3rd post today - not the start of a trend, I promise!

Lots of bits and pieces acquired today - in the post, this summer card from Becky, another CCRR piece to work on (but not until September, luckily, as I haven't worked on the two for August yet! - it's just early as the sender is going away on holiday), some polymer clay that I ordered off ebay to play with my face mould, and these little stamps, which weren't in the post, but rather in the supermarket in the kids' crafts section (always a good place to look for stuff). What I like about them is that they are very simple shapes, which means they should stamp fairly well on fabric (which often loses detail) and with thickened dye rather than ink pads (ditto with the detail). I also like that they were very cheap...




Later in the day the doorbell rang with a delivery from Amazon. After never finding a cheap price on the no 7 Harry Potter, I finally ordered it off Amazon, but to get free postage, I of course had to order something else. Hardship indeed, you may think! Anyway, this has been sitting on my wishlist for a while, so I decided to throw it in the cart. Now of course I'm torn which one I want to read first...

And, ta da, here's today's work - no sewing, but I did test out some of the polymer clay with the mould - not bad, though it will take some fine tuning. The gold clay, beside being a little more like glaring yellow than what I consider to be gold, I found quite sticky and hard to remove from the mould without damaging the detail of the faces. I don't know if this is the metallic element of it, or the clay itself - it was Fimo. The brown was Sculpey and came out much better. Obviously, I will have to do some more testing - maybe a non-metallic Fimo to see what happens. And the girls both want to make faces, as does my friend Cathi, who we are going to visit in Ireland next week, so I think I will acquire some more colours, perhaps at the Festival of Quilts this weekend - someone there will surely be selling it (ArtVanGo, perhaps - I intend to visit them anyway, for sure) and we can all play around in Ireland... But the good news is, the tiny faces are definitly of a size that can be used on postcards, so expect to see some postcards with faces at some point in the not-too-distant future.

Quick blog contest update - thanks to Kim and Shelina for comments - we are up to 32 names in the (metaphorical) hat.

Sunprint idea percolating

Remember this sunprint piece from a few days back? I decided I liked it so much that I should keep it and do something with it. I wasn't sure what, of course. But today I was reading Dijanne Cevaal's blog and saw this piece she's done, which I think is fabulous, but more to the point, the way she's used the dynamic fabric as a background/frame for something small in the middle - the idea is still percolating in my mind, but I think this would work really well with this piece - leaving it mainly whole and free, but with something in the centre...

4 Things Meme

I was reading Sophie in Australia's Blog, Artstiches, and she extended an invitation to anyone reading her 4 things meme to play along themselves. As I'm having a non-sewing blog-catching up, computery kind of day, I decided it might be fun... If you haven't done this meme yet and would like to, please - go for it.

4 jobs I've had

• stay-at-home-mum/part-time childminder: ok, this is the current one. I take care of my own three kiddies (who will all be in full-time school come September - what will I do with all that time?) and I look after the two girls of a friend before and after-school most days. In many ways, this is my favourite job I've ever held - yes, there are days when I wonder what on earth I've got myself into, but frankly, the nice thing about dealing with kids is that even when they argue and get all childish and drive you mad it's ok, because after all, they are kids. I've worked in too many situations where people acted like that when they were plenty old enough to know better...
• webmaster, New Scientist magazine: I started working on the NS website when websites first came into existence (hey, I'm old) - I was never a complete techie - computers are not my background - and these days, I'd be so far behind the technology it's not even funny, but when we started - about 12 years ago I guess - we just wrote everything in HTML. Thinking back, it was all fairly basic :) Anyway, I stayed on the website for years (I had been on the magazine before as PA to the editor), moving into the more admin side when it got more technologically advanced.
• postal assistant/delivery person/general assistant at my university: this was a really fun job, actually - I worked with the maintenance department doing miscellaneous things, including sorting & delivering the mail, making general deliveries and pickups, driving people places, assembling furniture and any kind of random stuff which came up which didn't require specialist knowledge or abilities - much more fun than answering phones in some office, which is what many of the student jobs were
• supermarket checker: not quite my first job (which was McDonald's), but my second. I can still remember the produce code for bananas (2229)

