A more personal post

I'm aware that a lot of my entries lately have been craft related. I guess mainly because I've had more time to do crafty stuff and wanted to show it off. Today though, I wanted to write more of a diary entry.

Life's been pretty good lately. My little girl has been having a 2-3h nap most lunchtimes and so I've actually had some 'me' time. The down side to this is that it's more difficult to arrange to meet up with friends, especially those with similarly aged children, as naps often clash. Still, overall it's a good thing and I'm making the most of it before the naps get grown out of and it's all hands on deck all day again.

I'm still on my journey to conquering anxiety. I've been signed off from my treatment with the 'Good Thinking Therapies' people and now it's down to me to put what they've taught me into practice.

I'm much much better at not avoiding doing things now. When it comes to getting out, I'm not put off at all now. Recently I even stopped on a busy main road to take some photos of the hedgerows; something I wouldn't have done in the past as I feel like everyone driving by would be watching me. Now I think that they might be watching me, but if they are, they're probably not thinking anything bad. As for housework type stuff, there's not much I'll shy away from because of anxiety (although tasks where I have no idea where to start still stress me out). I'll still shy away from stuff because of pure laziness mind you ;D

I've not done any more on the Owl quilt, simply because I think I chose a project that was a bit much for a first attempt. Instead I've started working with a Moda Layer Cake that I bought from a friend recently. The colourway is 'Wonderland' by MoMo and features some really striking prints in shades of red, lime, pale blue, pink and brown. It's eclectic that's for sure!



I copied a layout that one of my lampworker friends had used with a layer cake recently. Alternate squares will be left whole while the ones between are made up of four strips of different patterns laid together. The first step was decide which squares I'd leave untouched and which would get sliced. Once I'd decided, I laid out all the whole squares and played about with the order until I was happy with it. Excuse the mess :D



Then I did the same with the strips and came up with this final design.



Actually, there's one strip square on that last picture which is the wrong way around, so I've corrected that now. Hoping to get all pieces pressed and ready for sewing today and maybe even get some of the strip squares made up. Need to find the sewing machine under all the mess in the conservatory first though!

I've done it again, dissolved into craft talk! I guess it's just what I enjoy so I'm bound to talk about it. I bought some Promarkers last week which are basically fancy felt tips! They're so good though. You can layer the colour up without the paper getting damp and tearing like it would with felt tips. It means you can do effective shading really easily too. I've been using them to colour in some of the digi stamps I bought and I'm hooked. It's so therapeutic. I'm claiming back 'colouring in' from a child only pastime to one that grown-ups can do without shame too :)

The only example I've got of my colouring in is this image (before and after).



Not bad for a first attempt :)