Crafty Blog Hop

Last week I was tagged by the lovely Kim over at Mothering with Mindfulness, to take part in a crafty blog hop. It's always lovely to be tagged in anything like that, especially when tagged by a blog that I enjoy reading so much, so obviously I always want to take part. But I'm feeling like a bit of a fraud this time because it's very much the same as a quilting blog hop I took part in just a few weeks ago. These are the 4 questions I'm supposed to answer:

What am I working on at the moment?
How does my work differ from others of its genre?
Why do I create what I do?
How does my creating/writing process work?

I'll cover the first one again in a minute, since, predictably, I'm working on different things right now. But if you're interested in proper answers to the other 3 questions then take a look back here. I thought tonight, I might just give you 3 random, non-making, facts about me instead, facts that really aren't likely to come up in normal blog conversation here.

But first the what am I working on. I am really trying to concentrate on just working on Christmas present making at the moment. Especially since I heard on the radio today that there are only another 7 Mondays until Christmas! Aaaagh, how did that happen?! But the trouble is that I keep getting distracted by other things, and to be fair there are also quite a few birthday presents to be made before Christmas as well. One thing that might be a present is this drawing Venetia has done for me on some fabric.

It's a little bit confused with different lines showing, but I have been given full instructions on which legs etc are the 'true' legs.

It's another reminder of our kite flying fun over the Summer. I'm going to machine embroider the drawing, add a border and quilt it, to turn it into a mini quilt. Maria wants to do one for me too, so I think one will be for us to keep and one to give away - to our kite flying accomplice, Harry's Mum, who was staying with us at the time.

I've also been enjoying having some hand sewing on the go recently, and finished my final hexie snowflake at the end of last week:

My plan now is to applique these on to a wool blanket. But I enjoyed sewing the hexies so much that I felt the need to start off some more hexie sewing at the weekend!

These are cut from borders on old wool blankets. Often plain cream or white blankets which I find have colourful stripey borders. And I've been thinking for a long time that I'd like to make something specifically with these borders. All of a sudden hexies seemed the perfect project for them, especially as a couple of my reject snowflakes had check patterns on the fabric...

... and it was really interesting seeing how they worked as hexies. I think I've enjoyed the stripes on these wool ones even more, and another bonus with the wool is that I haven't had to 'paper piece' them, with hems turned over. The wool is robust enough and anti-fray enough to just cut and hand stitch together. I'm hoping they're going to turn into a small baby blanket.

OK, so on to the harder part - 3 random facts, I'm slightly wondering why this seemed like a good idea at the time!

Fact 1 - I used to play bridge to quite a high level when I was younger and before we had children. It's how Harry and I met (he also played) and it's something that gave me the opportunity to travel a bit - to lots of European countries and as far as China too. Playing seriously eats up lots of time and we were both very happy to stop when we had children. But Harry has just started trying to teach Sam and Theo how to play, and has suddenly got the bug again himself. So we've been dabbling at our 'local' bridge club a little over the last few weeks. I definitely haven't 'got the bug again' in the same way, but it has been enjoyable to go off and do something 'grown up' together.

Fact 2 - I have always had a very strong affinity with water. I think my earliest childhood memory is of falling into a small lake at a local park. I was fully dressed at the time and vividly remember dripping all the way home. My speciality, however, was to fall in and to somehow pull my Dad in at the same time. This happened several times over my childhood - I remember stepping stones in particular were perfect for this!

Fact 3 - I was thinking I'd tell you my favourite book, but I can't narrow it down even into single figures, so I'll tell you my favourite film instead - 'Friendly Persuasion'. It's from way back in 1956 and it's the story of a family of Quakers in the American Civil War. Personally I think it's a wonderful film, with a lovely, warm feel to it. And when I was just checking the date for it, I also found out something new about it - Wikipedia is an amazing thing! Apparently:

'Friendly Persuasion also became a footnote to world history in the 1980's when United States President Ronald Reagan made a gift of the film to Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev at one of their five summit meetings, suggesting that he view the film as symbolic of the need to find an alternative to war as a means of resolving differences between peoples.'

So there you go, my new thing learnt for the day! 

Sally.