4 films I would watch over and over:

• Bull Durham
• Strictly Ballroom
• Persuasion (with Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds)
• Men in Black

4 places I have lived:

• London suburbs (current)
• Washington DC suburbs
• Florida
• Germany (as a baby)

4 favourite TV shows:

• House (what's not to like?)
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Top Gear (if you think this programme is about cars, you are just so wrong)
• CSI (I actually like the entire franchise, even Miami, but the original is definitely the best)

4 favourite foods (this is really hard, I love food, so I'm going with food items rather than dishes):

• cheese
• really good crusty bread
• raspberries
• freshly picked corn on the cob

4 websites I visit every day

• blogger (to keep up with my own blogs, i mean)
• bloglines (to keep up with all the other blogs I read)
• my yahoo dyeing list, Dyehard
• http://www.weather.co.uk/ (ok, somewhat pathetic, but weather is an important thin here!)

4 places I love to be

• in my sewing room
• Juniper Top, our favourite picnic place on the South Downs
• anywhere with my DH & kids, when the kids are all getting along and not arguing
• the beach at night and/or off season

4 favourite colours

• brown (if you hang out here regularly, you'll know that!)
• black (for clothes in particular)
• purple
• green (though not to wear, so much)

4 names I love but wouldn't use for my children

• Noah (surname "North" - Noah North, I don't think so)
• Ruth (ditto - try pronouncing it)
• Orla (this is an Irish name, and DH and I aren't sure about using Irish names when you aren't Irish or don't live there, but I still love the name)
• Thomas (my BIL used it first, so we couldn't)

OK, that's it. More than you cared to know, I'm sure. I'm not going to tag people, but please, as I said at the top, if you want to play along, go for it.

Lotsa stuff on Monday

Great bunch of mail through the slot this morning - three different postcards, and none of them from myself (I always make an extra card for myself and post it, to check how well they travel). The one at left above is called "funny poppies" and is for the Sheers swap on FAI, from Kathy. It may be hard to see from the photo, but she's made the poppies (except the bits at the top of the heads) including the loose fibres in the tail/stems and then covered with sheer fabric, and then added the embroidery on top. Very effective; I like this card a lot.


The one at right above is for the summer swap with my dyeing group and is also a bit hard to see what's going on. Ann made the background "paper" from fibres and cling film (I think this was resulting from a Mixed Media class at Joggles) and added the butterflies on top of it. Guess I must add the clingfilm "paper" to my list of techniques to try...


And finally, the blue beaded one is from Liz, and is from the July Challenge (beading) on Arts in the Mail. In addition to bearing some amazing examples of beading techniques, this card has the distinction of being the heaviest I have ever received, due to the lovely stones on it. Liz says it was the result of doing a beading course and then going on holiday for week where she could only hand-sew. I can imagine!



Also in the post, my copy of the latest issue of QA - I know this has been around for a while, but I don't mind if it comes to me a bit late - I usually have a big stack of stuff waiting to be read. And having it delivered through the door is a darn sight easier than having to track it down. (And what I spend on postage I save on the current exchange rate and the fact that by not going to a shop, I don't buy fabric!)

And here's a view of my beaded doll, coming along nicely. I have now finished the color, and filled in around the red design which I said I probably wasn't going to fill in around (it didn't look right, somehow). I have just added a line of bugle beads as a demarkation line for something - not sure just what, probably a few more lines of bugle beads below, but not sure what above. Terrible photo of the poor thing - better luck next time, I hope.




Today I worked on two sets of cards - to the right, contrasts, for a swap with Arts in the Mail. I'm not entirely convinced by them, but perhaps they will grow on me as I gradually edge all the little apertures. My original idea was nearly solid black, with just a thin strip of something else (or maybe two) running through it; I may yet go back to that and put these in the surplus stack. We'll see.

And the item at left is, as I hope you'll have guessed by now, an igloo. This is for the Starts with I swap. Originally I had thought to use small "bricks" of white fabric, but they didn't look right, so I'm going with quilting the bricks in. The cards will probably have something else on them as well, but I don't know what yet. I did three today - my bricks are getting better, I have to say. Perhaps by number six, they'll be perfect (ha!).

