One more to show...

One more quilt I have received in a swap - a private one this time - which I forgot to show before - I can't remember what I swapped for this - maybe some unfinished tops or orphan blocks - but I'm very fond of it. It's a Mongolian Knot, and was made by Ann in France.

Little tiny quilts

A few more from my gallery of quilts made by other people - this one was made by Anne, and I think I swapped her fabric for it, rather than a little quilt.

This one came from a flickr group swap, I think - the theme was something to do with using words. I can't remember who made it, though I imagine I blogged it at the time. OK, it was Katy - I had a feeling it might be, but I have looked it up to confirm it. I stopped swapping with that group after a handful of swap because, this piece notwithstanding - I think it's great - I felt I tended to receive pieces which were not comparable in effort to those I was making... Though I did also get a great Volkswagen beetle in a swap from that group as well.

And this one, I honestly don't remember where the swap happened, though the theme was, I think, possibly to do with something old/something new/something borrowed/something blue. (OK, having looked it up, it was a swap organised by Kiwi Carole through her blog and the quilt was made by Sue in Washington State. I was right about the theme...)

Yet more!

Yes, I still have more quilts to show (though we are getting closer to the end of the show). This mini was from a swap with a fabric dyeing group I belong to...

This is the product of a round robin - I made the starter block at top left - it's a 4" block, I think - the whole quilt is quite small.

And this one is from a "Twisted Mystery" - we sent some fabric in to the central hostess, who then sent it back to someone else, who made a quilt using your fabric. I sent some lovely spray dyed fabric I was given as a gift, but have always found hard to use, and got back a nice convergence quilt from it - great idea for using the difficult fabric!

Skinny quilts

These two quilts are ones I swapped with the yahoo group British Quilting List (BQL) as part of the Skinny Challenge in 2011. I only took part in two of the months of the swap as I have been so busy (and also, I have a lot of quilts already). All the shapes for this year's swap are skinny (rather than square) and I'm very pleased with the two quilts I did acquire in the swap, even if I haven't managed any subsequent months. The two quilts I made for the challenge are here and here.

Yes, more quilts...

Here are a few more of the many quilts around my house. Yes, my entire house IS covered in quilts (and what's wrong with that?).

This piece is from a private swap that I did with Andrea, for our 40th birthdays, which were near one another a few years back. I made a blue and yellow quilt for her, which you can see over here.

This beach hut piece is not so much a swap as a challenge - it was a UFO challenge with the Textile Arts group, where we swapped small unfinished UFOs in the hopes that whatever was stuck would come unstuck, etc. I sent off the beach hut piece, which looked like this at the time (scroll to the bottom of the post), and got something completely different to work on - I've linked to all the posts about it because I think it's an interesting process to see... I love the finished beach huts and it hangs in my kitchen (but not too close to all the grease and grime generated by cooking!).

I've been trying to remember exactly where this piece was from - I think it was another Textile Challenges piece, but it's possible it was from somewhere else. I know it has a label on the back, but it's actually stuck to my wall with blue-tak, and I don't want to pull it off, as it will probably take some paint with it. Anyway, doesn't matter, it's a nice piece wherever it came from!

Lots of post

I received lots of lovely post today, which was a very welcome sight after a day spent in our local market town helping the kids spend their Christmas and birthday money (well, only Alex had birthday money, as the girls' birthdays are in Sept/Oct). It was a nice day, though rather tiring, and I didn't even manage a visit to my lovely local bead shop to compensate - decided it was a bit much with three kids in tow, even with my mother along for the ride.


Anyway, one of the items I received was this, which is Emmy's Exquisite Corpse piece. Obviously, you can't see any of it, as that's the point - there is actually a half inch showing, so that I can try to integrate my work with hers, but I have covered it for the sake of this photo. Emmy has also included an ATC for my collection and a notebook for those of us who are working on the piece to make any notes we wish to. I don't know what I'll do with this piece yet - and of course I won't be able to show you when I do work on it, but there you go...

Anyway, I got some other post as well, which I CAN show - two postcards for the Valentine Shaker swap, which have arrived just in time to be displayed with the rest of the Valentine's cards, before I change the postcard display to something a bit more spring-like - flowers, I think. These two cards are from Liz and Dawn.



And also, I received these items: on the left, a heart-themed tin from Flischa from the FAT trade; on the right, two ATCs from another trade on FAT - the For the Birds ATC swap. These two are from Suzanne and Michelle.

Tomorrow will be another no-sew day - we are going up to town with some friends for a half-term day outing. But on Thursday I have hopes of some sewing time before the promised swimming trip - not sure which part of my life is busier - the normal day to day busy-ness or the half-term "holiday".

Oh, and here's another fun thing - a while back, I sent a bunch of my small scraps to Betty, who was working on a project using 1" squares (unfinished) - well, she's now finished this quilt top, and it's truly remarkable - personally, I can't imagine having the patience for it, but it's definitely impressive -have a look.

