Patchwork class, of sorts

When my mother arrived for this latest visit, you may recall she brought me lots of fabric - this is a good thing, of course. One caveat of this gift was that I help her or show her how to make a basic patchwork cushion cover from one of the fabrics she brought (she'd made a number of plain covers from some of them, but wanted some inspiration and guidance for doing something pieced). We played with some basic patterns, and ended up liking two things best - a rail fence and a log cabin block (we didn't move beyond squares and rectangles in this instance).

The log cabin block was made almost entirely by my mum - I did a little bit here and there but on the whole, it's her work. The rail fence, she asked me to go ahead and do myself as we were getting tired and we knew I could put it together much faster than she could. Which isn't to say I didn't first sew the strips together in the wrong order and then secondly go to cut them into blocks and realise I'd cut the strips too wide. (2.5" instead of 2" - the log cabin strips were 2.5" so I just cut the others the same - d'oh) However, I probably still got the cover together faster than she could have done, so it still made sense for me to do it...

I think they look very nice and will look even better with some pillows inside, but obviously she won't do that part until she gets home. I'm sure she'll have something to say about the whole experience over on her own blog, but I got to the computer first, so I jumped the blogging process, so to speak. It was a fun day of sewing, though I do tend to make fewer mistakes when I'm not trying to piece a block, have a conversation, do a jigsaw puzzle (with Alex) and teach patchwork all at the same time. Which is perhaps not very surprising!

Blogging buddies meet up...

So, I'll start with the end of my day, and work backwards. This evening was the much remarked meeting for dinner of Helen (left), Julie and me - and my mother, who managed to avoid being photographed by taking the photo. Digital cameras with an LCD screen are a real boon for my mother, who used to be well known in the family for her ability to chop off the top of people's heads... Anyway, we met up, we ate, we talked - and not entirely about quilting and swapping - it was fun. I've met Helen before, as she lives a little closer than Julie does, but it was great to see her again and to meet Julie for the first (but hopefully not the last) time. I only wish I'd had the whole day free to spend doing not-very-much with them.

Julie brought me the issue of Mark Lipinski's Quilter's Home Magazine with the article about controversial quilts in it - I can see from a quick browse on the train that while this magazine is a fun and sometimes irreverant take on quilting and related issues that it might get kind of samey after a while - there's only so many times you can be addressed as "poodle" and similar before you get a little weary. The article on controversial quilts was interesting, though, but I suppose it's somewhat telling that I didn't find any of the quilts pictured to be particularly offensive - and some of them not even what I'd call controversial!

The two postcards are from Rita (Valentine's Shaker) and Wanda (Z for Zoo).



And yes, some work was done this morning, before I had to go in to do my actual (i.e. paid) work. First off, I took the opportunity of not having the kids in the house to add the black strips to the side of the Scottie Dog quilt. This is a small task which shouldn't have taken so long to get to in February, but between the snow days and half term, a lot of my sewing days in February were while the kids were around, and Sarah doesn't know about this quilt, so I didn't want to work on it while she was actually there. Anyway, the black strips are now on, and so the quilt is ready to be quilted. It may not happen any time very soon, but at least it's ready! Pardon the sideways photo, but it looks even odder turned around to face the right way...

I didn't have a huge amount of time though, so after I put on the black strips, I just grabbed some blocks that were waiting to be put together - the little retro bento boxes from the other day and some brown and cream batik batik blocks from a swap a few years back. Not sure what will happen with the bento boxes - it's too big for a mini wall hanging and too small for a baby quilt- I think it needs a border of some sort, but I will have to find the right fabric. Time for it to sit in a pile and wait! The batik top will become a baby quilt - there are papers on some of the blocks which have to be removed, and actually, the tension went out on my machine somewhere during the last few rows I was sewing together, so I'll have to take them out and do it again - but essentially it's done. My two friends who are having babies in June are both having boys, so one of them will get this one. ..

