Sunday sewing

Here's a bit of what I did today - made some more little taupe double four patches and then remembered I had the pieces waiting to be assembled for the mystery quilt I have been doing - they aren't quite all the way together, as I ran out of time, but it looks nice. It's a bit of a different size than I would normally make for a baby quilt, though I suppose it would fit a small bed. But it's sweet.

JenL left a comment recently on an old post, asking about some Scrabble fabric - no email address, though, so Jen, if you are reading, I can tell you that I do know where the fabric came from, but it won't help you, as the woman who made the postcard made the fabric herself on her computer, specially for the swap.

Purple day

Today was a purple day - a purple arch for Carol (which is more purple than it is in the photo, though it's less purple than the postcard on the right) for the arch swap, and a purple and plum postcard for Ati, for the colour challenge on Textile Challenges. I am really enjoying these arches - both making and receiving - the shape is just different enough from what I normally work with to be challenging, but not big enough to be intimidating. Anyway, I've used hand-dyed fabric for the background, then stitched it with a flame pattern in metallic thread (only one breakage - hoorah), added a strip of sheer fabric (behind the hand) and some yarns. Then I added some metallic elements - the sun shape is cut from thin copper foil, and the three shapes with three circles I bought from Julie's etsy shop. Then there's the hand, some stars, some purple mesh, a wooden ring from the junk I got from my mother yesterday. And eyelash yarn. Where would I be without eyelash yarn?



The postcard just has two colours of fabric on it (plum and purple), separated by eyelash yarn in variegated purple - some other yarn couched down, some charms and another, different colour of eyelash yarn around the outside.



And the other thing I did was to do the next clue in the mystery quilt which I am doing - a short one, this time, which is fine - I like the fact that this mystery has lots of small sections - makes it really simple to keep up with it.

Only a few more until I figure out what it will be like. Who knows, I might even try another one someday, leaving aside my control-freak tendencies!

On another note, I see to be having trouble sending email to one or two people (but not everyone) - if you leave a comment and your email address shows (rather than appearing as noreply-comment@blogger.com) I will usually respond, so if you haven't had a response, it's likely it got lost in the ether. I had this trouble with one or two people on the ALQS swap - apparently there are a few addresses which simply don't want to receive mail from me. I might try using one of my alternative email addresses (like the gmail one) to respond to a few people from now on - what a pain, though!

Wednesday Wow

Somewhere, there must be a website which has catchy blog entry titles you can use instead of trying to think of something interesting for each post. You'll have to forgive my lack of originality and excitement and just enjoy the photos instead!

So, I'll start today with what I actually worked on last - a set of ATCs (Artist Trading Cards - these are 2.5x3.5 inches) for a swap with Lenna's Creative Swaps website - the theme is Angel, Fairy & Diva and the cards have to use an image from an Altered by Design image sheet. This sheet was called (surprisingly!) Ladies in Red. I had fun with these - I had fewer red embellishments than I thought I did, so it was a bit of a stretch to find what I wanted - I think I need to buy some more embellishments - perhaps that's what I'll spend my money on at the various shows in the upcoming quilt show season, rather than fabric, which I have quite a bit of. I used one of the extra pieces from the styrofoam stamping swap as a background, and on the back as well - it had a silvery paint, but with some bits of gold showing through, so I have mixed silver and gold on the front of the cards with the red. 6 will go to the swap, 2 will show up here sometime in May when I post some ATCs for general trading. Not for a few weeks yet, though.




I actually spent most of the day today sewing, etc - after a quick run into New Malden to pick up a different zipper for the bag I was going to finish today (I had bought a neutral one, but didn't really like it with the bright pink and purple fabric so I decided to take it out and put in one more appropriate in colour - I'm glad I did, as I know it would have bothered me every time I used the bag, but a word of advice - don't ever remove a zip unless you have to - what a pain - almost as bad as putting the blessed thing in, in the first place). I can't show the bag (which is the May bag for the BQL Bag Challenge) until tomorrow, but I will show it then - it's fantastic, if I do say so myself (I didn't write the pattern, so I can say that, right?) - it's got an insulated lining, so it will be a picnic bag - and we picnic a lot - sometimes in a more formal way, and sometimes just in the sense of taking a packed lunch along on an outing - so it will get a lot of use.

