Around the world quilt bee

Yesterday I received the last four installments of the Around the World Quilt Bee - I did blocks for three of them today - and the fourth one is mine, so I didn't have to work on that (yet - obviously it will eventually have to be quilted!). I'll show one of the blocks today - this is for Katy (I'm a Ginger Monkey) who has a virtual village thing going:



My block will be the first in the last row at the bottom - it's not shown in this photo. The other two blocks will follow later in the week, as will my own quilt - might as well save something for another day!

Today was an ATC sort of day

First, I finished off a set I had started the other day - three of these are going off to the July birthday girls in my Birthday ATC swap; the others have gone into the gallery on ATCs for All, which I joined back in June, but have only just started swapping with (and I've already arranged about 10 swaps in just a few days - if you want to swap ATCs, I think it might well be the place!).



Then I worked on these - they started with the top three as cards for a "Three of a Kind" (card must feature three of the same something) also on ATCs for All - one other requirement was that the cards be flat with no bulky embellishments. Well, you can imagine how hard that was for me, the Queen of Bulky Embellishments... But I persevered and came up with three cards with flat threes of a kind. However, along the way, I kept thinking of all the things I might be able to use if I didn't have to make flat cards, so I used some of the same materials and added a bit more stuff which wasn't flat to make some other cards. Voila.

These cards are also unusual in that they aren't finished on the back. They are fairly neat on the back, just a little stitching and a few fold-downs of brads and things, but I didn't want to back them because the card I used as a base fabric was punched with loads of tiny holes and I wanted the cards to still be partly see-through.

Tomorrow, it's on to the last of the Around the World Quilt Bee blocks - I got four sets of blocks in the post today (one my own! when I open it, I'll share it here, but I'm trying to get the ones I have to work on done before I look at my own) and hope to make the blocks for the three that have to move on, tomorrow.

SAH Robin update

I kept meaning to post during the week, but it's been so busy towards the end of school, that I just don't seem to be able to work up the energy... Anyway, thought I'd share an update on the stay-at-home Robin - click at the top of the page to see all the photos so far, but just in case you are curious, here's who's playing so far:

• me, of course
• Janet
• Gene
• Lisa Jo
• Plum
• Amo House
  

If you decide to make a block and play along - even if you don't start in July! - please let me know so I can add you to the virtual round robin...

Little wall quilt

Instead of doing a second Stay-at-home Robin to make a quilt for the girls' room, I decided to use a Moda charm pack which I had - the line is Cherish Nature by Deb Strain for moda and it has just the right colours in it. The whole thing was fairly random - I just did triangles & squares & rectangles without much planning. This is how Olivia arranged it on the floor, with a few minor balance adjustments. If I don't lose track of the order during sewing, this will be how it looks (more or less) sewn together, as well...

Canal House D

This time around, I decided to do the edges of the windows, doors, window frames, house top, etc by couching yarn down with a zigzag stitch - this worked well, and wasn't too labour intensive. I might well use this method again on another house. Ta da!



I did some other sewing today, as well, but as I know I have another week of no sewing during the week (working both morning and afternoon), I will save the photos for a little later in the week. I also have an update on the Stay At Home Robin - at least 3 people have shared their starter blocks with me, so I'll blog about that - and maybe a cross-stitch update, too. So, a little better than last week, which was a bit of a desert on the blog...

Fireworks!

I don't know where my brain is, as I obviously should have posted this either on the 4th of July, or on the 1st of July when it was no longer secret what the blocks for the July block lotto were going to be. But then again, if I had, I might have nothing to show for today. Though I could take a photo of my cross-stitch, which I haven't showed in a while.

It's been a busy week, and I haven't sewed much (at all), though today I did finally get a chance to start stitching the windows down on the canal house. Hopefully I will finish that tomorrow and be able to show it - and then, another week of work! Whose idea was this whole work stuff, anyway?
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Canal House D

Here's another Canal House - this one isn't finished, as I've not done any sewing, but I have at least placed the pieces onto the stabiliser so I can work out what I want to do next. I think I might try couching some yarn down to do the windows, but again, not totally sure - will have to play with it!

The water is from a piece of fabric which I got in the post yesterday, as a wrapping for this bracelet, which I bought from Michelle's etsy shop. The minute I saw the fabric I though - canal house water, for sure. The sky is supposed to be a sky at sunset (or sunrise, perhaps) - I think it works ok, though I was a little unsure about having quite so much pink in the sky!

Linus & Robin

Not some odd new crime-fighting duo, but the first block for my own Stay at Home Robin - this block is free-pieced using a technique similar to the one used for the Block Lotto in May (reed blocks - lime green on black), except that I didn't use bias strips, just cut the fabric as it came, and as I felt like it... I figured a batik & black quilt would work well, as all batiks go together anyway, and they all go with black! I am debating doing a second one at the same time as the girls have been asking me for a quilt for their wall (a small one - there are lots of quilts they could have, but none really fit the space) - that would be chocolate brown, turquoise blue & silver (or grey), which might be fun to do as well. Will have to see what I have in the way of fabric...




