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I'm currently working on this project - making a nursery wall hanging based on an older challenge - Board Games - which you'll find listed below.

This is a project I set up in early 2011.

It's currently still ongoing seeing as I haven't got very far with my new bag!

Check out the lens to see my ideas and find links to plenty of bag making tutorials.

This week's challenge is all about maps - factual maps, fantasy maps, melted maps, paper maps, fabric scrap maps!

This week's challenge is a thinly veiled excuse for me to carry of with my Riders of Rohan project.

In this lens I discuss the different ways you can use fabric to make an artsy knitted wallhanging.

This week I'm continuing on with my Riders of Rohan project but those wanting a new challenge might like to look at the Autumnal inspiration in the lens below.

I haven't added a new challenge lens for a while because I got stuck on finishing that Summer quilt and caught up in holidays and my muse was totally dragging her heels on finishing old unfinished projects - I guess there was a reason why they were unfinished!

So I'm off to pastures new with this Lord of the Rings inspired project.

This one might be around for a few weeks.

I haven't got a lot done in these two weeks due to holidays and illness but I did get started on finishing the Summer Art Quilt.

Check out the lens below to see more about it.

This week I managed to finish the coiled vessel, the furoshiki cloth, a fabric envelope I made for the Extraordinary Correspondence challenge and a textiles piece I made for my friend's wedding - not bad going.

Most of those things only need a little work doing to them.

The coiled vessel just needed a bit of fabric sewn down at the end.

The Furoshiki cloth just needed a good iron and some fabric bound around the edge.

The textiles envelope needed stiffening. I did this by sewing fabric onto the back of it and then giving it a good iron.

You can see images of the updated projects on the lenses listed below.

This week I finished my engagement quilt - check it out in the lens below!

This was a project I started in 2006!

This week I finished a shabby-chic waistcoat that had been hanging around for over a year.

I wrote up my process so if you're looking for a new challenge have a go at recycling an old shirt into a funky new waistcoat!

This week's challenge was inspired by the sheer number of unfinished textiles projects that I have tucked away in different parts of my house.

I've showcased some of my unfinished projects in the lens below but I know there are a lot more still dotted around my home. Yikes!

I decided it was time to do something about them all and free up some room - afterall, it's easier to sell or give someone a handmade gift if you've actually finished a project!

This challenge was a follow-on from the previous week.

I decided to make a sculptural vessel out of fabric using the fabric coiling technique - however this takes absolutely ages and will probably take me more than 2 weeks to finish.

Fabric coiling is a technique where you cut your chosen fabric into strips and then twist it until it forms a hard cord - then you sew it into a coiling circle.

This challenge is all about creating sculptures solely or partially out of fabric.

The lens below includes different ideas for making them including knitting, coiling, stuffing etc.

Fabric yoyos are circular pieces of fabric which can be sewn and gathered in a certain way to produce a delightful motif to sew to textiles piece.

Find out more about yoyos below and have a look at some of the ways they can be used to decorate or create something fabulous!

Furoshiki are reusable cloths that are used for wrapping gifts.

What a great idea!

I love that you could create something that could be used again and again and passed on between so many people, instead of just throwing wrapping paper away after the first time it's been used.

In this lens I've collected together some ideas for making your own wrapping cloths.

Once it started to get warmer I decided I needed some new Summer clothes.

I have this desire to one day only own clothes that I've made myself, rather than mass-produced items that were made in a sweatshop.

This lens is full of ideas for summer clothes.

The following lenses are a collection of 10 weeks of instructions where I set the challenge to make a Mystery Textiles piece.

As these lenses are a set of consecutive instructions, rather than individual challenges, I've started with the oldest and first set of instructions first.

What is a mystery textiles piece?

It's an exciting challenge to make a textiles piece not knowing what it will look like by the end.

The challenge this week was to make beads out of fabric.

Beads can be expensive - so how awesome would it be to make your own beads out of surplus fabric you have left over from your textiles projects.

This lens includes ideas for making beads out of nothing but fabric, creating bead-effects on your textiles pieces with products like a glue gun, stuffing and wrapping.

This challenge is all about freeform madness.

Choose a bunch of techniques and ways to manipulate fabric and just throw them together in the same piece.

It doesn't have to be ordered - just go nuts!

This is one of my favourite challenge lenses (along with the fabric beads lens above) and is all about decorative patches on your textiles pieces.

In the lens below I discuss using scraps of textiles to make beautiful patches, hand sewing patches to your textiles work, Make do and Mend, patchy clothes, Boro, adding history and story etc.

This challenge was part of a set of three challenges about homes and houses. I wanted to experiment with creating challenges that lasted a month but were all under the same theme.

The "In the Walls" challenge is all about the textures - crumbling bricks, objects embedded into cob, layers and layers plastered on by new generations, wallpapers peeling off, hidden messages, lucky charms, witch bottles, hiding spaces and more texture.

Siberian wooden houses (project by vladstudio.com) by vladstudio
Shop the other artwork at zazzle.co.uk

This week we're looking at Houses and homes, be they little country cottages or big town houses, castles, caravans or even caves.

Think about what you want to make and then think about who would live in the house or home
you're working on - what are they like, how has their personality affected the house? What have they added to the house since it was built? What is the house made from?

How about looking at houses in fairy stories, or ghost stories?

"The Art of Correspondence?" I hear you say. "But that's just paper, isn't it?"

