31 days of Blogtoberfest!

great button eh?
Designed by Kellie from 74 Lime Lane

 BLOGTOBERFEST starts tomorrow

Yay!  What a great idea - Commit to posting every day and you're part of the festival!

I'm going to try to keep up.

Go On ... Sign Up at {tinniegirl}'s blog - you know you want to!

*thinks* looks like my Giveaway might reach a few more people - how good would that be!

I'm thinking ...

... what are you thinking?

My Creative Space #6

This week was all about the OFSTED inspection

You know how it is sometimes? 

get up in the dark

go to work and teach teach teach

get home in the dark

sit in front of computer

work work work a bit more

take a break to check out amazing creativity out there in the teeming blogolopolis

eat biscuit(s) to make up for feelings of gross inadequacy

make pincushions
go to bed
(repeat)

Not exactly a wildly creative space, but at least it's not entirely blank!

these are for my lovely friend Barbara

For much more inspiring and less autumnally gloomy spaces check out who's been dropping in to share at Kirsty's

Big Jump Press - Beautiful Letterpress - Possible Geeky Quilting?

So, there I was having a perfectly normal chat with Adam, one of our English Programme Managers, about perfectly normal things (imbecilic students & stationery, mostly) when I glanced over at his monitor ... which showed the Etsy shop page for Big Jump Press: amazingly beautiful bound & letterpressed journals and boxes which are made by a friend of his in New York. 
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He then showed me the FANTASTIC long long pencil box on his desk (sorry no pic) that she had made especially for him. (I'll have to sneak up and get a pic tomorrow!)

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I had a little click through her Etsy shop and these letterpress prints from her book on The Periodic Table just jumped right out at me!  Don't you think they are just squealing to be quilted?  Or am I just a lost cause now, where EVERYTHING looks quiltable?? (At the moment it seems especially to be things that are particularly geeky!)

Personally, I think that the final pic, No.7, lends itself perfectly - the colour blocks combined with the quilting lines of  the connectors lines and those organic cell shapes ... mmm .... yumm .. Oh dear, I'm drooling again ...

What do you think? Which one would you want to quilt? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 ??

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2

3

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5

6

7

Sunday Stash #5

Some fab Ikea fabric ... Some yummy new binding ... Some brilliant-white canvas.

(for a present, so, dying as I am to show and tell, I can do neither ...!)

Icosahedrons "Я" Us

Yay!  I'm much happier with how this one turned out compared with the dodecahedron here ...

I kept the angles sharper by (a) sewing it right side out (I don't mind seeing the stitching - each side length is just 1.5 inches)
and (b) keeping the papers in and using much less stuffing.

Next stop: octahedron!

Thanks Annabel ( Bellgirl ) for the link back - I think your pentagon ball looks fab!

Dinner Ladies

Picture from Victoria Wood's TV series "Dinner Ladies"

Yeah, so this is kind of what I meant in my previous post by Dinner Lady's Tabbard, lol!

It's kind of more about the fact that the binding pops out than anything else ... I'm thinking grey too, btw ...

My Creative Space #5

 

So, the fun part of my creative space this week is still a little 3D obsessed!  These triangles are much more pesky (don't look too closely at that brown gingham one! - I've corrected it now) I'll show you when I've joined them all up - I want this one to be more angular than the dodecahedron ball ...

The unpicking featured in my post yesterday was to do with my other little project which had to be put on hold when Mrs Singer had her nervous breakdown.

 The sleeves had to be unpicked and re-sewn because of a weird 'one long one short' thing going on.

I haven't had the patience to sew them in yet.  That will be a little finishing project for the weekend, methinks. 

I'm doing the binding now for the neckline, but it looks a bit like a school dinner lady's tabbard, which is not quite the look I was after -  I may have to unpick that too and go for a plain  binding instead

Which colour binding do you think I should use?  

Purple?

Grey?










Dirty Pink?

Let me know in the comments section PLEASE!!! I just can't decide

Wordless Wednesday

say no more ....

Sunday Stash #4

Today's Sunday Stash is all about Japanese linens ... Yum!

These two little beauties come courtesy of my lovely friend Tomomi.  This summer, she and her husband, Dom (who has a great blog here) went back to Yokohama in Japan to complete their marriage celebrations with a traditional wedding.

With all that going on, she still managed to squeeze in a bit of fabric shopping for me!  Now, that's what I call a friend!

... Of course it's much too nice to ever actually cut into and USE! ;)

Tomomi, Dom, and I all work together -  Before I even met Tomo she was famous in our staffroom for the fabulously creative bento lunches that Dom popped open every day, to our drooling delight. 
Tupperware has never been so romantic.

... aren't these pictures a-ma-zing? 



おめでとうございます !

So, thank you Tomomi - for the beautiful fabric and for the kindness :) 

Dodecahedron Heaven & A Giveaway ...

 TA DA!

Sewing it together wasn't that tricky after all - a bit of finger pressing and it was pretty much there (that's what you get for using a mathematically designed template!)

I had intended to leave the cardboard templates in and complete it as a hollow, sharp edged solid ...

But  once it came to popping it right side out, I had to remove the stiff card as the stitching was so delicate (by my standards!) I didn't want to risk ripping the fabric  ... so I was left with a deflated little ball ...

... Then came the stuffing ...


And here it is, in all its congruent, geometric perfection  ... (well, actually, it's a bit soft and curvy!)

Next up is the icosahedron and then all the others (especially now I've discovered Archimedean solids  ... oh yes, this one's going to run and run ... especially if I win this lovely giveaway over at It's All About The Fabric ... (runs until Monday 20th Sept) GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED (I didn't win boo hoo)

Beautiful new fabric and a GIVEAWAY! <---- edit ----> I WON!!! yay!

Just take a look at this yummy new range: 

it's by Sarah Fielke - she's an amazing blogger, designer, quilter and teacher, and her blog is way inspiring ... and this is part of her new line of fabric for Lecien - and it has everything a fabric-aholic could want - spots, stripes, squares, florals and BIRDS! ... (roll on pay day!!)

If you want to take part in the giveaway ... pop on over here and spread the word ...   The last day is 30th September ...  go on ... get over there (but come back!) Yay I won!

That was the easy bit ....

Now there's just the little the problem of sewing it up!  I think I'll have to do inside out and then "pop it" through at the last minute ... eek!

Dodecahedrons "Я" Us

OK - here we go!

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I started by cutting out the 12 pentagons from the cardboard template (I can always refer to the photo on yesterday's post when it comes to actually constructing the ball)

And now I've sewn a few just to see if I like the idea. 

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I like the idea.  

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I'm going to give it to the maths faculty for their office ... I've always said it needed a woman's touch ... I can only imagine what their reaction will be to a girly patchwork platonic solid ...Can't wait! 


heh heh heh

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(if you thought I was nerdy - you should try hanging out there for a few minutes!)

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Watch this space ....