by  emma lamb

Funny, but I have had crochet on my mind for a few days now. Now I really got to try it.

I will not write a review of last year or predictions for new year. I don’t do resolutions – I found that they never work – they just make you feel overwhelmed and then you feel bad when you cannot accomplish them..

I will say that last year was no good: we lost a dear friend earlier in the year. Only 44 years old. Two daughters. Tragic. We also had three unsuccessful attempts at fertility treatments.

Last year was also good: we had more family time then ever before. Or it just felt like that. But we went on several really good trips. I also managed to focus on creating, sewing in the second half of the year.

As I said – no resolutions. A few goals though: I started running about two months ago. And despite tendon injury I kept at it – I cannot really run right now, but I average about 9 mi/day 3-4 days a week on a stationary bike. And as soon as the injury is healed, I will be back training for that 5k. I want to reopen the shop this month. And that’s about it – just keep on doing the things I did right last year. And if an interesting project comes up – I might take it. The biggest goal: stress less!

And now for new beginnings… of a new pillow. I don’t have a name for it, but the inspiration comes from Kaffee Fassett. I might use the same fabrics for a matching quilt, except I will use a different pattern.

I just noticed it has been over a month since I wrote here last. That does not mean there has not been activity around here: I did finish a few projects (come over to my flickr page to see pictures) and traveled some. Hopefully I will update here more…

I have come across Niemann‘s work some time ago what I saw his illustration for Moma in NYTimes. The image above links to his blog, also at NYTimes. His illustrations seem simple but convey messages perfectly (thell me you don;t know what the image above means!). Check out the blog: each post is a little story (and oh so true and relatable) with the illustrations made using various media.

When we were kids in Croatia (then Yugoslavia) we had very limited TV programming for kids. I believe there were 2 channels, a lot of political shows (it was the communist era after all), a lot of news (actually of very good quality, covering the whole world. what you might not know is that Yugoslavia, while a communist country under a strong dictatorship of Tito, was on “this side” of the Iron Curtain, open to the world. We were free to travel and had no censorship on foreign media of any sort. We were very lucky that way.), and a lot of sports programming. Cartoon time was at 7pm, right before bed, 15 minutes. Also, there was some children programming in the mornings but I could watch those only during the weeks I had school in the afternoon. While I do remember watching Tom and Jerry, Bugs Bunny and other American cartoons, this one (Krtek) actually brought back so many memories. I could see the apartment we lived in, where the TV was, where I sat to watch it, my school, the neighbourhood (there are actually tears in my eyes now)… It was long time ago, but it was good times.

I hope you enjoy this cartoon. I love the animation, the characters, the sound, the stories. Everything.

I am going to go do something else because this is making me a little sentimental and sad.

I drew this one some time ago, and it’s interesting how it looks different all sewn up. When I sketched it (actually it was a sketch of a quilt, not just a block) I was focusing on the color area – I liked the idea of a “swirl”. But now that I’m looking at it, I seem to focus on the white part. Hmm… would it change if I added some white all around?

The size of the block is about 5in square.

Now, how can I really use these? Really?

check this out: Alabama Studio Style | Alabama Chanin

not my style but this is beautiful! from Heather Bailey

I really NEED some of this: Floating On Cloud9

From City Quilts by Cherri House via  LizzyHouse