Teacher cards & other bits

Did a little less work today - shoulders still feeling all that quilting yesterday! Though I did take the quilt around to Sharon this morning, and she seemed very pleased with it, so that's good. Anyway, one thing I did do was put some hanging tabs on this little beauty - I was going to do a sleeve, but decided not to in the end, due to the height of the hanging rail (which was already on the wall) - this way, I didn't have to move the rail down, and also, I quite like having the blue at the top again. It's not the same fabric which is in the centre, but it's very similar, so works well. I have moved the quilt which was in this space - the spring Four Season's quilt - it was actually a little large for the space anyway. Not sure where I will put it yet, but I will find it a home before too long...





I also did my journal quilt from last week, which really bears no relationship to the week, except that the kids and I had the sequins out today. 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... and done!


But the main thing I did today was to help the kids do their end-of-year cards for teachers - which mainly involved wielding the rotary cutter, fusing, and in Alex's case - helping with the glue. The design is entirely due to the children in each case, with relatively little input from me, other than the occasional reminder not to put stuff too close to the edges (as that hinders the satin stitched edging later). I did also do all the edges - more for time's sake than anything else. The three above are Alex's (he has two TA's in his class) - and below, Sarah's are to the left and Olivia's to the right. No surprises there - some people may think "less is more", but Olivia is certainly a "more is more" type of girl!

Weekly goals

Didn't do too badly this week, though one or two unexpected things came up, like the emergency quilt for Sharon and a full day at school on Friday. Still, here's what I set out to accomplish:

• journal quilt for the week (deadline 19/7)
• attach label to Hawaiian 2 and post
• attach binding to Hawaiian 3
• begin to quilt Forest Challenge
• finish S postcards

I will do the journal quilt today, otherwise, I'm happy - the binding for the Hawaiian 3 is not something which matters if it takes a week or two (or 6) more to do. It will move to next week's list, but frankly, it will still stay low priority, which is nice - nice to have something you don't feel guilty about not accomplishing!

• journal quilt for the week (deadline 26/7)
• attach binding to Hawaiian 3
• recycle challenge (one postcard) for Arts in the Mail (deadline 31/7)
• ATC for Textile Challenges - theme - "starts with B" (deadline 31/7)
• Manipulated fabric challenge for Textile Challenges (deadline 31/7)
• quilt a bit more on Forest Challenge
• work on Challenge Quilt for theme "inspired by an artist" (deadline 1/8)

A few miscellaneous small things which want doing - the manipulated fabric challenge will probably end up combined with the journal quilt, but that's ok - the challenge is simply to do something with manipulated fabric. The main thing is the Challenge Quilt, which I have been struggling with even thinking of anything to do with (hence no progress at all for month's) - however, after seeing the Hammershoi exhibit last week, I finally have an idea, so I might actually get something done on it. We'll see. I did consider giving up that group, which is run by my friend Wil, but then she picked me to choose the next theme, so I really need to stick with it. Plus, it's good for me!

Finished. Whew.

Believe it or not, I managed to finish this today - the coloured ammonites were easy enough to get done, but then I needed to fill in between them (in black) and this of course took much longer. Remarkably, I only managed to miss out one little bit, which I filled in later, and only backed myself into a corner once - these are among the hazards of free motion quilting, of course. I am very pleased with how it came out, and think it will really suit Sharon - even managed to get the binding on today -- the photo shows it with binding attached but not sewn down, but I managed to sew the whole thing down tonight while watching telly - of course, as I usually use that time to read email & blogs, I'm way behind on that, but this was certainly higher priority, as it means I can give the quilt to Sharon before her first chemo.

Two photos below of quilting detail - no idea why blogger turned them sideways, but as it doesn't really matter, I've left them as they are. The fill-in quilting was fairly random, using some similar shapes to the coloured quilting and otherwise, just loose rectangly shapes. I think it works well.