And once again, thanks to those who left comments (and who have subsequently been enterred into my draw) - newly added to the list are: Debi, Teri (if you don't know Teri's blog, StegArt, you should definitely go check it out), Sally in the UK, and Di. Sally asked about groups for swapping postcards; there are lots of them. I belong to a number of them, not all of which are public, but the public ones are: FiberArtistInternational, ArtsintheMail, ArtWeMail, and FiberPC. All of these are yahoo groups - if you go to groups. yahoo.com and put fabric postcards into the search box, I'm sure you'll come up with more. And of course, there are many other places to swap postcards that aren't on Yahoo. I also swap sometimes on the quilting forum at quilting.about.com. And I have so far resisted joining swaps on the many sites that are mentioned by those whose blogs I read, but trust me, there are tons. Not all of them are open to beginners, but many are. Likewise, if anyone is looking for instructions on how to make postcards, a quick google should offer far more information than you would ever possibly use.

Blogversary draw update

Those of you who stop by regularly, please forgive me for repeating myself over and over, but I know a lot of people don't get a chance to read blogs daily or even weekly, and even with a blogreader which keeps track of unread posts, sometimes you miss stuff. So I want to make sure no one misses my draw (details here), as I'm getting kind of excited about it. I now have 26 people in the draw (26 - that is so cool!), listed below - if you aren't on the list but think you commented before - please comment again, and I'll make sure your name goes in the hat (or other suitable container). And, I have finished the final one of the 15 postcards which are the draw prizes, photos of them are available in my album on flickr - if there's one you really love, let me know and if your name is chosen, I'll do my best to match you up appropriately (or likewise, one you hate!).

Right - here's the list:

Peggy in Quebec, TottyJo, Kate P, Jane, Barbara B, Karol Ann, Liz, Ann
Joyce, Ruth
Myra, Susan
Vicky in FL, Amy, Caroline, Dawn U, Vicki W
LisaJo, Anna
Cathi, Anne B, Helen, Dy, Wil, Julie, Jan

Sheer cards, scrapbuster blocks

Finished my sheers postcards today - not sure how well they show the techniques used, but I think they came out well. The background is a sunprinted fabric, which then had a piece of (nylon) organza layered on top and stitched randomly fairly heavily with cotton thread (this is important because of the next step). I then used my little soldering iron to remove pieces of the sheer, sometimes cutting right up against the thread - because the thread is cotton, it doesn't burn if you just brush against it. If you hold the iron there for a while and concentrate the heat, it will eventually go through the cotton, but not with a regular touch (same with the background fabric), which is why this works. I then added lovely Oliver Twist threads couched down on top, and some stars which I painted purple and then French knots in more Oliver Twist threads. Finally, I edged with satin stitch, using a different colour on each edge. Ta da! (Apologies to those who've read the description before in bits and pieces, but I thought it made sense to put the whole thing here with the finished cards.)



When I had finished with the cards, I wanted to do some "regular sewing" (i.e. piecing - sometimes there is just something very satisfying about piecing together lots of bits to make something bigger) and as I knew I might get interrupted a lot (kids here, and despite their daddy being home, kids still tend to ask me to deal with stuff - anyone else find that? LOL), I didn't want anything I had to concentrate on too intensely. So I decided to pull out the scrapbuster squares and the black mock sashing - I finished sewing the first two rows together, and added black to about half the blocks for the next row. It all takes a lot longer than it looks, as those black sashing rows are made up of 2" squares, just like the other blocks are. However, I think it's going to look very effective if it ever gets done. The hard part is (as ever) finding somewhere to photograph it from - this view is with it on the floor of Alex's room, with me on the top bunk looking down - not too bad, but will probably only work for 4-5 rows, even if I move the furniture. Oh for a design wall - or more to the point, oh for a large wall which could be a design wall - even if I moved pictures, etc, my largest wall wouldn't be big enough (or rather, my largest wall, which is the one in the top stairwell, which is so high no one can reach the top to remove the cobwebs, probably would be large enough, but as I can only get about 2 feet away from it, it still wouldn't work as a design wall...)

