Small Gifts Part II on Off the Wall Friday

Curves, Still using the scraps from this one!

 Well here on the banks of the Great Lakes, we are still waiting for spring to arrive.  I'm not sure how much snow and cold this girl can take but I'm getting close to my limit.  More daylight has helped though, and I started a new sleep routine ...working back to my goal of 8 hrs a night...every night.  I'm quite sure I haven't done that since the early 2000's so this ought to be interesting.

The nights I'm getting over 7 hours, I'm noticing that I do have energy to do stuff after work.  To that extent, I've started the small project for my teammate's birthday. First I started with a simple design.  When you are designing small, you don't need a complicated composition.  What I'm thinking is to do this simple flower that will show case big stitch embroidery.  Then add a simple quote...or words....or something of that nature.  As always, I like to make one design decision at a time. 

 

Then the fun stuff.  I tackled my stash.   In true Disney Princess fashion, my co-worker loves all things pink.   To that end, I had to find fabrics that said HER rather than ME. Starting with the backgrounds....

I have in mind doing a pieced background that will be stitched to a foundation . I'm not sure exactly how, but I think raw edges and stitching will be involved.  

Then the flower fabrics...I started in my stash...nothing that would work there, down into my studio's stash...nope.  All of them yelled NINA and nothing said Disney Princess.  Finally, I spied my scraps.  It really felt great to get back into my studio.  How did I forget that I had cleaned it so well?  My whole body just relaxed stepping into it.  For as messy as I can be, I love things neat and tidy.

Sorry I digress...yes I did find what I needed in my scrap bin.  This is about the time when I realized something that you probably caught on to ..that the background wasn't pink but actually coral.  Once that realization set in, finding the right scraps was easy.  I chose some left over from my curves quilt.  The improv piecing is already done and they will be the right value for that medium to light background...a Win - Win .  Plus she's so going to dig knowing that a bit of a quilt was in her little piece.

Running my fingers through fabric again made me think...why did I stop quilting again?

Just typing it all out gives me a solid plan on finishing this ...because finishing it I must ...her birthday is the beginning of April.  

Under Things I Like....

My sister in law, Susan recommended her new favorite show...The Great British Sewing Bee.  Am I the last to discover this show?  It has all the things I like in a reality show...regular people, showing us a bit about them and what they do and not too much ridiculous drama.  Honestly, I would rather watch this type of reality show than the Housewives of BumFEygpt anytime!  Because I've been limiting my screen
time in favor of ...wait for it...sleep, I'm only 2 seasons in but I just love to watch people create.

I'm always a little shocked that for as little as I know about garment sewing, I totally understand what they are doing and why.  It's nice that needlework crosses over.  Plus, I think this counts as cross training like we I said in last week's post.

You can find the show on Roku here ...watch online or download the app to your smart tv.  Commercials are short and not obnoxious.  Plus, it's all free which is refreshing.  

Has anybody else watched it?  What do you think?

and of course...

What Have You Been Up to Creatively?

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