ATC Tuesday

These are four cards made for a Pick a Theme Swap - all are Altered Playing Cards. This first had a theme of the TV show Emergency! and needed to feature a main character. 

A theme of fungi above, and a Christmas theme, below.

And finally, a vintage person theme. 

Revisiting my Journal Quilt Project, week 37

For this week's journal quilt, I wanted try out making a landscape out of fabric - I wanted to use the technique on some fabric postcards, so I tried it out on a Journal Quilt piece first. I used batiks. It came out ok.

Today I sewed...

Crazy, right?  It's been a while since I've both had the time and felt inspired, but today I was looking at my scrap basket and thinking how full it was, so decided to cut some of them up (and use some already cut pieces) to make some basic blocks. I think I'll do something else with these as well, like border them in solids/tonals so they aren't nearly so busy when assembled. Maybe tomorrow; we'll see.

Quilted!

It finally cooled off enough for me to want to work on this - I just used a very simple meander, with variegated thread. Now to get the binding made and attached...

ATC Friday

Here are a couple of sets of Round Robin cards where I was the last player. These cute little bird cards stumped me at first, but then I decided to take the radical decision to cut them into a house shape (and add the words "mail call") - I really like how they look - I think they are among my favourite RR cards from recent sets.

I liked these too - although I was third player, they came to me pretty simple - just the background and the coffee cup. Not much needed to finish it off successfully!

ATC Tuesday

These cards were made for a "pick-a-theme" swap, which means that each player chooses what their theme will be and everyone else in their group makes a card for them.  In this swap, there was an additional constraint - in my group we all had to use "junk mail" some way in our cards. I made a card with a cat theme - the cat was an image I found especially but everything else on this card came from an ad for a sofa shop except the dictionary text. 

This theme was "Cow jumping over the moon" - the cow I printed out, but the rest either came from the sofa shop ad or a brochure about (I think) veganism that I was handed at a Morrissey concert.

This card was made as a hostess gift, and the background and water logo came from my water bill, while the rest came from the brochure mentioned above about veganism.

This theme was angels, and the angel was an image I had in my stash. I used a bit of washi tape from stash also, but everything else came from a Body Shop sale flyer for a Mothers' Day sale. 

And finally, a sea monster theme. I printed the monster out, and used some washi tape and some shiny dot stickers, but the words and the background came from an ad; I can't remember for what.

Revisiting my Journal Quilt Project, week 36

This week's journal quilt is a bit odd, as I was playing with folding fabric in various ways - some more successful than others. The fabric used was just pink and brown scraps I had to hand.

Pinned!

This is a baby quilt I need to get quilted before I go to the US (and get the binding at least attached, though I can stitch it down later if need be) - I've pinned it together but the weather is due to be so hot this coming week I may not work on it until it cools down a bit. Which it hopefully will, eventually. 

ATC Friday

These are a few sets of Round Robin cards, where I was the final person to work on the card. In some ways, that's the easiest position to be in, in a round robin, because you don't have to worry about leaving space for anyone else to do anything. 

But sometimes it's tricky because a card might have a lot on it already, and it's hard to know what to add. These two had enough space to allow for something else, so it wasn't too tricky.

Cross Stitch Update

So I did do a little stitching in the past week or so - but only a little. Still, you can kind of see that the Cheshire cat will actually have a smile, which is progress, of sorts. Maybe next week will be better!

ATC Tuesday

These cards were made in a swap with another variation on the "use up your bits and pieces" theme. The idea was that each person had a pile/container/whatever of bits - maybe stuff you found hard to use, or maybe just stuff you hadn't got to yet - and you pulled out a random piece and had to use it on a card. It was called "Lucky Dip".  I had fun with this. I have a little box of bits I keep on my work table - stuff which I auditioned and rejected but am too lazy to put away, stuff which I used part of, stuff which people send me in envelopes with other things and so forth. It seemed like the perfect thing.

The first card, I pulled out this little tightrope acrobat - he had been part of a French phrase book page - I used the words at the bottom but hadn't used him yet.   The background is from some offprints from one of Olivia's art projects. This is my favourite card of the lot - I almost kept it rather than sending it along!

For this card, I pulled out the green stamped picture of a house and stylized sun. This was from an envelope sent to me with other things inside. It was stamped on the envelope and I had torn it off and put it aside to use someday. The other bits are from a magazine ad, I think. 

I think this one started with the image of the stool, but I'm not 100 per cent sure any more. Not sure about the strawberry, but I know the butterflies are punched paper, sent to me inside an envelope of returned cards, etc.

This one started with the large flower image - larger images are sometimes hard to use on ATCs because of size. The hearts are from a paper bag from a card shop. The background again, is from one of Olivia's art projects and I think the words are from a magazine ad. 

Revisiting my Journal Quilt Project, week 35

This week, my journal quilt bore no real relation to my week, it was just something created during the time period.  The background is a paper napkin from a pack I bought in Sainsbury's (but they are much too nice to be used as napkins), I then quilted it a bit, added a few feathers, and a load of sequins. Simple, but effective...

ATC Friday

A couple of sets of round robin ATCs where I was the second player. The top is the finished card, then the original, which is what I received, then what it looked like once I added to it. 

Cross Stitch Update

This is finished now - I just need to find a little frame for it and then it can be a gift. It needs ironing, of course, but if you ignore the wrinkles...

ATC Tuesday

These cards were for a swap entitled "Keys to Happiness". The cards had to feature at least two keys per card, plus a quote. In addition, at least one card had to feature a real key (rather than a picture, brad, key charm, etc). In my cards, the top right has a real key, as well as the bottom left, which has two. The small keys and locks are brads, and the other large keys are flat (flattish - flat on the back, at least) metal embellishments. The background paper also has keys printed on it.

Revisiting my Journal Quilt Project, week 34

 

I had a bit of an African themed week the week I made this - was playing around with blocks from my African swap with Karol Ann, and making a couple of African fabric blocks, so I decided to do the journal quilt in African prints - an African snails trail. Not quite enough contrast in the block, I think. But it's ok.

ATC Friday

Here are a couple of round robin sets which were started by me, then worked on by two others. These started with a ket theme and came back with a castle, which I think worked very well. 

These started out with a map background and a strip of ice-cream themed washi tape, and came back with a yummy ice cream theme. Fun!

Cross Stich Update

Finally been doing a little cross-stitch again - this is going to be a gift for someone, so I do have a deadline (it's only a small piece, though, so it won't be a problem finishing in time.)  My daughter Sarah has been getting into cross-stitching lately, so that's prompting me to be better about actually doing some!

ATC Tuesday

These cards were for a swap called "Finish it Up" - the host sent a few bits and pieces to the players, which we had to use in our cards. One was an image, one was a word or words and the other was some other sort of embellishment. I received the card with the word cafe on it, which also had a chair on it, which I used on another card. 

The swirly design on this was part of the embellishment I received - printed on thin plastic. 

Here are some more pieces of the plastic embellishment I used, on this card. It didn't scan that well, as the background paper is purple. 

And finally, the image I receied was the cactuses - I kept them black and white and coloured the background of the page, then added a photo of some aquarium gravel. 

Revisiting my Journal Quilt Project, week 33

Apparently I was making some New York Beauty blocks for something (can't imagine what I was thinking) this time, ten years ago. This one was rejected from whatever - not sure why, though I'd guess lack of contrast in the middle section, so it was used for a journal quilt, with some quilting in blue rayon thread.