Post - but definitely not postal

A good day for post today - I got back the fabric from the complex colour swap with my dyeing group (the challenge this time was to make a new red or orange using 3 existing dyes, either all reds & oranges or not) - a great variety of reds and oranges, as you can see. And should any of them be precisely what I am looking for, I will have the information to duplicate them (more or less - dyes always vary with water, fabric, dyeing conditions - but close enough).

I also got a push mould for little faces for polymer clay (Sculpey, Fimo, that sort of thing). I don't intend to get heavily into polymer clay (for instance, I'm not interested in making clay beads) but I really fell in love with Dy's faces, as some of you will remember and although she was kind enough to send me a few of them, I don't think I can fulfil all my face needs by begging, so I thought I'd try some for myself. Now that the mould is here, I have ordered some clay, and will mess around in a week or so, when it arrives.

I also got a postcard for the winter swap, this one from Priscilla - I do wonder what the postman's been making of these very wintery cards in the past week or so :)

And before I tell you about the last item I got, I'll just digress a moment to mention how much I love the blogging world. I know I've said this before, but bloggers and people who read blogs, at least in our little section of blogland, are very cool. I already mentioned one instance of that coolness above - Dy sending me some of her little faces when I told her how much I liked them - here's another. When Olivia did her kids' postcard swap, the card arrived with only "O-L" on it in beads instead of her full name, the others having gone walkies in the post. Well, Amy commented to say she was pretty sure she had precisely the same beads at home somewhere, and would we like her to send the rest of Olivia so the card could be fixed. How cool is that? Since the card was for a seven year old who was a little disappointed it didn't arrive intact, I took her up on the offer and today, all of Olivia arrived in the post (just in case the beads weren't an exact match). As it happened, they were precisely the same beads, and we have now fixed the card to appear as it was originally intended to. See what I mean? Don't you love bloggers?

Along the same lines, Ann has taken me up on my offer of relieving me of the rest of my batik HST units which I used for this little quilt and these triangle postcards and offered to send some goodies in return, including some eyelash yarn in a colour I don't have (not hard - I have blue and white!). So in a little while I'll have a lovely parcel of goodies to show you all from that swap. Another good thing about blogland - having done several things with those triangle units (which were leftover from a quilt top to begin with) I was unlikely to be inspired to use them again, so sending them off to a new home is an excellent solution.

And finally, two more people into the hat today for the blogversary draw - if you haven't read about my little contest (no brain power required, I promise) details are here. Today, LisaJo (who has a new blogspot blog - check it out) and Anna (who has a non-new blog full of excellent work - check it out!) have been added to the list. We are up to 19 now. Which is cool. :)

Nouveau cards, blog contest yet again

Well, here's the rest of the art nouveau 1900's cards. And the backs as well, which I bonded a little motif from the main fabric onto. I did eight cards, but I'd already written the back of the birthday one, so didn't photo the back of it. I think they came out nicely, even if they are fairly simple.

Also, this lovely mitten arrived today from Joanne in NE - part of the Winter theme swap. She says that winter sounds not bad to her at the moment, given their weather, but frankly, it's only just started being sunny here, so I don't think I'm quite ready for winter yet, LOL. Not to mention, I'd miss autumn, and that's my favourite season.

Thanks to everyone who commented yesterday - offering to give stuff away is obviously a really good way to get people to comment. :) We are now up to 17 people in the draw, and lots more time to enter before I pick the winners, so please, if you haven't left a comment yet, do! Yesterday's new entrants were Vicky in FL, Amy, Caroline, Dawn U (who offered to send me some sun from Turkey - too bad I can't take her up on that) and Vicki W (two Vickies in one day!) . Amy has just started her own blog - and is already addicted of course - and Vicki's blog is one of my favourites - make sure you check them out (but don't forget to come back).

