Entertaining Lots of Kidlets (and a few adults)

Our quilting guild have a deal going with the local primary school whereby we give free fibre art classes to their pupils and in return we get free use of their school hall for our annual exhibition.

I organised and ran them last year and am doing so again this year.  Last year was fabric paint - fun but messy and with lots of prep and clean up.  This year it's fabric collage.  I chose it in part to help tame the scrap heap, but people keep donating scraps to me to use so the pile is growing not shrinking!

The kids (who were six years old for the most part) drew the outline of their first initial then glued scraps of fabric to fill it in.  Then with chenille or tapestry needles (nice and big with a good eye), they big stitched around the outline.  Simple, effective and lots of fun.  I've zigzagged them into a banner that they can hang on their wall and then we can hang it in our exhibition in January.  Now I've only three more classes to go with the same age kids and we're all done for another year.

Re-purposing - just don't tell my sister in law!

My sister in law gave us an old silk painting a few years back.  It's hung on various walls but never really fitted.  And it wasn't really 'me' to start with.  So today, inspired by the fact it was put on my dining table to move it out of the way, I set to it with a knife and some pliers.

I pulled out the silk painting, which was a whole heap brighter on the back where it wasn't faded (the boat was orange?  Wow, I always thought it was peach!) and put it up on my girl's wall as requested.  Then I cut a piece of batting as large as the backing board, stretched some fabric over the top and hot glued it down.

Some ribbons (do not look at the unsymmetricalness (is that a word?) of them) completed a little inspiration/notice board for my new studio.  

When I slotted a few things behind the ribbons (I'm pretty sure the non-symmetry will disappear once it's got my junk all over it!) I realised I'm going to have to sew some buttons on each ribbon crossing to help hold things in.  And I need some little tacks to replace the ones I pulled out of the back, but otherwise it's all done!  And so easy!  So, if you've got an old unloved picture in an interesting frame anywhere, give it a go.

And guess what's happening at my place today?  Floor sanding!  Two coats on today, maybe a third one later if they can fit it in, and then the last one on tomorrow.  I'm moving in on Friday!  Oh - no I'm not.  I'm sleeping Friday after night shift.  I'm moving in on the weekend!!!