Tree Fall

Goodness

There are good times too....

This beautiful pincushion arrived just the other day from the incredibly kind Suzie.

It has already been put to very good use and I can very happily report that it's the perfect size and weight. I have a thing about pincushions that are too soft and too small. It drives me mad when you stick a pin in and the point goes straight through and jabs you when you pick it up. But there is non of that with this beauty.  It is absolutely ideal and yes, I do spend actual time worrying about these things. I am very particular about my pin cushions and this one has already been elevated to Pin Cushion No. 1 in this household! Honestly, I love it.
And as if that wasn't enough, Suzie very cleverly wrapped it in a dress pattern!

Why have I never thought of  using old patterns as wrapping paper? What a great idea!
Thank you so much Suzie and I hope that your birthday was a big success!

I also got some new fabric this week. Well, there are 7 days in this week and I have to buy fabric every time there's 7 days in a week.
What?

When I first saw Heather Ross' new collection, West Hill I wasn't completely sure about it. It's a little muddier than I like, and I'm not big on horse prints, but you know , you've got to give these things a chance, haven't you?
And I'm glad I did because after a few days in the house these prints in particular have really grown on me.

The  matryoshka  doll print really did take a few days, but I love it now and have a couple of ideas for it. And the white/floral print was always going to fit right in in my fabric cabinet. It's fresh and fuss free and I love it. If I was a good person I would use it to make a preeeettyyyy (as Bella would say) dress for my daughter. but she'd get it dirty, so that's not going to happen!

And I also bought some of Joel Dewberry's  new collection.

This print is part of his Chestnut Hill collection and I think it looks like it could be an interesting one. Although I have to say that his designs are awfully reminiscent of Amy Butler. Something that I think he's going to hear a lot of.  It's nice to see another guy on the scene though.

And finally, look what else arrived...

My new Tif . That's what we call them in my house. They're my Tif slips! And oh can you see how beautiful this one is? It's a gorgeous, perfect, sludgy green (although both Tif and I have only been able to photograph it as grey).  Beautiful! Have you bought one yet? Why on earth not?

Ahh, you see, goodness indeed.

Unfortunately it's not all good though. Poor Bella was very sick at nursery today and I had to go and pick her up early. Of course it did mean that I got lots of cuddles though. Which is always welcome. But the poor thing has had to go to bed with no dinner or milk or anything because nothing is staying down. Hopefully she'll be back to normal tomorrow.

When I decided on the spur of the moment to write the last post, I just didn't take in to account that these things never  go smoothly for me, and are never cut and dry. I wrote the post without thinking about the fact that it could end up being followed by one of these annoying, just don't know what to tell you posts.
You see, I knew there was a reason for just ignoring it all until I posted about a definite miscarriage.
I have no desire what so ever for this to become a pregnancy/miscarriage  blog, but I equally can't go back to ignoring the big pink elephant in the corner, now that I've erected a massive neon sign pointing to her.
So, again instead of a good post about the things that are really interesting, we have another pg/mc post.
But until I know for sure what is happening, I'm going to write this post and then I'm going to return to writing much more fun posts tomorrow. And we can all pretend that big ol' elephant isn't standing right there, ok?
So the thing is, this morning I got up to find that I had started bleeding. So I assumed that I was starting to miscarry. The bleeding has however stopped. Which could mean one of two things - it's implantation bleeding or it's the start of a miscarriage.
Now the problem is, I have never bled like this and not miscarried. This is very slightly different to how my miscarriages usually start,  but not so different that there is any real hope. And there's the rub - this is what my body does every time. It starts to bleed very lightly and gives me that last stab of hope that maybe it's implantation bleeding before becoming a full miscarriage.
And so that's where we are. Based on my past experience there is a 99% chance that at some point over the next day or two I will lose the pregnancy. But in the meantime we're left with that bastard of a 1%.  And believe me, this is one time when hope really is detrimental. Bleeding always means miscarriage for me. Always. And that little bit of hope just drags it out and makes it all the more unbearable.

You all, of course, make it all an awful lot less unbearable. And I hope you all know how very, very grateful for that both Jim and I are.

Like I  said though, tomorrow we get back to a little more normality around here. Because no one needs this day after day!

Waiting.