Unfortunately

Ok, I don't always play along with games, memes and tags, but I saw this on Jane's blog and just couldn't resist. It's a google game where you search "Unfortunately, your name" (including the quotes) and see what comes up. Here are some of my favourites:

Unfortunately Kate's globe trotting is restricted because she starves when abroad

Unfortunately Kate carries ALL OF HER WEIGHT in her ass

Unfortunately, Kate herself is not possessed of a remote control that will rewind time

Unfortunately, Kate’s not so dead husband resurfaced into town and blackmailed Kate

Unfortunately, Kate just doesn't exude any special qualities

Unfortunately Kate doesn't own her castle yet, but she holds out hope that one day soon she can pull her berets out of storage

Unfortunately Kate is dating a rock star

Unfortunately, Kate's innate tendencies had a larcenous bent despite her parents constantly extolling the virtues of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Many of these are less amusing when you know they are talking about Kate Winslet, Kate Hudson (the ass comment), Kate Middleton (the special qualities) and so on, but it was a fun 5 minutes!

Amy's Circles

Here's my contribution to the birthday block swap for this month - a block for Amy, whose theme was circles. The block could be any size, and the colours were limited to blue, purple, green, black and white. Although I knew I wanted to start with a large white circle on a coloured background with a wave of another colour through it, I wasn't sure at all where I'd go from there - I made it up as I went along. I had intend to photograph every step, but of course forgot to photograph some of them; still, here's a bit of a view as it builds up...



I started (no photo) with a large white circle, which I machine appliqued (satin stitch) to the blue background. I then took the purple fabric and laid it across the white circle and cut a gentle curve with my rotary cutter. I stitched them together, then made another cut and stitched the pieces together again.



I then trimmed the block to 16" square and added a green circle. The next step was to add a slightly smaller light blue striped circle. Another striped circle followed, this one above the purple wave.




Then, the somewhat scary part - and again, I forgot to take a photo - I cut the block apart again to add the black wave - I made the first cut with the rotary cutter (through the black fabric as well) but because I knew I wanted this one parallel and very narrow, I cut the second cut with scissors using the existing black line as a guide. I then added the small blue stripey circle, followed finally by the small black circle. The black fabric actually has small black circles on it as well, adding to the circle theme.

I had originally considered doing something with lots of embellishments on this block, but I couldn't really find anything that spoke to me. Then I saw on someone's blog (can't work out whose now, though the funny thing is, despite the person not being in the swap, the colours were just right!) a block with circles and a wave running through and thought aha! and went off in that direction. If it was you who showed a block in these colours with circles in the last few weeks, do let me know so I can put them link in, LOL.

Woohoo - edited to say, it was Doreen K on whose blog I saw the inspiration - thanks for commenting Doreen - I knew I'd seen one somewhere.

Finished quilting

I had some time this morning to work, so I decided I'd finish up the brown pineapple quilt - hoorah. So here it is, in all its glory. As the blocks for this quilt were made by a wide variety of people on different machines and around the world, they are not all precisely the same sizes or colours, but on the whole, it went together fairly well. The squares in where the blocks meet do have the odd corner a little off, but in general I do like the effect. Not sure what colour I will bind it with yet - I'd love to use the red, but I don't think I have enough, so perhaps a dark brown. But I'm not going to do that for a few weeks, probably, as there are some other things I really need to work on in February and early March.

Schoolhouse sampler

A wee cross-stitch update today - the little schoolhouse sampler for Cathi, which I finished entirely within this week (it's only small) and my bird from last week - he was nearly done, but I've now labelled him and put his state up, so we all know what he is. Next on the list, another bird, then I think a little topiary tree which Julie sent me the pattern for. Probably won't get a lot done this week, though, as I have 3 evenings out - tomorrow, a Pampered Chef party at a friend's house, Thursday night a meeting with the aforementioned Julie and Helen for dinner in London, and Friday will be a family dinner out as it's my anniversary (16 years) - my mother, who is visiting at the moment, did offer to babysit so Geoff and I could go out alone, but we decided we'd just all go instead... Three nights out will certainly be fun, but not so good for the cross-stitching!

Blue Winter Hillside

Well, I didn't really work on this piece today, other than to attach a label, but as it's going in the post tomorrow or Tuesday (to someone in another country - which I don't think gives much away as there are only two or three of us in the UK playing along this time!) I thought I'd show it again with the beading done and the binding sewn down. You probably can't see that in addition to lots of blue beads in the trees, there are also a number of clear beads sewn into the sky - terribly hard to photograph, but in person, it does add sparkle. Anyway, I'm hoping its new owner will be pleased with it - I was very happy with how it came out.

