L'il Polar Bears - January 1st 2014

Good afternoon Friends and Happy New Year!

Goodness it seems odd to be typing 2014! Seriously though, I wish you all health, love and happiness through the coming year and I am so looking forward to seeing all your creations.

I want to say a big welcome to my new follower Desire Fourie. Thank you for following me! Desire has a blog filled with gorgeous creations, do take a look at Doing Life: http://desiref.blogspot.co.uk

Have you made any New Year Crafty Resolutions? I have promised myself to not let my craft room get so cluttered, which is going to be hard because I have decided to dust my sewing machine off and do far more crafty sewing this year. The weather has been atrocious, but the upside of that means that Tom  has finally been able to relax before going back to work tomorrow and whilst he has been doing lots of cooking (which is relaxation to him!) I made a start on the declutter! I am happy to report that I can now see the floor in my craft room! I can take the few steps to my desk without fear of tripping over a box or spilling something...really, it got that bad  before Christmas! I have  had a big clear out  and decided the only way I am going to function stress free this year is to move all my art parts and art stuff to the craft barn. This is the little summer house we built about 7 years ago with the intention of it being my craft room.It worked well the first year, but to be honest it wasn't big enough from the start and has sadly been neglected altogether these last few years.In the lovely sunshine of last summer I did intend to clear it out, give it a clean and take my art work out there, but then came the bad back and it never got done.

All my art parts are now packed up ready to move out there when the weather permits, I think keeping this separate from  my paper crafts will enable me to do more of it at a more enjoyable pace as I won't have to pack it away every day and who knows? I may even keep the craft room tidier! I've nearly finished in here and when I have, I'll take a photo.

Now on to today's project!

As some of you know, in the past I used to love making the primitive/folk style angels and ornaments and over the past few years or so I have become very interested in the Tilda designs, for both paper craft and all the lovely dolls and projects in the books. I already have quite a few of the books, but for Christmas a friend gave me two Christmas/Winter ones and the fur fabric to make these adorable polar bears!

My sewing machine needs a repair and this is being done next week, but I was SO excited to make one - thus I cut out the little one and sewed it by hand. It took me an evening in front of the TV. The fabric is gorgeous to touch, but really hard to work with as it's so stretchy! After I'd made the little one, he looked lonely (!) so I decided I could also hand sew the medium one, but not the large (pattern has 3 sizes). Believe it or not, the medium one took the same amount of time: there was more to sew but it was less 'fiddly'. I am already making notes from the Easter book for little bunnies for Easter!

I do actually prefer hand sewing, but whichever way, sewing for me is quite a private and personal craft. It isn't something I could do in a class, I like to get lost in my own little world when I am making something from fabric.

Baby Bear

Mummy (or Daddy!) and Baby

The baby bear is also my Design Team project for this month's Emergency Crafters Challenge site. The theme is cold and your card or other craft project must include blue and/or a snowflake. Why not pop across and have a go:

http://emergencycrafterschallenge.blogspot.co.uk

 that's me for today, back to tidying up the craft room  now!

Love and Hugs,
Carole X

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