More purple

Given the large amount of purple left at the end of the last set of blocks (see bottom) I decided I needed to do another thing with the purple, so I pulled out some pale purple and some flowery fabric in a pale green from my stash and made some half square triangle blocks with them. 

Now to use the darker purple to border them - probably won't use that really pale piece in the pile above - too pale for good contrast and anyway, I bet there's enough to go around with just the darker ones.

Purple II

Here's how the second set of purple bordered blocks turned out - as usual, the colour is really not representative with purple. Thos top right ones aren't blue at all, despite how they look in this photo.  There's still a lot of purple fabric left, though, so there will be another purple project soon!

Butterfly Diamonds - Altered Playing Cards

And finally, the Diamonds in my butterfly Altered Playing Card set.  That's all four suits now... Not that they will ever get played with, of course, but it's a nice collection.

Goodies!

A trip to Ikea today meant a quick stop at Hobbycraft, which is just down the road. I picked up some more sticky letters,which I use a lot of making ATCs, also some washi tape and a fat quarter pack (I didn't even go upstairs, which is where the bulk of the haberdashery is) which looked cute and I thought would make a sweet Linus quilt/quilts.   I sometimes wish there were a Hobbycraft (or similar) just down the road from me, but it's probably a good thing that there isn't...

Cross Stitch Update

Finished this - not surprising, as it was mostly the border. Still need to sew on a few buttons and mount it on the felt, but that will happen a little later. 

So I went back to this piece, which I'd been a bit reluctant to tackle lately (tired, and too much potential for counting wrong and making a mistake) - got a bit finished in the lower right corner - not a huge amount but at least I'm back in the swing of the piece a bit. Plan to work on this one in the coming week, and then perhaps swap out to something else for a week. We'll see. It's all in good fun anyway - no point doing it if it stresses me!

More purple

After finishing those Linus blocks, I still had a huge pile of purple fabric which I'd brought home from Liz's house, so I looked around for something else to make up to be the centre of some purple blocks. I found this partial charm pack (not many squares missing), which has quite a bit of purple in it, so I decided to make up some more wonky four patches from this, and use some of the remaining purple to border them.  Here's the start of it...

Purple Linus Blocks

I finished up this set of purple bordered blocks which I started last weekend at the Linus Day - there are 42 of them, measuring 7" (unfinished). Next step is to stitch them together into a top - 6x7 blocks. There are loads of different purples in the borders, as we just used all the purple scraps we could find - and Liz has a lot of scraps and small pieces. In fact, I have loads of purple left over, so I'll be making another set of something purple - apparently teenage girls really like purple, so it's always in demand.

Block Sets - Update

So, having added those brown and red blocks, here's what my current stash of block sets waiting to be assembled into tops looks like. Probably time to start putting some together!

Recent Additions to the Scrap Bag

...so after those red and brown blocks, here's what I added to the scrap basket and strip bag...

you can see the red influence at the top of both the bag and the basket. Maybe sometime next week (I have the week off; it's half-term) I will do an empty-the-scrapbag project.  Not that I don't have a billion other demands on my time, mind you!

Butterfly APCs - Spades

Here's the next installment in my collection of Altered Playing Cards featuring butterflies - these are the spades. Only one more suit to show. I really like the variety you get in these cards - comes from having work by many different artists, of course.

Shabby Chic...quilted

Got this quilt back from the longarmer (Bewitching Stitching) recently and haven't showed it yet - it's a nice large lap size; not sure if it will go as a gift yet or be kept for myself. For the moment, it will go in my pile of quilts which need binding, but hopefully that will be temporary.

Here's a closeup of the quilting.  

Cross Stitch Update

Good progress on this, this week -nearly done except the border and a few little incidentals inside.

Red and Brown Crosses

So here's the first thing I've chosen to do with some of those brown cross blocks...

I pulled out all the blocks which had a lot of red in them. There were 24, which is a nice number to work with.

Then I trimmed them to uniform size, making them slightly lopsided as I went along - half leaning one way, half the other way.

I grabbed my box of small pieces of red, and cut strips to go around the blocks... Except then I decided that was too red, so I went back to the brown box and got out some browns to do a round of browns first:

Then I added the reds (top picture) - there are two of each red.  Doesn't seem to have made much of a dent in the red box, though...

Scrap Update

Here are some more bits added to the scrap basket and strip bag after adding some borders to quilt centres...

...so here's what the bag and basket look like now. Yes, they are filling up a bit. Soon time for something scrappy? Perhaps!

Project Linus Day

Had a lovely day today with my local Project Linus Coordinator and some ladies, making some tops... Liz, the coordinator, has been having a series of project days over the past few weeks, with people coming along when they can... I can only make weekend days, of course,  but quite a few ladies have been coming in the week as well.  First thing I did was to put together this top - the piano key border was already made, but I attached the pieces together, extending it alittle, and put the borders on.

After that, I picked up some coordinating fabrics in purples and greens and started making blocks (I shock you, I know) - I started by cutting 5" squares, then did some stack and slash, turning them into wonky 4 patch units, using the various purples to border them. I only got a handful of blocks finished, so I've brought the rest home to finish up and put into a top, to give back to Liz at a later date.

Here's some photos of finished quilts - two huge piles of pieces finished recently either at the days, or brought along to the days. There are a number of ladies who take tops away and finish them, then bring them back - the quilt wiht the green border is one of my tops which someone has quilted up. Today's group made quite a few small things for the Special Care Baby Units at various local hospitals - small quilts with fleece backs and minimal piecing and quilting to cover incubators and use with newborns who have to stay in the SCBU for whatever reason. A few of those are shown in this collage...