I did actually do some work today, but it was yet more pineapple quilting - nearly done now - there is only about an 18" strip left to do, so probably one more good session will finish the quilting. Hoorah! And now that I've finished with the very centre of the piece, it will be much easier for my poor little machine to cope with. Actually, the machine copes very well, despite having only a normal sized throat - it's my shoulders and arms which suffer, with trying to manouevre all that fabric around under a little DSM.

Day out, with textiles

No sewing was done today, as we spent the day at Portobello Market - I didn't buy much, though this little tin and some vintage buttons came home with me (I was very tempted by a number of cards of gorgeous Victorian buttons, but I just couldn't justify buying them all, so I went for these nice work buttons instead). I did NOT purchase some vintage lace (at £6 or more per metre) or any number of beautiful antique and/or imported textiles from around the world, including this shibori cloth. There was an even lovelier shibori piece which I also didn't buy as again, I couldn't really justify the £150 for it. (It was quite big.) I also didn't buy the lovely tie-dyed babygear above, though I did enjoy looking at it.

Amazingly enough, I went into a bead shop without buying anything - I didn't think it had much more impressive of a selection than my local one, and it was more expensive. So there you go. There is one thing I wish I'd bought, though - I was looking at some little tin soldiers from a stall that was closing down - these were flat ones, about 50p each. I reckon with the bottoms (stands) taken off, they would have been great fun for mixed media. Oh well, can't have everything!

I blogged a few more photos (not so textile related) over on my family blog, if you are interested - it's a fun place to visit, though in many ways, I prefer Camden Market, as it's not nearly so crammed with people (or maybe it is on a Saturday - I usually go during the week...)

Yesterday, I did actually work some more on quilting the brown & pink pineapple, but there's not really anything to show, as I showed it before. Tomorrow I may do some more on that - I will show another photo when it's finished, but interim photos don't really look any different, so there's no point.

Brown Pineapple

...not something which would normally sound appealing, perhaps, but in this instance, I might make an exception. I had a few hours this afternoon where the kids just wanted to play the new DS game and watch a DVD, so after having a look at my list of February projects and goals I decided I'd tackle some quilting on the pineapple quilt. This is not a project I can do when I only have a short amount of time, because it requires me to move my sewing machine to the dining room table (I can do small quilts upstairs at my machine, but nothing bigger than a baby quilt - just not enough room on the table). Likewise, it's not something I can do when the dining room table is being used for crafts or homework or eating...

Anyway, without spending too much time thinking about how to quilt it, I started in - went with a meander with spirals and suns, in brown thread. I did consider pink, but decided it was too in-your-face. Debated a darkish red, but in the end, though the brown was really what I wanted as the pattern of the pineapple is striking enough that I don't need to add really showy quilting to it. I finished about half of it, maybe a little less, which is a really good start on it. We are around tomorrow for at least the morning, so I might give it another crack and see how far I get.

I don't really want to quilt up all my larger tops on the DSM, but there are a few which it would be nice to get done, including this one.

Lots of post

I received lots of lovely post today, which was a very welcome sight after a day spent in our local market town helping the kids spend their Christmas and birthday money (well, only Alex had birthday money, as the girls' birthdays are in Sept/Oct). It was a nice day, though rather tiring, and I didn't even manage a visit to my lovely local bead shop to compensate - decided it was a bit much with three kids in tow, even with my mother along for the ride.


Anyway, one of the items I received was this, which is Emmy's Exquisite Corpse piece. Obviously, you can't see any of it, as that's the point - there is actually a half inch showing, so that I can try to integrate my work with hers, but I have covered it for the sake of this photo. Emmy has also included an ATC for my collection and a notebook for those of us who are working on the piece to make any notes we wish to. I don't know what I'll do with this piece yet - and of course I won't be able to show you when I do work on it, but there you go...

Anyway, I got some other post as well, which I CAN show - two postcards for the Valentine Shaker swap, which have arrived just in time to be displayed with the rest of the Valentine's cards, before I change the postcard display to something a bit more spring-like - flowers, I think. These two cards are from Liz and Dawn.



