Yeah, yeah...

...it's more ATCs. I know. But I can do them, especially the collage type, in the evening, while watching telly, etc, which doesn't work so well for sewing! All these were made mainly from bits and pieces I've received as extras in swaps, etc. And some scraps from my scrap paper drawer. The dancing women were stamped on a swap envelope a while back - I knew I was wise to save them for someday...



The birds were a more recent acquisition, and the background for those four cards also came as a swap extra. Probably there will be more soon!

Still more ATCs

Another batch of ATCs today, though these did at least involve sewing. I used some backgrounds from my reserve box of backgrounds - these are pieces salvaged from dead projects, or cut from remnants of things I used for something else, or cut up pieces of technique samples, and so on. On top of these, I built up layers of fibres, then added beads, brads, charms, etc. The orange one which says "Fun" was almost already fully formed, I just added a few beads and one or two pieces of yarn. Four of these will go off to the September birthday ladies in my ATC swap; the others will be avaialble for trading on ATCs for All.

Some I made earlier...

More ATCs - these made on the weekend, and saved for a blogless day. These have a handmade (but not by me) paper background, with paper images, tissue tape, transparencies and lots of little brads, sequins and jewels.

More houses

Couldn't resist doing some of these wonky houses, this time with whatever colour sky I happened to have enough fabric of to hand. I will sash these and then it will become a baby quilt top. I love these little houses and will definitely do more in future - they are really easy. The only hard thing is trying to work out what fabric you want to put where...



I also had time to do another of the canal houses - House F. Only four more to go - and of course, neither E nor F has actually been sewn together yet, just fused.

Stay at Home Robin Moves House

I've decided that the Stay at Home Robin really needed its own blog, as it was getting hard to follow over here on mine. So from now on, updates to the project will appear over here, rather than on my own blog - though of course I will show my own blocks on mine - and no doubt remind people from time to time that everything has moved....

House sewing day...

A row of canal houses - the latest, Canal House E, isn't technically sewn yet, but I did cut out all the pieces and fuse them down. Sewing later! Don't they look fun together? Of course, mine won't be all together, but it does give you the general idea...



Here's House E on its own. The fabric for the house and the water both came from great fabric I got from Vicki when I saw her this summer in the US. There is still some left of both fabrics for me to play with (as well as the third FQ, which is blue and orange together and which I adore), but I felt they both really suited this house...



And a few more houses, here - these are for the September block lotto, and while looking at the photos, I realised I forgot to put the right hand side of the house on these - the windows are right against the side of of the house. Will have to fix that tomorrow! But I love these little houses, which are in the style of Tonya R, and they are a doddle to make. I won't do any more for the lotto, as those require a turquoise background (which I promise you these both are, despite what it may look like on screen) and I have run out of turquoise solid/tot. I do think they'd make a great baby quilt though, perhaps with a consistent sky but otherwise, totally scrapbasket. Or perhaps with all kind of sky colours! Another project for The List...

Stay at Home Robin update

Gene was a little late in doing his round two (though not as late as you might think, given how long it's taken me to post it)






but he's made up for it by doing his round three straight away...






I have lots of other round 3 blocks to show, but no time at the moment, so I will share them as soon as I get a chance...

Vintage Travel

Another set of ATCs for a swap - I know I'm making lots of ATCs at the moment, but besides really enjoying them, they are something I can do in the evening in front of the telly (if they aren't sewn ones), so they fit into my current work schedule a lot better than sewing machine work...

A little bit of newspaper

For an ATC swap on ATCs for All, I needed to make a card which used a "little bit of newspaper" somewhere in its construction. I had a piece of old newspaper from the 30s, found when some friends did some work on their house, so I used the employment ads from that paper. Along with a number of other items. I really wanted to use these metal key charms (below) but they are quite heavy, so not so good for a swap - instead, I have used the little birdie brad for the swap cards and then made the ones with the keys up for general trading...

Lady of the Lake

I had a lot of errands to do this weekend, so didn't get a huge amount of sewing done, but I did have the chance to make a couple of Lady of the Lake blocks for my ongoing private swap with Cathi. One needs to be taken apart at one seam and put back together, but for the most part, they came out ok, considering the number of triangles...

Quilt show at Hever

That's where I was today. So although there was no sewing, at least there was quilty stuff. I didn't take any photos of quilts, though, as I can't post them on my blog for copyright reasons and although I do sometimes take photos for personal inspiration, realistically, I rarely look at them, so today, I didn't bother. I did think it funny that of the quilts in the general exhibit, the one I liked best, when I went to look up the details in the guide, was by a friend of mine...



Here's part of the castle - not the main, castle-y bit, but the smaller side buildings, which I really love. Tudor architecture at its best is really lovely.


Not to mention nice topiary.

Counting Crows

These cards are for a swap I joined on ATCs for All called Counting Crows - the cards all had to feature a crow (or other black bird) and a number on them, somewhere. For these, I used playing cards as the base (easy to include the numbers that way!), added some rusted paper, a transparency of the counting crows rhyme, attached with tiny brads, some printed tape with musical notes and of course, the crow himself. Even though I only needed 4 for the swap, I had to make six because of the rhyme - couldn't make "One for sorrow" because of the whole Ace thing in a pack of cards, but anyway, who wants a card for sorrow?

Stay at Home Robin, Step 3

Here's what you all may have been waiting for (or not!) - step 3. This month's instruction is to add a strip, 10x3" (finished size) to the top of the two previous blocks. Alternatively, you could add it to the bottom. I can't show a photo of my virtual quilt because my big laptop is off being repaired (again, grrr.) and although I have the actual EQ file on a flash drive, my little laptop doesn't have EQ installed on it, so I can't get at it to take the snapshots (no CD drive on the little laptop - it's a netbook). So instead, I've just done my actual quilt a little earlier. I'm going to change the squished, wonky green circle - partly, it needs another colour in that spot, and partly, it's squished and wonky, but essentially, here's what I'm doing. Ta da!