It’s that time of the month again when Kat encourages us all to get nosey and poke around each others’ crafty lives.  This month it’s all about our various crafty endeavours…

1) What are your preferred crafts? Do you have one primary one that you do most of or do you dabble around in many different crafts?


Hmm, well at the moment I’m primarily sewing, a bit of a mixture between quilt blocks, bags/pouches and clothes, but I also make bears and enjoy photography.  I have also in the past made a few planes (including a B17 bomber that flaps its wings :oD ), glass painting, made mobiles, scrapbooked, stamped, made cards, made camera flash accessories and jewellery (including taking a silver smithing class, which I would have kept going with, but I knew I neither had the space nor could I afford the equipment to play with it at home)  I’m probably missing a few things here lol  I’d show you photos, but apparently I haven’t been good at taking photos of the things I’ve made pre-blogging, ho hum!

2) What avenues inspire you most in your sewing/crafting that we might like to check out?

I’m a big fan of other people’s blogs, Flickr and Pinterest for online inspiration, but I also love to buy magazines – Mollie Makes, Making, Sew Hip, Burda Style and Sew Today, and to buy craft books, both from online reviews and just hunting through Amazon or the craft section of the local Waterstones.  I also love to keep an eye out on billboards on my walk to work, and on shop windows, especially the clothing shops to see the colours and styles du jour.  Sometimes I get inspiration simply gazing out of windows at work, and wandering round the city – my best tip if you’re walking round any towns is to look up, it’s amazing the details and things you see above street level.

3) Are you a one project at a time person or do you have “craft ADD” – OR are you somehow like me and have a combination of both?

Sorry, who are you again..?  Oh look, shiny… :oD

Err, yeah, ADD has been mentioned (as has ADHD) by friends and colleagues and nothing to do with crafting, so you can imagine that if it affects my every day life, then it certainly affects my crafty one!  I can see 8 WIPs on my sofa alone, not to mention another 10 or so on top of my fabric cubbies, and another 3 between the sewing machine table and cutting table.  I might need help…  (photo from a few weeks ago)

4) What is/has been your longest ever Work in Progress (WIP)?

Oh, that one’s easy, that would be Spike:

Spike took over 2 years to go from drawing to fur!  He was the very first bear I designed for myself while I was living in South Africa.  I used Ted Menten’s Teddy Bear Studio to help with some shaping, and recalled design features I wanted to work on and enhance from a number of other artist’s patterns I’d used over the years.  He was languishing, somewhat unloved, as a little pile of paper when a chance conversation with a friend ended up in a commission for 4 bears of my own design.  After a bit of an ‘Eek, what have I got myself into?!’ moment, I pulled myself together and got to designing, but I thought I ought to get Spike resurrected first!  He went to my dad for Christmas that year (2009)

5) What are some of your crafty projects that you’ve made recently (or not so recently is ok to) that you’d love us to see?

Like Kat, I kind of feel I bombard you all with stuff all the time, but from the last 9 months or so:

I loved the dresses I made last summer:

I was proud of my first quilt, even if it was quite challenging because of the white fabric I chose for the front and back! (Apologies for the crappy location for this pic, it was winter in Scotland, what can I say!)

I was also really happy I managed to wrestle these cushions into being for my gran for Christmas:

I’m loving some of the recent things I’ve been working on too, but they’re not done yet!

6) Do you have a piece of fabric or craft item of any sort with a story behind it that you’d like to share? 

Well, I think this wins the story for my oddest request of all time (the ruff), but I’m glad I did it, the photos that came from it have been very amusing!  (And yes, ultimately the ruff did end up on the dog ;o) )