Dragonfly flies home

Almost tempted not to say anything about this, as a picture paints 1000 words, and this is certainly lovely enough to speak for itself.... But I will add a little commentary - this is my quilt from the Spring Fling Round Robin, which was a little delayed getting to me for various reasons I won't get into. Anyway, it's here now, and was well worth the wait. I'm VERY pleased to receive this quilt as I love it, though frankly, most of the quilts from that round robin were pretty fabulous - even the one or two that weren't quite to my personal taste were beautifully made.

This one was worked on by Margaret, Carol, Valerie and Laura in that order and now it's mine (insert maniacal laughter). It's going up on the wall as soon as I get a sleeve put on it.



Here's a close-up of the dragonfly Margaret made for the centre, and a closeup of one of the dragonflies Laura quilted on it.

Nothing of my own work to show today, as I ended up staying at school all day helping with one thing and another - by the time I finished the first thing I went for, it was after 1pm, so it seemed silly to come home again only to go back for 2.30! Tomorrow I hope to make real progress on Sharon's quilt. Many thanks to all of you who have sent kind thoughts & good wishes.

Good quilt for a crap reason

Well, today was another day I kind of went off-list in terms of my goals, but I do have a good reason for it, unfortunately - the reason being that a friend of mine has recently been diagnosed with Hodgkins lymphoma - she's got three kids under 5 (for another few weeks - then there are two birthdays - but still) - her eldest is in the same class as Alex. Anyway. Basically it sucks. But of course, being a quilter, my immediate reaction to just about any bad news (or good news for that matter) is to make a quilt - the intention this time being something lap sized for snuggling under during chemo or when she's shattered later. They want to start her chemo right away (Monday) so I am trying to see if I can finish this up if not before Monday, at least in time for Wednesday or so, when all the side effects will no doubt hit. Right, anyway - deep breath.


This quilt top is one put together a while back from pieces from a discharging swap I did with Dyehard, my dyeing group. It's been hanging around for a while, waiting for me to work out what I wanted to do with it, but today I decided that the quilt top was highly suitable for Sharon and after a lot of thought (this morning during quilt group, and so on) decided finally to quilt it with "toothed ammonites", a la Dijanne Cevaal, in a variety of coloured threads. I've started - done about a third or a quarter of the required number. I hope to work on it tomorrow and/or on the weekend. We'll see. Here are a couple of close-ups of the quilting - I think they are kind of fun. And the important thing is, they are versatile, so I can position them wherever appropriate - in some cases, overlapping the discharged squares quite a bit and in other cases, much less so.






Another couple of photos - here's the progress on the quilt we are making with my Thursdaya group - the entire centre is now together - I have brought it home with me to trim the outside triangles to the right seam allowance and to cut (and possibly attach) the narrow cream border which is going on it next. Sorry for the slight fuzziness of the photo, but it was taken with my phone, which is not quite as reliable as my real camera.

And on the right, some faces, words and letters which I made up earlier tonight while watching The West Wing (I've seen them all before, but I borrowed the complete set from my friend Cathi and am in the process of watching them again - I've just started the third season). I need to do some more letters, but can't decide whether to just do letters in different colours or try to think of actual words to do - and if the latter, which words (suggestions gladly taken - though not necessarily followed).

Crocheted coral reef

No sewing today, as I took advantage of one of my last days of freedom before school finishes to go up to town and do some stuff without kids - first thing I did was hit the Vilhem Hammershoi exhibit at the Royal Academy - which I thought was great, but then I was a fan to start with. Although I often drag my kids whinging through art museums expose my children to the stimulating world of fine art, I usually avoid the special paying exhibitions as the kids get bored before I feel I've had my money's worth (to be fair to my kids, they actually like art, and don't really whinge, bless them). However, having a child-free day, I not only splashed out for the ticket to the exhibit, but also purchased the additional audio tour - and listened to the whole commentary except on little extra bit about one of Hammershoi's patrons, which I couldn't be bothered to pay attention to. Anyway, it was a great exhibit & I enjoyed it muchly.

