another bird

Have you noticed that I have accidentally extended this theme? Oh well, here is another bird :o)

bird drawings

whenever I make or draw birds, they all seem to look the same. I've been trying to draw a few different ones, and also a partridge for my pear tree design I am working on, and hope to finish this weekend:

hanging birds

With Christmas fast approaching, and crafts fairs coming up, I have been wanting to make some hanging bird decorations. I have tried 3 different types of feet on these little birds which have all been made using bits and pieces from my scrap bag.
I like the pink stripy one with the shorter feet. What do you think?
I'll have to make a few robins of course - and maybe also a partridge in a pear tree. Watch this space.

maybe I need to rename this blog

Maybe I need to rename this blog to design a bakers dozen! I guess if you read my other blog you know that all manner of things have been happening which have put a temporary halt to my creativity - in short having a very sick cat has zapped away most of my free time, but thankfully the sick cat is slowly on the mend and I have a bit more time on my hands.
I feel quite crappy about not moving on with my house project from my previous few posts, and I think I've lost my mojo with this one honestly. My flow has ebbed away.

So, a new month (ish - yes I am late already) and a new project. I'm really quite partial to birds, and they just keep cropping up in most of my work, so my new theme is Birds. Here's a bit of inspiration and some of my previous work containing birds:

Bird in cage - hanging ornament by Jodie of RicRac (owned by me!)

Owl - section of embroidery by me

Tea Bird, made by me

Birdy's big night out - print by Tsk Tsk (owned by me!)

section of embroidered mini quilt, made by Jodie of Ric Rac (and now owned by me!)

section of mini quilt made by me

egg cosy - made by me

Some of my favourites

The theme for June is... Houses, AGAIN!
This is not a cop out on my part, but I just don't feel that I have explored this theme to it's full extent. I had a holiday during May and a mini quilt to make for a swap and the combination of both of these, and of course my full time job, meant that I was unable to work out this theme as much as I wanted to. My holiday was massively inspirational for this theme, and after all - I'm not a slave to a blog deadline - this is not the point of my blog - the point is that I explore my creativity and push myself to create innovative and original work.

Now that I've justified myself, time for a bit more inspiration:

Some of my favourites
Originally uploaded by monda loves...
1. not available, 2. casinhas/little houses, 3. Embroidered Fabric House, 4. occupied sign, 5. Czech 50s-60s, 6. House with smiley face, 7. little house in Lancaster County, 8. dool house, 9. little felt house

Created with fd's Flickr Toys.

little stockholm

The little stockholm houses are all sewn up and ready to hang!

printed houses

This weekend i've been gocco-ing. Firstly these gocco printed paper houses - I'm not too sure what i'm going to do with these just yet...

and secondly, a little bundle of houses printed onto coloured cottons - these will be made into little softies when I get a chance to get to the sewing machine

more houses for inspiration

I'm just realising how quickly this month is ebbing away, and there's not very much to show for this months theme except for a few more pics of inspiration from my recent trip to Stockholm and Copenhagen:

These are mail boxes - a few houses in Stockholm had these on the outside

a little Coffee Shop in Copenhagen - painted pale blue

The canal side in Copenhagen - I love all the coloured buildings here

more coloured houses/flats along the canal side in Copenhagen

A continuous line drawing of houses and shops in Stockholm - drawn by me.

I'm thinking of doing some gocco prints in this style - and I'm also planning to do something with fabric too - I'll just have to get my skates on to cram it all in to this month's theme. Watch this space...

House Tape Measure

House Tape Measure
Originally uploaded by PatchworkPottery

Another house related inspiration from Patchwork pottery on Flickr.
I'm quite embarrassed to say that I've just worked out how to post from Flickr to my blog - better late then never I suppose - just goes to show that you really do learn something new every day!

May Theme - Houses

A theme I want to explore a whole lot more is Houses. I have gathered together a collection of images from my contacts on flickr and some from my own archive to serve as inspiration for this months project - As yet, I have no idea what I will do with the theme, but I have whole month to work this out :o)

The light house by Carol Arnott - found on Google images here

A swiss chalet - taken by me

A little appliquéd embroidered house made by me

Noel by LuSummers - on Flickr here

Houses on a hill by Syko on Flickr here

Nine Houses by Sarah Ahern on Flickr here

Acabada by rosaechocolat on Flickr here

A house in Bruges, taken by me

The beat box from last months project is still a work in progress. The chicks from last months project will be in my esty shop soon.

And the theme for May is...

Just popping by quickly to say that I am somewhat delayed with announcing a new monthly theme - not really a great start to this new monthly themed blog is it!
I will be back on Monday 5th May to reveal the theme and to share some inspiration pics.

monda
x

and the beat goes on...

I've been threatening to make something from this drawing by Mr Monda for a while now - and now I'm officially going to do it. I think it will be a fun and challenging project which I'll make a start on this weekend.

I was really happy to have found a blog called Sewn by Blythe. I immediately contacted blythe and asked her for permission to show one of her images. How great is this:

image by Blythe Church, with kind permission

I must point out at this juncture that I doubt my finished beat-box will be anything like as clever as this one - got to love that brand name too - 'sewny'

Go and check out Blythe's blog, she makes some lovely and clever things, including something close to Monda's heart - MONSTERS!

We are family

Chuck, Huck and Buck now have a mummy - they have two mummy's in fact - a very modern family this one:There is actually also a third mummy - but she came too late to be photographed in decent light. She is a reddy/pink colour and like the other mummy's she is also made from felted wool blankets and jumpers.

Also along the 'interpretation' theme this month, whilst I was trampling through blogland I spotted this:The top image is an 'original' by Minx (daughter of Moogsmum), and the bottom image is the appliqued/embroidered interpretation by Gina (with kind permission to use these images). Now that's what I call a funky chicken!

Chuck, Huck and Buck

All three chicks were made with felted wool jumpers. The grey one is super soft. These are going to be on sale at the May Day fair I am doing in a few weeks time..
There's just something about seeing these stacked up - all feet and labels.
You may have also noticed that these little guys are missing a mummy - she's coming soon...

hey chick

One of the first things I have created under the 'interpretation' theme this month is this chick - the one from my blog header.
This was drawn by Mr Monda using his new wacom drawing tabletI think chuck is a suitable name for this chick. Chuck was made using a felted wool jumper in a colour which was frankly too pale for my milky complexion. Chuck's beak is an old felted wool blanket, and his feet are also a felted jumper (or sweater if you are in the US - I found out recently that a jumper in the US is what we know as dress in the UK).

So what do you think? Chuck's WIP brothers are grey and blue and hopefully I'll get to finish them today.