ATC Round Robin Backgrounds

One thing I haven't done for a while is to show all the backgrounds I've made to send out into the round robin world... These were all done in September (making backgrounds is easy - much easier than making a completed card - you only have to think of one or two elements to include.).  As you can see, I like to try for variety...  When they eventually come home again with lots of fun additions, I'll show them again!

Autumn Trees

Another set of ATCs for a themed swap - I knew from early on I wanted to stitch these ones, but it was just a matter of finding the time. Had some autumnal leaf brads which added a nice touch as well, I thought...

One step closer

Waiting.  Soon the binding will begin.

PAT (Pick-a-theme) cards

This is a different kind of ATC swap from many that I do - in this type, each person in your group says what theme they'd like to receive an ATC about. Often there can be "easy theme" groups and "difficult theme" groups. This was an easy group, open media (some are hand drawn only, for instance, or collage only).   First theme: Dr Who. 

Found poetry (one of my favourite themes to do, anyway)

Oriental (unspecified) - I think I ended up mixing Chinese and Japanese, as it happens.

Theme for this last one was "friends" .

The theme I chose was "dragonflies" so I should (in time) get 4 dragonfly cards back in the post. Yippee!

Chilis, framed.

In the light of economy and the reduce, reuse, recycle ethos, I am trying to source picture frames for some of my cross-stitches (especially the larger and/or oddly shaped ones) from charity shops. To this end, I carry around a little piece of paper in my wallet with the sizes of the unframed pieces on it, so when I ran across this piece in a charity shop the other day, I was pretty sure the frame would fit...

At £3.50 (it was in the half-price sale bin outside the shop), it was a bargain, though I didn't have the heart to tell the two women behind the counter that I only wanted it for the frame.

The stitchery inside is well done (the back is much more beautiful than mine usually are) but not very me. I've kept it, though, at least for the time being. Anyone have any ideas what I can do with it?

Cross stitch update

New pattern, as I finished the installment of the pink birds on Monday. This one, I only really stitched on for one evening - one and a half, maybe. It's obviously going to be very quick to work up. Here's the finished design: 

More round robins

Some more ATCs which have returned to me, after being worked on by others. I started this one with the cards below:

And I started this one with the cards below:

One of the best things about round robins is that you are never quite sure where they are going to go.  For instance, a card which is fairly neutral, like this one below

could end up in any one of dozens of way. And some of them, which you'd never predict, are truly fantastic.  Don't you love these?

Flock update

Finished this section of the pink birds, with a few days to spare until the end of the cross-stitch week (Wednesday), so I'm blogging it now - I'll blog what I've started next, on Wednesday. I expect to make fairly good progress on the new piece, as it's quite small.

Here's where it stood last time I worked on it.

And here's a current view of the whole thing - the entire top section is done now, so it's just the bottom left to go. The bottom isn't quite as deep as the top, and there are mostly leaves rather than birds, but it should still be good fun to do. And yes, I do need to iron this!

A few bits and pieces

A trip to Kingston today to shop (mainly) for birthday presents for Sarah (turning 16 on Friday) - but of course, a little time to check out any other incidental crafty things I might happen across - all these bits are from a shop called Tiger, which has lots of cool, unncessary stuff - a couple of rolls of tape, some scrap paper, some phone jewels (not for my phone, of course) and the tissue used to wrap a couple of spice jars I also picked up.  All this lot together cost me £3...  The tissue, I was particularly taken by, though I can't imagine I'll ever use 5 sheets of it!

Quoth the Raven

Four cards for a swap with a theme you can probably guess.... As it happened, I have an old book of Poe's collected works, and luckily, I hadn't pulled out all the text of the Raven yet, so it made a nice background for these cards. They are not quite as crooked as they appear - my scanner is sometimes a little odd...

Modern Clovers, quilted

Another quilt back from the longarmer, before I've even finished binding the previous one (the occasion it was a gift for has had the date changed - or rather, not the occasion (a big birthday) but when we will meet up).  This one, also for an upcoming occasion, uses blocks from a Block Lotto win and I think has come out very well. 

Not sure how much of the lovely, swirly, flowering quilting pattern you can see here, but it's a nice contrast to the more angular shape of the flowers in the quilt...

A couple more finished ATCs

I hope you all aren't bored of seeing my finished round robin cards - these started out as you see them below and were added to to become quite oriental. 

This set also seems to have wanted to become oriental - the koi were hand drawn and added, the other decorations are quality stickers. The seahorse doesn't show much in the photo, but he shows much better on the card...  Ufortunately, I only get to keep one of these - the other has to go to player number 2 (player 3 kept her card once she finished and sent the other two back to me...)