Christmas gifts and New year wishes

Hia all, I thought I would share with you some of the lovely gifts I have received from Internet friends for Christmas. The first is from Jan and she got me a great gift of a postcard hanger. Now with the amount of postcards i now have in my collection this is a great idea. Here is is in my hall way with some of my favourite cards. The top two are Jan's , the next one Hannah's, the next two Lynda's and the final one is one I was bought from Fibre art for a cause last year by an artist called Sharon Neuer. The second card was a recent gift from Hannah in Australia. i had sent her something, to be honest i forget now what it was and she sent me this and a pack of lovely threads and embellisments. How come other people's "bits" are always more interesting than your own! I love this card, it has embossed velvet, a print on tracing paper, wool felt and fme and computerised embroidery. I love it, thank you Hannah.
Now on to my new year resolutions. I am not going to make many as this time of year I am always over enthusiastic and then can't stick to them, so this is the 2 things most important to me apart from being a good Mum to Ellie may!
1. Loose some weight - Now this has been my resolution since I was about 18, but I lost 3 stone to have Ellie and I want to be a size 16. I am not too over ambitious, I am not going to say a size 12 and be totally over the top. So buying clothes from regular shops is my only plan. I am going to use my exercise bike (only used it twice since I bought it in the sales last year!)

2. The second thing is more simple.I want to keep a visual diary because I can't see being able to go on to part 2 C+G next year. I have been going to college for 3 years now and frankly I am tired. Part 2 is much more demanding and unless Enid is seriously convincing I can't see me having the energy. SO with that looming, I have started to get the "fear"! What will I do when i don't have that to focus on, how will my anxiety deal with it! So I have decided to keep a visual diary, record the things i do for trades and challenges, so I can hopefully find my style. I am often so worried that i am only any good at working with someone else's technique, someone else's original starting point. Here is the book I have chosen.
It is 5x12 inches and had hard grey covers, so I decided to stick some of my favourite bits of paper on the covers. Textured wallpaper painted with metallics, I think the blue and silver is a wallpaper by Julien Macdonald and the other piece is a piece of paper I printed using the TRaci B paper towel method.
So start as you mean to go on. I am in the process of finishing a page for Kim on African masks. I did some line drawings in pen on the back of an envelope so i decided to stick it down!

Next I have been working on my first trade postcard for Carol M in the Calendar girls group. The first picture we are working from is of sunflowers and so I started sketching the bits that interested me and working on compositions for my card. there will be more to follow on this on the calendar girls blog, as I have put together 5 cards so far just for the first trade! I am going to get a jump on February too while I am off, that way I may stay ahead!

Don't forget about my last post about the arch page swap on Textiles challenges. To add to this January's challenge is following Quilting arts true colours paper quilt challenge. Hope some of you might come along and join us.

Finally can I wish you all a Happy New Year and I hope it brings you all the happiness you deserve. Last year felt long and arduous to me, and I know to some of you. Let's hope 2008 is kind to us all. Love Carol T

New arch page swap

On the Textiles challenges yahoo group, which I run we are doing an arched page swap. The way this swap works is to do an arch page that is 4x8 inches for your partner each month. This will be for as many months as we have sign ups or smaller groups if we have enough people. At the end of this you should have enough pages to make a book. If you would like to join in follow the link above, you will have to join the group, but then you might enjoy our monthly challenges. Hope to see some of you there. Love carol t

Boxing day

Hia all, well I survived yesterday and everyone was happy-ish! Ellie was really happy and that's all that counts! I thought I would show you a little more of the things I have made over the last few weeks.
The first is a quilty that I was way overdue with for Sandie, for a trade on unlimited textiles. the theme was Autumn and I had some how lost this one from my list of to do's. I used a piece of fabric I had sun printed way back in the summer at Deb's workshop. I used poppy seed heads and fern leaves to sun print . I then kantha stitched it in some thread I had hand dyed, and added some beads , I thought these looked like the seeds from the poppy being carried away by the wind!
The next thing to show you now are the final scarves that i made at the devore workshop. I made 6 all together. They were fab to make, I had such a fun day. I gave 3 as gifts to my sisters and Mum and kept the rest for myself. This one was Vivky's.
This one mine!
This one mine!
Sian's
Mine! This one is my fav, it is shibori devore, and turned out so well.

and finally Mum's . I love the colours on this.