Some of you will have noticed over the last 6 months that every now and then I write a post that has a line or two in it that suggests I might be pregnant again. I often get emails after the subsequent miscarriage, saying that they had known I was pregnant again but that as I hadn't actually said the words, they didn't want to offend me by bringing it up.

I do this because I feel silly saying I'm pregnant when it will probably only last a week or two. But I've realised that I actually feel worse when I spring a miscarriage post on you.
I know that I could do neither. I could decide to keep my private life private, instead of blurting it all out to goodness knows who. I could decide to stop being tacky, sharing all of this with anyone that will read it. And I could pretend that my life looks like my studio.
It's something that I've talked about before, and it's something that always comes back around to the same thing. I write about my life in this blog. I try to keep it mainly about my life as an artist, but it's pretty impossible to do that all the time. Especially when something as big as my pregnancies affects almost every aspect of it all.

Anyway, like I said, the thing that I find really difficult is the miscarriage post that comes out of the blue. So this time, I'm just going to tell you up front that I'm pregnant again.
It's very early (4 weeks) and I'm not holding out much hope. But I went to hospital today for an HCG shot, that will hopefully give me a bit of a better chance. I have also been taking baby aspirin every day because that can help too. I'll continue to have a shot every week, until I miscarry or I hit 16 weeks, whichever comes first.
I don't know how I feel about it but I do know that if you don't mind, I don't want anyone saying that it'll work this time, or that this is the one, they can just tell, or any other very kind comment that is meant in a very sincere way, to give me hope.

It's not that I don't want to have hope, it's just that the more hope I have the harder the miscarriage is. And when you consider that this is my 9th pregnancy, I really am better off being realistic. I know that there's a chance, because I have Bella. But my body tried to get rid of Bella right up until the end when I had her 6 weeks early. That said, my body didn't succeed and that's all I need again, just for it to fail one more time.
Getting pregnant so many times is a strange thing. I've never stopped feeling a little thrill of excitement, but it's not something I can focus on. For instance I can't handle Jim being excited about it. In part because it makes me feel so much worse when I fail again and it part because it just feels silly to get excited.
And I resent that not only do we lose the baby but we lose the ability to feel real happiness when we see that positive test. And we lose the chance to hear the excitement in other people's voices, because no one knows whether to congratulate us. And most of all we lose the belief that so many, many people have, that being pregnant leads to having a baby, and that having a baby is a basic human right.
So here we are. Waiting to see. And just trying. very. hard. not to feel too much hope.

Balance

I know that balance is an issue for all of us these days. I think it's something that is particular to our generation. Women and in particular, mothers, are still struggling to define themselves. We're still trying to find a happy medium between work, home, play and everything in between. And I find that even a balance in friendships is difficult these days. Finding the time to stay in touch or get together. Understanding that we all have different demands and that some friends can't give as much as they used to, or even understand what you need anymore. And in turn that our own lives don't allow us the energy to give as much as we would like to.

I've had a number of people come in to my life recently that I would very much like to spend more time with or time talking to or emailing and yet it can literally take me weeks to respond to an email. And I find myself saying that I'll return that phone call when I've got a quieter minute. When there is no such thing anymore.

Writing this blog is the same. I have so much I would like to say and yet I have so little time to sit down and write it. I am writing this post at 1.10am as a last ditch attempt to catch up before I get to go to bed. And I   wanted it to be about why I'm collecting fabric and what it means to me, but that would take longer than I have and more brain cells than I can muster. So instead I'm cobbling together a post with the last few pics of the studio and hoping that you'll forgive me my apparent lack of care.

I constantly think that it must just be a case of planning better and wonder if I should use daily planners and spreadsheets and diaries etc. But I have this slightly irrational fear that if I get in to too much of a routine that I'll get stressed about slipping out of it! And I don't need more to be stressed about. Hmmm...

Is there something that I'm missing? How do you all manage to keep a balance in your lives? Or maybe you don't? Are we all just stumbling around, positive that we've forgotten something, because I have to say that that is the overriding sensation in my life - that I've forgotten something.
And then of course I walk in to the room to this scene, and realise that it's a pretty good ride I'm on and I wouldn't want to get off for all the tea in China.

I'm still pretty sure I've forgotten something...

Edited to say - Crap, I did forget something! I forgot to say that the wonderful picture in the first photo was my birthday present from the marvelous Kristy . Love it!

