Category: Quiet Goals 2020

POSITIVE STEPS FORWARD

On By LucieIn Art Journaling, Freemotion Quilting, Hand Quilting, New Designs, Quiet Goals 2020, Quilt Making, Random Thoughts4 Comments

Hello my lovelies. I hope you’re all having a great day. It’s been a bit productive around here today. We’re starting to experience positive steps forward. Now that the tips are open again, I have been sorting and tidying. I expect to make my first trip to the tip this weekend. I’m going to fill the car full of rubbish and recycling and make the trip worth it. My utility room, which housed plenty of surplus to requirement stuff since lockdown began is now looking much tidier.

Today, I will show you my 44th art journal effort. Today’s theme is under the sea …..

Fish

It started off like this …..

DSCN1847

I didn’t do too much more to it apart from adding the fish which were cut out of a dictionary page, a bit of pen doodling and water colour shading.

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to splodge some paint of fabric with the idea that I would add a bit of fabric appliqué and some simple quilting. Well here’s how it looks after a little bit of stitching …..

Stitched

Stitched 2

Stitched 3

You will note that I kept this piece very basic. Even the stitching is very basic. All in all, I am pleased with the piece. My goal is to turn it into a wall hanging of some kind. The edges need finishing first. Normally I would add binding but I want the piece to look rustic. So, I’ll have a little think before I do anything else to it.

After finishing joining all my hexagons together and adding a border, I switched to a hand quilting project. It’s been going quite well. I have so far marked and moved my quilting hoop three times over two evenings making great progress. Here’s a little peek …..

Hand quilting

It’s been a while since I’ve done any hand quilting. Once you get going and if you’re in the mood it goes well. This quilt is for Christmas. I hope to get it finished in time for Christmas this year.

The sun has been shining on a off all day here. The temperature seems to be climbing again. Although I must admit that we still need to dress for cool temperature today.

Well, my friends, that’s my news for today. I hope you all have a super cosy evening doing something interesting. Remember to stay safe, safe alert and be well. Until next time,

Let’s all keep on stitching and messing around with art supplies.

Lucie x

43 AND COUNTING

On By LucieIn Art Journaling, New Designs, Quiet Goals 2020, Random Thoughts2 Comments

Hello my lovelies. I hope you’re all enjoying the midweek day. We’re almost halfway through the month of May.

There’s not much going on around here today. I settled down at the table with my art supply trolley and soon created another two-page spread for my art journal. Number 43 and counting. Here’s how today’s effort started …..

DSCN1844

And here’s how it looks now …..

Time Flies

 

Once again, just a simple art journal page. A little pen doodling, some cut outs and water colour pencil shading. I went on to prep a few more pages in readiness for the next week or so.

1

2

3

5

6

7

8

Time sure does fly. We are now in our 8th week of lockdown. The restrictions have been eased a little but nothing affects me for the moment. So, I stay home like I’ve been doing for the last couple of months. Creativity helps with the boredom.

Well, my lovely friends, that’s my report for today. I hope you all have a super cosy evening doing something interesting. Until next time,

Let’s all keep on stitching and messing around with art supplies.

Lucie x

DAY 42

On By LucieIn Art Journaling, Hand Quilting, New Designs, patchwork & quilting, Quiet Goals 2020, Quilt Making, Random ThoughtsLeave a comment

Hello my lovelies. I hope you’re all safe today. We all seem to be going into the next phase of something. I’m not sure if we’re going to be safe or not but we have to move forward somehow.

So, today is day 42 of my self-imposed messing around with art supplies challenge. I’ve still got a few ideas on my list. I must admit that I seem to add one or two ideas every day! This challenge is eventually run out of steam but for now it’s keeping me focused on something other than the invisible enemy. Here is how my today’s effort started off a few days ago …..

DSCN1842

 

This is what it looks like now …..

DSCN1853

To this art journal page, I added a bit more paint, some water colour pencil stems, leaves and shading and some pen doodling. Bish bash bosh, voila! Actually, that makes it sound like it only took five minutes but it actually takes a bit longer than five minutes. Not to mention clearing up the mess after I’m done. Mind you, the time it takes is time that I’m focused on something good. Therapeutic.

I am very happy to tell you that I finished securing the last border to my hexagon quilt. I will be thinking about the backing fabric. I think the shops will open again some time in the next six weeks. So, I think I’ll set the hexie quilt top aside until I can get out to choose backing fabric. It will be a pleasure to see fabric up close and in person. In the meantime, I have some hand quilting to do. So, it’s onto the next big thing for me. I shall post photos of that progress soon.

Hand quilting

Well, my lovely friends, that’s my news for today. I hope you all have a super cosy evening doing something you truly enjoy doing. Until next time,

Let’s all keep on stitching and messing around with art supplies.