Merry christmas and Mum's bagsket

Firstly is a card I made for Gail but thought it would be nice and festive for my blog. Merry christmas and I hope you all have a lovely day
This is the bagsket I promised to photograph. This one is for my Mum, and this time I added a pocket inside for her to put her tools. I hope she will like it. I like the fabric. Got much quicker making this one too. Hope your all having a fun evening. Love carolT

Bagskets

My sister this year asked for a knitting starter kit and so I have bought her wool, needles and crochet hooks. I decided that this alone was not good enough and so I decided to make her some sort of knitting bag. I saw this tutorial, via the Sew mama sew blog and thought it would be perfect, because as well as anything else and the fact that they are just gorgeous, they would stop the wool unraveling all over the house as you knit. Then I had another challenge, you see i have 2 sisters and you know what it's like can't do for one without the other. So that's why there are 2.
I have a 3rd on the way. My Mum, the inspiration for my starting sewing should get one too I think so have almost finished her's in more neural colours. I will try to remember to photograph it tomorrow, amongst the veg prep!!! Hope your all having a merry time of it!!!

Gethin?? Whos' he!

Merry christmas to alll my blogging friends

I just wanted to say a big thank you to all the wonderful friends I have made online again this year. You are a constant source of support and advice, and more importantly fun! I look forward to a busy and productive 2008 and hope you will get all you want from santa! (Ps the top one is Welsh for me and Mags, our first language!)

Lots of love Carol T

Things to share

Hia all, I thought I would share with you all what I have been up to of late. I have made some cards for friends. The postcard below was for Alis' birthday. I hand dyed some quilters batting, which is so soft and appliqued on a flower. It is quite simple but I love the colours and textures.I haven't found a home for this one yet!
These two cards are ATC's and I sent these to Carol M and Lynda as a thank you for the help and advice they have given me over the year, and for being down right generous.
This is my little icicle angel that i made as part of an ornament trade on Unlimited textiles. It was sent to Sue K and she has received it so i can show it now.
The final picture is of a Christmas card I made for a friend. I thought I would put it here. So consider this your virtual Christmas card. Merry Christmas all.

Devore

Hia all I have been very quiet of late, I have been really busy. We have walked in the lantern parade, which is pictured above. We had a great time despite the wet.
Today i have been on a devore course with Cardiff artist Cath Lewis. Well I had a blast, I really enjoyed it. i have never done it before and i had a good go and managed to make enough to make a good few scarves for Christmas. I am so torn there are so many I want to keep, but I think my Mum and sisters will have to get some. I was lucky and managed to pick up two of my home made stamps and so used those a good bit, but also used a lid to make the circles. I also managed to pick up a load of stencils in B+Q as they are selling them off at £1 a go. They are discontinuing their stencil range so if you are passing a B+Q it is a good chance for some cheap stencils, i got quite few, bamboo, flowers, oriental ones and mosaic ones.
We acid dyed to colour the backgrounds and then used procion for the top layer. Cath showed us a great way to shibori devore and the bright blue one in the middle of the picture is done like this. It was much easier than I thought although a bit messy, I came home with purple hands! I am sooo pleased with the results i can't say and Chris and Sandra, who run our group, fiberpaperarts, are to be commended on their choice. A fab day all round!

My little cow!

Well my little angel will not be Mary as she wanted but instead a cow, which made me very happy! I collect cow things, plates cups, cards etc! I decided to make her a hoody style costume to get the ears in and of course a rubber glove udder!!! Check this out! ( EDIT - PHOTO TAKEN OUT AS i DON'T LIKE MY LITTLE ONE ON THE INTERNET TOO LONG)
I have also been playing with photoshop elements and altered the colours from a photo of the page i made for Mags and used a plastic filter. I love this how real does this look! Loving this programme!
Also something to note for next year, I have joined a group of frankly bonkers ladies who have just the best sense of humour to do a calendar challenge for next year. So watch out for the blog in the new year!