Oops... (and a little rant)

I didn't mean to sound quite so scared! Don't worry, I couldn't change if I wanted to. I just had a momentary blip in confidence.  Doesn't stop me from enjoying a little extra attention though!
But thank you to those of you that commented and emailed to tell me that I'm doing ok just as I am. That's a bit of a relief, because this is all I've got to give you. And I have to agree that keeping it real works for me too.

Anyway, lets leave my little insecurities behind and move on to much more fun things.
I'm still working on my Dungeness inspired range and absolutely loving it. More on that another day, but isn't it interesting how such a desolate place feels so personal to so many?

In other news (hah, I just made myself laugh by typing that! I'm such an easy date!) I signed up for this  swap at the beginning of June, but unfortunately had my last miscarriage 2 days later and in the subsequent blahhness that followed, I completely forgot about it (just to keep my track record for swaps at completely crap!), until a beautifully wrapped parcel arrived from my poor swap partner (I know, there's a few of you out there! And I'm hanging my head in shame).

The parcel was full of beautiful, beautiful gifts and was sent by the talented Christine of Petal Soft.
Unfortunately I'm  a complete idiot and haven't yet taken photo's of the contents! I just tried to upload photo's that don't exist. That keeping it real enough for you?? Tired? Uh huh. Stupid? Hell yeah!
But it's too late in the game to think of a new topic for this post so you'll just have to believe me when I say that as soon as I opened the gifts, not only did my heart lurch at the fact that I had completely forgotten about the swap, but it also started to beat just a little faster when I saw just how lucky I was.
Christine had put real thought in to her side of the swap and had even colour co-ordinated it with the photo's she'd seen of my studio.
I  do promise to take photo's and do it all some real justice in another post but in the meantime why don't you pop over to Christine's blog and have a look around. It's worth it, as my lovely friend Tif has already said.

One thing that I will say though is that Christine received an anonymous email today that was cowardly and unnecessary. I've noticed over the year and a half that I've been blogging that there is an element out there that feels the need to attack certain new bloggers. I've also noticed that these attacks seem to come from people that must be very insecure about their own talent. And not only have I noticed this, but right back in the beginning I experienced it for myself.
I've had a good look at Christine's blog and whilst I can see some very obvious influences there, they are particularly obvious because Christine herself states who she is being heavily influenced by. And she also states that her heavily influenced work is for her own benefit only. She does not intend to sell any of it.
Now I read the email that she received and it did have a positive slant to it, as well as being critical. But it missed the whole point of crafting. It missed the fact that not everyone is out there to make money or seek fame. Some people actually do it for the love and enjoyment. Go figure.
And this person, in a misguided and cowardly way (why do it anonymously if you're so sure you're right and why not give the other person a chance to respond in private?) took some of that fun away, just because they assumed that it was their job to point out that there is such a thing as copyright.
You know, this whole thing annoyed me. I hate the tendency of some bloggers to assume that new bloggers are stupid. To assume that they aren't well read and knowledgeable. This may surprise some people, but an awful lot of people out there managed to be creative long before they started their blog. And some of them have even heard of Intellectual Property and Creative Commons. Crazy huh?

There you see? Whilst I may be sounding a little grumpy (I'm not), I am at least back to my old, 'just don't know how to make friends or influence people' self. Phew!

Hello!

I have a confession to make. I have to admit that I'm suffering from just a little bit of stage fright.
As some of you may have noticed, I seem to be doing the rounds a bit at the moment. Culminating today in being featured on the amazing Decor8 blog.
All of which has been a complete surprise. A wonderful surprise, but a complete surprise.
And it's resulted in me being a just a tad unsure where to go from here. Which is why I didn't post yesterday.

Without wishing to sound like a complete flake, I've suddenly found myself panicking about what I'm going to write about. What if it's not cool enough (hmmm...) or it's boring or stupid?
So yesterday I chickened out and didn't post anything and today I almost did the same. (Jim says I should just write a post all about him because you're all bound to love it - but then he is a deluded fool).
But then I thought about it and realised that I could try and write something cool to hold the attention of all the new readers, but how long before I slip back in to my usual inane crap?
So after a little blog break ( I know, it was only really a day, but it felt like a break), I'm back.