I then spent some time wandering through London - up through Picadilly Circus into my old Soho stomping ground (I used to work there), including a quick stop in a nice art shop where I bought one or two things (see below!), a quick bite for lunch (sushi), then a stroll back down through the mildly sleazy parts of Soho (all the sex shops & shows seem a bit dingy and sad in the bright sunshine - I'm sure they must be more exciting at night - I hope so, at any rate!), through Chinatown, around Covent Garden (not through it - too many tourists), across Waterloo Bridge, and a quick stop in the Royal Festival Hall, where there's a crocheted coral reef currently occupying the project space.










It was kind of fun - not worth a trip on its own, unless you are a crochet fanatic, but certainly worth a small detour if you are passing in the general direction.

And on the right, my goodies - some watercolour paper, on sale, not for watercolouring, at which I would be terrible, as I can't draw or paint, but for ATC bases and postcard backs, and so on. Also some inks, also on sale, which I intend to use in combination with said paper to create nice backgrounds for stuff. Found a new push mould I don't have which I thought might come in handy - it's an alphabet - I love my face ones, but most of the other ones I've seen are things which, for me, are not that useful - teddy bears, dolphins, and so on. I'd love some sculptural ones, general textures and motifs, etc. A couple of packs of fimo with metallic effect, for mixing (I need to do some more faces and words soon - and letters, I guess) and two sheets of coloured acetate, which I thought might be useful for ATCs/PCs.

In all, a lovely day out, very civilised and grown up.

Can't see the forest for the trees

Did a little actual work today - started quilting the Forest Challenge quilt. Onto a pieced background featuring tons of tree fabrics, I am quilting, couching or otherwise embellishing a variety of trees. I am going to make some bigger, feature trees and then fill in around them will lots and lots of small trees. That's the plan, anyway. You may notice that it's an easily alterable plan in case I don't have time to fill in with lots and lots of small trees! I'm going to try to use a variety of techniques for the main trees - free motion quilting, yes, but also other things like appliqued trees, couched fibres and so on.

Today I managed four (nearly) trees - one free motion quilted (colour on that one looks a bit odd), one using wool roving to create the leaves of the tree, one using cord made from sari silk bits and one using pieces of silk stitched down with free motion quilting - tons of tiny leaves. We won't talk about how long that took to do. And you can see a tiny edge of yellow silk where I ran out of bobbin thread and couldn't be bothered to wind another bobbin...

Nice stuff in the post

Got a nice selection of things in the post today - an ATC from Julie, my July arch from Carol R for the arch swap on Textile Challenges, and a selection of fabrics from the pounded fabric swap on my surface embellishment group...

The fabrics are from (in no particular order) Wil, Judi, Becky, Marijke, Kathleen, Kelly and one of my own (left, second from bottom).

I did also do a little work today, but nothing really worth showing - finished the "S" is for Snail's Trail postcards and got them in the post, and put a label on the second Hawaiian quilt and put that in the post as well. So at least I can tick those off my list!

African themed day

Well, I promised I would drag out my African blocks and show them to you all - here they are. I think there is one more somewhere, but can't find it (an odd shadow applique thing) at the moment. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do with them - obviously they would need to be sashed or something. I'm not ready to do anything with them, so I reckon I need at least 4 more (in addition to finding the missing one). The main thing will be finding a way to balance the ones which are largely black with the ones which aren't, but I'm sure there's a way around that.




Here's one I finished today - the one on the left is not quite as wrinkly as it appears, but it is a bit puffy. I'll keep that one for myself and either fiddle with it, steam it a lot or possible just quilt the hell out of it later.

Also finished my journal quilt from last week - an African snails trail. Not quite enough contrast in the block, I think. I might do a snail's trail for one of my African swap blocks, but if I do, I will probably make one arm black and one some other solid colour or shwe shwe or something which isn't too busy, and then the two busy fabrics won't touch.

I also did get my "S" postcards mostly done, including quilting them and then deciding I didn't like it and ripping the quilting out again. Tomorrow I will back them and do the edges and get them in the post.