I also worked on my quilt for the Miniature Booty Swap, which I ALSO can't show, so I've just put a little arty teaser photo above right - it doesn't give much away except a bit of colour, and as I showed you the fabrics I was going to use a while ago on the blog, you knew that anyway!

Above left is the next step of the mystery quilt (on nancy rose's site) I did today - 4 strips of 4 patch blocks made from nickels - I'm beginning to really wonder what this mystery will look like - it's bothering me less than I thought it would not to know in advance, which is a good thing...



And finally, my fabrics from the Just Japanese fabric club - 16 fat sixteenths of Japanese fabrics - some nice red ones this month. I thought I'd share the way they arrive in these sweet little bundles - I immediately unbundle them and have a better look, of course, but I do admire them in their little packets first.

Big blog before a bit of a break

So, Sarah went off this morning to spend the day with a friend, and the other two decided they'd like to play on the computers and generally muck about, so I decided to leave them to it for the morning anyway, and do some work myself. I went back to what I was doing yesterday, which was the brown postcards, ATCs and journal quilt. As you can see, I finished them all. One of the ATCs (the one with the diamonds) is for a swap on the Textile Challenges group - it was a shape lottery, you signed up then got a random shape you had to include in an ATC - mine was diamond, as you have no doubt guessed. The other two will be available to swap in a month or so, when I have a few more spares - I'll offer up a general swap when I get enough...


And the journal quilt follows a similar theme - the colour is probably closest to true on the JQ. The brown background is linen, and is from a pair of much loved trousers that have simply worn so much they aren't really, well, wearable any more. So rather than throw them out, I harvested them for backgrounds. Then added some strips of brown velvet from a square I received in a treasure hunt, some brown silk I bought in San Diego about 12 years ago, some scrim, brown mulberry bark, and brown yarn which I was given by my friend Barbara (who doesn't blog) who inherited it from an artist friend on her death and passed it along to me (with a number of other treasures) to use in my work. Sheila had done a lot of interesting multi-media work with fabric, lace, yarn, and so on, so you can imagine there were lots of lovely goodies I took away with me. And some clay faces and words. I think it's interesting - though I didn't notice until just now - that on the postcards, the brown velvet wanted to be at the top, but on the JQ, it wanted to be at the bottom. Whatever.





I also worked on the next step of the little mystery quilt I am doing (on Nancy Rose's site), then decided it was time to feed the kids some lunch and take them outside before they destroyed each other or the house (as there were only two of them around - and not the two girls - it took much longer for them to get to the point of being at each other's throats...) so we went off for a little (large) walk in Richmond Park, followed by tea and ice cream, respectively. I've posted a photo of some very cool tree - well, not really bark, as it's from the inside of a fallen and rotting tree - but tree bits. If you want to see more of our Richmond Park excursion, there are lots of photos in my flickr album.






And finally, just a note to say I will be away at my MIL's house (no internet) for a long weekend, from tomorrow morning some time, so don't be surprised if I don't blog until Sunday evening or so. I'll do the goals for next week then, also, rather than now. It's a good thing I caught up with all the blogs I read last night, as by the time I get back, there will be hundreds of posts again...

A little more conversation (a little less action)

Didn't do quite so much today as I had originally hoped, as I had Alex home with impetigo - he feels totally well, but can't go to school, as it's highly contagious (to touch) - so they have to stay home until the sores are more crusted over, etc. Which means he probably won't go back until after the school holidays. The main problem with having him home is that he feels well - it's not like I would wish my child ill, but if he has to be home from school on a schoolday, it's a shame he can't have one of those illnesses which involve lying somewhat limply on the sofa and watching DVDs all day. Today it was all "mummy can we do this, mummy can we do that". It wasn't without its fun parts, but as they are all off school for the next two weeks starting Monday, it's not the best timing. Anyway. During part of the day, he played on the computer for a while and I made a quick escape upstairs to do these blocks for the mystery quilt I am doing. I also managed to pin together the Spring Four Seasons Quilt, though I didn't try to quilt it at all, as that's not the best thing to try to do when you are constantly being interrupted.

I received the above card in the post - it's for the fastenings swap and features a button, a popper/snap and a tie. I particularly like the fish fabric underneath the little window.

Then Alex and I decided to watch Dinosaur on video, or rather, he wanted my company while I watched it, so I grabbed my scrap basket, which is getting a little full, and decided to have a little bit of a sort-out while watching. Here's the before picture, and here's the after:

on the left is a pile of scraps I sent to school, some large pieces which have been folded for filing in a roper box and some strips for the strip basket. On the right is the inside of the basket now - there's not really that much less in there, but it's much neater and will consequently hold a lot more scraps before I have to really really empty it!