Well, maybe you didn't say that, we must all be familiar with fabric postcards by now, right?

How about fabric envelopes and letters?

After reading Griffin and Sabine again recently, I've really got the urge to make some of my own letters, except I want to use bits of fabric and old textiles.

In this lens you'll find ideas and inspiration for this challenge.

Chess by melteddoodles
View more Chess Mousepads

I've got this box full of old junk that I've been dying to recycle for years.

This week I pulled out a box full of old chess pieces and chequers.

I thought board games would be a great basis for this week's challenge.

I've come up with loads of different ideas for this project and found a variety of different images to inspire.

Check them all out on the challenge lens below.

Resolutions Poster by melteddoodles
Browse more Resolutions Posters

I love making Resolutions!

This week I'm going to be thinking about what I'm going to do for the rest of the year, what new directions I want to take in my craft life and what new techniques I'd like to try out.

What about you? What do you want to do in 2010?

Maybe you've got a few craft projects you want to finish off. Why not spend this week doing that and show us what you've done next Friday?

Maybe you just want to make a list of things you want to achieve this year? Then let's share them. If there's one thing I know then it's that you're much more likely to get something done if you tell a bunch of people that you're going to do it!

Your mission this week, should you choose to accept it, is to imagine what kind of museum collection you would have and make an object that belongs in that collection.

OK, so this is quite an "open" challenge. Technically you could make anything so it might be best to stick with something you've already worked on - perhaps a theme that you keep coming back to? Or perhaps there's something you've been dying to work on that would fit this challenge.

You could choose to make something that sums you up or you could completely invent an ancient culture and make an object from that culture.

Check out the lens below for more ideas.

November girl by melteddoodles
Postcards created online at zazzle.co.uk

This week I need to work on a project for a tutorial calendar I'm making and it just so happens that it's Thanksgiving time.

So I'm thinking end of Autumn, thanksgiving, harvest, pumpkins, the last of the crops, falling leaves, turkeys, cornucopias, pilgrims etc etc.

This week I'm making a keepsake bag to store tokens of all the things I'm thankful for.

A straightforward self-portrait is one moment in time - how you look and feel at one single point in your life. Its value is in what it says about you at that one moment in time.

The benefit of textiles and craft over art is that you have more scope for making something personal - with fabrics and other bits that you've collected over the years rather than just paints and a canvas you bought somewhere.

I'm interested in how we all grow and we're all constantly changing.

We make mistakes, we learn, we change. We pick up one new interest and drop another. We forget things, we experience something new. We get new scars, we have surgery. We cut and dye our hair, we paint our nails, we get tattoos.

We're constantly shedding dead cells, eating new foods, breathing in different dusts, becoming different creations.

How about making a self-portrait that is the portrait of what you are on the inside, what you are today and what you have been in the past?

Think about defining moments in your life and how those can be depicted in craftwork.

Find more ideas and inspiration in the lens below.

May Pole by melteddoodles
More Maypole Cards

This week's challenge is all about weaving and looms.

Do you need a loom for this project?

No not at all.

We here at the Melted Fabrics Cheapskate Institute don't believe in buying expensive gear to make our craft projects. I mean sure, go for it, if you want to but all you need for this project is a piece of cardboard, or, if you want to get really high tech, then a piece of wood with nails in it.

Maybe you don't need any sort of loom at all.

How about weaving into net? Hat net can be fairly wide or even garden net!

Check out the lens below for more ideas.

Rose Garden card 1 by haidabeaver
View more Celtic knotwork Cards

This week's challenge is to embroider a knot garden.

This doesn't have to be cheesy or naff. Think about the exciting and fresh way you could approach this idea.

How about making a mini version of your own garden?
What would your fantasy garden look like?
What sort of garden would you have in another dimension? Would it be covered in money trees and unicorn leaves?
What would Paradise look like?
How about inventing some plants?

Check out the lens below for more ideas.

This week I'm looking at Marie Antoinette - think big hair, big dresses, cake,
lace, frou frou, fondant fancies, little yappy dogs etc.

There's so much inspiration to be taken from this woman.

I used this challenge to make a textiles book about Marie Antoinette and Versailles - check it out in the lens below.

The Lion and the Lady by melteddoodles
Browse other Leo Stickers

This week's challenge was all about art dolls and horoscopes.

I used this challenge to make a Virgo and Leo art doll for the Melted Fabrics Tutorial Calendar.

You can find out more about my ideas, inspiration and final creation in the lens below.

Peacock Feather by melteddoodles
Create customized stickers at zazzle

This week I'm looking at peacock feathers.

I'm going to be making a shawl for a June-based project.

Feel free to join in and make your own Peacock project.

The lens below showcases my ideas, inspiration and the final piece I made for this challenge.

This week is all about Pumpkin patches, Halloween and witches hats.

Feel free to join along or to set your own projects for this week.

Check out the lens below for ideas and inspiration.

fireworks by omegarsbf2
Design mousepad online at zazzle.co.uk

This is my first ever challenge.

I needed to work on making a purse based on Fireworks and collected together all the info I needed in the lens below.

As you can see this project was to make something for the month of July and decided to use Fireworks for inspiration.

I didn't start this challenge with the intent to set it as a theme for everyone but I was really keen on the idea of using these challenges to set myself a deadline.

All my textiles books are available as printable digital downloads from Lulu.com.