And I'm desperate to show you some stuff I've been working on, because I feel like I've turned some kind of corner with my designs. But it rained again today and that  means no decent light, so I can't share it with you right now, but I will. For now though I'll leave you with a teaser and just tell you that I spent a significant part of my childhood in a place called Dungeness and as it does with every single visitor (most famously this one) it left an indelible stain on my soul.
It's an amazing place and I have some amazing memories and in the last few days they have suddenly surfaced without rhyme or reason. Which led to some surprising fabric selections late last night, and some exciting cutting and piecing today. More on a sunnier day though.

And talking of fabric choosing, I realised recently that I often leave myself little bundles of fabric to find. Bundles that have inspired me whilst I'm working on something else - I always get the most ideas when I'm too busy to do anything about them - that aren't necessarily a formed thought, but something that needs a little time to grow.
I keep them in wicker bags that hang around the studio, or little plastic pots. Or for smaller pieces that have jumped out at me, I keep them in baggies.
Often the original thought gets lost in a stream of two year old's babble, cats meows, housework, homework, hardwork and numerous other distractions. But occasionally they bob around on the surface until I actually do something about it. Which is nice.

Edited to add - blogland is such a very strange place! Having just finished this post, I popped over here  to see how Tracy is doing and look what she wrote about yesterday! What are the chances!!

Can you hear the excitement in my voice??

I have some news today that makes me very happy!
If you've been reading me for a while then it's no secret  that I love Purl Soho , oh so very much indeed. But you may have also noticed that I didn't mention them in my Fabric post. This was not because they're not worth mentioning, because they most definitely are. But rather because their shipping costs made it difficult for customers in the UK to order. Not, I hasten to add, because they wanted to make just a little more money, but because Joelle and Jennifer wanted to be able to offer insurance to International customers.

Unfortunately though, that meant that the shipping alone used up all of the tax allowance for the UK,  and therefore unless you wanted to pay customs tax on it, it just wasn't cost effective to order.
But I'm very excited (as is my credit card company, but not my bank manager) to say that from now on, PurlSoho are more than happy to ship International Priority Mail at only $11 to the UK! It does mean that they can't offer insurance (although if you email them and say that you would prefer insurance I'm sure they would oblige - it would just cost you more), but nobody does, and I have to say that I've never had a problem with that.
This is such great news for us in the UK! And proof once again that Purl is a wonderful place - the charges were changed as soon as they realised that our super government charged tax on shipping as well as product (I'm sure someone out there can explain that one to me, but in all honesty I don't want to hear it) and that meant we couldn't order from them.

So there you go.All of those fabrics that you saw in  all of  these posts (pretty much) are right here. Go on, go buy them, you know you want to ! Just leave some for me!

And in other exciting news, I just want to say Hello! to all the Craftzine readers that have popped over! You are most welcome!
And have you seen the latest issue of Small yet? I love this magazine so much and can not tell you how excited I was to have a bunny included!
I'm smiling a lot today!

(a number of people requested a close up of the cabinets - the first one speaks for itself and the second one houses my vintage fabrics and my favourite notebooks, patterns and notions)
    

Finally, something I made..

This hasn't been much of a craft blog recently. I have been quietly working away, just not on anything that you haven't already seen or anything that you would want to see. But I have also been trying to finally finish all those jobs around the house that have been waiting in line for the last two years.
One of those jobs is finishing the front room. It's been half painted since Bella's birthday in February and has been needing new cushions and throws and pictures, and well just about everything. I wanted to have it finished before Kristy  and the gang came to visit, but it just wasn't to be. Although I did at least get the final two walls painted. As well as starting the new cushions for the sofa. But that was as far as it went.
But today whilst sewing in public for the first time (!), I managed to finish off the cushions.

I haven't been able to decide whether the accent colour in the room should be blue, red or gray, so I decided to go with all three!

The walls are a light gray and look wonderful as a backdrop to the brighter pieces in the room. Especially my three new prints from Ashley .

I feel like the room's beginning to take more shape now.
A downside to having one room  exactly how you want it, is that you become disenchanted with all the others. And this room has really suffered from that.
But it's already looking much better, and I think I'm starting to love it again. I know that I love my new prints!
I just need to upholster a toy box and find a few ceramic pieces to pull it all together and then maybe I'll start spending a little more time in it again. Which means that I may even be able to recognise my husband again! (another downside to having the perfect room - you never come out of it!).