Caroline asked about my sunprints, and as she commented anonymously (by which I mean, she left her name, but no email address shows, so I can't email her back) I'l answer here and hope she finds it... When I sunprint in the oven (which unfortunately, I've had to result to too often lately, due to English weather) I use a fairly low oven - around 100 C - and what I do is set the timer for 15-20 minute intervals so I can check if the pieces are dry or not and turn them over, if that's what I want. The folded, scrunched and tied pieces were all painted with photosensitive paint first, then folded up or scrunched and left to dry, although sometimes they were painted with a single colour, then scrunched and dipped partially in a second colour. This is the opposite of what I do when I dye; in those instance, I fold, scrunch or tie first and then add dye (unless I am dyeing a solid background colour first). The difference is due to the nature of the two types of colourants and processes. In dyeing, the folding, tying or scrunching act as a resist, so you want to avoid getting dye into those parts. With sunprinting, the parts that are blocked from the sun/heat source lose their colour anyway, so it doesn't matter if the whole thing is painted first, and you get a more even coverage that way. And I guess how I apply the dye or paint is a factor too - when sunprinting I use a brush (mostly), dyeing I tend to use squirt bottles or dipping or something like that. Hope that answers your question.

I do love having lots of comments with or without questions, so I hope you all will continue to come by and visit even when I've finished this contest (although - here's a teaser - I intend to have a weekly contest on my blog starting in the autumn - something will be given away to a winner drawn from those who comment, every week. It might be a postcard, or some inchies, or some interesting bits or scraps, or... so those of you who come back and talk on a regular basis are in good shape!). Gotta finish this - gotta go babysit for friends tonight. Might take the beaded doll with me and do a little work. See you tomorrow!

Sheer pocket quilt and other unrelated stuff

And now for something completely different? My mother thought it was fairly different, at any rate (but I think that was different in a good way). This is a small piece, 18x24 and is for Quiltswap 4. Perhaps I shouldn't blog it, as the pieces are anonymous, but I can't imagine too many people in Quiltswap read my blog and if they do, well, will knowing a piece is by me make them like it more or less than they would have? I doubt it. It's not like I'm an internationally known quilter or anything. And anyway, I've already blogged it several times, so it's too late now!

The background is pieced from leftover batik QST units - I used them for a series of triangle postcards a while back and decided I liked the effect, so used some more here. There are still more of them, and I'm getting tired of them, so if anyone out there would like a handful, let me know! (I'm serious here - I'd be glad to send them to anyone who can use them - the units are about 2 inches square and each one contains one triangle in the yellowy sand colour and one other colour and I probably have a hundred or so left.)

Onto the background, I then attached pieces of organza, which I sewed down with cotton thread, capturing a variety of items inside and used a soldering iron to remove the excess organza. Next, I used Markal paintsticks to outline the edges of the pockets, and then couched a variety of threads all over the top, including around the organza pockets. The piece was then fairly heavily machine quilted using loops and vague flowers. Finally, after binding, I added strands of beads (which hang loose) at the base of each organza pocket. And that, as they say, is that. On the whole, I'm fairly happy with it - it's kind of funky and worked more or less the way I imagined, which is all we can hope for in these things, right?



And now on to other things. I received the above fabrics in the post today - my fat quarter frenzy club - and they have been duly washed and ironed (though not put away yet). The good thing about this club (other than getting fabric in the post each month) is that often the fabric is not stuff I'd necessarily choose (though I usually don't dislike it), so it fills holes in my stash - very useful for block lottos, swaps, challenges and so forth. And postcards, of course.

Two postcards finished today - one will be going out as a birthday card tomorrow, the other will form, with its yet-to-be-completed comrades, my cards for the 1900's swap on Arts in the Mail. Hopefully I will get a chance to finish them tomorrow. It may not show in this photo, but I've added a sheer layer over the nouveau print and cut-out, stitched it down in a few places, and edged it. This card is much simpler in technique (or at least in the number of techniques!) than many I do, but I think the print in many ways speaks for itself, so I didn't want to do anything too distracting. I did try one with some fabric paint, but didn't like it, so didn't pursue it further.



