Lots of things

So, lots of stuff to show today - firstly, I worked on the August arch (just in the nick of time!) - went with a jellyfish theme as my partner said she liked oceans and fish and so forth - and also did myself a journal quilt with the same theme (the colour is a bit off on the journal quilt).


Also decided to do a make-up journal quilt for the week I missed out - what I did was simply print out a composite of photos from this summer onto fabric and quilt some words around the edges - Summer 2008, tennis, picnics, museums, days out, sleepovers, gardens, farms, friends, parties, bikes, cinemas, zoo, castles, shopping, fun. Makes me feel better to have that week covered, and although a lot of those events weren't from that actual week, it's representative of our summer!


And then I did a few ATCs - I knew that cutting up those bases and having them handy would be a good idea. I had about half an hour or so and so I just grabbed a few and added some embellishments.




And then, despite thinking I was finished doing stuff for today, I actually managed to get a bit more done, while supervising Alex's bath (i.e. keeping an ear on him to make sure he didn't a)drown or b)cause a bathroom tsunami) - I started quilting this wee quilt for the 2nd blogversary giveaway! Hoorah.

Stuff to show after all

Having said I had nothing to show, I realised that I could show the tree quilt again - this time with the binding done. and yes, I changed the silk tree to be a single colour and I'm much happier with it this way. So, off it goes to Hever quilt show - perhaps some of you will see it there!





And I can show this, too - some earrings which I bought from Julie's etsy shop - aren't they great? And a few charms as well, as long as I was ordering something...

End of summer goals

Nothing to show today, because yes, I once again worked on things you can't see yet. Sorry about that! And so much for the idea that I'd do the arch and journal quilt - the weather was so nice we had to go out this afternoon - I think it may have been our one day of summer today...

But I can share my goals for the next week - the last week of the summer holidays, and another busy one, so I probably won't set TOO many. First, a check on last week's goals:

• journal quilt for the week (deadline 30/8) - well, maybe tomorrw. I really want to get this one done, as I didn't do one last week (oops).
• bind Forest Challenge quilt and get it in the post - done - well, not in the post, but I just finished tacking down the hanging sleeve so it can go in the post on Monday
• set of Autumn themed postcards for dyehard (deadline 1/9) - done, posted
• finish testing October bag pattern - done. finally!

So, as next week is going to be fairly busy, I won't aim too high...

• journal quilt for the week (deadline 6/9)
• finish binding Hawaiian 3 quilt
• August arch (deadline 31/8 - I have already warned her I was going to be late!)

ATCs to trade

Here are 8 ATCs in varying shades and themes which I have up for trade. Please let me know if you are interested!

Little tease

Well, I did lots of stuff today, but can't really show any of it. I finished up the bag testing for the October bag, which I really like. I added a second round to the centre I received for the Spring Fling Round Robin - the photo above is a little tease of that. And I worked on the Twisted Mystery 4 quilt - which I also can't show. Tomorrow, I will have to do something I CAN show (actually, that shouldn't be a problem as I think I might try to do the August arch and a journal quilt). Anyway, to compensate, I'm going to show some ATCs I have available for trade. But I have to take some photos of them, so I'll put them in a separate post...

Booty!

Lookie what I got in the post today - woohoo! This is my quilt from the Miniature Booty II swap from Julie - some of you will I know recognise it from her blog... Anyway. It's great, isn't it? Julie says it's inspired by colours of Northern California in the summertime. Read more about it here...


I like it so much I had to hang it straight away - here it is in my living room (pardon the angle; it was taken through a doorway). I moved a photograph which was hanging in the same place - am waiting to see how long it will take DH to comment on it (or notice it!). Also got some lovely goodies - notepad, ladybird needlecase, little shaped erasers (which I foresee being taken straight away by small people) and a great cross-stitch pattern which I am itching to start but won't until I finish at least two of my already started projects.




I did do quite a bit of sewing related stuff today, as it happens, but I can't show any of it - there were some blocks for the September block lotto, which is still in the sneak peek stage and some further testing of the October bag pattern (nearly done!) and my quilt group came around and we did some work on our group quilt, which in theory I could show, but I forgot to take any photos. Who knows, maybe tomorrow...

Belated blogversary...

Well, I know I mentioned my 2 year blogversary was coming up and that there would be a giveaway, but with one thing and another (mostly with spending the entire day in question meeting up with Karol-Ann & co up town) I forgot! Yeah, I know - pathetic.




Anyway. This is what I'm going to give away in honour of two years of blogging (well, two years of quilt-related blogging. My family blog turned 6 in July, so it's the elder sibling by far...) As you can see - it's not quite finished yet. The central block is one I won in the block lotto on about.com a while back. I have added setting triangles to turn it on point and am going to quilt it, probably in a manner similar to the one I made as a replacement for the four seasons swap - if you don't remember that, or are new here, clicking on four seasons quilt in my tags list will bring up the relevant posts... I'd link, but there are 3 or 4 different ones that show quilting, etc.