And also, I received these items: on the left, a heart-themed tin from Flischa from the FAT trade; on the right, two ATCs from another trade on FAT - the For the Birds ATC swap. These two are from Suzanne and Michelle.

Tomorrow will be another no-sew day - we are going up to town with some friends for a half-term day outing. But on Thursday I have hopes of some sewing time before the promised swimming trip - not sure which part of my life is busier - the normal day to day busy-ness or the half-term "holiday".

Oh, and here's another fun thing - a while back, I sent a bunch of my small scraps to Betty, who was working on a project using 1" squares (unfinished) - well, she's now finished this quilt top, and it's truly remarkable - personally, I can't imagine having the patience for it, but it's definitely impressive -have a look.

Alice, birds, round robin

Here are some lovelies I got in the post today - on the left, the ATCs I received from the Alice in Wonderland trade on Creative Swaps. The cards are from (top row) my own, Frieda Oxenham, Linda Garcia; (middle) Sharon Walworth, Betty Cassidy, Darlene Kihne; (bottom) Jan Williams, Lynda Roddy, Shannon Lane Sawyer. They are all wonderful, as are the other cards I saw on the swap blog. I'm very pleased I participated in this swap, which I almost didn't sign up to because of the requirement of using images from Alpha Stamps' Alice collections. (Nothing against Alpha Stamps - indeed, the opposite - but I am trying to moderate somewhat the amount of stuff I order, so am limiting the number of swaps which require specific image sets.) But actually, it was well worth it, as look at the extra goodies I got returned with my swap - I got three image sheets on paper and a fabric transfer sheet AND I got a package of fabrics. All the swap participants got one or more image sheets from Alpha Stamps; the rest of the loot is from Lenna (the hostess), as a prize for her choosing my set of ATCs as a special honourable mention in the "most creative" contest. How cool is that?

If you are thinking of dipping your toes into the swap world and aren't quite sure where to start, you could do a lot worse than sign up to one of Lenna's swaps - not only are they incredibly well-organised and very prompt in their turn-around, but she puts a lot of work into thinking of interesting themes and ideas and always seems to include some sort of extra goodies in with the swapped items. Plus, she's really nice!

I did do some work this morning while the girls slept in a bit (having stayed up quite late with a friend sleeping over - it's the half-term holiday here, so no school this week - they were pretty quiet, so I didn't mind the staying up late so much!), but unfortunately, I can't show it to you, as it's the centre for my Spring Fling Round Robin 3 - we are making our own centres for this round, so in order to keep them secret from the next maker, we are not allowed to show them at all, not even a peek. When Margaret (the hostess) receives them, she will post them to the swap blog so we can all see them, without knowing whose is whose.

I can, however, show a little progress on my cross-stitch. Not a lot of progress, as I didn't work on it much this week - this is not simply because it's been boring me a little, but because I have done some beading on my 4SQS5 (blue winter) mini and done bindings on a couple of small pieces, so haven't had so much time for cross-stitching. Still, I managed to finish off Nebraska (Western Meadowlark) and do most of Nevada (Mountain Bluebird). Once I get him finished, I am going to start on the little house sampler for Cathi. Which I will enjoy much more, I'm sure.

Finished littles

Finally got the binding on these and sewn down tonight, so I can tick them off the list of projects. The one on the right (which I think of as "the red one" because it has a lot more red in it) will go home with my mother to live, as a birthday present (her birthday is early March). The other will stay here to live. These are 12" square, so even with my restrictions on wall-space I should be able to find a little place for it!

ATC Day

Today I made a load of ATCs - several of them to catch up with challenges on Textile Challenges, and others just for fun. The first one (above left) was for week 2 of our February challenge on Textile Challenges - we were to go to a room we don't normally work in, grab an object to use, then find 4 more items to use on the card, and make the card, with a 15 minute time limit. From my bedroom, I grabbed a small (defunct) coin from a box DH keeps in his dresser drawer, then grabbed a piece of background fabric, a ribbon and a buckle from my sewing table and assembled them. When I finished, I realised that I can't count, and grabbed the packet of "jewels" which form the line across the top. It took me 17 minutes, including a brief phone call and a short interruption to find all the newly washed fabric for my mother to iron (she offered). It's not my favourite of all the ATCs I've ever made, but it's ok, and again, an excellent exercise in not overthinking things.