Goals again

Well, it's been one of those weeks - which is not to say I got nothing done, but... I don't mind not getting it all done, though I really do need to get my journal quilt finished. Tomorrow morning, I shall do that...

• journal quilt for the week (deadline 12/7)
• attach label for Summer FSQS quilt and post (deadline 30/7) - done, posted. at least that's something!
• attach label for Hawaiian 2 and post
• attach binding to Hawaiian 3
• begin to quilt Forest Challenge
• set of postcards for Starts with S (deadline 15/7) - I did make a start on these, hope to get them sorted in the next few days

I think next week had best feature a repeat of the current week...

• journal quilt for the week (deadline 19/7)
• attach label to Hawaiian 2 and post
• attach binding to Hawaiian 3
• begin to quilt Forest Challenge
• finish S postcards

Got very little done today - perhaps some tomorrow. Or I promise, I will show my collection of African blocks - I did get them all out, but can't be bothered to photograph them right now.

S is for Snail's trail

This is a start on my S is for... postcards - a squished snail's trail block (to fit the size of postcards. There's a little white paper showing on these, but once I trim them to PC size, they'll be fine. What appears brown in this photo is actually dark red, but you get the general idea. Otherwise, not much done today, other than grocery shopping - and then putting it all away at home. I usually get my shopping delivered but once in a while I like to go to the shops in person. Today I decided to go to Asda, as I needed some new polo shirts for the kids for September, and they have lots of school uniform in the shops this time of year and Asda is cheap - if you wait until the week before school is back, most of it is gone. My exciting life!

Layer cake & diamonds

Now here's something that is very me - I have a nice list of goals to accomplish, some of them with deadlines, so what do I do with my time today? Two things not on the list! I do have a little excuse for not tackling the quilting on the forest challenge quilt yet - my shoulders still ache a bit from carrying stuff around all day at the fair on Sunday, so I decided I'd not do that yet.

Anyway, they are my goals, and if I want to change them around, I will!

So, today - I decided to tackle those lovely fabrics straight away rather than put them away somewhere and never do anything with them. So I've cut them into squares and then sliced them up a bit and mixed & matched them and come up with this - a friend of mine was describing a pattern called a four-layer cake and I basically used that idea - not sure quite how it finished, so it might not look precisely like that pattern... Anyway, the colour in the photo is terrible (what is it with purple?) but in person, the piece looks really nice. Or, I should say, pieces...

I also worked on the diamond quilt for my friend Caroline's sister. Someone remind me why I decided diamonds were a good idea? What a pain! But at least it's looking good. Oh, and please excuse all the laundry piled up on the bed - it's been washed, dried and sorted but not put away yet - well, there was sewing to be done!

Also got this card in the post today - it's S is for swirls, from Jeannette in Georgia (the US one) - the reflection is from some little crystals on the card. I do need to do my "S" cards, and although I didn't do them today, I do at least know what I plan to do now...

African geese

A little something to show today - only a little, but I know that at least one person will be glad to see this! This is the curving flying geese portion of an African block for Karol-Ann - all that remains is the black background, which i hope to add tomorrow. The second one is for myself - I will finish it later - maybe tomorrow night - I am doing the curved strips by hand...

That's all I have to show for today - tomorrow the forecast is for pouring rain and I intend to stay indoors and sew for as much of it as possible!

Goals - better late than never

Just realised that in the hustle and bustle of the weekend (of which there was much) I missed doing my goals roundup and new list, so here it is - a little late, but still here. First, to recap last week's goals:

• journal quilt for the week (deadline 5/7) - finished. nothing elaborate, but that's ok
• finish label for Summer Four Seasons Quilt - done - technically, not within the week of these goals, officially, but it was done before I started the new list, so it seems silly not to cross it off!
• pin together Forest Challenge quilt for quilting - yep
• finish attaching the binding on the second Hawaiian quilt - also finished

So, this week. A little less frantically busy than last week, though I still have a number of non-sewing things I need to accomplish, so with that in mind:

• journal quilt for the week (deadline 12/7)
• attach label for Summer FSQS quilt and post (deadline 30/7)
• attach label for Hawaiian 2 and post
• attach binding to Hawaiian 3
• begin to quilt Forest Challenge
• set of postcards for Starts with S (deadline 15/7)

And that should do it.

