Pinspiration Sunday

Hello, everyone.  It's been one of those grey, dreary and rainy Sundays, which has meant Oskar and I have curled up in bed and I've been busy, busy, busy online.  That should translate to more to share here on the blog shortly.  Now, go grab your hot beverage of choice and come join me in snuggling up for some photo goodies.

Currently:

* watching - Restoration House Nightmare
* reading - McCall's Quick Quilts - Nov/Dec. issue
* eating - toast and peanut butter
* drinking - water
* wearing - PJs
* weather - rainy, 7C
* feeling - peckish
* wanting - to stay curled up at home
* needing - to start making my Christmas cards
* planning - to finally buy new trousers tomorrow (I hope)
* thinking - I should have bought groceries today...
* loving - having ordered a new box of goodies from 2Peas!
* enjoying - a quiet afternoon at home

And now on to the pins...

Scrappy Chevron Picnic Quilt

Super simple quilt of chevrons and rectangular blocks.  Lovely, cheery colours, although I question using white for a picnic quilt.  ;)

Basting Tutorial: 1x3" Boards

Are you (like me) short on space to lay out quilts for basting?  This might be something you want to have a go with, then - basting using two 1x3" boards, which can be set up on a kitchen table.  No more crawling around on your knees or aching back.

Embroidery Panel

How gorgeous is this rainbow on black embroidery panel?  It makes me think of some celestial nebula.

Journaling on Self-Portrait Pages

Tips from 2Peas Garden Girl, Jill Sprout, on journaling about yourself; a topic that many scrapbookers find challenging but is - IMO - so important.

Freckled Fawn Flair

Freckled Fawn is now stocking their own flair and boy, are they cute!  Four sets to choose from currently, each set contains two flair.

Freckled Fawn Cork Frames

Can't get enough cork on your scrapbook pages?  Check out these cute stamped frames?  I might need this set for my next up-coming birthday.  :)

Recolour Staples

Such a simple but great idea for recolouring staples instead of buying pricier coloured versions.  Keep this in mind for your Christmas cards and layouts this year!

Cello Tape Photo Transfers

I still need to try this technique - works for any magazine pictures and certain types of printed pictures.

Poppy Tones

And in honour of Remembrance Day tomorrow, I'm sharing this beautiful poppy-inspired colour palette.  My most heart-felt thanks and appreciation to all of those who have served; to those who possess the strength that I do not.

Albertan Relief - Block Update

So I spent a lovely day today stitching away, sewing more slab blocks for the Just One Slab - Quilts Recover Southern Alberta project, all the while listening to episodes of the Paperclipping Round Table.  Way to marry together two hobbies, I say.  Anyway, I stitched up three more blocks and this time I have photos to share with you.

Blocks from yesterday:

Initially I had all of my pink fabric in one group but I was finding that I just couldn't bring myself to pair the hot pink alongside the cooler, candy floss pinks so in the end, I decided to split them into separate blocks and I'm much happier with the results.

Then today's blocks:

Okay, so now for confession time.  I think I've sort of fallen in love with the green block.  And possibly the orange one, too (orange is my favourite colour, after all).  However, I'm not about to rob a charity of something I've chosen to donate.  I have plenty of green scraps so I'm going to sew a second one to donate.  And while I have less orange scraps, I'm going to try to squeak out a second orange one, too.  Then I can keep two and still have seven to send along to the project.

So basically this means that I've decided to make my own rainbow slab quilt, which is sort of cool.  I'm thinking it can be something that I work on as scraps pile up after projects - sort of like doing a scrap purge every few months, which can only be a good thing.  Since this is likely to be something that I work on over an extended period of time and I know I'm fairly rubbish about getting to the sandwiching and quilting phases, I'm planning to approach this project as a quilt-as-you-go.  This will mean that I won't suddenly choke once the blocks are finished.  It also has the added bonus that my sewing machine, which has tension problems, is too old for walking feet and has general difficulty with quilting, can better manage the smaller-sized blocks compared to full-sized quilts.  So, wish me luck with this new project!

Finally, something papercrafting-related.  Today I listened to probably the last eight or so PRT episodes.  PRT #164 - Eight Years Lost was quite profound to listen to and if you haven't, I would encourage you to go listen to it now.  What if you woke up one day and couldn't remember the last five or eight years of your life?  It really puts scrapbooking into a new light, I think.  I've always struggled with journaling and I know I'm not alone among scrapbookers with this element.  I have consciously tried to work on it and I do think that I've made progress over the last year but this episode in particular just highlighted the importance of continuing to improve my journaling skills.  Anyway, just some food for thought to share.