Then I tackled week 3 of the challenge, which had no restrictions on it other than to keep an eye on how much time it took you. I decided to combine this with the colour combination lottery, in which my assigned colours were burnt umber and teal, so made two cards with that colour theme. I started with the background fabric which is a slightly reddish brown, and added teal and reddish brown wool fibres -I was originally intended to hand needle-felt them, but couldn't lay my hands on the needle bit of the needle-felter, so just decided not to waste any more time on that and stitched them down using some invisible thread. I then added some copper foil, which I'd punched with my new big punches (on half price sale, though still a little dear, so I intend to use them a LOT to get my money's worth!). Then I added some stitching in teal coloured rayon thread (nice and shiny) and some faces in teal polymer clay. These two ATCs took me about half an hour, including at least 4 minutes wasted on a background which really didn't work and has been stuck into the "do something else with later" basket. I really like these, and if I'd had more copper foil to hand I'd have made at least 2 or 3 more.





After I'd discharged those obligations, my mother and I decided to have a play - she had asked if she could watch me make some ATCs (which she certainly is welcome to do) but I suggested instead that we simply make some in parallel. However, as she's not really into sewing, we used mostly paper and glue with a bit of stitching thrown in. These (mine left, hers right) are done on a rusted paper background, with ribbons, paper, punched paper, polymer clay, beads, brads, buttons, bows, jewels and so on. We had good fun with them and now she has her first set of ATCs. I always find it interesting to see what happens when two people use the same set of ingredients - whether their end results are similar or (more usually) quite different.

Bits and bentos

I did do some more work today - finished the rest of the bento boxes - 12 more, in a bit more girly colours - but I haven't photographed them - and am too lazy to do it now. Maybe later! But I have two nice things I got in the post, which I can show - on the left is my first ATC from the For the Birds swap on FAT (Fibre Art Traders) - mine went in the post this morning, so they hopefully won't be too long on their way to their new homes. This birdie is from Liz in Maryland - isn't he cute? The postcard is from Sharon for the swap called Angelina Fibres - it's late, but that's ok - it's a great card - of course it doesn't photograph well at all, as these shiny postcards with lots of funky fibres often don't.





I also put some binding on the two Japanese Taupe string mini quilts for the February BQL Challenge - tonight I will sew the binding down and then show it tomorrow.






Finally, these postcards aren't new - they are four spare ones I had knocking around which I have donated to Trashalou, for her raffle in aid of victims of the Australian Bush Fires. There are TONS of great prizes you can win - the way it works is, you make a donation to the Australian Red Cross via their website, then let Trash know how much you have donated and for every Australian dollar you donate, you get one chance in the raffle. Check out her blog for more info. I don't think my cards have been added to her list yet, but I'm sure they will be soon - and there are loads of other wonderful things that people have donated. So if you want to do something to help out in this terrible time, but don't really fancy making quilt blocks, or toys, or don't have time, here's another chance to help out.

Goodies

Didn't do any work today as it's Friday (I usually spend the whole day at school) but I did receive several nice things in the post - the ATC on the left came from Heather, who is doing a talk about ATCs and needed some more examples beyond her own to share with her group - she asked on one of my groups if anyone was willing to swap, so I was happy to send her one of my spares.

On the right, is a selection of goodies from Sara in Kuwait, who received some of my abandoned blocks a little while back - these are great goodies - some fabric, some bits and pieces from the souk (my favourite), an ATC, and a lovely little notepad case (with a slip in notepad, so it will be reusable. I had to hide that away from both of my girls quite quickly...

Tomorrow, there may be actual work to show - woohoo.

A new round robin

I'm very lucky in that I have been able to join in a new round robin, mostly composed of people in the US - this is a project organised by Sharon, and it's for a small quilt - finished size somewhere around 13x18" - where each person adds a piece of a particular size & shape or to some other instruction. But as it's a very small project, the amount of work you do each month, even if your addition is quite complex, which it often may not be, is minimal. Here are the quilts from the previous round - aren't they great? - as well as a description of how it works. I saw them a while back when Toni posted hers on her blog and admired them (and the idea, which is based on a May Britt idea) then. When a new round opened up and new players were being taken, I jumped at the chance. Luckily, several of the previous players, such as Toni and Julie, could vouch for me and I was allowed in - hurrah!