I also brought away with me a selection of prints to use when bordering my scrappy quilt tops - I mentioned that I was running short on prints to use for borders so Liz suggested I raid her Linus stash and take some away with me. Excellent idea! I have a few top centres which haven't been bordered because I didn't have anything suitable, so these will hit the spot.

Here's our little group stitching away - there were 6 of us, including Liz - a smaller group than last time I was there (in a way, that's better, as it's easier to use things like the ironing station and the cutting station if there aren't quite so many people waiting). 

Owl Border

This gray and purple log cabin got a border treatment of a purpley owl fabric. 

Butterfly APCs - Hearts

Here's the collection of Hearts playing cards from the Butterfly Swap (these were the ones I received, so they are all made by different artists)... two more suits to go!

Black and White "Windows"

I liked this little Block Lotto inspired quilt before, and now that it has a border on it, I like it even more. I had originally earmarked it (as with most of my scrap quilts) for the Project Linus pile, but I've decided that, for the time being at least, I'm going to put it in the keeper pile (not that I keep most of the quilts in the keeper pile; they usually end up being gifts for people I know). We'll see if I hold to that, but it will do for the moment!

Cross Stitch Update

This is nearly done - the bits which are missing I can't stitch yet, as I'm waiting on that colour from my supplier, so I will have to wait until I can finish it.  Just realised now uploading the photo and scan of the pattern that I've stitched always in the wrong colour (it's a forward slash on the pattern and the blue bird and flower are a back slash - I was reading them as the same). Do I care enough to restitch "always"? No way.

Mellow Yellow

Matched up this double four patch top with a hand-dyed border - I actually have more of the border fabric, so you'll be seeing this combo again. Due to the nature of the hand-dye pattern, I decided it needed to be mitred. Takes more time, but it looks good...

Big Brown O's - Bordered

Blocks in the House

I've been trying to keep track of all the block sets I have at any given time, waiting to be made up into quilts - it varies greatly from two or three to several dozen, depending on what phase of my stitching cycle I'm in (I tend to get into a mood to make blocks - when I'm in that mood, I do little else, so the block sets pile up.  At some point, I get too many and begin to stitch them together into tops. At the moment, I'm probably nearing the must-stitch-into-tops part of the cycle, though it's not by any means as bad as it has been.)

Here's what I have on hand at the moment:

• 12" Circular Flying Geese (9 blocks) - waiting for me to need a special baby quilt for someone
• 8" (maybe) polka dot blocks with QST centres (24 blocks)
• 6x9" Birds on Blue Sky Background (42 blocks) - waiting. For something. I may actually use a small selection of these for any upcoming baby quilt I need to make, depending on what I have in stash and what I feel like doing at the time.
• 12" Double Bordered QST unit blocks with blacks and neutrals (12 blocks)
• 7.5" Wonky Double Four Patch with Hand Dyes (20 blocks)
• 8.5" Scrappy Log Cabin Blocks with HST centres (16 blocks)
• 7.5" String Squares (in fours) (12 blocks)
• 13" Blue Log Cabins with QST centres (12 blocks)
• 9" Blue bordered Rail Fence Variation blocks (60 blocks)
• 12" Scrappy log cabins with HST centres and green borders (9 blocks) and cream borders (12 blocks)
• 9" Brown bordered Rail Fence Variation blocks (60 blocks)
• 4.5" Brown Cross Blocks (130 blocks)

The brown crosses

...in all their glory. Most of them work well, though there's still that one combo which really doesn't do it. They might end up as orphans; we'll see. They aren't evenly balanced - I just made them as they came to hand - but there are 130 of them!  At 4.5" square, that doesn't cover quite as much space as you might think, but still...  I will probably add something to at least some of them, though I might take out the red ones and do something different with them. We'll see. 

Butterfly APCs - Clubs

Quite a while back now I swapped APCs (Altered Playing Cards) with a butterfly theme, one number at a time, and while I showed what I made and sent, I never showed what I got in return and I always meant to...  So I decided to finally get my act together and show them - here's the first installment - the Clubs. Other suits to follow suit. So to speak.  (These were made by a variety of different artists, with different styles and media...)

Where the scraps come from

I was having a discussion (by email of course) about where the scraps come from, as I always seem to be using up scraps rather than making anything to create the scraps in the first place, so I thought it would be fun to track the scraps a bit.  Here's the additions to the scrap basket/strip bag from the current project (the browns). Most of these are strips, as it happens, but some will go in the scrap basket. The blocks aren't quite done, but I'm done with the cutting so I know there won't be any more scraps generated from this...

Cross Stitch Update

Another new little project - this one is a Lizzie Kate series called Three Little Words. I really enjoy stitching words, so I thought this was perfect for me. I've decided to do them as individual pieces rather than in one long one - then I can swap them around as I please. Or perhaps give them as little gifts...

Can you tell what it is yet?

This is what I've been making with the browns - some have better contrast than others, I've just noticed from the bottom right combo (though it's better in person). I'm not done yet, though - there will be more!

Brown in progress

Here's a glimpse at some of the brown project in process - a bit hard to tell what it is, but I'll show some of the completed blocks when there are a few more of them...

...And speaking of a lot of brown...

So I decided to do something with brown, as I have more of it than any other colour in my small pieces boxes. This is because I like brown, so it's ok. But still, there's a lot of it.

I grabbed these pre-cut squares which were in my box of charm packs -they aren't really a charm pack, but they're a handy bunch of co-ordinating pre-cut squares, so they work. 

There are lots of them. 

Here's a box of brown pieces. I have two. The other box has slightly lighter browns in it. (This is an Ikea CD storage box, in case you want a size reference - all these pieces are somewhere in the FQish range in size - not as big as half a metre, as those go somewhere else.)

Not going to show you what I'm doing with them yet - that will have to wait until another day...