Oooh! Can you share your illustrations with us, or is that verboten until they’re published?
I’m being good about crafting too!
I fell in love with bookbinding a few months ago: the easy stuff is surprisingly easy, the equipment is minimal, and the finished product takes maybe a long afternoon to complete and is freaking gorgeous when it’s done.
When finished it will look very much like this but in a lovely dark dark mottled cherry red with a flap that keeps it closed. I need to find a button (or three) to use for the closure and I’m still waiting on getting the white thread for the decorative stitching. I’ve done the internal structural stitching today. Pictures when I can find my camera! 
Freckafree, I’m sure no one could stop me from sharing them as I retain copyright, but I’ve been handing them over to one of the authors as fast as I finish them. May I show you my last lot of illustrations, very much the same idea? http://www.up.ac.za/dspace/bitstream/2263/11298/1/Swanepoel_Euphorbia(2009).pdf blushes
By the way, I’ve got exactly the same beads as the leaves (I promise they aren’t my only interest in life) as the ones on the end of your more “designed” earrings from the post earlier! I made a chainmail necklace with raggedy sort of points, and hung the leaf beads off the ends. I love those beads! I think your “soup” ones are my favourites in terms of the whole piece though, and I don’t think they look too random, with their progression from one colour to the other.
Wow. Very cool illustrations! (And now I understand why you’re planting winter bulbs in May.)
Yeah, I love Czech glass beads, especially leaves. I use them for drops a lot. In fact, I just used some on a pair of “soupy” earrings I just finished.
Show us some of your chain maille work, too!
Little Plastic Ninja, can’t wait to see the book. Are you making blank journals?
I love freckafree’s earrings (I prefer the more ‘designed’ pair).
And Little Plastic Ninja’s book cover, I have a notebook that’s kinda, sorta similar. It was a gift from a friend and is very much treasured.
I’ve managed another eight flowers on the quilt and it’s starting to get the ‘feel’, more of a single unit than three layers pinned together.
PsyXe, how do you find working for the publishers? I used to love writing to a deadline, do you find it helps, or gets frustrating that you have to create even when you don’t feel like it?
Wow, impressive!
I think bookbinding is really cool, but haven’t gotten into it–in fact I have a half-done project around here somewhere! Bad dangermom.
But I just finished quilting my lovely taupe quilt, and the only thing left is hand-sewing the binding to the back. Yay!
I really like it, because unfortunately if I have no deadline I generally get nothing done. Forcing myself to draw for money/food is the best thing I’ve done, because now I don’t feel guilty any more or tell myself that I ought to be doing something else!
freckafree, as a fellow header, I always love your work. You do such gorgeous weaving! I think I prefer your usual style to the Soup style, but that’s probably because I admire precision. They’re all glorious, tho.
I’m trying to teach myself to paint on my iPod Touch. That way I have a portable project, and I’m learning something new at the same time. It’s frustrating to try and control the output, but I’ll keep trying. As soon as I can figure out how to post results I’ll put some up.
Good for you. Lovely pics, too.
I know it’s Monday, and I said there’d be a new thread every week, but, um, we’re just going to keep this one going, and I’ll start a new one next week (or someone else can).
I’m glad so many of you are working! You’re doing better than me, but that’s mostly because I was at RenFaire all weekend.
Little Plastic Ninja, that sounds cool! I can’t wait to see pictures.
freckafree, I think the soupy earrings look kinda cool, and I could definitely see them selling well.
kbear, so did you get the pillow cases done?
I finished the black thread lace crocheted border and black monogram on the handkerchief for my sister’s birthday! Um, sorry, no pix, but she LIKED it.
A black-bordered handkerchief is traditionally mourning but it also just looks wicked chic.
Next up: How about that 9-square patchwork baby blanket made out of the parents’ sentimental-value-but-too-ratty-to-actually wear old T-shirts? I’ve got the top pieced but just haven’t ever yet finished it. Will photograph.
Also need to get in the garden this weekend, it’s just way overdue.
T-shirt quilt, that’s my next project, too! Except it’s the t-shirts my kid has grown out of over the last couple of years and its for her. You’re further along than me. I’ve got the 20 pieces cut and one length sewn together. Four lengths will need to be sewn onto ribbons, then the whole lot attached to an old duvet inner and her two favourite old blankies will be used for the backing.
1/4 through the flowers on the hexagon quilt.
I want a black-bordered handkerchief!
OK, I finished my taupe quilt. The pictures aren’t very good; it’s a twin size and hard to photograph well by myself. But here you go. Slightly different.
Wow, now I’m inspired not only to go finish some of these projects but to learn how to use my camera phone to actually photograph them! Classes end in 10 days, let’s hear it for free time!!
dangermom, I think your quilts are absolutely smashing, even the purple-lover’s one which is kind of daring for my own taste but which I think a more “style-focused” person would absolutely adore.
And maggenpye, I think you’re right that hand-quilting will work better for your hexagon quilt. Pieced designs with oblique angles can sometimes be temperamental and the sewing machine isn’t very forgiving of pieced items that don’t lie absolutely flat. The hand stitching is more accommodating.
I found this out when I recently did a quilt patch pieced from Penrose rhomb tiles. Looks straightforward but the point matching where six pieces meet can be a bear! (Alas, no pictures of that project either, and it’s now been incorporated into the community quilt it was designed for.)
What border are you going to put on the hexagon quilt, or will it be self-edged?
I love it! Beautiful!
I have made basically no progress on my blanket this week.
In my defense, my husband got his PhD, my in-laws were in town all weekend, and my own parents will be in town (and staying at my house) this weekend, so I haven’t exactly been slacking in other areas!
If it counts, my guest room went from “there’s a bed in here??” to “inhabitable by guests, even if they look in the closet” over the past week, and I’m in the process of making 4 batches of different kinds of ice cream as per flavor preferences of various family members.
Definitely me too, the colours are gorgeous. This and the rhomb quilt you linked to are so far beyond my skills, I am just saying, “Oh, wow… oh.”
I’ll go for a ribbon edge. I like the effect (childhood blankets - sigh) and I’ll buy enough to add to the T-shirt quilt, which is using up all the other ribbon scraps, a fourth colour will work well there.
The hexagon quilt is on a 1 inch dacron inner, so it’s very forgiving.
badbadrubberpiggy, this is a great achievement. Me and the kid seem to spend half our lives on the edge of losing furniture. And ice cream? Mmmmm. Congrats to Mr BBRP.
Huh? You speak a different language. 
I’m intimidated by anything more complicated than a square or rectangle.
dangermom, those quilts are beautiful. You make great color choices, and that’s half the battle.
You guys inspired me to put the final row on this very simple quilt top. It’s been sitting unfinished for a couple of months. I even got the backing made and the batting laid out on a bed to get rid of the wrinkles.
One of my favorite things about quilting as a hobby is the flexibility of it. If you don’t feel like sewing, you can cut pieces, sort and press scraps, browse patterns, look at photos on quilting boards, etc. You’re not “stuck” doing the same thing.
Synthetic cotton batting? The squishy bit between the top and bottom. Dacron’s apparently a trademark, but that’s what the local sewing supply shop uses to label the huge rolls of the stuff in varying thicknesses, from 1/4 inch through to 6 inches thick. 1inch thickness is giving a nice ‘puffy’ effect.
Sorry if I’m not clear - the painkillers are causing mejht otwt hzzzzz in random bursts. I’m on the computer now because I can’t deal with sharp objects till the latest batch kicks in.
Can’t see yours sorry, I am an unfriend of facebook.
I’m a friend of facebook and I still couldn’t see it!