Tree Fall

thoughts on blogging

I have always thought long and hard about what I post on my blog. It's important to me that I maintain a balance of personal information along with general crafting. Allowing me to both connect and share with my readers whilst keeping up a real level of privacy.
I have also always thought deeply about the subjects that I write about and my reasons for including them in my blog posts.
I'm sure that whilst writing about the details of my 7 miscarriages that there were plenty of people out there that felt that I was crossing a line that they were uncomfortable with. But I can tell you that when I wrote my first post about how the miscarriages felt and I received a lot of emails thanking me for sharing my pain and for  allowing so many people to see that they were not alone in the incredible pain that they and I felt, that I knew without a doubt that I was doing the right thing.
It was incredibly helpful to both me and many of my readers to be able to share the horrendous experience of losing a pregnancy. And I will always be grateful for the amount of support I received.
That said, I also received a number of emails from people that I knew and respected that suggested that the only reason people read and commented on my blog was that there was so much drama and heartache and that I was in some way prostituting my feelings and pain for readership.
This led to me absolutely cutting back on the amount of personal information that I have included in my posts for the last year. Which is why I have written absolutely nothing about my separation from Jim and very little about my employment with Sew Hip or Jim's suspension and redundancy from his job.
I have also written nothing about Lily's health and very little about Bella's. Even though all of these things affect my life immensely on a day to day basis.
And I think that's a shame. I think that the blog has suffered from me censoring myself just because I have worried that people will think I am writing sensational posts just to gain comments or readership. But it's still something I struggle with and that I am still trying to balance it in a way that makes me happy.
But the thing is, all of that has been my decision. I decided whether or not to include the heartbreaking details of my miscarriages. And I decided whether or not to let everyone know how I felt when I was suddenly faced with caring for two children on my own with no income. And whether or not I made the right decisions for the right reasons, they were at least still my decisions.
What I will not have, what I will not suffer is some one thinking that they can tell me what to write on my own personal blog. And that is the situation I now find myself in.
A couple of days ago I wrote that Sew Hip had still not returned my samples. A statement that is wholly true and in no way slanderous. And yet today I received a letter from them demanding (amongst many other things) that I delete that entire post or they would withhold both payment that they owe me as well as my samples until I did so.
This is offensive for so many reasons. Not least the fact that what I wrote was completely and utterly true. But the main thing is that they think that they can stop me from writing the truth just because they say so.
And here's the thing, here's what I've worked out and realised for myself. That whilst I may want to share all of my ups and downs with you, I really can't. Not just because it's my own private life, but because, really you need the good stuff. We all need the good stuff. That's what a lot of these blogs are about.
But, and it's a big but, what I write, as long as it is truthful and lawful, is up to me. It is my decision what to include. And no suggestion that I am involved in 'car crash' blogging or any bogus legal threats will stop me.
I just want to make that very clear. Right here and right now.
Just in case, you know, you weren't quite sure.

(and you see that girl up there? Her and her sister give my all the strength I need to fight anything).

This week

It seems like every week I have a new favourite fabric. And who can blame me when there's so much great stuff out there? This week it's this vintage print that I'm in love with.
This is my new cushion that I sit on to work at my sewing table (hence the creases!).
I've also used it in a number of bibs, bunnies and cot quilts.  Because I love it.
And you should see it paired with a grey polka dot. Oh my.

I'm lucky enough to be sent fabric occasionally to see what I think of it, and I've decided that once or twice a month I'm going to review a new print or two, including where to buy it and maybe even the odd free pattern or suggestion of what you could make with it. Gosh, I may even throw in the odd fat quarter giveaway every now and then if I can.
What do you reckon?