Advent - Day 20; bird ornament

Today I chose the Christmas lightbulbs for the calendar - last night we went around to see some friends who live in a road which is very good for lights - I didn't bother to take photos as it never really shows that well anyway, but as it was fairly mild out we were able to have a nice walk and see all the lights, and of course a lovely visit with our friends.

Here's something else to show as well - my ornament from a swap on FAT (Fibre Art Traders) - isn't it cute? Lovely flowers on one side with leaves and the year on the other - made by Suzan M - thanks!

I did do a little work today - about 1/4 of a paper pieced block for the birthday swap, as well as printing the patterns and selecting fabric for another NYB block, also for that swap as a make-up block. But I am coming down with a cold and feel very tired today and couldn't focus, so gave up sooner than expected. Perhaps tomorrow I will get a bit more done...

Nice post

I did do a little sewing today - quilted a bit more in the border of Angela's quilt - but I have much more exciting things to show. First - my ornaments from Beate's International Ornament Swap. These lovely five ornaments came to live here today - the holly is from Eliane, the cream coloured angel is from Beate herself and the square ornament at the top right is from Maureen. The other two, I'm not sure yet who made them, but I love them anyway.



And also in the post, two purchases - some bits and pieces from AlphaStamps, including some images needed for an ATC swap I am doing in January and some fabrics from eQuilter. I decided that for the next year I will drop my Japanese fabric club (I have lots of pieces now and really need to do something with them) and do one of eQuilter's clubs - this one is called Creative Juices and should be full of interesting fabrics - some modern, some funky and so on. This initial selection is quite good - I have a real shortage of oranges at the moment, so it's most welcome!

Final (maybe) ornament

I seem to keep making ornaments this year! But sticking with the same theme as before, if slightly different colours, if done a star with a face and a word and lots of danglies. As before, the background of the star is free-motion quilted first, before the embellishments are added. The star is about 2.5 - 3 inches across the main part of the body (i.e. not from the tip of one arm to another). This one is for an ornament swap on FAT (Fibre Art Traders).

Goodies galore

Lots of lovely goodies in the post today - and it's not even my birthday! These stars are from the star swap on Lenna's Creative Swaps website - they are all wonderful in their own, unique way and will make great additions to the tree this year.

All the other pieces are from a complex cloth swap on my surface embellishment group - I particularly like the dark red one, but frankly, they are all superb. Now to think of something to do with them (other than just admire them, that is)...

Coming home to treats in the post...

...is one of the nice things about being out all day. We spent the day up in town doing various bits and pieces with our friends who are visiting, but came home to a nice selection of bits - first there was this great little quilted beetle from quiltinkimmie for the "Out of the Box" swap in the 6-12" swap group on Flickr. This was the swap I made the candy corn quilt for. She also sent a lot of other fun little bits and pieces, mostly Hallowe'en themed - needless to say, the kids have claimed some of them already...

I also received these two items - on the left, a little mini quilt with a something old/something new/something borrowed/something blue theme - this was from the swap that Kiwi Carole organised through her blog a while back - I made a box with a dragonfly on the lid for it. The little mini was made by Sue in Washington State. Thanks Sue, I really like it!

And finally, a "V is for" postcard - in this case, V is, of course, for Vegetables.

More stars

Well, like the madwoman I am, I signed up to another swap - this one is a little international ornament swap, hosted by Beate. The joy of this swap is that although there are 15 participants, she has offered the option of swapping 5, 10 or 15 ornaments, which is great. I'd love to do 15, but if I can't manage that, at least I can still take part. Today I had a little slot after lunch of about an hour and a half, and a decorator in my hallway, so I couldn't do anything where I needed to spread out, so these were the perfect things to work on. The blue is the front and the white the back - or at least, that's the way I made them - DD1 thinks the words should be the front, so I guess it's up to your own interpretation - though I was planning to sign them (in very small, neat writing) on the white side, which says "back" to me.

Stars, Crosses, Goals

Despite a busy morning (well, I have a yoga class - so not unusually busy, just out of the house) I did manage to get some work done today - got 6 star ornaments made for a swap over on Creative Swaps - even got them in the post, too. One more thing to tick off the list. It's beginning to be a little less scary - only a few more October things to finish. Of course, there's a week of holiday coming up at the end of October, so it might be best to get as many finished before then as possible!

Anyway, the ornaments. I used two pieces of hand-dyed fabric - the one you see is actually quite a purply blue, but that colour doesn't photograph well. On the back is a more red purple. Fused them to a rectangle of vilene, then quilted the whole piece before cutting stars out (traced around a cookie cutter). I then satin stitched the edges, and added grommets, faces and danglies. The stars are about 3 inches across or so.

