Journal Quilt Project - Week 19

I decided to work on my journal quilt for the week today, and pin together the next Hawaiian shirt quilt - I can only do a little bit of that at a time or the safety pins start to hurt my fingers, so it's useful to have something else to do as well. Given how lovely a week I've had with receiving things in the post, I decided it would be fun to do a quilt using only items I had received from other people - not counting things I've bought, though allowing things I have swapped for. And so, this JQ is made up entirely of things from others, except for the vilene (stabiliser inside), the thread I used and the paper on the back. I know where some of these items came from, but some I can't remember for certain - and it's certainly the case that far more people have sent me things than are represented here - I have had things because of swaps, as birthday presents, things I won in giveaways, things sent as thank you's for things I've sent (which I wasn't asking for anything in return for - hence, not a swap), as extras with a purchase from a seller on eBay or etsy, as consolation squishies when my dad died, and sometimes, just as RAKs (random acts of kindness) - that is, for no reason at all, other than the fact that people are nice. I wanted to celebrate that with this quilt - what better way than to use some of the things!


Here are some of what they are - the background is a piece of shibori, made by Ann H, which recently arrived with the shibori swap from my dyeing group. The three square pieces of fabric and the metallic button are from the scavenger hunt swap I did with Angela on Arts in the Mail - oh and the butterfly is cut from a square of fabric from that swap. The green silk strip, piece of marbled fabric and the fleur-de-lis stencil paper are from the grab-bag I won on Susan's blog. The red snowflake stamped in Angelina was made by chaos for an angelina technique swap in my surface embellishment group. The narrow strip of pale blue felt was one of the things I received (in bigger pieces) with my Valentine's Swap from Amy. The feather was in a recent goodie bag from Karol-Ann, sent from South Africa and was hand-collected by her lovely self. The "PEACE" letter beads are from Cathi, who sent them because she thought I'd use them more than she would. (I wanted to put LOVE to go with the heart, but there was no L - oh well!) The white lace flower was in a recent surprise RAK package from Penny. The bit of interesting thread/ribbon across the top of the piece was a free bobbin which came with an order of ephemera and bits from The Fruit Pixie. The eyelash yarn around the edge came from the stash of Annie, who sympathised with my moanings about the cost of eyelash yarn over here, when one only used it for trim rather than a whole scarf and sent me dozens of colours (ok, maybe a dozen - but it was a lot!). The piece of silk mesh (behind the felt and rhinestone flower) came in a wee package of silk scraps with a Christmas Card from Annica. The peach flower button is from Julie. The shamrock charm and the rhinestone flower came from someone(s) but I can't remember who. It's possible they might have come from Anne or Jane, who sent me bits back when my dad died. (If either of you ladies recognises one of those as being from you, leave a comment and I'll edit my post to say!) And if I got any of them wrong, please correct me - mostly I was doing it from memory, and we know what that's like...

As you can see, a great collection of stuff - and there many more things I have been sent on various occasions, which haven't made it into this little 8x8 journal quilt.




The other thing I did, in addition to pinning the other Hawaiian Quilt (which took ages - I had to finish after the kids got home from school, which means my littlest helper helped lay out the pins ready for pinning...) was to cut some pieces for a mystery quilt I am going to do over here on nancyrose's blog. Believe it or not, I have never done a mystery quilt before (being one of those control freak people who like to see where things are going before they start) - but I have a rather large selection of 5" squares (nickels) and so was tempted to try this, which uses 71 of them for a small quilt - along with some other fabric, of course. And because the instructions are posted every two weeks, I figured I'd have time to keep up. I plan to put it aside as a baby quilt, or, if I don't like it enough, give it to Project Linus. I have pulled out nickel charms in mostly pinks, greens & purples to try to keep it under control a little - needless to say, I haven't made a dent at all in my stacks of nickels. Oh well. Thanks to Helen, who tipped me off to this mystery by mentioning it on her blog...

And finally, not quite so interesting as yesterday's post, but still nice - I received, from Freida, two more blocks for my pineapple quilt, and a nice selection of extra fabrics as I may need/want to make up some more blocks for myself to complete the quilt or make it the size or layout which works best...