Cross Stitch Update

Not much progress, though I did finish the plant pot, stitch a bit of a border under it, and begin the lettering.  Perhaps I'll be home in the evenings more next week (don't hold your breath). 

Rail Fence Blocks with cream

Showed these the other week in progress; here they are finished. There are more than one of most of the combos, but not an equal number, as I was using up small pieces of multicoloured fabrics.

Brown with circles

Another set like the ones with dots, but this time with a different alternating fabric. Again, it's  a 16 block set, so it will make a nice small quilt for Linus.  The rest of the brown crosses will have borders, though, not be made into four patches...

Brown with spots

Never being a person to do one thing at a time, here's what I did with some of the brown cross blocks - matched them up with a brown fabric in my stash and made some four patches. There are only 16 of these blocks, but they will make a nice little Linus quilt top.

A bit of brown

So I decided to pull some small brown blocks with crosses out of my block stash and turn them into larger, bordered brown blocks, with cross centres. This will help reduce my brown fabrics, perhaps get them from two boxes into one, as well. Here's the start of it; more to come!

ATC Friday

This was a PAT swap (Pick a theme) which means that each player chose their own theme. Plus these were Altered Playing Cards, which means each person picked which card they needed to help make up their deck. I did a US state (Maryland) theme for one player, Blue & Green for another, pears and dogs. My own theme was birds.  When that bird deck is finished (nearly there) I'll be sure to show it!

A quilt back from the longarmer

Perhaps draped artfully across a chair doesn't really show it to its best, but the weather wasn't good enough to lay it outside and it was too big for the particular bit of floor I had available. I'll do a proper photo of it when I get some binding on. Eventually.

Cross Stitch Update

Not a lot of progress made, though I did get most of this basket of flowers stitched. Given how many nights I was out this week, it's not too surprising!  Next week won't be much better, between friends in town from the US, Jesus Christ Superstar in the theatre, Sarah's birthday and no doubt other things!

A new project looming

This may look like a bag of clothes - there's a good reason for that. It's a bag of clothes.  A friend of mine who used to live in our area and had kids at my kids' primary school moved up north a number of years back. A few years ago, her husband died very suddenly and unexpectedly. This year, she approached me to ask if I'd be willing to make a couple of quilts for her boys from their dad's clothes. Of course I said I'd be glad to, but did warn it would take me a while to get to it... However, as she was visiting in this area in the summer, she dropped the clothes off - and they've been sitting in my cupboard since she did. I still don't quite have time to work on the quilts, but I thought I'd have a quick look in the bag - looks like a nice collection of  t-shirts and regular shirts; should be a couple of nice cozy quilts in the end. When I get to that stage.  Give me another month or two to get cutting!

Purple Linus Quilt

Here's the quilt top which I began at the Project Linus Day a few months back - I took the blocks away to finish up, and have finally put them together and bordered them. I think some teenage girl (they request purple a lot) will really enjoy this one.  The border fabric was one I had in my stash, but the other fabrics are all Linus Fabrics, so I really must meet up with my Linus Lady (October half term, probably) and get the top back to her...

A bit more stitching

Too many of these (multicoloured prints)...

So I made some of these (5 strip rail fence blocks with neutrals)  and cut more to stitch together.

Which gave me these (extra strips for the strip bag and scraps for the scrap basket)

And now there's some space. Not much, but some.

Block Set Update

Here's another update of the block sets I have in my basket - a few have been removed because they were made into tops, and a few have been added. It's a constantly rolling thing, really...

ATC Friday

Some cards for a fabric & thread themed swap - they don't show very well, because the fabrics are shiny and shiny doesn't scan well. But they were fun - I haven't done many fabric ATCs lately, so these and the stitched trees recently were good fun...

A few brown-themed blocks

A few little blocks from a stash of the little brown cross blocks and a little novelty print.  There are a couple dozen of these, so they'll make a nice little quilt for Project Linus, etc.

Cross Stitch Update

Can't really show much, though I've made good progress, as I've been working on a little mystery. Here's a tiny glimpse, which could really be anything!

Scrappy Double Four Patches

Some more fairly easy scrappy blocks - these are double four patches, so they use up two different sizes of squares - bonus!

Here they are in progress...

The two boxes of squares before...

...and after. Not bad!

Some simple four patch blocks

A quick exercise, to reduce some of the squares in my scrap boxes - with only a little time to sew, something straightforward, like making four patch blocks from already cut squares, really hits the spot.

Another baby quilt

The last of a bunch of baby quilts I made for people this summer - all have now been sent off - and hopefully this last one will be soon received (the others are all safely home - yay!). Several of these quilts are for the babies of people who I knew when they themselves were very very small, if not babies themselves - I feel old...

Wild feather border

This border fabric is one I picked up cheaply at Sandown Quilt Show in June - I wasn't sure it would work, but I think it suits the scrappy nature of this piece. I hope so, anyway!

ATC Friday - Stitched Autumn Trees

Some autumn(ish) trees for an autumn themed swap. I had hoped to have time to make some more autumn trees, but I've been slammed with stuff (more university visits on the weekends, too), so it's not likely. Maybe eventually. But at least I got some done for the swap!

Another black floral border

Told you it would make another appearance shortly - here it is!  Another good match for that black floral border with pink flowers...

Cross Stitch Update

Not very much stitched this week for one reason and anothre. And next week, not sure what I will show as I got the next part of my little LizzieKate mystery in the post and am going to stitch on that!

Wonky Pink Four Patch with a floral border

Used this black and floral print as a border for this wonky four patch with pink(ish) squares. I have more of the border fabric, so it will make another appearance at some point.

Black with totem poles

This is another one of those instances, where a print which makes you wonder why you bought it (technically in this case, I didn't buy it - I got it from my Project Linus Coordinator's Linus stash) actually works really well as a border. It helps that I had just the right top waiting for it...

Block lotto tulips

After many months of not being able to play in the Block Lotto for one reason or another, I finally had time to make a couple of blocks - it will probably only be a couple, but that's ok.  This is a great block, and I'd seriously consider coming back to it in a scrappier colourway when I need to do some scrap busting. 

Third (and last) blue rail fence variation

Recycled ATCs

Not that the ATCs themselves are recycled, but they were made for a swap with a recycled theme - requiring the use of at least three recycled elements. On these cards, all the elements were recycled except the little round gem stickers. Well, and the felt-tip pen &  glue!  Things included were cardboard from a tea box/other box, book pages, stamps, drinks can covers, receipts...

Another blue rail fence variation

This is the second of the tops from the large set of blue rail fence variation blocks - there were 60 blocks, so you can probably predict how many tops there will be!

Cross Stitch Update

A new Little Sheep Virtue - this one is Friendship; worked on it this past week.  In the upcoming week, I'm going to go back to the large 13 colonies sampler for at least a week. Perhaps more, depending on how I feel...

Fabric Time

Well, it's almost time for back-to-school, so of course there are errands to be run in Kingston - the kids have until Monday but today was my last day, so anything that needed me there as well had to be done today. I did make a small detour to check out a new fabric shop, though  - coincidentally, called Fabric Time.  It's small, but has a decent selection of moderately priced fabrics. It's not a quilt shop, but it's not bad either. Their FQs were 6 for £10, so I pulled out some novelties to add to my stash, as I don't have a big novelty collection. These will be nice for making Linus quilts in the next year...