The Process

As part of my preparation for the British Craft Trade Fair I've been working on some new colourways and a couple of new designs. Both of which I find simultaneously invigorating and nerve-wrecking.
My design process is generally a little haphazard, with me often catching glimpses of fabric combinations that make my heart beat faster and combining that with a new idea or just using it to come up with a new colourway for an existing design.
 But because I'm doing the show and because I've wanted to be a little more organised I've been trying to create a real process that has a definate beginning, middle and end.  Something that I can try and follow in the future. Not to take away from the creative process, just to make it a little more controlled and manageable.
I started by deciding that I wanted to try and limit all my designs to three colourways that would convey a particular feeling (for me, if no one else). I then sat down and wrote out a list of all the designs that I wanted to focus on. I have been a little disorganised with this in the past and offer some products only in my Etsy shop and some different ones to a couple of different stores, with little rhyme or reason.
Some designs I love to make, regardless of whether they are truly cost effective (nothing is truly cost effective!) and some are just too much work for too little return. So I decided which products I wanted to keep making and which I would either drop completely or increase the price to reflect the amount of work involved in producing them.
After that I spent a lot of time staring at tear sheets and fabric swatches, choosing the combinations that I wanted to use to make up the three new colourways.

I'm enjoying the process and am hoping that it will lead to a coherence in my collection that I'm not convinced has been there before. But I'm also discovering that part of the process for me, is to grab random pieces of fabric and come up with new colourways without realising that I'm doing it and therefore losing sight of my original plans slightly.
I'm not sure that this is a bad thing, as I really can only create in this way, but in the process I have discovered quite a large amount of insecurity that I didn't realise was there.
Usually I put some fabric combinations together and play with them, coming back to them over a stretch of time, until I really feel that they're working. But at the moment I don't have that kind of time and I'm just having to trust my first impression. Leading to me getting very excited about a colour combination for an entire day and not wanting to work with anything else, only to walk back in to the studio the next morning to huge doubts over everything that I've created the day before.
Which has in turn meant that there's been a certain amount of unpicking and deconstructing going on, only to sometimes sew it all back together again the next day when I've realised that it did work after all. Seriously.
And strangely enough, in my attempt to make the process more orderly, I've actually been feeling more disorganised about it all. Because instead of working on one product at a time, I'm working on one (or two) colourways at a time. So instead of getting to the end of the day and having 10 cushions finished, I've started two cushions, a playmat, three bibs and a cot quilt, all in one colourway, but finished nothing.

So it's all just a case of trusting the (new) process and trusting my instincts and hoping that it all comes together as a coherent collection by next weekend. And of course, focusing on enjoying it all and ignoring the little niggles of fear that are always present when I make something.

Just for the fun of it

A friend talked me into applying to do this trade fair a few months ago. And whilst I know that it's just an attempt to take me down with her, I fell for it and agreed. Because, you know, it was months away.
Only it's not months away now, it's next week. Did you hear that Karen??? It's NEXT WEEK!
Which is why I've been a little distracted whilst I frantically try and find the time to prepare all my samples for it. As well as redesigning my business cards and  designing the display. Oh and looking after the craziest one year old ever!
Jim's been helping though and I have an extra couple of days this week to work, but it's still going to be a close one.
And it's not made any easier by the fact that Sew Hip still have all my samples (some of which I've been intending to use), from as far back as Issue One, even though I keep asking for them back. Hmmm.
So most of my time at the moment is spent working on samples, but I am still trying to fit in the odd bit of fun sewing. And apparently covering your ironing board counts as fun sewing. In this house at least.

I had been wanting to recover my ironing board for a long time, but it's one of those jobs that has always been pretty low down on the list of priorities as well as being a job that I've assumed would be complicated or fiddly. But now that I'm staring at the thing whenever I'm sat at my sewing table, it's suddenly leapt right up that list of priorities.
I used a great tutorial that I found here and had the whole thing finished within an hour or so. In fact the longest part was trying to decide which fabric to use to cover the board.
I literally sat and stared at my choices for hours before deciding on the blue striped linen, finally realising that I needed to use something quite plain, so that it didn't take up even more visual space than it already was.
Once I had chosen the fabric, I cut the existing channel off of the original cover (as per the tutorial), leaving about a inch allowance and then lay the bare board down on the linen and cut around it again leaving a seam allowance, but this time I left about 5 inches all the way around.
Then I sewed the original channel to the linen, finished the edges and hey presto! Easy and quick.
And it looks so much better that I'm kicking myself for not doing it sooner.