Journal Quilt Project - Week 19

I decided to work on my journal quilt for the week today, and pin together the next Hawaiian shirt quilt - I can only do a little bit of that at a time or the safety pins start to hurt my fingers, so it's useful to have something else to do as well. Given how lovely a week I've had with receiving things in the post, I decided it would be fun to do a quilt using only items I had received from other people - not counting things I've bought, though allowing things I have swapped for. And so, this JQ is made up entirely of things from others, except for the vilene (stabiliser inside), the thread I used and the paper on the back. I know where some of these items came from, but some I can't remember for certain - and it's certainly the case that far more people have sent me things than are represented here - I have had things because of swaps, as birthday presents, things I won in giveaways, things sent as thank you's for things I've sent (which I wasn't asking for anything in return for - hence, not a swap), as extras with a purchase from a seller on eBay or etsy, as consolation squishies when my dad died, and sometimes, just as RAKs (random acts of kindness) - that is, for no reason at all, other than the fact that people are nice. I wanted to celebrate that with this quilt - what better way than to use some of the things!


Here are some of what they are - the background is a piece of shibori, made by Ann H, which recently arrived with the shibori swap from my dyeing group. The three square pieces of fabric and the metallic button are from the scavenger hunt swap I did with Angela on Arts in the Mail - oh and the butterfly is cut from a square of fabric from that swap. The green silk strip, piece of marbled fabric and the fleur-de-lis stencil paper are from the grab-bag I won on Susan's blog. The red snowflake stamped in Angelina was made by chaos for an angelina technique swap in my surface embellishment group. The narrow strip of pale blue felt was one of the things I received (in bigger pieces) with my Valentine's Swap from Amy. The feather was in a recent goodie bag from Karol-Ann, sent from South Africa and was hand-collected by her lovely self. The "PEACE" letter beads are from Cathi, who sent them because she thought I'd use them more than she would. (I wanted to put LOVE to go with the heart, but there was no L - oh well!) The white lace flower was in a recent surprise RAK package from Penny. The bit of interesting thread/ribbon across the top of the piece was a free bobbin which came with an order of ephemera and bits from The Fruit Pixie. The eyelash yarn around the edge came from the stash of Annie, who sympathised with my moanings about the cost of eyelash yarn over here, when one only used it for trim rather than a whole scarf and sent me dozens of colours (ok, maybe a dozen - but it was a lot!). The piece of silk mesh (behind the felt and rhinestone flower) came in a wee package of silk scraps with a Christmas Card from Annica. The peach flower button is from Julie. The shamrock charm and the rhinestone flower came from someone(s) but I can't remember who. It's possible they might have come from Anne or Jane, who sent me bits back when my dad died. (If either of you ladies recognises one of those as being from you, leave a comment and I'll edit my post to say!) And if I got any of them wrong, please correct me - mostly I was doing it from memory, and we know what that's like...

As you can see, a great collection of stuff - and there many more things I have been sent on various occasions, which haven't made it into this little 8x8 journal quilt.




The other thing I did, in addition to pinning the other Hawaiian Quilt (which took ages - I had to finish after the kids got home from school, which means my littlest helper helped lay out the pins ready for pinning...) was to cut some pieces for a mystery quilt I am going to do over here on nancyrose's blog. Believe it or not, I have never done a mystery quilt before (being one of those control freak people who like to see where things are going before they start) - but I have a rather large selection of 5" squares (nickels) and so was tempted to try this, which uses 71 of them for a small quilt - along with some other fabric, of course. And because the instructions are posted every two weeks, I figured I'd have time to keep up. I plan to put it aside as a baby quilt, or, if I don't like it enough, give it to Project Linus. I have pulled out nickel charms in mostly pinks, greens & purples to try to keep it under control a little - needless to say, I haven't made a dent at all in my stacks of nickels. Oh well. Thanks to Helen, who tipped me off to this mystery by mentioning it on her blog...

And finally, not quite so interesting as yesterday's post, but still nice - I received, from Freida, two more blocks for my pineapple quilt, and a nice selection of extra fabrics as I may need/want to make up some more blocks for myself to complete the quilt or make it the size or layout which works best...