Grey world

January in Ottawa is cold, dark and grey.  I need to infuse some colour into my crafting.

Here's my inspiration for this week:

I'm using these nautical flags as a start point to a new project.  They are so chipper and bright.  I think there's a fun project to be done with spelling out words with them.

Updates to come.

Oooh, broken promises!

A little pillow case I made for my sister, because she likes the Santorini fabric

Remember at the end of the last post when I promised 'more posting, more often'?  Well, that was clearly not the truth.

So, here I am. 

Let's see... in crafting news, I received a new Pfaff sewing machine from my husband!  It's pretty awesome and about 7000% better than what I was sewing on before.  Pfaffy and I just have to make friends and figure each other out and then I'm sure I'll get rocking on that.

As a practice run on the new machine I made some cloth napkins.  I think they are a great thing to make because they are environmentally friendly, take virtually no time  take virtually no fabric and, once mastered, will make a great house-warming present, etc. (Not to mention, a possible craft business item!)

Don't have the photos taken yet.  Spent the bulk of the week alone as hubby was traveling for work, so I'm afraid that crafting is always the first thing to go during busy times.  Sad, but true.

Will post a cloth napkin mini-tute when I get rolling again.

Here are a few things that have been inspiring me these days:

Vintage Cateye glasses onesie, by Ashley Ann

Craftzine's Top 100 craft tutorials of 2009

Make it and Love it's Gathered Flannel Scarf Tutorial

Oh!  The inspiration is not missing, that's for sure.  Just time.  Always time.

Holi-delay

Forgive the absense of new stuff, but I've been so busy with the holidays, the move across the continent, the travel to see family, etc, that I haven't had much posting time.

That being said, I'm super-excited about getting settled and fully unpacked and getting to work on some new crafty projects.  My goal for 2010 is to make some money from crafting.  I'm really curious about the process and to find out how hard it will be to make a go at it.

If my friend Phil's reaction to his crafted gift is anything to go on, I would make a mint.  I think he's a special audience though.  I had very high expectations of his reaction, and was not disappointed.  Take a look:

Phil was house-sitting for us while we were away and so we got to spend the last 2 weeks 'over-lapping' as he waited to get into his new place.  Having him here for Christmas morning was a great gift and the boys loved having him.  His move out starts today and job #1 is to get the "Phillow" over safely.

It was my first embroidery project ever, and I couldn't have laughed more.

Happy New Year to everyone.  I'll be posting much more often now, so watch for my new stuff.

Googily!

I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am about this post.  The fact that I'm typing this up means that it all came to fruition in a wonderful way.

I have two little boys, aged 3 1/2 and 1 1/2.  They are avid readers (or being read-to-ers, I suppose) and one of their very favourite books is "Jumpy Jack and Googily" by Meg Rosoff.

I don't want to go on a big gush-fest about Meg Rosoff and her books, but let me just say that when people ask the "who would you most like to have dinner with in the whole, wide world?" question, she is my answer.

I love all her books but as you can imagine, the picture books are a big deal in our house at this stage of the game.

With this in mind, I emarked on a crazy project of making Googily for my boys for Christmas.  I went into this never having made a soft toy before and just winging it. (Googily is the blue monster... so you know).

I would love to make Jumpy Jack too, at some point, but the construction of a snail is a bit daunting to me.

I worked quite a while on Googily and all his parts.  He turned out looking very much like his 2-D self:

My absolute favourite part is his hat, which is attached with a hidden magnet.  I would have gone crazy for that little hat when I was 3! 

The really, really, REALLY great part about making, and finishing, him, (in addition to actually giving him to my kids on Christmas morning) is that this gave me an excuse to write Ms. Rosoff.

I couldn't find a direct email, so I wrote her literary agent and crossed my fingers.  Amazingly she received my note quickly and had written back within the day.  Sigh!  I knew she would be just that cool.  She loved the doll and wants to see pictures of the unveiling on Christmas morn! 

I am so happy with this whole process.  I am pleased that my hard work turned out looking so much like the real Googily and that I got to exchange emails with his creator.  I'm smiling just thinking about it.

Now, I sure hope my boys like him!  I'm sure they will. 

Thanks for reading my tale of Googily-joy. 

Others excellence

Since I'm on crafting hiatus until I can dig out from the move, here are a few of my favourite tutorials I've found in the last while.  Do you read one pretty thing?  That has to be one of my favourite websites.  The hosts scours all the crafty world and posts the best things up daily.  I get so much inspiration from that site.  She even posted one of my creations once off the one pretty thing flickr group! 

Anyway, thanks to that site, and many others, I have bookmarks coming out of my virtual ears.  I have lists of things to make to keep me busy for years.

Here are a few, high on the list:

This felt circle pillow from Presser Foot is so cute and is something I think people would actually want on their couch.

Or how about these cute pouches from Noodlehead.  While you're there check out the camera case too.

Oooh!  I love these pompom flowers from domestifluff so much!

And I love this car litter bin from violet thistle on the craftster board.  I could use about 10 of these... just for my car.

There you go.  Nothing from me, but some great stuff from others.  Can I assume that all your crafting is wrapping up (ha ha) at this stage too?  Or are you crafting up to the last minute?

Book-spiration

I might just be a fussy, picky crafter, but I find most craft books to be aimed at a target audience far from me.  Far, far away.  I picked one up from the library yesterday and it showed a tutorial on making a poofy valance.  Seriously.  (If you happen to have a poofy valance, that's all good... Just not my thing.)

But!  In my pile of fresh library books were these two gems:

Simple gifts to Stitch, by Jocelyn Worrall

Stitched in Time, by Alicia Paulson

Ah!  Finally! You open a project book and say yes to that project and yes to that project, and YAY!  I'm going to make a few things out of each as soon as we get past the holiday fervour and back into everyday life again.  Plus, maybe I'll get some fabric on sale after Christmas!

Just returned to our regular home in Ottawa after 4 months in Montana.  Having only re-discovered my sewing passion while we were there, I'm now going through my fabric stash here with renewed eyes.  It's making me eager to start new things, but I'm going to force myself to hold off and get settled and sorted here first.  (SO much less fun!)

That's all for today.  I have an exciting craft update to come soon, but I have to wait for one piece to fall into place before it's reveal.  Stay tuned.

Argh Matey! Nautical pillows

Here are some pillows I made for my nautical obsessed little sister.  I used this amazing technique I found from Urka on Craftster.  It really opens up a whole world of crafting possibilities!

I love the Odyssea fabric, for Moda.  It's such a fun, aquatic theme.

I almost hate to give away that method, because it shows how easy it is!  Have fun with it.