It's the little things

I'm at that annoying stage of decorating, where I've pretty much finished the big stuff and now just have all those final smaller details to get to. And of course, it's always the finishing details that take the longest. You spend weeks working on getting rooms to the point where you can use them properly and then it takes even longer to get around to actually finishing them. And until they are finished I never want to take the final photo's, so (as with the old studio) I never get to the point where anyone actually gets to see all of what I've been working on for all this time.
This weekend has been full of trying to get to all the little bits and pieces that need doing. Not always the most exciting way to spend a weekend admittedly (Jim spent today fixing a leak and trying to buy a pole to fix up our washing line!) but satisfying none the less.
One of the jobs that I've been wanting to find the time for, was papering the door panels of one of the cupboards in the studio.
It's a corner that I sit and stare at frequently, and I couldn't think of anything better or more inspiring than my favourite Orla Kiely wallpaper. Which I attached easily with some spray adhesive, once I'd masked off the surrounding door .
And as well as papering the panels, I also finally hung a couple of bird prints that I bought for the girls room ages ago, but loved too much to part with.

Other pleasing tasks completed today were, recovering my ironing board and recovering my studio chair cushion. Pictures of both to come.
I know. I'm a fun gal.

Love...

 

Go on

You know you want to!!

Go and donate.
Right here...

Inspire

I've been having to find new ways of utilising the space in my studio. With very little wall space available - one long wall has the two fabric cabinets and the door, opposite is the wall with my table and my bookcase, then one short wall has a built in cupboard with no door and another built in cupboard with a door and opposite that is the wall that is pretty much taken up with the window. So finding the space for a decent sized inspiration board has been a bit of a challenge.
The built in cupboard with no door has always been covered by a white rollerblind, which works great spacially and is very cost effective. But when I moved in to this room I decided that I wanted to attach a plain door that I could paint with magnetic chalk board paint (the same as I had in the old studio) and use that as my notice/inspiration board.
However, that hasn't happened yet, and maybe won't at all now, because I've found that the natural place to have the ironing board is in front of the cupboard and having a roller blind there means that I can still get in and out of it without moving the board.
So I improvised and simply pinned amy favourite tear sheets straight on to the roller blind.
Of course I can't roll it up now, but I generally don't anyway, I'm lazy and just pull it to one side, and I can't write on it, but I do like the way it looks and I do think it's a good solution until I come up with something more permanent. And in the mean time I've got another idea for the notice board. I've just got to actual do it.
The other place of inspiration and in this case organisation that I've created is my hanging rail.

 

I've wanted somewhere to hang fabric swatches for a long time. It always bothered me that I didn't have anywhere in the other studio. But up until a couple of weeks ago I used both of these rails to hang the plastic pots that I keep my scissors etc in. And it hadn't occured to me to use them for hanging and organising the swatches that I'm using for the new collections until I was staring up at my curtains (a constant source of inspiration) one day and realised that those tiny Ikea curtain hooks/clips would fit perfectly on one of the rails and would be the perfect way to hang fabric and pics and drawings and anything else (small) that I wanted.

I did of course go overboard because I was so excited about the idea, and now have a billion (no lie) little clips hanging on the rail, but I can't help it because I love it so much. And you know, the best part is that it cost a total £4 to create. And even better, the roller blind/inspiration board cost £3.50.
I've also come up with a super cheap way of having a 'felt wall' for designing on that I'll show you another day. And who knows, if I manage to sort out the blackboard/notice board situation I'll show you that too!
Oh and I've pretty much solved the cutting table issue. It didn't take much. Just the being bright enough to realise that if I cut at the other end of the table, I have enough space. Duh.

Toast

The new Toast catalog arrived over the weekend.

It's a killer.

Especially this blanket. Which I absolutely can't afford. But am absolutely going to try to copy.

 

 

Just beautiful.

print

Almost a year ago now, Quiltmaker magazine contacted me and asked if I would let them publish my Selvedge pincushion pattern.

It was before I had any experience of being published so I wasn't sure what to expect, but when I got my copy (well over a month ago now), I was really pleased to see how it turned out. And there's been a very pleasant side effect of receiving a number of emails from Quiltmaker readers that like the pattern.