Baby Bunting

"Sorry who are you again?" Feast & Stitches to me - Fancy feeling like a stranger on my own blog!

I haven't completely deserted the craft in my life, just chugging along at a slower pace. I gave a new project whirl a month or so ago and I have finally managed to get my act together, retrieve the pics and post about it. One of my dear friends who lives all the way up in sunny Queensland, recently announced the arrival of her beautiful twins Phoenix and Indie. I'd been wanting to give bunting a go and thought it would be a gorgeous addition to their room and a perfect pressie for posting.

Fabric wise I went for something a little funky and not too babyish and not super boyish or girlish. There was lots of cutting out time involved as I was making one for each bub and each flag is double sided with interfacing in between to stiffen them up. I think if I made them again, I would probably skip the interfacing to speed up the process, but otherwise they were pretty straight forward and turned out pretty cute!

Fabrictastic!

Well it has been some time, 22 days in fact. I took a little unplanned break from the wonderful blog land and have discovered this may be the first of many to come. You see, we are about to embark on the huge task of building a house- owner builder style. It has been 3 years of planning and we are now getting down to the business end of things which requires a big level of commitment on our part. I've decided that rather than drive myself crazy trying to keep up with all the things I love to dabble in, I have to except that there is only one of me and I can only do what I can do! I'll still be creating things along the way and working towards ticking off my Twenty Elevens, only at a more leisurely pace.
There's nothing like a spot of fabric shopping to get you back into the swing of things and that's exactly what I have just done. I was rummaging through a fabric store and to my surprise I stumbled across a roll of this beautiful Black & White Step by Step fabric. I originally purchased this fabric online and could only get hold of 3 fat quarters at the time, imagine my delight when I came to the realisation that I could buy more and at about the quarter of the price. Oh how I love a bargain and how such a little surprise can make my day!

Crafty Creations: Cushion for Max

Cushions, Cushions, Cushions.... I'm cushion crazy again at the moment, I've got a great little production line of cushions happening and on my way to building a good sample stock pile. In amongst all this cushion craziness, I have been commissioned by my gorgeous and ever so supportive husband to make a special cushion for his work buddy's new bubs, Max or shall I say 'Pepsi Max' as he calls him. Not only did he put in a special request, he accompanied me to choose all the fabric and put his 2 bobs worth in on the design. I never imagined that I would ever get to collaborate on a creative project with my husband, but it appears life is full of surprises - even if it was just a teeny little project for a tiny little tot!

Ohh so traditional boyish, primary colours & flying machines

Colourific

It's no secret that I love colour, colour my world, rainbow bright books, but I don't know if anything could top what I found in my recent online travels. The PANONE HOTEL™ in Brussels, Belgium, who would have thought that some clever people would be so kind as to create a little slice of design heaven.
Designed by Michel Penneman and Oliver Hannaert, The PANTONE HOTEL™ showcases colour with a distinctive hue on each colourous guest floor. I know where I will be checking into if I ever happen to pop over to Belgium!

Scrappy Zip Up Pouch

Hallelujah, I have been sewing! For a while now I have been thinking about all the scrap bits of fabric I end up with, after cutting out my cushion creations. I have been saving them up, as they are just too lovely to throw away and I think I have come up with the perfect way to use them....
I messed about with my scraps and created a ruffely pleaty thing. A simple little zip up pouch tut, some plain cotton and felt and Wollah! Yes, looks like I still haven't shaken that thing I have for the delightful colour combo, a little black, white, grey and yolk yellow.

Twenty Eleven's: Check Point

I'm well and truly back into the swing of everyday life, hence why things have been a little quiet here at Feast & Stitches. So far, I'm not making much progress with my Twenty Eleven's, although I have been really good at setting my expectations far too high by planning to get a ridiculous amount of things done after work and on the weekends, in between catching up with some of our good pals and trying to be an attentive, good little wifey - he who knows me best, understands I tend to get a little caught up in my own little world sometimes!

Here's my Twenty Eleven's progress report:

2 Decide on a brand name for my crafty creations 
- I'm doing a fabulous job of brainstorming and coming up with a gazillion different names, but yet to actually make a decision. On a positive note, I have come to the conclusion that I am the queen of procrastination!


3 Sew, Sew, Sew 
- A little bit of mending, but that doesn't count. I have really wanted to push the pedal to the metal on my trusty Singer, but the closest I have been to sewing something in about 3 weeks is looking at my pretty piles of fabric, printing out some new tuts and thinking YEP, I should do that...


18 Source Fabrics 
- TICK, I have added quite a few new pieces to my growing collection and cant wait to see them in their full glory.


For now, I'll leave you with a pretty pile of fabric that I hope to turn into something very soon!

Etsy Check Out

I've been into the whole Etsy online thing for about 6 months, along the way a few things have taken my fancy but I hadn't actually taken the step to check out of my shopping cart until now. I tend to be a little fussy and after hunting down cover for my iPhone I finally found the perfect one. Hand made from gorgeous grey Italian leather with flower petals in the fabulous egg yolk yellow. This leather sleeve is by RobbieMoto and came all the way from Minnesota, Robbie hand makes divine leather products and you can take a sneak peek here.

Concrete Confessions

Oh how I love concrete. Not the footpaths, factories or high rise type, but the heavenly textured, simply scrumptious polished concrete floors, bench tops, built in furniture, staircases and sculptures. Used as a feature and carefully blended with a good mix of other textures and materials, concrete seriously does it for me and is too good not to share.