Some gorgeous fabrics

So, today was a low-work day - but at least there was a little work (I did the labels for the Four Seasons Quilt Swap Summer quiltand the second Hawaiian quilt - though I won't show them, as the FSQS label has the recipient's name on it), and some quilt-related activity in the form of shopping. My friend Lana mentioned she was popping over to our LQS, Creative Quilting, so I decided to tag along and keep her company - after all, that's what friends are for, right? Anyway, I needed some more WOW fabric, have run my stock down a bit - and needed to have a look at their bits and bobs section, as I've been making lots of mixed-media things lately and have also run my stock down there. I didn't intend to buy a dozen fat quarters of other fabric, but I simply couldn't resist this new range from Timeless Treasures - it's simply stunning, isn't it? I shall have to make something for myself from these - not sure what yet, but something that shows off the fabrics, for sure.

Saturday stuff

Finally, a bit of a day to call my own - only the morning, but at least it was something - tomorrow will be another lost day, of course, with the summer fair at school, but I do feel a little better about my week!

First order of business was a journal quilt - I've gone for quick and cheerful - used the reject NYB block, quilted it with blue rayon thread, and hey presto - journal quilt!

Then I decided it was time to finish assembling the pineapple quilt top - having gone to the trouble to buy the red inner border fabric. I notice from this picture that I have obviously put a few blocks together in a different pattern from what I originally laid out - it had the paler blocks sort of flowing across the top, and now they are kind of clustered on one side. But I'm still happy with it and no WAY am I going to take it apart now. And now it will go on the "to be quilted" list - near the top, but not quite at the very top, as there are one or two things which need to be done first. Maybe next week I'll have some time to get to the next one...

Here, but nothing accomplished...

Well, nothing relating to sewing or quilting, at least...



I did attend two sports days today, spent the whole day at school yesterday organising the last of the stuff for the fair and spent the afternoon after the sports day today finishing the last bits of fair stuff at school. Nothing quilty to show, as I didn't even get any quilty post, but here is Olivia handing over her "egg" and spoon to the next person in the relay - look at that fierce concentration!

If you are looking for something quilty, may I recommend the blog for my little quilt swap (Another Little Quilt Swap) - almost all of the quilts have been finished and sent, and there are some great photos over there. And hopefully a few more to come very soon!

Stuff from before...

I didn't get a chance to do any work today, as I was at school all day helping to sort the library and get the spare classroom (which won't be spare in the autumn) ready for an Ofsted inspection, but I just remembered that there are two things I can show you now that it's July - the July bag from the BQL Bag Challenge, and six blocks for the Block Lotto on about.com, which this month is Quilter's Choice, with red, white and blue fabrics. Both of these things were done before July, so couldn't be shown until the embargo passed, as it were.

I also got a couple of nice things in the post - a silver & gold postcard from Diane, which has photographed better than I expected it might, as it's made from silver and gold lame fabric... And also, from Sharon in Canada, a complete surprise - some of the fabulous fabric she used to make the Here Comes the Sun postcards and a bit of gorgeous brown batik fabric. Aren't people nice?

Wonky Beauty

Worked today on the July block for the new round of the birthday block swap - twice. I started with the block on the left - now, the colour there is not totally true - the fabrics used are the same in both versions of the block - but still, you can see why I decided to do a second one. The central arc was a little short on the left one as well, but that could have fairly easily been fixed with a little picking and unpicking - but when I finished it I decided there was too little contrast in the central arc and that using the sand coloured batik on the little strip was too pushy. The right-hand one is better. Not bad for my first (well, second!) New York Beauty block, ever.

This one will be on the way to Joy before too long...