Creativity Month Week Three

For the third week of Creative August I wanted to try to step outside my comfort zone every day. I haven't made a journal in quite a few years, so I got out my papers and some pretty linens and started with that.

I got out these two thrifted kits that didn't come with all the components to do a little jewelry making.

I've never tried a pre-fused applique kit, so I decided to use this one that I thrifted and see how they work.

I made an adorable vintage handkerchief I've been saving into a mini-quilt box topper. Definitely thinking outside the box here. :)

I've never tried to make anything from the selvages I save from fabric, so I hauled out the bag to change that.

I found a dusty wooden hatbox at a junk shop for a few bucks that I thought I'd try to clean and upcycle to store my perle embroidery thread.

I sewed together some chili peppers from the garden in my first attempt to air-dry them.

This little raggedy piece of patchwork became a stitch practice piece, and then evolved from there.

I've not done much crocheting with chenille yarn (I've made exactly one thing from it), so I pulled one blue (far right with the Lion Chenille label) and two brown skeins (far left, no labels) from a thrifted lot to do a practice piece.

I've got one more week plus three days left in August to be creative, and I'm pretty happy with what I've done so far. Let's see if I can keep it up for ten more days. :)

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Love Means This

Invested in a couple of hand-dyed bundles from one of my favorite fabric artists. This one said "Make me into something for Valentine's Day." So I went for a quilted and embellished tote. I kept thinking about what love means to me as I worked on it. Here's the finished tote. Although I was tempted to embellish with beads and pins, I got sick and only felt well enough to do a little stitching every night. As I worked I thought about how often love seems disappointing to us, especially when it fails to live up to our expectations. But now that I've experienced love in many forms, I can say that it's made me a better person than I might have been without it. Love is a precious thing, and should be appreciated in all its forms. I am very grateful for the love of my guy, my child and my friends who have stuck with me all these years. That's you two, in case you're wondering. :) Also finally found something to do with a ve...

Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.

Store Closing Haul

The mega Books-A-Million store over in Sanford is closing, and offered an extra 20% off on their current stock -- all sales final -- so I went over to do some shopping. Safely but sadly there was no one in the store but me the entire time I was there. The Holly Jackson novel is for Katherine, the Halloween board book is for Oliver, and the copy of Garden Spells is to keep on hand because I give that book to everyone. The rest of the books are for me. I love Anne Cleeves, and the Galbraith novel sounded interesting (the first couple weren't, but I'm willing to take another chance.) The Escape Room is by a new-to-me author, plus it was cheap. The GreenCraft mag is just a guilty pleasure. Hopefully the smaller BAM nearer to me won't close. I don't buy many books from brick-and-mortar stores these days, but that's really the last one within reasonable driving distance.

Valerean

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