as long as all the colours continue to go well together it should be okay, and I'm loving how they're mingling so far! What do you think?

The other ongoing project is a baby coverlet. I saw a similar thing in the Australian Homespun magazine and rather fancied having a go so why not …

I like that there's a bit of machine stitching, hand sewing, and crochet involved here - ah yes, variety is the spice of life and I've said it so many times, sorry!

This is a reversible coverlet consisting of squares of fabric cut to six-and-a-half inches each and each pair stitched together in quarter-inch seams. Then they're turned out the right way, blanket stitched around, followed by a crochet edge worked into the blanket stitch. No wadding is involved in this so it should be a nice lightweight coverlet  when all those squares are pieced together. I've started off with six squares but will need to do a few more; I don't intend for this to be big big though, just enough to fit a pram or cot! 

This morning on our walk we spied a wee drift of snowflakes - not the real snowdrops - and a few jonquils close to the river so the phone camera was put to good use again …. 

…. and in the garden this week, well, our first daffodil of the season opened up to smile on us, and the jasmine buds from last week have begun to reveal their fragile little faces too …. signs of Spring in the midst of winter! Lavender too of course, as well as daisies and wallflowers - I think?

Thanks so much for visiting once again, and for your messages that always warm my heart and bring happy smiles. Have a wonderful week whatever you do!

With my love,

❤Joy xoxo