I will have to make a 4" starting block for mid-May, when the whole thing kicks off - lots of time to think about what direction I want to go in with this piece. Probably too much time to think about it, really - but that's ok, I have a number of things to sort out first. It's a long term committment - 15 months - but I love that each installment is such a small section or item - it will mean one can do something fairly elaborate if it suits the quilt without it taking too much time to be practical. Sometimes, of course, a very simple piece may well suit instead, which is also useful in terms of time management. One can only hope that the pieces demanding simple rounds will coincide with the busiest months!

Although it's yet another project I can't show in total, I will be able to show you my own starting square and then give teases as I go along. As we are all showing our starting squares to one another beforehand, I can also show the starting square of each piece I receive. I won't be able to show much else each month, though. Sorry about that...

All kinds of goodies

Spent the morning in the car, to and from the airport to collect my mother, who has come for a 3 week visit. She brought with her loads of lovely things for me, which I shall show below, but first, a couple of recent arrivals for Alex (birthday last week) - first, this cute little (about 12x14") panda quilt (he being obsessed with pandas), which came to him from Cathi - the panda is from a colouring book, aparently - he adores it, but not QUITE as much as this great shirt, which came from "Toby and Jack" - though we all know it was more likely their mummy who was responsible - he said, on opening it "this is like the best present ever". I think he was happy with it - thanks so much, Karol Ann. And thanks, too, for the photo, which I nicked from your blog - I had hoped to get a photo of said child wearing the shirt, but it hasn't happened yet - though I'm sure it will be the shirt of choice on the weekend, once school uniform is no longer required!





In addition to all the stuff that my mother brings without any prompting on my part, I do also sometimes use her as a courier for things from the US - for instance for swaps, or to save postage costs. This little quilt on the left above is from the Twisted Mystery 4 on the quiltshoppe forum and I had it sent to my mom's house because the first time I played in the TM, my quilt went astray (the one to me, not from me). I've had lots of things safely sent and received since then, but I hate to take the chance. Anyway, this quilt came to me this time (my fabrics, at least mostly) - you may remember the Hallowe'en quilt I made for my partner in this swap - who turned out to be Colene, who I "know" - which was fun. Actually, I might never have shown this quilt, as I wasn't allowed to do so at the time, and who knows if I ever remembered to do so - I don't see a photo of it on the blog, in a quick look - anyway, Colene blogged it here, so if you are interested, you can have a peep. Genny & Mary (who are mother and daughter and worked on their Twisted Mysteries together) did a great job on this quilt for me, which used a particularly challenging feature fabric - which is why I'd never managed to do anything with it yet! It also features log cabin blocks, which are a firm favourite, though they couldn't have known that as they didn't know who they were making for!


On the right, is a great piece of oriental fabric from LisaJo, who sent it as a thank you for the string square blocks I sent her. Not sure what I will do with it yet, but I do love it.




And here is some more fabric - for this, I have my mother and her local JoAnn's to thank - actually, it's not her local anymore, as it shut, and it was never a great branch - there's a much better one a bit further away - but when it was going out of business it had fabric and notions for some stupid prices, so she went and bought some for me. My mother is every quilter's dream mother - she loves fabric, loves to buy it, but doesn't sew. So guess who gets the fabric?! The pieces on the left are quite large as they were really cheap ($2/yd or something like that) but you had to buy 2 yards, minimum. On the right, fat quarters.

And below, on the left, some notions from the JoAnn's closing sale, along with a bag of buttons from a yard sale/flea market, some handkerchiefs from the same, and a gorgeous piece of heavier red fabric with dragonflies on it - not sure what I will do with that, but something, for sure.


And finally, on the right, some fabric I ordered from eQuilter with a voucher Cathi gave me for my birthday. I waited until they had their big sale and made my money really go a long way - all this fabric was something like $4/yard. Aah, fabric. Always nice to perk up the stash a little. Now if only there were somewhere you could go to order more time for sewing in!




Won't have any work to show for another day or two, though I do hope to get some done this weekend. I have been adding beads to the little blue and white winter quilt, which is now bound, so might have that to show in the next few days. But that's about all for now...