On a completely different subject, I set up my childhood farm for Bella to play with this morning.

And I want to publicly state, right here and now, that contrary to what Jim says, I did set it up for Bella and not just because I love the way it looks. And no, I don't flinch when she goes near it.
Much.

And quickly back to the front room, to show you how well co-ordinated my child is (so important, don't you think?).

Bird Seed

A quick post to say that this fabric..

Is available here.

I've never used this site before, so I have no idea how good it is, but so far it's the only site I can find that stocks this print.

The print is called "Bird Seed" and is manufactured by Alexander Henry.

A proper post later (hopefully!).

Fabric and How To..

I get a lot of emails asking me about my (supposedly) large collection of fabric and I thought that maybe it was time to answer a few of the most popular questions right here.
I guess this is mainly for people buying fabric from outside of the US, but I know that there are some of you in the States too, that just aren't sure about buying fabric online.

I'll start with a few basic tips for how I choose fabric without being able to see it up close:
Be aware that fabric prints don't always photograph true to colour and that the quality of cotton can really make a difference to how a print looks in the flesh.
I tend to judge whether or not I'm likely to want a print that I haven't seen up close by whether it's by a designer that I generally favour.
I know that sounds obvious, but it's really the way I judge things. I know for instance, that Alexander Henry's prints are in colour tones that I really like. The vibrant colours aren't too acidic and most of the novelty prints aren't too cartoonish. There is nothing worse than ordering some new fabric, waiting the week it takes for it to arrive (if you're outside the US) and then discovering that the colours just aren't right.
I try to go for clean, true colours. I don't like prints that have acidic, (in my mind) fake colours. And I don't like prints that are too dense.

Find a designer that you like, and expand from there, that way you're less likely to be overwhelmed by the enormous choice out there.
An awful lot of the great novelty prints that you see a lot of us using are by either Alexander Henry, Micheal Miller or Robert Kaufman. So they're all a good place to start. But don't make the mistake of assuming that because you like one of their collections that you're going to like them all. Or for that matter, thinking that you have to like an entire collection. I often find that there's only one or two colourways or specific prints that appeal to me, and only buy them. I don't think I've ever bought an entire collection of fat quarters for instance.

I don't buy based on a particular project (unless I'm trying to justify buying yet more fabric!), but I do try and picture how a fabric will fit in with rest of my collection. I also try not to buy too much on impulse (hah) because I hate to make mistakes and ending up with something ugly. But I am happy to buy something just because I like it, even if I have no idea what I'm going to do with it.

On to where to buy on line:
There are a multitude of on line shops out there and some of them are wonderful, and some, not so much!
These are the main shops that I buy from. They are all based in the US and all accept either PayPal or credit cards. They all sell fabric by the yard rather than the meter - but there's less than 10cm difference in the measurements, so I just tend to think of a yard as a meter.

Reprodepot  - a firm favourite. It not only stocks a fantastic range of fabrics, but the shipping is cheap and fast! I don't think I've ever waited more than a week for an order to arrive and the shipping is only £5.50, which is fantastic when you consider that a lot of UK based shops charge that for shipping.
You can pay using both credit cards or PayPal, which is an added bonus. I highly recommend them for overseas on line ordering. Minimum cut is one yard.

Cia's Palette  - another excellent resource. Cia is a lovely person and her website is another great place to shop. Her range is slightly smaller than Repro, but you can often find prints that are sold out elsewhere, because she keeps the popular prints in stock for longer than a lot of stores. She only stocks fabrics that she likes and never just because they're cheap.
You can only pay using credit cards (outside the US), but Cia's shipping is again cheap at £5.50. And she'll happily stuff as much fabric as she can fit in to one envelope!

Z and S Fabrics   - I love this shop for a lot of reasons. Not least because it's so damn cheap. They stock all the firm favourites, but at often $2 - $3 dollars cheaper than everywhere else, whilst keeping their shipping costs the same as every one else. They also have frequent sales, making it cheaper still. But don't worry, the fabrics themselves are great quality.
They accept credit cards only (overseas) and the shipping is again really fast.