Anyway. (I know, I use that word too much!) If you would like to have a chance to win this lovely (I hope) mini quilt - which will be about 20" square when finished, all you have to do is leave a comment on this post, telling me which one of the things I've worked on recently (or indeed, it doesn't have to be recently) is your favourite - and why if you like, but you don't have to. Or if you can't pick a favourite, just mention something I've done that you really like. (I'm assuming there will be something you really like, or you wouldn't be interested in winning a piece of my work in the first place!)

Don't worry, I'm not going to choose the winner on the basis of the comments or anything, I'm just interested and as this is a fairly substantial giveaway, I want you to work for it :)

However, as it's not even done yet, I'm going to give you a fair amount of time to enter the draw - not sure how long yet, but probably 3-4 weeks. Which is not to promise the piece will be done by the end of September, but I should think I'll have it finished no later than the end of October.

I was considering waiting until I hit another milestone (1000 posts), but as I'm only at just over 800 (if the word "only" can be used in this context) I figured that wouldn't happen for a while yet - probably January or February - so I should mark BOTH milestones...

Another busy day

Another day out - so no sewing. But I did get lots of lovely things in the post - from Cathi, who has been spending the summer in the Land of Quilting (Oregon), a Dear Jane block for our little swap, some buttons and three spools of YLI variegated. I really like variegated thread (you guys picked up on that already, right?). Thanks Cathi!

I also got some great postcards - this fabulous Vintage one ("V is for...") from Jovita, a "T is for Thistle" from Monica and one for the autumn swap from Wil. In all, a relatively quilty day despite the lack of quilting.

Busy day

Well, we went up to town today to the Natural History Museum to meet up with Karol-Ann and her family (DH, DS1 & 2) who were down in London for a weekend. It was a lovely day - the boys had a great time and both my girls enjoyed looking after Toby, who is just he right age to look after (not quite 2) for girls of nearly 9 & nearly 11. After perusing some dinosaurs and whales and other stuff like that we went up to the Princess Diana Memorial Playground in Kensington Gardens where there is a rather large sandpit and climbing-on pirate ship. We spent quite a while there - you'll be surprised to hear that, I'm sure, what with all those small boys in tow....

Anyway, gifts were exchanged, the frog doorstop being one which came my direction, along with a lovely keychain/dangle thingy which I didn't take a photo of, and some things for the kids - a dinosaur fabric tote bag for Alex and little zippy bags for each of the girls. In the other direction, a toy dinosaur and shark found new homes, and a tie-dye shirt I had in hand. And the other thing which I gave her was this:





a little African cat mini, which you may recognise from the tease I showed the other day.

While I was out, lots of lovely goodies came to my house in the post -





These two things came from Anna - on the left is an ATC which is the first back from the challenge I issued a little while ago and on the right is a special bonus postcard she also included.


And I also got two other postcards - one from Celia for the autumn-themed swap with my dyeing group and the other, "T is for Time" from Priscilla.

Autumnal

No, not the weather here (ok, it kind of is) but these postcards, which I made today (actually, I made 5 of them, but only photographed 4 as it works better). They are simply a leafy background with sheer fabric leaves (done with free motion quilting) with captured sequins inside. Yes, I was inspired by Denny's tornado postcard - which is good, as I was looking for an idea what to do for this swap, which is for my dyeing group (we branch out sometimes).

I also managed to put the binding on the Tree quilt - not handsew it down yet (well, not all the way), but at least it's attached so I can work on that this week in the evening - shouldn't take too long as it's only 42" square. The rest of my time today I mainly spent assembling a large model of the inside of a Tardis from a paper kit. Or rather, helping Olivia and Alex do it (which means doing most of it myself, as it was actually fairly tricky). Hey, that's what bank holidays are for, right?

Tornado

Here's a card I received yesterday - forgot to show it - but as there isn't anything else to show today it serves for today, as well. It's "T for Tornado" and is from Denny, the one guy in my swap group. It's a really clever construction, with sheer fabric forming the body of the cyclone with sequins and whatnot trapped inside. And that's it!

Goals

Well, I ended up not posting about my goals last week, but the observant among you will have noticed that I did update my sidebar.

So, here's what I set for myself as goals - most of them fairly urgent ones, deadline-wise:

• journal quilt for the week (deadline 23/8) - didn't get one done this week. Might try it tomorrow. Might combine it with next week's - I am not going to let this stress me - it was just one of those weeks.
• quilt Forest Challenge quilt (deadline 1/9) - My major accomplishment of the week - thank goodness that's done.
• little houses for row house swap - these are done and I just heard that they've been received by Lenna, so all's good there
• finish Miniature Booty 2 quilt - also completely done, and in the post. Will wait to hear if it's been received.

In all, a productive week and I'm very pleased - I got some other stuff done as well, so that's great. Next week we have a pretty busy week with one thing and another, so I won't aim too high, but here's what I want to get done:

• journal quilt for the week (deadline 30/8)
• bind Forest Challenge quilt and get it in the post
• set of Autumn themed postcards for dyehard (deadline 1/9)
• finish testing October bag pattern

I will have a couple of sewing days, so I should be able to manage that.