Lucie x

CONFUSING INFO

On By LucieIn Art Journaling, English Paper Piecing, New Designs, patchwork & quilting, Quiet Goals 2020, Quilt Making, Random Thoughts3 Comments

Hello my lovelies. I hope you’re all well and in good spirits. Sarah and I are still kicking around home and trying to make the most of every day. We watched a televised announcement recorded by our Prime Minister concerning moving forward to the next stage of dealing with the invisible enemy last evening. It left us with more questions than answers. We were left very confused and hoping that more clarity will come when a 50-page guidance document is released this afternoon. What strange times we live in. Enough about that for now.

Before I talk about today’s art journaling effort, let me show you my hexagon quilt top. I was hoping to permanently secure the last two sides of border last evening but only got one side done. I flung it over the fence in order to take a couple of photos, here it is …..

Hexagon 1

 

I needed almost two metres of fabric for the borders. So, I was a little limited as to what to use from my stash. It came down to two different fabrics, I wanted a reddish paisley type fabric and Sarah chose this blue print. As She’s pretty good with colours, I went with the blue print. I’m going to try to find something blue for the backing as well.

Now for today’s art journal effort …..

Mans best friend

Once again, I kept it pretty simple. I layered paint and bits of dictionary pages, did some stencilling, added a wee photo of Maisie all sloshed out in her bed, some cut outs, a couple of strips of washii tape and some water colour pencil shading. I see different household items and the contents of the recycle bin through different eyes nowadays.

The weather has taken a turn for the cold recently. As long as it doesn’t snow I’ll be alright. The washing is done and I even attacked a section of my garden loaded with weeds. Now that I’ve done a few useful tasks I can give myself permission to play. I’m not sure what I will be playing with, perhaps finish securing the last border or splodging some paint around my art journal. Maybe I’ll toss a coin.

Well, my lovely friends, I guess that’s my report for today. I hope you all have a super cosy evening doing something you truly enjoy. Until next time,

Let’s all keep on stitching and messing around with art supplies.

Lucie x

BANK HOLIDAY MONDAY ON A FRIDAY?????

On By LucieIn Art Journaling, New Designs, Quiet Goals 2020, Random Thoughts6 Comments

Hello my lovelies. I hope you’re all having a lovely day. It’s an absolutely beautiful day here. What a shame we can’t go out and enjoy it. Let’s hope this is the kind of summer we’re going to experience. Most if not all our bank holidays are usually observed on Monday. Somebody had the bright idea to hold the Early May Bank Holiday on the Friday after the first Monday of the month in order to turn it into a celebration for the 75th anniversary celebration of VE Day. Unfortunately, all the planned big events have had to be cancelled because of social distancing. Just something else to add to the pile of things the invisible enemy has ruined. I for one, planned to make the most of the day no matter what.

I dragged out my cart of art supplies and worked on an art journal two page spread ….. Yes, you read that correctly, my little bucket of art supplies that I started off with has somehow grown into a small cart. It’s amazing what you can gather from all the different nooks and crannies of my home. Things that were never intended as art supplies are being used. Without further ado here’s my art journal effort for today …..

Cherish the little things

I didn’t use anything I haven’t used in previous pages this time. And once again I kept it simple.

Yesterday I posted about a piece of fabric that I splodged some paint around. This one …..

Fabric splodge

Well, Sarah turned that bit of painted fabric into this …..

Zip pouch 1

Zip pouch 2

I politely asked Sarah if she had time to turn the bit of fabric into a zippered pouch. She found the perfect colour zip for it in her stash. It happens to be a zip that I surrendered to her a while back when she was looking for zips. Once again, we did not purchase anything new to make this zippered pouch. Now I wonder if Sarah and I can collaborate again in making something free using up some of our stash.

It’s been a pretty good day in my little corner of the northeast of England. There’s always a nice atmosphere on a sunny bank holiday. The sunshine makes such a difference. It gives me the energy to get on and do a few things. The washing machine was whirring a little while ago. Now it needs loading up again with another load. If I keep this up, I will have a weekend free of household chores.

Well my friends, I guess that’s my report for today. I am thinking about having a couple days rest from blogging but rest assured I will keep being creative and post about it on Sunday/Monday. In the meantime, I hope you all have a super cosy weekend doing things you thoroughly enjoy. Until next time,

Let’s all keep on stitching and messing around with art supplies.

Lucie x

HAVING ANOTHER GOOD OLE MESS AROUND

On By LucieIn Art Journaling, New Designs, Quiet Goals 2020, Random ThoughtsLeave a comment

Hello my lovelies. I hope you’ve all enjoyed the week so far. It’s been a rather full week doing something and nothing. I seem to keep finding little jobs that need doing and doing them. I’ve even done some baking this week! I’m not a very good baker but I do it anyway.