And finally, I managed to finish off my sunprints today for the swap with my dyeing group. The sun immediately went inside as soon as I got my prints all out, so except for the salt one (left), I ended up finishing them off in the oven. I tried doing some folding and tying on them to see what would happen, in addition to using my favourite method of scrunching - I'm not sure the others worked very well, but this one, which I painted and then gathered into a loose spiral (like for doing t-shirts) and then dunked one side of into a different colour paint, before setting out in the sun/putting in the oven came out really well (or at least, I love it. Actually, I realised I now have 9 pieces and I only need 8, so I'm keeping it . So there.) The rest are here on flickr - the first 6 photos in the set are today's pieces.

Oh, and nearly forgot - thanks to Myra and Susan for commenting and thereby enterring the blogversary draw. We're up to 12 people now. Hopefully, there will be some more - you have until the 26th to comment, so even those away on holiday and stuff will hopefully get a chance - details are here, if you missed them before.

Beaded doll again, other bits, blog contest

I had every intention of doing some sewing today, but with one thing and another, just never got there. I did get a lot of stuff done (caught up with email bigtime, collected the car from the garage, had shopping delivered & put away, rearranged the girls' bedroom furniture, watched a bunch of kids including the two daughters of a friend who was in the back garden putting up our bike shed at the time, did laundry, and so on) just no sewing. Good thing I saved last night's efforts in beading, then!

As you can see, I have finished her "hoodie" as it was described in an earlier comment - green on one side, gold on the other. Not sure what I will do below the neck yet, will play it by ear. I think she looks great - I am getting fonder and fonder of her as the days go by. I had an idea to give her as a present to a friend with a 40th next year, but I think I will have to make a different one for that, as I don't think I'll be able to part with this one.

Also got a card in the post today, amidst the various junk which otherwise forms the bulk of my mail - this is an "H is for" card, from Annette. Great approach to this theme, I think. My next alphabet challenge will be to think of something for "I". I have a few ideas floating around, but nothing has really clicked yet. Of course, being the type of person I am, I feel like I really need to "catch up" on the series - I have a "G" (the flying Geese cards) but no A-F. As I need cards for miscellaneous other occasions, I might well do some other alphabet cards - small series of 3 or 4 perhaps. Going backwards and starting with "F" first, maybe. Or maybe not - we'll see. I guess it will depend on whether I think of anything inspiring for those letters...

Thanks again to those who have commented in order to be enterred into my blogversary draw - I have now added Joyce and Ruth into the pot. Liz, thanks for your second comment, but I'm afraid your email address still isn't showing (it comes through as no-reply@comment.blogger.com or whatever the anonymous default is) - you can either send me your email address privately to katelnorth at yahoo dot com, or just be sure to keep checking back here to see if you've won - and if you do, let me know your details then - I don't mind which way you do it, but I'd hate to see you win and then not be able to get ahold of you.

1900s, sheers, bits & blogversary draw (again)

Someday I will learn to take decent digital photos - maybe. Anyway, what we have here is two sets of postcards. The ones that look black aren't - they are actually a kind of dark green shot through with red - from the Colourshott fabric range. I know those fabrics don't photograph well, as I have tried to show them before with no luck. Anyway. Those cards are from a series called 1900's and are my attempt at an Art Nouveau look - I was having a hard time thinking of something to represent the 1900's (the decade). They aren't finished yet - there will be a layer of sheer fabric over top and some stitching and possibly some other bits, depending on time and what the cards want when I get that far. Luckily I had some fabric with great Art Nouveau images on it, which I'd bought on sale ages ago and had knocking around. As one does. There's still tons of it left, so I really must work out what to do with it...

And the other set of stuff is the sheers swap - the big piece I showed a few days ago has now been cut into postcard sized pieces, some gorgeous Oliver Twist yarns which Karol Ann gave me a while back were couched on top, some little fabric stars added, which were then painted with Jacquard Lumiere metallic paint, and lastly, I'll be adding some French knots to them before edging them (the closeup of the single card, although a terrible colour shows the knots a bit - again I am using a strand from the Oliver Twist pack).