To show and not to show

...or vice versa. Here's a couple of things I can't show - a sneak peek of the October bag testing, and a sneak peek of something else which I worked on which I'm not going to tell you about until Tuesday (such a tease, I know!)



And here's something else I did - add setting triangles to a number of these basket blocks which I won from the block lotto on about.com quite a while back now. The one above is going to figure again on the blog in a few days time when I hit my 2 year blogversary.

The two below are for other purposes - the one on the left will be to keep, the one on the right will be a gift for a friend. I will probably make a few more - one for auction at the school's Christmas Fair, for instance - but fairly soon I think I will get tired of them and give a few of them away (without the setting triangles).



And finally, inspired by Angela, who is finishing all her mum's cross-stitch UFOs and Vicki, who is working on her daemon cross-stitch UFO, I decided to make a concerted effort to do some hand work (mostly cross-stitch, probably) in the evening instead of spending quite as much time on the laptop (when I used to have only a regular computer, I couldn't watch telly and read blogs at the same time - now that we also have a laptop, well...) Anyway, I shan't give it up entirely, but I am going to try not to get the laptop out before 10 - given how late I stay up, this should still give me plenty of blogging and email time...

So, here's my cross-stitch of the moment - this one hasn't been sitting around too long, but I do need to finish it off. I worked on it some tonight - filled in the middle section of the waterfall and started on the left-hand side. I am not going to show my progress daily, probably weekly or so. Assuming there is any progress!

Blue and brown on show

Recently I took part in a quiltie swap of blue and brown quilties (6x6") . I really liked the ones I got back of these, and inspired by the colour of the walls, I decided to hang them in the kitchen. That was a whiel ago. Even more recently, inspired by Indigo Blue, who has hung hers in a much more impressive and lovely way (by virtue of framing them) I decided to share them with you here. Ta da. So, there they are! Aren't they lovely? And I have my attention drawn to them all the time, as they hang (as you can see) right by the lightswitches.

And I got these in the post today - more lovely Japanese taupe style fabrics from my fabric club.

I did do some sewing today, but it was to test the October bag pattern, so I can't show it. And tomorrow, I intend to work more on that and more on something else which I can't show and am not even going to talk about. Maybe a little teaser photo can be shown...

A little contest for you

Well, if you are quick, you might just have time to enter Patty's 2nd blogversary contest over on Fibreholic (a new to me blog which I can see spending time at in future)... If you do enter (you have until midnight tonight - her time, not mine, which gives you a few hours!) be sure to mention I sent you (you'll see why). Just makes me want to get all knitty again. If only I were better at it!

Just as well I found this, as I have nothing else to share today - just one of those days here - grocery shopping, hanging with kids, general tidying - you know the drill.

Oh, and don't forget, my own 2nd blogversary is the 26th of August, and I'll be announcing a contest, but don't worry, you'll have lots of time to enter!

A few goodies

...in the post. Both unexpected - an ATC from Michelle, who I sent a little cheering up card to a while back and a postcard from Jo, using some of the scraps she won in one of my giveaways. Both of them were lovely surprises - thanks, ladies!

Can't see the forest for the trees

Well, it's done being quilted. Whew. Thank goodness I had an entire day today to work on it (girls at tennis camp; Alex did a "fun day" at the local rec centre) or who knows what might have happened. I'm not thrilled with the silk tree (on the blue square) - although it looks better in person than in the photo. I might mess with it a little if I have time - maybe add some fibres to the top to help integrate the gold and brown a little better. But on the whole, it works, more or less. I need to give it a bit of a press with a steam iron to block it in a couple of places (I knew that would happen as some parts are much more densely quilted than others) and of course it needs binding and a sleeve, but at least I don't feel quite so panicked. It will be done in time to hang at Hever. Whew.

Here are some closeups of the various tree panels...




The one on the left uses sheer ribbons to form a tree shape; the background fill is a sort of wave or swirl pattern. On the right, I've just used lots of leaves to fill this square and the rectangle of the same fabric. I like this fill a lot, but it's not quick.



Here, with the pine needles, I've just more or less copied the pattern in the fabric, only simplified a little. Same with the one on the right - I used the existing tree pattern and joined up the loose leaves to it (I really like this one).

And finally, one fairly free form tree which echoes the fabric, but not intensely. And on the right, I used free motion zigzagging to make these trees - again, the trees were on the fabric anyway, and I just went over them.



On the whole, I think the piece has come out well, though it doesn't really excite me the way that some pieces do. Still, it's what I wanted it to be, and I have eventual plans for it anyway...

Manhole, beads

Here's the manhole quilt finished and ready to post. I need to write a note to go with it, but otherwise, my Miniature Booty 2 quilt is done and nearly gone. I'll miss it, though!



And today I also acquired a few new beads - just a handful or so, but aren't they nice?