My Holiday House

I have been struggling with my blog and blogging for a while now. Working out how it fits in with all the things I want to do and want to be is challenging. But rather than stop blogging, I have decided that My Black Cardigan is going to be my holiday house..... a place I love to visit, where I get to catch up and visit friends, and where I can leave the day to day life behind.

But even though holidays are wonderful, there is no place like home. Home is where the heart is, where my heart is. Home is where I am needed more at the moment and it is where I want to be.


But I am going to leave my suitcase packed so that whenever I have some time, I can grab my bag and head on down to my holiday house. See you then xxx

My Creative Space - Redwork Quilt Square

It was with a mix of relief, satisfaction and sadness that I finished and posted my contribution to Kirsty's Quilt Project this week. After too much stressing, I was reminded that this project was about being part of something. So I stopped worrying and got started. As this square is part of a community quilt, it got me thinking about being part of the blogging community. I have found so much inspiration, support and friendship since blogging, an unexpected benefit of being a mum. Not that you have to be a mother to blog.... but for me, it was being at home with the kids and rediscovering the creative me that lead me to blogging.

So I decided to stitch my family on my quilt square, to represent the best things in my life and to acknowledge them as the reason I am part of this project.

The idea came from a photo our friend Jamie took. This verison has been blurred to protect the innocent... and not so! The original is beautiful and amazing thanks to the incredible talents of Jamie. You can check out his work here.

I traced around the outline of each of us to get the design for the quilt square.

Because it was such a simple design, I practised a few fancy stitches thinking that I needed to "tart" it up a bit but realised that the simplicity was what I loved. After all, I am but a simple girl! So there is a tiny bit of satin stitch but otherwise it is just stem stitch.

I loved being part of this project and am so thankful to Kirsty for making this project happen.

I suspect there will be a common theme of red in many creative spaces this week.

My Creative Space - The Big Picture

So this is my first 'Creative Space'. I thought it was about time I joined in after quietly peeking through your blog windows into your creative spaces for so long. So given that this is your first official glimpse into what is called my creative space, I thought I would give you the "big picture".

This..... is my creative space....

....no, not the verandah (although it is used to handsew while watching children play).... my creative space is my house!

We have a great little house at the top of a too big hill... but.... it is a little house. It was bought when "we" were 2 but now we are 4 which means we have double the stuff we used to have. So my creative space is spread across the house.

Most of the actual creating takes place on the dining room table...

... where it is delicately shoved to one end at dinner time.

Supplies are kept mostly neatly on a shelf in the corner of our bedroom....

... with some fabrics of the everygrowing stash finding their home in the bottom of the wardrobe.

So that's it. A little peek into my house, my life and my creative space! Head over to visit Kirsty at Kootoyoo to be inspired by lots of Creative Spaces.