Things I have made (or collected) this week.

Last Saturday was my niece Katia's Birthday.  I made this lemon meringue tart to bring along to the party.  Yes.  It was as good as it looked.  Apologies to my sister for overshadowing her very valiant attempt at a mermaid cake .... ;)  As a gift for Katia, I made this quilt, cushion and door stop set (you have probably already seen this.  

A quick visit to the Mental Health OpShop yielded some very colourful Queen's head stamps.  All kinds of designs and colours.  Some look really old.  I think I have a decoupage project planned for this.  An old wooden tray is crying out for the royal treatment!

I have picked up a lot of small scraps of leather lately at Reverse Art Truck.  I thought I would test the mettle of my machine and try and make a novel or notebook cover.  It is abit St Kilda football club in its colours but when one is  working with what one has, one must make do.  I think it is very useful and will prevent my novels from getting beaten up in my bag.

 So my creative space is a mess.  I am constantly moving my stuff from the loungeroom to the spare room or to my "office".  It is doing my head in and making me a bit sad with the state of affairs around the place.  Looking at lovely studio spaces online has become a little bit of an obsession.  I know I am lucky to have a room of my own so now the challenge has presented itself to create a space where I can store, spread out, and make all the things I want to make.  I can close the door on my mess or I can chose to keep it very tidy and ordered.  On my limited budget I could have gone down the path of second hand furniture but I am determined that the room look modern and bright so I have opted for some very basic white furniture.  Shelves, roller storage and a big work table from Ikea.  I would love to find a feature chair in which to sit and knit/crochet/read/dream.  I know I will find one if I put on my wishing hat before entering opshops.  Here is my plan that is a) to scale, b) held down by my favourite glass apple, and c) incredibly achievable!

In the spirit of studio orderliness, I made these pin board frames from things I bought from Resource Rescue.  Clean, tidy and totally ready to display my ideas, colours, pictures - whatever I darn well want to display! YAY!

My nieces are getting so cold on these wicked Melbourne mornings so I have made them these lovely little Tunisian Crochet neck scarves with matching brooches an buttons.  Two of the girls love pink.  The one in the middle is blue although this picture makes it look grey.  Hope they love wearing them as much as I loved making them.

This was the big project of the week.  It all started with Pip Lincolne and her Zpagetti floor rug.  I thought it was such a cute idea and looked really easy.  Well whilst out at Resource Rescue, I found some fabric rope that looked kinda like what Pip was using.  I'm on a budget so I thought this might be the cheapster's option.  It was available in limited colours - black, white and red.  I picked up some black and white and grabbed my giant 9mm Tunisian Crochet hook and started the giant potholder.  As I continued it dawn on me that this would actually make a super floor cushion for my new studio!  So I finished the round piece and started on the wall - this is being done in a Tunisian simple stitch on an 11.5mm giant hook.  It is really solid and structural.  I have finished all the fabric rope I had so I will be heading to Bayswater for some more.  While I am there I will pick up some foam sheets to fill it with and something sturdy for the base part.  It is all going to be finished by hand - all pieces hand stitched together.  

So that has been my week.  Giant crochet is a great way to work off tuckshoparmitis.

Gee ya later

xo Miss G