I said yesterday I'd do the cross-stitch update and goals list today when I had fewer pictures - so here they are. I decided to start the central panel of the cross-stitch rather than work on any more boxes this week. It's coming along nicely. Obviously the word "America" is there, and then there are two robins on a nest below it. Probably take another 2 weeks or so to finish that bit, especially as I have some other hand work to do this week. I'm keeping an eye on the time, as I would like to work on my Christmas cross-stitch projects for a while around Christmas, so it's possible I will set this one aside for a few months while I do those - I'm not really in the mood for the Christmas ones for a lot of the year, so they tend not to get worked on, even when I'm really in a cross-stitch mood otherwise. But come November or so, I will feel like doing Christmassy things - at least some of the time!



And finally, the goals list. I think I mentioned last week that I might go to the Knit and Stitch Show - obviously, I didn't. In the end, I decided that I really just needed the time at home on Sunday to sew, so I did that. Maybe next time... Anyway, a review of the week's aims:

• journal quilt for the week (deadline 11/10) - done.
• start October birthday block - yes, all ready for the hand sewing bits, which I have started tonight, actually.
• work on Angela's quilt - nothing further done with this this week - just didn't have a day I could work on quilting the border. Maybe this week!
• set of postcards - "starts with V" (deadline 15/10) - done and mailed.

So, this week:

• journal quilt for the week (deadline 18/10)
• set of star ornaments (deadline received by 1/11 in the US)
• finish October birthday block
• start ALQS2
• work on Angela's quilt

I know, I already have one of those things accomplished, but I promise I had intended to put it on my goals list before today - in fact, I worked on it today because I knew it was on the list!

Mostly an away day...

Well, a small amount of work was accomplished today - I put the border on Caroline's sister's quilt. I had originally inteded to do more, but with Michael working on the wallpaper in the hallway, it was just a bit crowded and so forth, so my mother and I decided to go out for lunch and a bit of shopping.

When we got home, I found that the Shades of Sunshine quilties had come - and here they are - lovely, eh? Cn't remember whose was whose, and sure don't feel like going upstairs at the moment to find out, so suffice it to say they are all lovely and I like them all very much. Now to decided where to put them!

Raiders of the Box Swap

A few fun things to show today - some work was done, too, but it was to finish adding the borders to the Twisted Mystery Quilt, which I can't show you. Anyway, here's the fun stuff.

Firstly, I came home from yoga & a coffee with my mother to find a rather large box had been delivered by the postie (luckily, my builder friend was here wallpapering in my hallway, so it didn't get taken back to the PO substation). I wasn't expecting anything, so was a little bemused, and the return address was no help. So, I opened it and all became clear - it was the box from the Raiders of the Box Swap, organised by Trashalou. Now, I can't show you what was in the box (or the box, which I forgot to take a photo of - if you are interested, Gina did remember when it was her turn...)(, or what I added to the box after I took three items out, but I CAN show you the three items I took out - a selection of vintage lace, a box of selected blue items (beads, sequins, etc) and a pattern for making boxes in the style of Chinese takeaway cartons. The lace was an easy pick (like the second I saw it), the blue stuff was fairly straightforward, but the third pick was a lot harder - there were some lovely things in there and I debated for a while over bits of fabric, more beads, ribbon, interesting yarn and other patterns.

The other thing is an ATC from Paula, who took up my ATC challenge a while back - a great result, don't you think? And she enclosed some lovely charms for me, too.

Hoorah for traffic!

(I know, it's an odd title for a post - what happened was, we were going to go out this afternoon, but we got stuck in such bad traffic, we turned around and went home, which gave me several free hours in which I could do even more work than I had already done today - which turned today into a VERY productive day - a thing I've not had much of recently...)

This morning, I put together all the lovely hand-dyed pieces for Ursula's comfort quilt - in the end, I did 10" squares, as 12" squares, plus sashing, was getting a little large. This is still fairly large, but if she's going to be in a rehab unit for a long time, perhaps she can keep it on her bed there to brighten things up... Anyway, as expected, it's rather gorgeous, as the fabrics are so amazing. I'm glad I choose cream (over black, which was the other contender) - it's cheery and light and will show the quilting nicely. I pieced the back as well, from two pieces of hand-dyes - one of which was long enough but not wide enough, so I inserted a narrowish strip of a different hand-dye down the centre. Now just to pin together and quilt...



And here are the bonus things I got done - a little box, which I hope will be for a swap I'm doing, hosted by Carole, which is called "Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue" - I say I hope, because it's a 3D item, and I need to check that's ok before I send it out. The elements are: old - the box, which used to have greeting cards in it and the grey fabric on top, which came from a pair of Olivia's school trousers which split in the seat and had a hole in the knee and were therefore in the bin in my sewing room; new - the dragonfly decorations on the top, which I bought at Hever yesterday; borrowed - the dragonfly picture on the top, which I borrowed from Carole's blog; blue - the paper I covered the bottom of the box with and the fibres on the top.

And the cards are my "U is for..." cards - U is for Umbel, in this case. These are a photo, printed onto fabric, with thread painting on top. I thought those were going to be late (they are due in the post tomorrow) but I have managed to sneak in just under the wire - provided I get to the post office tomorrow, of course!