Journal Quilt Project - Week 7 (and other stuff)

Finished the applique leaf today for the group quilt with my swap group. Good thing the individual quilt (challenge theme: Forest) doesn't have to be finished until August or so (though I have an idea what I'd like to do, which is often one of the hardest parts). Here's a nice gingko leaf. I do love the shape of this leaf, and thought it wouldn't be too hard to machine applique as it doesn't have lots of points to it. And here it is with its fellows.



Then I did an outstanding (as in, it's past the deadline, not as in it's fantastic, lol) block for the birthday swap - this is Julie's December block. Her theme was "white christmas" - she asked for blue, white, silver snowflakes, etc. Not a problem for me, I have lots of that sort of stuff knocking about (though apparently, not as much white as I thought, as I nearly didn't have enough - must find some more WOW snowflake fabric, I guess).

And finally, I did my Journal Quilt for the week - here's what I wrote about it on the back:

• This has been an odd week –started with being up at my mother-in-law’s house, then back home but no school, then school. A bit all over the place. The little bit of work I’ve done this week has also been a bit patchy and all over the place, as I try to get all the bits finished for deadlines, etc. So I thought that for my Journal Quilt, I would show that patchy, all over the place kind of feeling. Starting with bits from the top of my scrap basket, I log-cabin pieced a kind of mock-crazy quilt square – all these fabrics are things I’ve used recently in blocks, projects, swaps, etc (including in two different bags, birthday swap blocks, the orange swap, a Christmas project, the Hever group quilt, and the little fabric boxes I’ve been making). I then added some embellishments – ribbons, etc and some of the heart brads I used on the Valentine’s ornaments I made this week. The paper on the back is what I used to back my 1960s postcards.

Just in case you are interested, here's how the fabrics were used, from the centre out:

1. art nouveau centre: bag lining & hearts & handles for February test bag
2. gold geometric print: supermarket shopper bag
3. green batik: leaves (see above)
4. orange trees: orange block swap
5. turquoise shibori: postcard background
6. pink floral: used then rejected (i.e. ripped out and replaced) for choc & pink bday block
7. pink & orange stars: orange block swap
8. brown circles: choc & pink block
9. muted sage green tonal: outside of Feb test bag
10. orange print: orange block swap
11. blue stars: snowflake quilt, various christmassy things
12. dark green batik: leaves (see above)
13. multi-coloured purple hand-dye: little boxes, insides mostly
14. also used the pink lace and brads on the Valentine's ornaments; the other laces, ribbons, etc are random