And this photo shows some bits I bought today - stopped into the local department store to hit the haberdashery department for more interfacing (this seems to be the only place I can get the stuff I like to use inside postcards, which is fine, as it's convenient) - and of course, I had to trawl through the sale bin. All the bits pictured were on sale for £1 or less, except the gold two-tone skeleton leaves, which I think were £1.50. I have since used all the stars up on the sheer postcards - there were 9 postcards and 18 stars - it was obviously a sign!

Thanks to everyone who has left a comment already for my blogversary draw (posted yesterday) - so far, I have Peggy in Quebec, TottyJo, Kate P (aka "the other Kate"), Jane, Barbara B (aka zizzybob), Karol Ann (who nearly always comments anyway, bless her), Liz (who has told me her favourite cards, but not her blog or email, so I hope she keeps reading, in case she wins), and Annie (who actually commented in the space of time I was blogging this entry - how's that for current!). Apologies ladies for not responding to all your comments personally this time - I do try where possible, but today I'm just going to say thanks right here. At the moment, if no one else comments, you guys are all winners! If more than 7 people comment before the end of August, well, you'll still be winners, but there's no guarantee you'll get a postcard :) But I do love having people comment, so I hope you'll keep on reading even if you don't win.

Yesterday Peggy asked about making beaded dolls - this is my first foray into the whole adventure and I have to confess, I am totally winging it. There may well be instructions somewhere, but I am just making it up, based largely on photos from other people's blogs. I'm trying to think whose, but the only one I can think of off the top of my head is Jo in NZ, who I'm sure has done some - try this link, which is to her posts tagged "spirit dolls" - there might well be some more links to others in there. If I think of any others, I'll put them up, too. This is the problem with reading tons of blogs - lots of interesting ideas, but you can never remember where you've seen them...

Blogversary coming up

Well, it's my first blogversary in August (the 26th to be precise) and to celebrate it, I will be holding a little draw (well, maybe a medium-sized draw). I have 15 postcards to give away, each different, and all you have to do to be entered in the draw is to leave a comment some time in August, up to the 26th. Only one entry per person, no matter how many comments you leave :)

As we will be away in Ireland on the date of the actual blogversary, visiting our friends Cathi and Dave, I may even have Cathi draw the winners so I can't possibly be accused of showing favouritism (unless she comments, in which case, we might have to have the kids do it, or something!). If you do leave a comment, please be sure I can get back in touch with you- if you don't have a blogger profile, etc leave your email address (e.g. person at thingy dot com to avoid spam) or send me an email along with your comment to katelnorth at yahoo dot com.

I have an album on flickr which shows the 15 cards (ok, at the moment it shows 11, but I have 3 more waiting to be photo'ed when I get around to it and one more which will go up as soon as it's finished) - so if you like a particular card, you are welcome to specify which you'd most like to receive and I'll do my best to match you up if you are picked...

This is all just completely for fun, no skills required, so please do join in - I wish I could send something to everyone who comments on my blog, especially those who come back regularly and those who say really nice things (often the same people!) but I just can't - so I've been putting aside an extra card from a lot of my themes this year, and look forward to rehoming them.

Beaded doll - progress

See? I told you I'd done some work on it - although these photos actually incorporate two nights' work - and I was right I wouldn't get anything else done today - and no postcards to show (except my own pink & purple one back). Anyway. Here's the doll. Don't ask me why I felt compelled to surround the head in green, I just did. I am going to continue the green around the bottom of the face/nack until I run out of green or get a little more than halfway around, whichever comes first. Then the other side of the head will be filled in similarly, but with another colour, not sure what yet. I'm not sure what I'm going to do below the collar, but I think I will leave some space around the red thingy (technical term!). I haven't done anything on the back yet, but probably will, before I am done. We'll see how it goes. At least it will give me a valid excuse to buy some more beads at Festival of Quilts!

