Day 29 - Running Stitch Fill

Some more fill in work!

Day 28 - Stars

Simple star and French knots to fill in.

Day 27 - Necklace

My bag now has a necklace with a shell pendant!

Day 26 -Simple Star

Holiday and storms today! Star button.

Day 25 - Button Bird

Another quick and easy one today, now the holidays are over I have much less time. This is another prim design from Kindred Spirits' book Gatherings.

Day 24 - Button flowers

Real quick and dirty with this one.  3 blue buttons and some quick stems and voila, pretty flowers!

Day 23 - Handle

Ribbon now attached to handle one!

Day 22 - Seaweed for my fishes

Again I have used Doodle Stitching motifs for this.  Nice and quick and simple!

Day 21 - Tea Cup

I recently purchased a couple of books on eBay and they arrived today so I had to use one of them to source today's stitchery.

This little cup and saucer is from Handgifts by Kindred Spirits.  Its a bit wonky and charming I think.

Day 20 - Chinese Fan

Another Asian motif from Doodle Stitiching!

Day 19 - Little Fish

I had a scrap of lovely bright fishy fabric and chose a couple of fish to appliqué to the bag.  I used vliesofix to attach the fish and used a simple running stitch to reinforce it.  I also did some backstitch work around various elements and added some red french knots to the orange fish to highlight some of the spots.  Tomorrow I might add some seaweed, not sure yet.

Day 18 - Chinese Umbrella

I chose another motif from Doodle Stitching again today, they are so pretty.

Simple, two colours and I made a slight change to the squiggly pattern on the umbrella.

Day 17 - Cute Cat

Here's another motif from Doodle Stitching, a nice quick and simple design stitched in black.

Day 16 - Grannie Square

I recently purchased some lengths of Baker's Twine and used 2 of the colours to crochet a baby Grannie Square to add some more texture to the bag.  I then attached it to the bag using my sewing machine.

Day 15 - Teddy Bear

Had another busy day out and about today, so needed something quick and easy.  I found a package of Aunt Martha"s Hot Iron Transfers in my craft cupboard and used the test transfer from the sheet.

Day 14 - linen button

Today I made a button from a Mollie Makes kit.  I used a motif from another MM magazine, its a little perfume atomiser.  I have enough parts to make 2 more buttons at some time in the future.  It was pretty easy to do.

Day 13 - Fabric scrap crazy heart

Quick and dirty little number today.  I covered the feed-dogs and put some fabric scraps together with free machine stitching, cut a rough heart out of the resulting new fabric and went to town with the free machine stitching to apply it.  This is not something I have done before!  It's not brilliant, but I am pleased with the effect and that's what matters most.

Day 12 - Rosettes

To add a bit of dimension to the work I've added some little rosettes just for fun.
Here's a pic of the bag so far:

Day 11 - Lady

Quite a few years ago I was very keen on Wendy Brigg's stitichery designs and sewing patterns.  I got this design from one of her Country Friends newsletters, June 2000.  It's a small part of a much bigger stitchery designs called Garden Sampler.

I chose very pale colours for this for the most part, it makes it rather Shabby Chic!

Day 10 - Part 2 of the Hearts and Crosses : the text

Decided I better do the second part of the pattern section - I done my best! Not good grammar for an English teacher!

Day Nine - Flowers

I decided to add some more fabric to the mix and appliqué some flowers.  Was busy today, I made bedside pockets for our bed and a coffee sack cushion.  In a bit of a sewing mood at the moment.  Too hot for knitting that's for sure.

Day 8 - Hearts & Crosses

Today I have done something quick and simple from Saundra White's - Hand-Stitche Samplers from I Done My Best.  It's a small section from one of her sampler designs.  Tomorrow I will stitch the words that go with it from the design.

Day 7 - Leaves of green

I was pretty busy today so didn't get around to doing this till after dinner. These little leaves were in the latest edition of Mollie Makes, one of my favourite magazines.  There are often cute little embroidery motifs in this great crafters mag!  So I will be using them often.

Day 6 - Red & Black Hearts

I thought I would add some fabric to the mix today and appliqué something.

Hearts are always nice on any project!  Not my best work I guess but it is ok.

Day 5 - Flowers

I needed to do something simple today!  I woke up with a migraine this morning and needed to spend the day in low light conditions until it went away.  I was able to sleep on and off which helped.  I haven't had a migraine for many years so it was a bit of  surprise.

Anyway I'm feeling ok now so I have just completed these simple flowers, they make great fill ins!

Day 4 - Chinese Lantern

Today I did a centrepiece for the first side of the bag.  I got this little motif from the book Doodle Stitching - the Motif Collection by Aimee Ray.  I think it is a pretty pattern.

This a great book that has loads of great patterns for all sorts of occasions.

Here's a pic of the bag so far:

Day 3 - Little Bird

I wanted to do something quick today.

I found this bird in Diane Arthur's Folk Art Garden.  I love this little book!  I will be doing a number of the designs from it for this project.  While I stitched I listened to  the I Love Green Guide podcast. This is an hilarious show that has fun with the letters people write to the Melbourne TV Guide -  the Green Guide.  The guests were Lawrence Mooney and Greg Fleet, two of my favourite comedians.  From this I learned about another new comedy podcast with Greg Fleet - Rusty Fragment's Podcast.

Day 2 - Kitty Kats

Ok, its day two and the suggestion in the book is related to animals.  I decided to embroider something to do with cats.  I found a cute little pattern in one of the Woodcutter's Daughter books in my craft library.

I chose to put it in a bottom corner of the bag.  I intend to work quite randomly around the bag, there is no overall design plan.  Because it is holiday time I have a bit of time up my sleeve to do slightly larger designs.  I imagine when I go back to work most daily work will be small and simple.

The start

Last year I came across a journal in an online bookstore called A daily creativity journal -365-Make something everyday and change your life / by Noah Scalin.  I was intrigued so purchased it.  After reading through it I put it away for the rest of the year while I decided what I would do.  I wanted to begin in the new year, so here I am.

This year is going to be a big one as we are planning an overseas adventure.  Therefore, whatever I chose, it had to be portable and not take up a lot of space.  My project is to embellish a simple calico tote bag I got some time ago with a Cath Kidston craft book.  It has been hanging in our understairs cupboard for a very long time now waiting for me to decorate it.

My plan is to embellish the bag using thread, fabric, ribbon, buttons or charms etc. and to finish it off with a lining.  I want to make it into something unique and special.  I begin today with a quick stitchery using the following DMC threads: 800, 803 & 809.  It's not a huge bag and many of the daily pieces I will be doing may be quite small.  I want to fill as much of the blank space as I can and make it as pretty as possible.