It’s day 37 of my messing around with art supplies challenge. I’m really enjoying it now. Stepping out of my comfort zone has proven to be quite useful in helping me deal with the lockdown. Here’s my effort for today …..

Fly a Kite

Let’s fly a kite. We’ve had the perfect weather for kite flying for quite a few weeks. I can’t believe how dry it’s been here in my little corner of the northeast of England. April is usually a rather wet month but we had very little rain. So, today’s two-page spread was done using stencils, paper cut outs, pen doodling and water colour pencil shading. Anybody can do what I’ve been doing. And while you’re doing it, you forget about all the terrible stuff happening all over the world. It’s like being cocooned in a safe place. Creativity takes courage especially if you’re planning on showing the world what you’ve done.

I was planning on splodging some paint on a second piece of fabric today. This is how far I got …..

Fabric splodge

It’s quite amazing and liberating doing this kind of art work. It’s nothing like an old masters painting but it was fun. It’s just messing around with what you’ve got and seeing what happens. I was ready to give up after covering the fabric with paint because I thought it looked rubbish. However, I kept going with marking making and this is the result. We will be turning this piece into something. I hope to post the final result soon.

Today is leftover day. Whatever leftovers are in the fridge we reheat and that’s our evening meal. There aren’t many leftovers today and to be honest they don’t really go together but we will persevere and have our leftover feast. Don’t get me wrong, we do have plenty of food in but a pandemic doesn’t give us permission to waste food. The fridge will be ready for the next lot of groceries being collected on Saturday. The Click & Collect system works rather well, it means there is no human contact involved. And discovering the substitutions is quite fun too. This is the new normal.

So, I guess that’s my news for today. I hope you all have a super cosy evening doing something interesting. Until next time,

Let’s all keep on stitching and messing around with art supplies.

Lucie x

MONDAY – NEW WEEK

On By LucieIn Art Journaling, New Designs, Quiet Goals 2020, Random Thoughts2 Comments

Hello my lovelies. It’s the start of a new week. And hopefully good things are going to happen to each and every one of you. I’ve found the last couple of weeks rather interesting. It seems new challenges are being met by finding good solutions. I find it very interesting how things we thought we needed are no longer essential.

As I mentioned a day or two ago, I will continue my messing around with art supplies challenge for another week or so. I did not create an art journal page spread today but I did prep seven pages in readiness for creating new two-page spreads. I found it quite satisfying messing around with paint, well in fact I just pushed paint around the pages and dried each page with the hairdryer. And once the pages were dry, I did a bit of stencilling. All the pages look pretty weird at this stage but once I start layering things, adding doodles and text, the pages will look soooo different. I’m looking forward to finish my first spread. Here are my prepped pages for the next seven days …..

Prep a

Prep b

Prep c

Prep d

Prep e

Prep f

Prep g

My style seems to have changed quite a lot lately. I used to work everything so that it was perfectly straight and even. Now my pieces look a little slapdash ….. grungy and sometimes sludgy. I guess that’s me until I find different inspiration that influences my style.

So, my friends, it’s been a pretty good creative day considering it’s Monday. I guess that’s my report for today. I hope you all have a super cosy evening doing something you love doing. Until next time,

Let’s all keep on stitching and messing around with art supplies.

Lucie x

SUNDAY CRACK

On By LucieIn Art Journaling, Quiet Goals 2020, Random Thoughts2 Comments

Hello my lovelies. I hope all is well for you and your families. Every day is an adventure nowadays. We find solutions and adapt to the daily challenges.

It’s Sunday. Hooray! Tomorrow is the start of another week. I plan on trying different things this week. In fact, I have already tried something quite different yesterday but I’ll tell you about that after I have revealed my day 33 messing around with art supplies effort …..

Heart map

My out dated map is coming in handy as you can see. Once again pen dots and doodles, stencilling and shading with water colour pencils. What you may not spot right off …. is that this page spread is upside down!!! I got so excited about working on this one that it’s upside down!!! Silly me. Oooops. I don’t care it was fun to work on and who cares if I have to turn the art journal upside to read the text. The upsideness gives it character.

As well as my upside-down page spread, I worked on a mixed media fabric project. Paint on fabric is something that I don’t have a great deal of experience with. I had a go several years ago but didn’t pursue it.

I started by spreading some paint around on a piece of calico backed with iron-on interfacing for stability.

Mixed Media Fabric 1

And then I added some stencilling …..

Mixed Media Fabric 2

And more stencilling and stamping …..

Mixed Media 3

I plan on layering some fabric in the form of a wonky house, perhaps some fabric trim and buttons for embellishing. And then I’m going to add some quilting, either by hand or machine. This piece, once finished, and if it’s good enough will be framed and hung on the wall. It will remind me of the lockdown days and just how we can find solutions and adapt to many different situations.

