Linus "Shopping"

Yesterday, I had a trip down to see my local Project Linus Coordinator, Liz, who sometimes runs Linus days which I've been to, but of course also coordinates other Project Linus efforts in my area. One of the things she does is provide a home for various donated fabric, e.g. when someone is getting rid of their stash for whatever reason. Consequently, she has quite a big stash of fabric for Linus projects. Last time we had a "day" at her house, she let me take away some pieces suitable for bodering my scrappy tops, and I've now used most of that fabric up.  I took her a big stack of tops, and also took a few which I didn't have suitable borders for, in the hopes we could match them up with something in her Linus stash.  And so, four more top centres which now have border prints waiting. 

I also brought away these prints for future possible borders, 

and these two fabrics of a slightly lesser quality, which will make excellent foundations for string blocks.  I love when fabric shopping doesn't cost me anything. And I got a cup of tea and some nice conversation out of it as well!

ATC Friday

Another group of finished Round Robin cards - again, with all these cards I was the third person to add something.

These are my favourite of the group - really sweet cards!

Ben's Shirts Quilts: Step 1

A little while back I mentioned that I'd agreed to make some quilts for a friend from her late husband's shirts, for her two sons. Finally, I've had a chance to sort through the clothes a bit and think about where to start.  There are loads of shirts (and one pair of trousers - perhaps pyjama bottoms), so it will be interesting to see what I can do with them... First step, though, was to sort out those with a specific, large pattern/logo and deal with them: 

So that's what I did. These have large logos/pictures, so I've used some interfacing to stabilise them and made them into large squares or rectangles to allow the maximum use of the designs. 

Next step: buy more interfacing!  Most of the shirts are t-shirts, so are quite soft & flexible - great on your body, not so great when quilting.

Cross Stitch Update

A little bit of progress this week, down the right hand side.  Slowly but surely!

Purple Blocks Together

A set of purple blocks made with some charms from my stash and some of the purples I took away from the Project Linus Day a while back. The blocks have been made for a while, but now they are in a top. I don't have any suitable fabric to border this top, but I'm going down to visit my Project Linus Coordinator on Friday, so perhaps she'll let me shop her PL stash for something suitable...

Last mermaid top

...and here's the third of the little mermaid tops. These aren't my favourite scrappy tops ever, but I'm sure some little girl will enjoy the mermaids. I hope so, at any rate.

Another mermaid top

Here's another scrappy top with a little mermaid panel, which is bordered and ready to go to my Project Linus Coordinator, who I'm going to meet up with in the half-term week. 

Block set with blue and brown

Another of the block sets which was hanging about, assembled into a top - or at least the centre of a top. Only about a dozen more to go!

ATC Friday

Some more sets of round robin ATCs which I have been the final player on (of three).  Each pair shows the finished card, and what the card was like when it got to me.

Leftover strings

After making the string blocks the other day, here's what's left in the bag. There's still some stuff there, but it's a lot less. I didn't use any of the rolled strips I've made previously for sewing together bigger strip quilts, and there were some misc. strips left as well.  But it's a lot less full in that bag than it was. Of course, now my scrap basket is getting full - it never ends!

Cross Stitch Update

Pretty good progress this week  - I've got the left-hand sunflower mostly finished, and have begun the row of flower heads down the right-hand side. Also did the stitching in the blue banner. 

String Squares

As the string bag was getting a bit full, it was time to make some more string squares - I love these kinds of blocks, and they always seem to work well together. Excellent for getting rid of strings and strips of any width, and most lengths, and amazingly, all the fabrics seem to go together quite well, regardless of pattern, colour, etc. Sometimes, you can put a single colour in the middle strip, to unify it a bit, but this time I didn't. Maybe next time.  The main thing here is that they are stitched on a foundation fabric, and I'm running out of suitable fabrics to use as foundations - must pick up something cheap and ugly to use as foundations for future blocks...

Strings, with border

Another centre which has been hanging around waiting to have a border - I chose this purple Civil War Repro, which I've had in stash for quite a while, as purple is very popular with girls, apparently. Plus, it's pretty. I think it works well with the scrappy strings. 

Mermaid with border

Having said I had a stack of top centres which needed bordering, it's only fitting that I actually got around to doing some of those; here's the first - a mermaid panel with scrappy strips, then a teal floral border. A little odd, perhaps, but functional.

A bit more skirt

Olivia worked on her skirt today. She did the dart, the side seams and the zip.  Next step, the waistband; then it's just the hemming to go.  Probably won't get a chance to work tomorrow, but who knows.  

I found this pattern really frustrating - even though it's easy to stitch, the measurements seem really off; according to the size chart, for Olivia's waist measurement she should make the UK12 (despite usually wearing an 8 or sometimes 10); when we cut out and assembled the 12, it's (not surprisingly) way too big in the waist! We were able to adjust by increasing the darts and taking in the side seams a bit, but why is it so wrong? Weird.

ATC Friday

After a couple of weeks of bespoke ATCs, I'm back to some which were round robins. All three of these sets were cards which I started and two others worked on, so I can show the finished product and how it started, but not the midle stage.  Nice to see how differently things can end up!

Red & Brown

Another set of blocks made into a top - this one is all red and brown (obviously) - there are two of each border combo, but other than spreading those out, it's assembled randomly.

Something Wicked

As it's the time of year it is, I thought I should bring out something seasonal to work on - so I grabbed this Hallowe'en mystery from last year, and did some work on it. Doesn't look like much, but I did finish the entire blue banner under the words "Something Wicked". There are a lot of blue stitches in that banner! In time, the banner will have the words "this way comes" stitched on it, but I think I might do that later and finish the rest of the flowers, etc first. 

Charming

This little top (which will no doubt get a border) is simply made from charm squares, stitched together. I'm sure at some point I'll get around to doing something with the top, but until then, my motto will have to be "at least it's a set of blocks out of my block set basket"...

Little transport blocks

Here's a little centre made from some of those transport themed I-spy blocks I made a while back. I think it will still want a border, but for the moment, at least they are out of my basket of block sets...

A spot of dress- (well, skirt-) making

Way back at the end of the summer, Olivia picked out the (very simple) pattern for a straight skirt, and some fabric. We are finally getting a chance to have a go at cutting it out - between her busy weekends doing things like the Duke of Edinburgh Challenge and my being away looking at universities with Sarah, etc, neither of us has really had time before now. Luckily, it's a very simple pattern: four pattern pieces (plus interfacing) and a normal set zip, so it shouldn't take long to assemble, even for a beginner. 

ATC Friday

These Artist Trading cards were another set for a Pick-a-Theme swap (each player asks for a specific theme, so you make 4 cards to different themes rather than a group of cards to a single theme, which is the way most swaps work). 

The top one's chosen theme was "lotus flower", and the one below was "inspirational quotes".

And these two were Vintage Tea ads and Vintage Men respectively.

Getting a bit full...

Okay, there's still a little room in the top, but on the whole,  a bit full. So that's one thing I'll be doing at the weekend, trying to reduce this a little. Also, putting some block sets together into tops or at least top centres... Maybe I'll go all out and try to get some borders on other top centres while I'm at it!