My Creative Space

So here's a cute little task I executed last night, in preparation for my first My Creative Space in weeks.

It's not original - there are plenty of this sort of thing out there - but I think my hippopotamus fabric is pretty unique.I love this material, it's so bright and cheerful. And who could resist all those tiny hippopotami with their mouths open? It looks like a game of hippo Pacman.

It took me a few tries to get it stretched properly through the hoops, and then I had the issue of what to do with the unfinished ends on the other side. You can't hem them, because then the material is too thick to clamp properly. And you can't leave them sticking out, because that just looks untidy.

What do you do with your loose ends?

I'm going to hop on over to Kootoyoo to see if anyone can help .... come along for the ride and see what other people are up to in their own creative spaces.

My Creative Space

Ah, it's that time of the week again ..... time for My Creative Space, courtesy of Kootoyoo.

My space is chockablock right now, with all of the lovely goodies I picked up at the fabulous Stitches and Craft show last Saturday. In the middle you can see a copy of Mixtape - I'm a subscriber now! - and on the left are two lovely Melly and Me patterns.

I'm going to use the pink and white patterned fabric behind Mixtape to make the flamingo I think. He has wonderful knobbly knees that are just crying out to be made up.

There's also three metres of new fabric from Anna Maria Horner, which is going to become a 1950's style dress with a scoop neck, seamed waist, and full circle skirt. It's going to be eye-poppingly bright in this teal and orange print, but that's the way I like it.

I love this guilty secret here, posted by someone on the Craft Secrets wall. This woman has stolen my identity! I'm constantly having to sneak new crafty supplies into the house so that My One True Love doesn't see.

I know I shouldn't feel guilty, as I have a specific budget and (usually) stick to it .... but the volume of it, people, the volume.

My fabric stash is so big that I fully expect to come home one day and find that it's eaten the cats and made a bid for independence out the front door. Watch out, rampant stash on the loose! I can see the six o'clock news headlines now. I'd have to shame-facedly admit that yes, I allowed the stash to get to this size. I knew it was wrong. I knew someday it would come back to haunt me. And I'd have to make a tearful apology to the Australian public, vowing to enter some kind of Fabrics Anonymous 12-step program.

I added to the stash considerably at the Stitches and Craft Show. Look at the expression of amazement on that Babushka's face there when she saw what I had done.

On the right hand side of the top photo you can see a darling Japanese print by Kokka, with pictures of a cute black cat doing cute things. All the text is in German, so it reads Die Schwarzen cat, etc. It's very cute.

And there are some delightfully bright ribbons - I've already used some of the orange one on Toof, in the post below this one.

See the yellow tape measure? It's NOT a tape measure - it's a ribbon! I absolutely loved this one, so I bought ten metres of it because I've never seen it before and not sure I'll ever see it again.
My stash philosophy, you may have guessed, relies heavily on quantity. If you like something, buy enough of it so that you don't get Fabric Regret, where you nearly have enough to make something lovely .... but not quite. It's happened to me often enough that I've started taking preventative measures.

I try to live a life without regrets, you see. And that is precisely the reason I need to convert our attic into an Amazing Stash Storage facility.

Onwards and upwards, o great stash of mine!

I'd like to thank the Academy ....

Well looky here! Look at this! This button to the left!

This is my first ever blog award. It comes from Andrea at A Cat of Impossible Colour, over in New Zealand. There's Andrea over on the blogroll to your right.

I am so proud. It came to her via Mervat, who has a fashion blog.

Mervat writes: "These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award."

Mervat and Andrea, consider your cleverly written text incorporated into the body of my award.

Andrea passed this award on to me and and one of her friends, Ally, because both of our blogs make her smile daily.

I know I should be modest about this, but I am really very happy and it's hard to contain the excitement. My blog makes someone smile! I'm so excited! Ah, little blog, you're only young - 10 weeks old - and already you're making your mark on people. Just don't bite, little blog, don't bite.

In return, I'm passing this award on to Curlypops, who I latched onto right from the start and who graciously keeps answering all of my blog-related questions, not to mention very kindly letting me know where I could have my new Flickettysplits labels made up. Yay!

And to Tinniegirl, because I love surprises and hers are delightful - plus she is the instigator of my favourite meme, Love Fridays (and I looooove Fridays, so she definitely gets the gong).

And to Kootoyoo for her My Creative Space meme, which is slowly convincing me that I really need to start tidying up more often ....

Share and share alike. Please keep reading!