Image courtesy of Architect Nicholas Burns

Concrete Floors  + Rammed Earth Walls +  Glass  = The Perfect Match 

Image courtesy of this Etsy Shop

Image courtesy of this Etsy Shop

Imaged courtesy of French By Design

The Next Generation

Apologies to any regular Feast & Stitches readers for the extra posts and volume of reading here this week. It's very uncharacteristic of me to be blogging this often, but any who I must go on as I have a very belated post...

You might remember the baby shower we hosted back here. Well as it happens after the shower a beautiful baby boy was born and I am now officially an auntie. A huge fuss has been made as this is the first ever grandchild, nephew or niece within the family, I still can't get enough cuddles! I know this is very much after the fact so I have prepared some excuses:
- There really was a lot happening at the time
- I got hit with that nasty virus
- I couldn't possibly blog about this BIG news without a gorgeous announcement pic to show him off!

So three photo shoots later, some tears and the little tot already thinking I'm his crazy camera clicking aunt, I'd like to introduce little Jack...

I'm no Anne Geddes, but I enjoyed putting this together.

A Sign

We spotted this sign outside a little seaside cafe in Robe and I could not resist. Nothing to do with design or crafty things, but it made me smile!

Some would say this sign & I share a bond with my love of food and Nana naps!

Rainbow Bright Books

'Me' week is going along splendid so far, trips to purchase fabric, an extreme visit to IKEA armed with notepad & pen to mark my wants under the careful instruction of my sister - she's a bit of an IKEA guru! Who knew what an experience that would be, self check out with a full trolley, find the spot to redeem your free parking, check your trolley into the holding area so you can return to jam pack your car, I think we could have nearly boarded a plane after all of that scanning & checking in of things!

I've also spent some leisurely time doing some good old web surfing. I don't know if I'm just way behind the times, but for the first time ever I have noticed colour co-ordinated book shelves. I don't know about you but I love a library and I have always wanted to have one in my home, but I don't think I would ever have thought about colour coordinating my books. I recently cleaned out my wardrobe & kinda put things back in some sort of colour & garment order. Don't you love it how you do that, you think it will stay like that for another 6 months and within about 2 weeks you wonder what happened! But to do it with your books and have them being functional and pretty, that's just GENIUS!

Image courtesy of  Colour Lovers

Image courtesy of The Inspiration Blog

Image courtesy of Design Sponge

Also, I can't go without mentioning the devastating floods disaster that has hit our sunny state of QLD. Being home this week I've found myself at times just sitting in front of the TV watching it unfold before my eyes. My heart goes out to all of those effected, I can't begin to imagine the impact it has and will have and the mammoth clean up task that is in store for the coming days, weeks, months & years.

Road, Rocks, Sea & Sand

I must say how nice it is to be home, my own bed and unlimited access to all my things! What a wonderful time we had on our road trip, driving through the locust plagues was like watching an animated bug movie in 3D, only it was FREE! Our first stop was the Grampians where we spent a few days and then to mix things up a little, we made the trip across to the gorgeous seaside town of Robe, SA. The change in scenery along the way was amazing, we discovered a few little spots of paradise and it was a great mix of outdoor action, adventuring and relaxation with some lovely surprises along the way...

A curious visitor popped by our cabin to say hi

The Grand Canyon in the Grampians - Spectacular

Natives

McKenzie Falls - Serious power in that water

Nice view to wake up to!

Something about that red sign...

Azz's dune adventure stomper tracks

The Happy Holidayers - That's Us!

Couldn't resist a little rust & water

This bug was on one big journey over the dunes

Ah, the end of another glorious day.

Now this is a little off track, but I can't go without mentioning how I surprised myself while we were away, I managed to get eight days into the new year without writing one list (OK except this one), not even a shopping list, no concrete plans and I don't even have a 2011 diary yet. For those who know me well, this would come as a big surprise as I am list crazy, nuts or maybe even a little obsessive about organisation and structure, you could say my life is a notebook! Anyway, I have one week left before I'm back to full time work so it's time to snap out of holiday mode, get serious, get a diary and get planning as I am excited and inspired to see what comes of this years to do's!

Twenty Elevens

BLINK, wow was that Twenty Ten?...
Well hello and HAPPY NEW YEAR!

These are my Twenty Eleven creative space do's, in no particular order:

1 Have a little rest before getting back into the full swing of things
2 Decide on a brand name for my crafty creations
3 Sew, Sew, Sew
4 Check in on my fav blogs
5 Get to more creative events
6 Create a logo & identity for my crafty creations
7 Expand the overall range of graphic design projects I undertake
8 Have some tags made
9 Host the Feast & Stitches first ever giveaway
10 Get into some serious sketching & pattern creations
11 Discover some new blog reads
12 Visit more markets
13 Design & style a cute little local market stall set up
14 Get more in touch with type
15 Transfer patterns onto MAC and practise the tricky step & repeat
16 Set up some sort of online shop
17 Sew, Sew, Sew
18 Source fabrics
19 Take a screen printing class
20 Enjoy the ride along the way!

I'm crossing off #1 tomorrow and heading off on a road trip that I have been hanging out for! I'm very much looking forward to spending some well overdue quality time with my camera, soaking up some of the outdoors and relax time, ohh and the wonderful man in my life! Upon my return, I'll be sure to post about any bits and bobs of inspiration or finds I fancy along the way!