Over on the Stash Knit Down the idea of knitting large amounts of yarn started brewing. A decision was reached that the goal would be to knit 12,000 yards of yarn in 6 weeks. Per participant. Teams were later also declared a viable option for those for who hadn’t lost all their marbles. We are calling it the Mad Dash.

I signed up as a solo participate. Yes. It’s official. The men with the funky white jackets will be here shortly.

At first I didn’t think I’d be able to make the goal, but then it all started sounding more and more reasonable, mostly thanks to my first Mad Dash project which is made out of my sock yarn scraps.

Let me introduce you to my Magic Carpet Ride.

It’s 8 strands of sock yarn held together and crocheted into a decagon using half double crochet (US term). I originally found a pattern for a nonagon rug (also Rav linky ), but the 9 sided thing just wasn’t working with my gauge. It kept curling into a bowl. I added in an extra side and everything fell into place.

I’m currently just shy of 500g through my rug, or about 25% done. Not bad for the first day. It is amazing how quickly this it crocheting up. It is already approximately 2 feet (60cm) wide.

More photos to follow in the next few days. I need to get back to the madness.

Cari Locken posted a challenge on Scrap That Moment to scraplift yourself. I thought it was a canny idea (and one I do quite often) so I thought I’d join in on the fun by doing this layout:

which is a lift of this layout:

Thanks for the challenge Cari! :)

This is my entry for the first Keeping Up With The Joneses. The theme for this challenge was to scrap you best feature.

It didn’t take me long to realize what feature I wanted to write about, but I didn’t have a printed photograph so instead I decided to sketch instead. Given my journalling, I think a drawing of my hands was actually quite appropriate.

Although I had originally intended to do a scrapbook page, the ideas evolved on their own and I ended up creating a journal page instead. The journalling fills the back page of the drawing and onto the next which features the title. I use Sakura pigma pens to do the title and journalling, and Sakura stardust pens to give the title a bit of shine.

After following a few links I discovered the Textile Tuesday Challenge and I was intrigued. I decided on Monday to join in on this week’s challenge as soon as it was posted. The challenge was Claude Monet. At first I was a little bit lost, thinking that this was totally out of my comfort style since I’m not much of an impressionist person. After a little bit of research I fell in love with the first painting I saw which was his Sunrise painting and then pulled out my supplies to get started.

I used 100% cotton sheeting (fairly thick stuff), standard anchor embroidery floss and Pebeo Setacolour Shimmer paints which I diluted so I could use them like watercolours. I should state for the immediate record that I’ve generally never been overly keen on watercolours as a medium. I love what other people do with them, but I’ve never liked what I’ve done with watercolours. I’ve just always loved the texture of acrylics, oils, pastels and other media.

So, I ended up working fabric paints like watercolours, which is a medium i’m not found of, and in a painting style that I’ve never really been drawn to. The result? I absolutely loved it. In fact, before the paint had even dried on the fabric I was contemplating about going through my stack of photos for other images that I could use with this technique. I’m absolutely in love. I loved it before I put stitching on the piece, and I loved it even more after. I have to say, this was an extremely successful challenge for me, and isn’t the point of a challenge to get you to think out of the box and step out of your comfort zone.

Have you stepped out of your comfort zone recently??

This is a challenge for 2007 hosted by Sharon of In A Minute Ago which encourages people to explore the possibilities of various stitches. I’m really excited about this challenge as I’ve wanted to create some sort of personal stitch dictionary for ages. I’m hoping this challenge will give me a shove in the right direction.

The challenge starts on January 2nd, 2007, so if you are interested check out Sharon’s challenge article on her blog. for full details and be sure to leave a comment to let her know you are planning to play. :)

A little updating. :)

I worked on a few challenges for Scrap That Moment and suddenly realized I hadn’t shared any recent creations here (I thoroughly blame my brain’s current preoccupation with making Yuletime gifts…. that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. You’ll have to wait until Christmas to see those.) Anyway, on to the layouts:

This first layout was for an Art Inspiration Challenge which I just adored. I couldn’t let this one pass me by.

This second layout is a lift of the wonderful Becky Thackston’s layout entitled My Brother. Love this photo of my cousin. :) The layout was also a part of a challenge to use up stash in autumn colours.

I’ll post a few more as soon as I take the photos. ;)

The designers are working on a new monthly challenge on Scrap That Moment in which we all have to use the same piece of patterned paper for our creations—any creations, not just scrapbook layouts. ;)

My creation using the Mara-Mi paper supplied for this month is a journal page inspired by the paper itself.

If you’d like to see what the other ladies have done with this challenge, check it out in That Gallery.

The new photo layout challenge has been posted on Shauna’s Shabby Shoppe and the theme is Get Outside. For details on this challenge, please see the official challenge thread

I’ve just posted the July Photo Challenge on Scrap That Moment and our theme this month is ‘Summer Fun!’. For full details about the challenge, please check out the official challenge thread.

This is my first entry into the Challenge. It was actually taken on a glorious day in May out at Tynemouth. The buckets aren’t mine, but the owner graciously allowed me to photograph them. :) I loved the colours and thought they lay in the perfectly haphazard… I couldn’t have posed them better had I tried.

This was for a ‘water fun’ challenge. Since Northern England isn’t exactly reknown for it’s fabulous beach weather, this was about as close as I got. :)