With it being Sunday, I will be doing some household chores in readiness for the week ahead. The washing machine will be whirring away washing bedding and I will most likely do a bit of cooking. And if I can find something worthy of binge watching on TV, I will do that while working on hexagons. At the moment it looks like it’s going to be a reasonably nice day. Other than go to and from the waste bin I shall not be wandering around the neighbourhood searching for people to socialise with. Stay home and be well is the order of the day for this household.

Well, my lovely friends, that seems to be my report for today. I hope you all have a super cosy day doing things you enjoy doing. Until next time,

Let’s all keep on stitching and messing around with art supplies. Most importantly stay home and save a life.

Lucie x

MESSING AROUND CONTINUES DAY 31

On By LucieIn Art Journaling, Quiet Goals 2020, Random ThoughtsLeave a comment

Hello my lovelies. It’s finally Friday May 1st. That’s April all wrapped up and a fresh month started. It doesn’t get any better than that. Happy 1st of May everyone. There must be a bank holiday coming soon!

Today is an exciting day. I get to go out to pick up my Click & Collect grocery order. I actually get to drive the car. I may have mentioned before, over the last few weeks, I have been stepping out once a week to pick up groceries. How times have changed. When this is over, freedom will be soooo sweet. It may take a while before that sweet freedom arrives.

So, it’s day 31 of messing around with art supplies. Here’s my effort for today …..

Swirls

I got brave and added a bit of doodling. I’m slowly working my way through my list of ideas. I seem to have changed the direction of my creative route. I have played with fabric for so many years. In order to keep sane through the current lockdown, I decided to try something different. Well, it’s working. Sanity intact while being confined to home. I’m finally using all the art supplies that have been collected over the years too.

Like many others, I have finally succumbed to trimming my own hair. I couldn’t see past my fringe anymore. For the benefit of those who live in north America, a fringe is bangs. Now normally I would have had an appointment with my hairdresser. Well that appointment was cancelled because it was due to take place the week we went into lockdown. My experiment was a success which prompted Sarah to have a go!!! We’re set for a couple of weeks but we’ll both have to have a go sooner or later. Normally when I need a job done, I contact a correct specialist.

For those of us who don’t know what day it is ….. it’s Friday. The last day of the work week. For quite a few of us every day feels the same at the moment. I try to do something a bit different every single day just to break the monotonous routine. Today, I headed out in the car.

So, all in all, it’s been a pretty good week. Things are progressing nicely. Our Prime Minister announced yesterday that we are past the peak and on the downward slope. Now we must hold fast a bit longer until restrictions are eased off a little at a time.

Well, I guess that’s my report for today. I hope you all have a super cosy evening doing something you truly enjoy. Until next time,

Let’s all keep on stitching and messing around with art supplies.

Lucie x

DAY 30 MESSING AROUND CHALLENGE

On By LucieIn Art Journaling, Quiet Goals 2020, Random Thoughts5 Comments

Hello my lovelies. I hope you’ve enjoyed your day. It’s Thursday, just in case you didn’t know. The sun’s been shining on and off all day. I have been busy much the same stuff, only it’s a different day. It’s amazing how the new normal has settled into my bones. I don’t even think about running simple errands anymore. It’s automatic to make a shopping list, look at it and decide that most of the items on said list are not needed imminently. The only thing on my running list is printer ink cartridges at the moment.

Well as you know it’s day 30 of my self-imposed messing around with art supplies challenge. I set out to do 30 days of art journal pages and somehow, I managed to follow through and produce 30 art journal pages. Here’s my effort for today ….

Sun Rainbow

Somewhere over the rainbow. It’s very appropriate for Thursday as the rainbow seems to be the symbol for the #NHS and also the sign of hope we all need in these trying times. Everywhere we go we see handmade with love rainbows hanging in windows. Even Sarah crocheted rainbows which I hung in my front window. Thursday evening at 8pm is the time we all stand out on our doorstep and clap for the #NHS and all the frontline and keyworkers who are keeping us going in these very strange times.

My Sarah has been experimenting with masking fabric masks. Apparently, we will all be wearing these masks if we need to get out and about after the lockdown eases and while we’re still observing social distancing. I like the simple pleated ones but Sarah likes the shaped ones. There is some dilemma over how we can insert the wire which holds the mask close to the face around the nose. We’ll have that worked out in no time I’m sure.

It seems to be an exceptionally quiet day in my little corner of the northeast of England. The pedestrians walking past my house has reduced considerably. The buses still go by but they are virtually empty. I suppose the still have to run for keyworkers. I see plenty of lorries delivering to our local supermarkets. Thank you, truckers, for helping keep the shelves stocked.

Well, my friends, I guess that’s my report for today. I hope you all have a super cosy evening doing something you truly enjoy doing. Until next time,

Let’s all keep on stitching and messing around with art supplies.

Lucie x