project life | how I caught up

The other night I sat down to 'get caught up' on project life. I knew I was a few weeks behind (a month and a half to be exact) and I knew I hadn't been taking many photos (long working hours + lack of sunlight). Feeling overwhelemd, I went and checked my email (avoidance) and Ali Edward's latest newsletter was waiting for me. In which she was talking about how she had gotten behind with her newsletter. It was just what I needed to hear. I decided there was no point stressing out about how far I was behind and how I was going to get caught up. It was in the past and the present was waiting.

That six week period became one double page spread in my album.

I loved Ali's repeating journalling technique that she used in her newsletter and decided to use that too. I picked a couple that I really related to and added some of my own. I trimmed down a page proctor so it would hold 4 6x4 and added the text + some pictures of the report writing process (one of the reasons I had ended up so far behind)

One of the reasons I love this approach to memory keeping so much is that it is a reflection on my life right now. And a few weeks ago, that life was crazy busy. This project reflects that.

Are you a memory keeper? A collector of stuff?
What approach do you use to record those memories?
Do you use project life?

 

my creative space | split personality pillow

I made my first crocheted pillow!

I was cleaning up my wool basket and found a couple of circles in squares grannys I had made a couple of months ago, which were going to become a blanket. Turns out I never got around to that project. I decided to turn them into a pillow, for my friends birthday. It was Wednesday when I had this idea and her party was on Saturday. Nothing like a good challenge!

I used the join as you go method to join my granny squares. This meant they ended up with two rounds of cream yarn. As I had never made a pillow before, I didn't really know how to finish it. I spent some time on pinterst and google trying to find a tutorial with not much luck, so I decided to just wing it, and make a giant granny square for the back. This was going great, until about two thirds of the way in and I ran out of orange wool, it was late Thursday night and I didn't have time for a visit to the shops on Friday. I finished the square off with purple wool.


I continued crocheting the square until it was roughly the same size. All my searching before, had told me that the most popular way of joining the two squares together would be to use single crochet. Which I planned on doing, until I discovered they were slightly different sizes and didn't have the same amount of treble clusters.. there was no point stressing over it, so I single crocheted the two squares together with my own unique method!

I was really happy with how it turned out. I love that it has two distinct personalities, the calm look of the grannys on the front and the bright orange/purple square on the back, depending on your mood!

Do you crochet pillows?
How do you join the pieces together?
Do you use a pattern or prefer to make things up as you go alon?

I am still working away at this blanket too.
I needed a bit of a break from making the same thing over and over again.

Do you finish one project before you start the next?
Do you like to have a few different projects on the go at once?

Go here to see a variety of fab projects.