2015 Year in Review

Welcome back and Happy New Year!

For the first time ever, I feel I was productive enough with my sewing last year that I can justify writing an annual 'completed projects' post - yeah!  It's all thanks to my new-to-me sewing machine, my Janome 6600P.  So without further ado, here is a run down of last year's finished projects.

Dinosaur Baby Shower Gifts

Six Pocket Tote Bag

Baby Quilt - Group Sew

Tula Pink Handbag

Harmonic Convergence Wallhanging

Diamond Jubilee Jelly Roll Race Quilt

That Cat Wallhanging

So six completed solo projects, one completed group project, plus another three quilts/wallhangings very close to completion - that's a pretty tidy sum for a year by my record.  Stay tuned for a peak of what I hope to have in store for 2016, coming soon.

Pinspiration Sunday

I love days when I don't have to leave my flat at all; I mean at all!  Today was one of those days - bliss!  Autumn has definitely been setting in here in Sweden - the leaves have been changing colours, the Rowan trees are loaded with berries and the conkers and acorns have already started falling.  The weather has also been turning to cloudy, rainy and a brisk, cold wind.  So all in all, a great day to stay inside and hermit.  So join me with grabbing your hot beverage of choice and curling up with some photo love.

Currently:

* watching - Bones
* reading - Papercraft Inspirations, August issue
* eating - fajitas
* drinking - water
* wearing - PJs, socks & cardi (my flat is pretty cold)
* weather - raining, 15C
* feeling - very full
* wanting - the weekend to continue
* needing - to find someone to cat-sit Oskar during bathroom reno
* planning - next several LOs with new photos ordered today
* loving - playing in my new box of scrapbooking goodies
* enjoying - a lazy, quiet day at home

And now onto the pins...

Log Cabin Bed Runner

I'm really diggin' the bed runner trend that's picked up in the last year or so; it's like the perfect fit between making a full-sized quilt and making smaller home decor items.

Lucky Quilt Pattern

This pattern caught my eye and the whole website and quilt pattern selection is great, too.  Definitely worth checking out, especially if you love modern quilts.

Sashiko Repair Technique

Have you heard of sashiko?  It's a traditional Japanese stitch technique used on kimonos.  Here in Malmö, we're lucky enough to have a talented Japanese quilter and teacher at the local quilt shop so sashiko features in a number of quilt projects regularly at my guild.  However, I've never thought of using it for patching and I love the idea, especially given that the purpose of sashiko is to strengthen fabrics.  Just cool.

Herringbone Haul-It-All Tote

Just saw this pattern this morning on Moda Bake Shop.  It's a great pattern and very detailed instructions with plenty of photos to help guide you.  I also laughed out loud at the 'OCD' comments - a quilter after my own heart (and OCD quirks).

Crab Fishing

Saw this LO on 2Peas this morning and just loved everything about it.  I've been slowly working through my Down by the Shore collection and found this very inspiring.

LO by Stepanie Bryan

I love using photo enlargements on my pages.  This one caught my eye because of the white space along the left (and a little on the right, too), the soft colours that seem to melt into the white cardstock and the fun line of tags.

Fotor.com

I've been searching for a good photo collage programme for my computer.  I have one on my mobile phone and have gone through several for my PC but I haven't liked any.  Until I found this one today.  It's free, ridiculously easy to use and available as either an online or installable version, available for desktops (Mac & PC) and mobile phones (iPhone & Android).  I made the above collage for my monthly photo order, which I should have within a few days and will let you know what the quality is like.

Shoes of Prey

And now for something truly fun and awesome - design your own shoes!  Squee!  I love shoes - heels, platforms, wedges - basically anything but flats.  I'm going to have to be very careful with this site, or it could become very addicting (and likely expensive).

Keukenhof Snapshots

So last week I was following CHA-S quite closely through manufacturer blogs and 2Peas but I didn't have much inspiration for anything new to scrap, even though I wanting to get in on some of the 2Peas CHA challenge action.  Thankfully, my friend Anya came down to visit for the weekend and we enjoyed some crop time together and that really helped to inspire me into working on a new page, with the bonus of being able to catch up with a good friend I've not seen much in the last year - thanks, Anya!

So I decided to finally start scrapping some of my Amsterdam holiday photos from 2011.  I spent an entire day at Keukenhof gardens and have probably close to 100 flower/garden photos and let's face it, it's pretty darn difficult to not find beautiful flowers inspiring (or at least, for me).  So here's my finished page:

Keukenhof Snapshots

I started by pulling out my absolute favourite flower photos, looking for a selection of different types, shapes and colours.  That narrowed things down to 24 photos, which I thought was fairly impressive on its own.  Later I paired this down further to 12 photos.

I decided that using Polaroid-style frames would be the best way of featuring so many photos on a page so I got to work hand-cutting scraps of white cardstock.  Since I wanted the photos to remain the focus point, I chose to use a tone-on-tone design.  I used a black fine-liner pen to doodle around the frames and then found a distressed patterned paper sheet that also had a doodled frame around it for the background - perfect!

My original thought was to use a grid layout, perhaps titled and with the photos staggered to give it some movement and energy on the page.  Then I decided it would be cute to have the photos hanging from little washing lines instead and found some natural fibre twine that would fit well with the nature-theme and tone-on-tone design.  I also used some natural wooden mini clothes pegs to highlight my favourite photo of the bunch and I also clipped one onto my journaling card.  The rest of the photos I attached to the line using washi tapes.

I'm always very good when I go on holiday about keeping memorabilia but I'm less good about organising and storing it once I get home.  I had all of my Amsterdam bits and bobs in a plastic bag (and knew where to find it - bonus!) but I often get so into making a travel layout that I forget to check the bag and pull out material to plan into the page until too far into the design process.  But not this time - I got into that bag and pulled out my e-ticket, Keukenhof business card and train ticket to the gardens and decided I would work them and the journaling card into the design using a glassine bag, which would also help to cover up a motif on the background paper that didn't fit the page and I layered all of that under the last photo.

Again, because I wanted to keep the photos as the focus, I used basic black Thickers and letter stickers for my title and I stamped in a grey that wouldn't be over-powering on the page.  I also kept my embellishments minimal (although Anya teased me that she would have stopped *ages* ago - ha!).  I was also quite pleased with myself that I managed to work in the magenta coloured vellum stickers from the Yes, Please sticker sheet - I love how virtually any colour will work with most flowers.

I cleaned up quite well on the challenge prompts with just this one layout (totally impressed myself):

• Stash Busters - use scraps (white cardstock for frames)
• 2Peas - Glitter Girl (focus on photos)
• 2Peas - Scrap Your Stash (use frames)
• CHA 3 Pieces of Memorabilia (tickets x2, business card)
• CHA 4 Elements of Nature (flowers, birds, butterflies, ladybird)
• CHA 5 Senses (journaled about sight and scent)
• CHA 10 photos (used 12)

Weekend crop results - Anya with her finished page and my nearly-finished page:

Such fun!  I'm very much looking forward to when she moves back closer, hopefully in the next few months, and we can do these things more often.