Superbuzzy - oh my!  This wonderful site is designed to drain you of all of your pennies. It is jam packed with the best Japanese fabrics, trims and books and as if that wasn't enough, it's recently started accepting PayPal! Lethal.
The really popular prints are sold out pretty quickly so I highly recommend that you subscribe to their newsletter, or you won't get there in time!
Their shipping is £5.50 ($11)  for up to 4lbs in weight.

eQuilter - a large on line store with an amazing amount of different fabrics. I don't shop here often, because it's a little overwhelming. I find that when you are buying just online, it can be easy to have too much choice. I have always been more than happy with my orders from them though, and they're great when you're looking for a specific catergory of prints.
They accept credit cards and their shipping is on a par with everyone else mentioned.

The Fat Quarter Shop - another good store, with super fast shipping. I'm pretty sure that the super helpful Kimberly has managed to get my order to me in only 5 days! There's a good range of fabrics, and unlike some of the others, you can by as little as a quarter yard. You can pay using credit card or PayPal.
Shipping is £5.50.

Fabric.com - I'm kind of in two minds on whether to include this one, because it's a little more cutprice than the others. But you can get soem good bargains. I will say that you should probably stick to buying prints that you already know you like. I find that they stock a lot of cheap fabrics that just aren't great in real life. For some reason I also find that their colours aren't quite true. Like I said though, stick to what you know and you'll be fine. They accept both credit cards and PayPal. Their shipping is more expensive at £8 and often takes a lot longer than the other sites. In general I'm not overly keen on them, but I do think it's worth taking the risk if you find a bargain. I also buy most of my non quilting fabrics such as chenille from them.

So those are the main ones that I use and recommend.
There are a few tips for buying from overseas though:
The fabric is packed in to what is called a Priority Mail envelope. This is a flat rate envelope that fits about 6 yards of fabric in it. However, not all of the sites will fit that much in. Reprodepot for example generally only allow for 4 yards before the shipping costs jump up to the next price level. Cia on the other hand will get as much in there as possible.
But here's the most important thing of all when buying from the US -
you can only buy up to £18 worth of fabric at a time or you will have to pay customs. The £18 has to  include the cost of shipping. Which is where a lot of people are caught out.
So when you're making an order you have to make sure that the combined cost is under £18, or it's just not worth it. Now don't quote me on this, but before I knew the rules I was stung for £8 in customs, when the entire order was only £4 over the limit. So it does add up and it's not worth paying the extra.

Depending on the price of the fabric, you can usually order 3 - 4 yards and still be under the limit. If the fabric's on sale then wahooo! You can order even more - just remember that you still can't exceed 6 (sometimes 4 ) yards before the  websites shipping fees go up.
I know that the customs tax side of it put's people off buying from the US but it really is as simple as not spending more than $36 (£18) including the cost of shipping.
Unfortunately, the shipping costs on some great sites make it impossible to buy from them. There are a few US sites that I haven't listed because once you've paid the shipping, you could only literally order a single yard of fabric before you were over the limit. So if you're wondering why some sites aren't listed, that you would expect to be, than that's why. And it's a shame.

Ok, so that's the basics of buying fabric online. I hope that it's been helpful. Have I missed anything? I think that I'll write a little something about the  popular designers out there  another day.

Edited it add -

I've had a lot of emails asking me specifically about this fabric and where you can get it.

 

I've just spent an hour searching online (not a hardship) and whilst I can't find it in any US online stores, I have managed to find it in a UK shop and a German shop.

You can find it in the UK here. It costs almost £12 per meter, including shipping, but that's about normal for over here. And at least you can get it. I haven't seen this shop before, but it looks pretty good.

Or you can get it here at Volksfaden. Which  is run by an American lady called Linda,who emailed me awhile ago to let me know about her new, gorgeous online fabric store. Linda is an American who now lives in Berlin and she's determined to bring decent prints to Europe and good for her!! And us!
The euro exchange rate makes it about £14 per meter, including shipping.
There's not a lot of choice in the shop at the moment, but Linda tells me that she's got lots more on the way, including some Free Spirit collections and lots more Lecien.

The print itself is part of the My Folklore collection by the Japanese manufacturer Lecien. It can usually be found in SuperBuzzy and Purl Soho, so it might be worth contacting them to see if they're getting it back again.

If anyone knows anywhere else that you can buy it, please do let us know.