a leap year day

It is a leap year day. And I'm going to post simply because this opportunity will only present itself once every four years. A 'Happy Birthday' to those that are born on February 29. This extra day of the year is a good day to think.

I've been doing a little inventory (as you may say) of all my projects and ideas that I am presently working on, or really really want to work on. It is a bit of a long list. A while ago I took the list of projects off the sidebar of this blog as I realised that I wasnt really working on them. This weekend I would looooove to start sewing again, as my high- rotation of favourite clothes are looking a little tired to me. My stash of Liberty is asking to be (very carefully) used up.

So my little long list is as follows...

sewing
... A blouse-y top for myself, made from one of my Liberty fabrics. I'm going to hunt for a good pattern.
... To finish the butterfly top for my sister.
... A couple of t-shirt dresses for my nieces.

knitting
... To work on my blanket every now and then.
... And to knit a basket weave scarf in a gorgeous wool in time for winter.

painting
... Simply to pick up my paints again after they have been in storage for so long. Especially when I have some ideas to develop.

embroidery
... To complete the first motif on the embroidery for Miss G.

crafting
... And to create a great cushion for myself (coat of arms)

design
... To finish my 'goodbye' illustration. Eventually.
... And eventually learn how to do textile prints.

jewellery
... To Finish the Neverending Cuff. By the end of the term. So that I can move on to...
... An extravagant necklace.
... And a brooch for my mother.


Now my question is- where, just where do I find (or make) the time?

geogeousness and cleverness

Oh, there are more than a few inspirational things in my world at the moment. Which ones should I choose? Here are a few...

...Georgeous ginko sketch at Abigail Percy. There is something quite exquisite about the lines in this drawing.

...The recent burst of activity at Sugarloop. Lovely!

...Drawing on transparent paper. Still one of my favourite things from back at uni. There is a great quality about it

...Paper folded marvelously into books and smaller books at littlepaperbird.

...I love blues based songs and The White Stripe's 300 M.P.H Torrential Outpour Blues is number- one- favourite-often-played-song at the moment.

...Ideas to work on (once I set myself up!)

...And a tempting pile of books to read...

upskill me

I'm on a mission to upskill myself. No longer content with just working in fashion, I want more creativity in my workspace. So I've enrolled in a Photoshop/Indesign night class, which won't start for a while, but I'm really excited about it. I'm wanting to work more in a fashion graphics type role, which would make the most of my experience in working with offshore manufacture, with more of the creativity that keeps me going. This is the first step.

moving on. moving in.

After a good two weeks of hanging about, I finally moved into my new flat. Thank goodness! My last flat just didn't work out. But the new one is off to a promising start, and hopefully I will be happy there once I settle in. I did the move (of the heavy stuff anyway) in a record one-and-a-half hours. My room is still chaos and disorder, and I am now taking a liking to reading up on clever storage, as my room doesn't have a wardrobe, so I have a few things to sort out. And my sewing machines are out of their boxes and a small list of projects is floating around in my head. Fantastic.

coat of arms series (part 2)

Oh this is so preppy! But thankfully more interesting than the last version.

the coat of arms series

I've taking a liking to the coat of arms as of late. I actually did a Google image seach to see if my family had one- we did apparently, but it is not as pretty as I had hoped. I think that you have to be one of those people who appear in the society pages of Tatler magazine to have one of those! So I'm now playing around with motif- maybe I'm well overdue for a move on from my favourite clouds now. This is a first little attempt at a print repeat- so its very, very simple. Not overly sure about the colours, and I think that there could be some more variation in the shapes. What do you think? I'm going to be working with this motifs in a few guises from now on, which is quite exciting!

hello February

Oh hello February, I hope you treat me well. I can't believe that it is February already, and here I am still adding '07' to the end of dates. Oops. I'm trickling into doing some new crafty things (more about that another post) and new other things...

...I'm moving flat again. To a snazzier part of town- walking distance to cafe's and Ponsonby Rd shop. I eventually found that living in a little space was getting me down- no sewing makes Anna go crazy! And I'm looking forward to the challenge of decorating my room- at least I will have a bit more space to unpack.

...February also tells me that it is time that I will have to make more effort into conducting my life to move the way I want it to. Sounds dumb, but I'm sure that Dr. Phil will agree, as I think that I'm moving into some mid- twenties crisis... So from now I want to try and focus on those important things, like friends (I find it really hard to maintain friendships, but am great at making what you would call acquaintances or friends-in-context), family and figuring out what on earth I will do with myself. The art of happiness indeed.

I hope the month of February treats you well too! Have a wonderful weekend!