Confidence is a strange thing.........

I mean one day it can be there in spades and the next...poof.....just gone, and you wonder what the heck you are doing.

Over the many years that I have trod this place we call earth, I have had those dips and peaks and now I am beginning to realise there is no one point in your life that you will not suffer a loss of confidence. BUT the thing to realise is it is NOT the time to let it sink you...NO....it is a time when you take time to stop and relax.

Take time out and ask yourself....."what is really going on here?'
For me it was the dreaded comparing myself to others, not a good thing to do in reality.
Its OK to be inspired by other people and their art and craft but when we compare ourselves, well we really are setting ourselves up for a confidence dip.
I have muddled along for years with a camera in my hand, loving the experience and snapping away with no real idea of what I was doing. Just trying to see things with an artists eye, framing images in my mind and seeing if I could somehow capture it.

I was given a new camera lens by my sweet husband and I wanted to take "great" photos, just like the wonderful images I see on the other blogs. I read how others apologised for their poor images, and I thought to myself, "What? These photos are lovely! If these are considered not up to scratch, what does that say about mine?"

Confidence drops and suddenly NOTHING is good enough anymore. How fragile my confidence!
I too apologised for the photos I put on the blog, until a sweet lady took the time to tell me...actually its OK, she liked them. (Thank you Joy) Confidence pricks its ears up.

So what I did was decide that I would do as I did back in the day when I didnt know what the heck it was I was actually doing, I would just get out there with no expectations and start taking photos again.

This is a little pier on the shore down the end of my street. It was not a glamorous place but the light was perfect and the bay as still as it could be. I clicked away, inspired and just loving what I was seeing in my mind. Yes its all been done before but I was doing this for ME.

As you can see I took a lot of the same thing, and this is something perhaps I had forgotten. We never get to see the hours of practice and bit of good fortune that is behind that art work we admire. Some of assume that those artists and bloggers out there just have the gift and we can only dream of being as good. Confidence my prickly friend, you can retreat and cower in a corner becasue it feels safe there or you can step out and realise that you are just as talented as anyone.

You can stand still and wait observing the beauty in everything, and not be afraid of the inner critic.

The light may fade but there is still beauty to behold.

Dont delete all your errors they teach you the most. The top one was with flash, the bottom one just by the light of the room in the evening.

I also cropped the bottom image to get a better composition. That was another thing I forgot to take into account when confidence was low. These days there are very very few images that are NOT photoshopped in ANY way. Photographers have always used lighting, poses, composition, darkroom techniques and now photoshop to enhance the original image.

I am still learning this fact, I am so trusting in so many ways it seems. Yes dear fellow low confidence photographers there are many tricks to getting the final image.

I cropped these shots, taking out any distracting areas and in the last one I saturated the colour to bring out the pink.

So when those confidence erasing gloomy clouds gather on the horizen, take it easy and be kind to yourself. You are talented and you can offer the world whatever it is you would like to share. 

It would be a dull forest indeed if only one bird was singing....even if it was at perfect pitch.......

PHEW!!!!!!!!!  
It has been an AGE since I was last here and finally I have made it back.
I have several stories as to why I have been absent, but I would bore you with what is essentially LIFE. We all have it and we all juggle and manage it so in that way I am just the same.

However will say I would have been back a little sooner but as I just sat down to post a story a couple of weeks ago, the computer stopped, blank screen.....and now its fixed, all good.

I lost my confidence a little in my photographic skills, I have struggled and struggled to take a good shot of this quilt.

It was one I also struggled to finish! The original recipe called for strips of old tablecloth needleworks with a strip of light organza and raw silk and satin ribbon. I blithely carried on and sewed these various materials together, laid it on the bed and everything shredded! Yeah like who didn't see that one coming!.....me obviously.

Lesson 1: silk will shred, hmmm maybe I can stabilise it...which I did and it worked a treat. 
Lesson 2: organza will shred too, replace with good old cotton.

Then I tried and tried and tried to find the main material in which to highlight the green silk, tres difficult....no really......white was a shocker, which I only realised AFTER I had sewn it up.

Lesson 3: don't assume white goes with everything, sometime it just doesn't!

Finally to my surprise I found a pale lilac which made the green silk work well. "Great" I said now we are getting somewhere.

Then I tried to quilt it with a cross hatch.....

Lesson 4: cross hatch requires accuracy, don't free hand it.......lots of unpicking.......and lots of accurate 45deg marking and sewing its finally done!

 The backing was a vintage sheet which picks up the pink in the front, did well there.

I knew that the needlework would look great but I was really surprised as to how much better sad, tired and worn out pieces can look when chopped up into smaller pieces. No new and wonderful cloths were destroyed to make this, it was all old and torn pieces where I could salvage the stitchery.

So there you have it folks. The quilt of dramas, I must have made, unpicked and made this quilt three times over, and then I just couldn't get a decent photo of it!!

I sorta gave up then, packed the camera away and went and did some other things to clear my head a little.

                         One of which was this little beauty. 

It is a DMC kit by Isabelle Baird, the most magnificent painter of flowers I have come across in cross stitch. This is the second one I have done of her roses and can I just put this out there......if anyone has the anemone kit....can we talk? These kits sold out and I would just love it if someone wanted to sell it on, or any other arrangement we could come to.

And this, 2 ply wool is perfect for a soft dense pom pom.

Bit of this, work in progress, odd balls of 8 ply wool, every now and then when I feel the urge.

And this, large 2 inch sided hexagons for my ongoing Brigette Giblin creation.

So life is ongoing, it may stop me talking to the blog now and then but not forever. I mean who else can I share my exploits with than other bloggers who get the craft thing.

Well its good to be back, hope the next break isn't so long and my camera will sing to me again.

BREAKING a few routines here......