Odds and ends

An odd assortment of stuff got worked on today - partly, it was just really hot and who feels like doing anything that involves keeping the iron on, when it's hot... So I worked on the quiltswap piece, which might actually get done after all (it was beginning to look as though it wouldn't). I did a lot of free motion quilting on it today - it looks ok, though not brilliant. But it did acheive the effect of really making the pockets stand out, which is what I wanted, so I guess it was successful in that respect. It still wants something, I think maybe strands of beads dangling off it. We'll see. Binding attached ready to stitch down, so at least it's nearly a completed stage.

Another thing I worked on is a piece for the sheers swap on FAI - it will get cut up into postcard sized pieces (in fact, it already has done, but that was after this photo). I did the usual (for me) sort of stitching organza on top of an interestesting piece of fabric, then using the soldering iron to remove pieces here and there. I'll do something else with the cards, too, but not sure what yet. And it strikes me that the August challenge for Arts in the Mail is to do with burning or melting, so I may be able to kill several birds with one stone here...

And finally, I made a little doll-type form for one of my lovely faces which Dy sent me a while back - the intention is to bead the form, as the spirit dolls one sees are beaded. I've actually made a start on it, but of course, that was after the photo was taken (well, I have to save SOMETHING for tomorrow, in case I don't get any work done - a real possibility, as we have to take Grandma to the airport, which will eat several hours of time.)

Sunny day = sunprinting

Well, I feel almost back to normal - I took some time this morning to sew (rather than go out and do stuff) - first I put together two cats to make a double cat unit, then I paper-pieced a block for the birthday block swap - this is the block for Vicky, the person who wants "summer". I had decided not to make the star I've been making for lots of others, as it didn't feel very summery to me, but I wasn't sure what I was going to do. Another Vicky (I seem to know lots of Vickys these days) commented on my blog that I might do an Ocean Waves block - and I considered that, but decided in the end that Ocean Waves doesn't really look that good as a single block. However, while I was contemplating that, I suddenly thought of Storm at Sea, which is a lovely block, with interesting movement, and decided to go for it. This photo is a bit dark - what looks here like a dark red is actually nearer to fuschia, and I'm not sure how well you can tell I've used two different turquoisey fabrics (the outer one has some green in it, too). I think the block is very summery, and hope Vicky will like it.

Also today did some sun-printing with the kids - I need to do some for a swap on my dyeing group and it just hasn't been sunny until the past week. Did three pieces today, and need to do some more next week. Luckily, the sun looks like it might co-operate... The kids did some pieces too (of course - can't possibly sunprint here without the kids getting involved), photos of which are on the family blog.

Days of cards and kitties

Quite a nice selection of cards today - one from Melinda, for the blue swap on FAI, one from Dawn in Turkey for the pink and purple swap on Arts in the Mail, and one from Kandy as an "unbirthday card" - a lovely surprise. And an "Africat" - a wee kittie done with African fabrics - not sure it works, though - what do you guys think? Ignore the bad tail - I just quickly stitched it down to check the spacing, it needs to be removed and basted before appliqueing it properly.

Weird beaded card...

Today I edged some purple postcards. The purple and pink ones are mainly for the pink & purple swap - I worked on them the other day, but didn't get to edging them until today. Two of them will go to people on my birthday postcard group list. The other card (with the beads) is for the July challenge on Arts in the Mail, which was beading. I was trying to do something a little freeform and funky, but think I probably only acheived weird. :) But the colours are pretty, at least.

I'm not getting nearly as much work done as I normally do (you may have noticed) - obviously this is partly due to the kids being home for the holidays, but also due to my mother being here, and just a bunch of stuff. Today, for instance, I spent most of the day emptying everything out of the brick shed in the back garden, laying the wet things out in the sun to dry, cleaning it out (including a few small puddles of water), making a big pile of stuff to go to the tip (some just junk, a few things water damaged, though nothing important - just stupid stuff you have in your shed, like a billion old tennis balls and the offcut from the roll of vinyl flooring in your kitchen (we had two - one seemed fine, if a little damp, the other was discoloured for the 8 or so inches that had obviously sat overnight in water) and so on). And then, of course, putting everything back IN the shed. Ah, the joys of the British Summer (but I do keep telling myself that it wasn't in the house, for which we are intensely grateful).