Dont tell anyone but instead of rushing around doing my chores I am sitting here blogging and enjoying myself a great deal I may add.

I have just read Joys blog and was inspired by the hearts theme of Valentines day to blog today. Also because I have a bevy of images to show. I love hearts and they feature in a few items in my house.

This is for you Joy

But the piece I really want to share is my heart quilt.

What do you think.....too much? 
Nah too much is never enough with hearts in my book. I saw this pattern in American Jane's book "Quilts for all seasons...and some for no reason". I had picked this up on special at a quilt show and I cannot tell you how many quilts I want to make from this publication.

I had the perfect fabrics in my stash to start the quilt and was determined to use them. I pieced this fabric so I could use it and I am not disappointed, I mean I could have rushed out and bought some more but sometimes quilting is about making do so I did!

Had some of this floating around, again a bargain picked up at a quilt fair. Sometimes a bargain is too good to think about too much.

Some more detail

Now I dont know what happened here, I cannot get the image to rotate so if I could just ask you to tilt your head......Thanks

Ok have you has enough now?
You get the drift it is smothered with hearts, all hand appliqued onto background squares. 
I did have to go and purchase the red background fabric and the mostly red fabric because at the time I only had pastels and florals in my stash. Have more red now.

 Agonised over the backing fabric, I do I really do, sometimes more than I fuss over the quilt top. Somehow the backing fabric becomes the reason I dont finish a quilt. I think it has something to do with a wonderful quilt teacher who told me that backings were important because that is the sight you see when you pull it up over your body.

Anyway this was just the ticket for me.

Had some fun on picmonkey.

So I hope you embrace the fun meaning of Valentines day, my hubby and I dont go all out for it these days because our love is every day.

But I send you all some love and hope because that is what I receive from others in blog land and I would LOVE it if you found some here or even there. It dont matter where you find it really.

Love to you all and I may even link this with crazy mom quilts on Friday. But because todays Wednesday it wont happen yet.

I Have A Finish To Show...

 Once upon a time there were three little blocks......

Who got together on a design wall and had a party.

Soon they had organised themselves into this....

Not bad, but there was still more to be done.

Bit of this.....

Bit of that...

Bit of the other.....

Ta da da da da da daaaahhhhhhh.

(see the little dog he is seriously impressed)

And again for those who were busy talking and missed the first stage bow....encore encore the crowd yells..

All hand quilted and machine pieced.

I am proud of this and every stitch was worth the end result. I first saw this in a magazine in 1998, and finally it lives in my home.

I hope my next completion is not so long in fruition. 

I know it wont be because back then I had a desire but no real clue, now I have learnt a bit more and have the confidence to proceed. 

I even designed the quilting myself! I pondered on what to put in the large yellow blocks, a floral pattern didnt seem to suit, so a discovered the spiderweb pattern. I found a template at a craft show but it didnt fit the size of the space. I actually improvised and used the position of the spokes from the template as a guide and drew each block freehand. 

It is quilted in perle cotton in three colours. Pink, white and yellow.

And a voile backing......because I fell in love with that fabric.

It is soft and pretty and almost the first one JUST for ME.

Sigh.......so happy......big smug smile on dial.

OOOOpppps, little slip in blogger etiquette here,

linking up with Finish up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts

Its an new year, its a new day........

It is what it is.....

I have had a magnificent start to my new year....no dramas...so far.
I cannot tell you how I love peace and quiet, how I crave calm and gentle rythmns and slow breathing. That is why I love to sit and stitch and see a slow unfurling of a project as it ever so slowly comes to fruition.

Mind you there are days I want a little more and that is when I shop!! 

I have had my first little completion for 2014.

Here it is as it sat patiently on my design wall. A project that I had worked on slowly throughout last year.
It is a pattern from the fab website of Anna Maria Horner, a generous crafter and designer (whom I hope receives as much if not more than she so generously gives.) I am constantly inspired by those who live with such a generous mindset. It is something I am trying to remind myself to do more often.

I was given the fabric by a dear friend, and it has some emotion attached to it, making this a very heartfelt quilt. 
My friend lost her sister to cancer recently, the fabric was collected from sewing projects the sisters had done over their childhood years. I was handed a bag, and my friend said, "Please have these, I know you will use them and I cant stand looking at them anymore"

To me they were just so lively and pretty, I knew as soon as I saw them that I would use them in that pattern by Anna Maria Horner.

So it was a lot of cutting and sewing of strips.

A lot of cutting and resewing but as I did a little every now and then, I got closer and closer to the final end result.

This pattern is just made for scraps and bright eclectic mixes of colour. Thank you Anna Maria, you have spread your good will to someone you may never meet but my friends sister lives on thanks to your creativity.

My friend was also generous to me allowing me to make such a wonderful quilt. 

Now I knew that my friend was stuck in some sadness when she gifted the fabric to me, so I used all and any of the scraps left from the quilt to make her a gift.

I am happy to say she was well pleased, now she can see the fabric and have fond and happy memories rather than the responsibility of "doing" something with it.

I also had more to make this bag, which I think will be handed on to my friend as she loves a tote bag also, and I have too many. This sweet pattern is from Annie Downs of Hatched and Patched.

I have so much fun making things such as this, and as much fun giving them to people I know who will use them.

For me the joy is often in the creative process, the making NOT always the having....but sometimes I do like to keep a special quilt and this one will be that. A generous gift and a great friend who entrusted me with her precious memory.

Now I know a lot of people use this time of year to make promises, set goals yada yada, yada. 

 I think self improvement is admirable, I think goals are totally necessary, so I am learning to be kind and love who I am in all my wonky, crazy glory. I am who I am, complex, flawed , not perfect but I get up each day wondering not what I can do to improve me, but how I can make something that will improve someone else's world a little. Works for me.