And here's a little quilt top for Project Linus at some point - the border fabric is actually apple green with baskets of apples on it, so you can tell it has really washed out in the photo. I think three of the four fabrics in this quilt are ones my mother has given me - possibly all four. The apple fabric I know came from when her local JoAnn's (she lives in the US) closed down and liquidated its stock. The two cat themed FQs (red and blue) just seem like something she might have passed along...

Stay at Home Robin

Ok ladies (and gents!) - the moment you have all been waiting for (ok, SOME of you have been waiting for it, I know). The start of the Stay at home Robin. This year's Robin (and yes, that implies if this works for me there will be another year...) will be a wall-hanging 16x18" (approx 40x55cm) in size, and will run for 12 months. The first 7 months will involve piecing - sometimes one piece, sometimes two and once, three - but nothing bigger than 5x15" and of course, there's no need for the pieces to actually be pieced themselves - they can be partly or completely single pieces of fabric. As you will have seen from the robins I've been posting on my blog recently, the finished quilts work best when there is a combination of pieced sections and unpieced sections - but obviously, this is your quilt, so it's up to you. The last 5 months will involve doing something else to your pieced top - up to, in the final month, binding it and putting a hanging sleeve (if desired) and label on it.

I will be making my own little quilt each month as we go along (not working ahead) so I might not have my example ready with the first of the month's instructions, but I will also be making a virtual quilt, which I WILL have ready for the post with the instructions. When you have done your month's work, either send me a photo, email me with a link to your blog or comment on my blog to say that you've done it, and I will add you to the page (tab at the top of my blog) for the robin.

And then, we can watch each other's progress and see how we are getting along - hopefully, we will have a lovely group of little quilts to show at the end.

Right then, so the first month's instructions are: start with a block which is 6" square (finished - so your block should measure 6.5" square before you sew it to anything else) (this can be pieced or plain - personally, for the first month, I recommend pieced!).



Here's my "virtual" quilt block for the starter - and just to give you an idea of the shape of the overall piece, here's what my "quilt" looks like so far




We are not putting a border on our quilts, but I have showed the border with the EQ layout, because it was hard to see what I was doing without it - and it gives an idea of how your block will fit in to the overall scheme of the quilt, which might help you with things like choice of scale, etc.

Later in July, I'll be showing my actual quilt block - once I figure out what I want to do, that is - it won't be a fabric representation of the virtual quilt, though...

Some thoughts - mine and others

So, no quilting or sewing today, but I wanted to share a link to a blog entry I read recently over on Sandra's blog - it is about, in part, not feeling guilty for the time taken to create and/or do other things for yourself, though it covers more than simply that. It's a lovely, thought-provoking read, and I do recommend it.

As those who know me either in person or through reading my blog will know, I am a big proponent of carving out some space to fulfil your own artistic needs, and doing so without guilt, so a lot of what Sandra had to say rang true with me, despite differences in background and life experience.

Too much fabric

I have come to the conclusion that I have too much fabric. Or rather, not precisely that, as it's not the total amount of fabric I have that bothers me, but that I have too many bits and pieces of fabric which are unlikely ever to be used.

Where did these come from? I have considered the possibility that they simply breed in my stash boxes, but actually, most of them I remember acquiring - a few have been gifts, a few are leftovers from things purchased for a specific project, a few are FQs acquired as part of a set of FQs where most of them fit in nicely to my stash but a few, not so much (I have in the past belonged to several FQ clubs - and there have been months where you get 7 FQs you like and one where you wonder what the designer was thinking...)

Some came from my early days of purchasing quilting fabric, when I bought a lot of the kind of thing I'm not likely to use now - not so much because my taste has changed (though it has a bit) but because even in the 10 years since I've been a serious quilter, fabrics have changed a lot and a lot more non-traditional fabrics are available. But also, when you are a new quilter, you don't always know what kind of fabric will work best in your stash... And, I confess, a few are just cases of "why on earth did I buy THAT?"

I'm not proposing to de-stash - not at all - a lot of things I have which I might not use as the feature fabric for a project are actually very useful for block lotto, small projects, swaps, round robins, challenges, etc. But there are some I just know I'm not going to make good use of, so I've decided I'm going to make half a dozen (or so) easy-pieced quilt tops over the next year (or so) and try to get rid of a few of these fabrics which annoy me when I am going through my colour boxes, looking for stuff for projects. I will then donate these tops to charity, so I'll get to feel good on two counts. :) I'll probably offer them up through my blog, so if you make quilts for your favourite charity - watch this space.




Anyway, today's work (well, the part I can show - I did some block lotto blocks as well, but they are for the July sneak peek, so I can't show them until Thursday (ack - it's July on Thursday - does this freak other people out as well, or just me?)) was to make up a set of these blocks. I started with two fabrics I knew I'd be unlikely to use for things - the pink (which is almost red and very strong, and hard to use) and the purple (like it in principle, just been hard to find a use for) and found a few other things to go with them - a strip of yellow flamingos and palm trees (but not enough, so added another yellow as well) and a green tonal, which I'm sure I could have used elsewhere as well, but which went. Made some 4 patches, then framed them with the offcuts of two neutrals, both of which are leftover from quilt backings and hey presto - 12 x 11" blocks, which I will sew together soon and...it's a quilt top.

It's a bit dark in the photo, but actually, the blocks look quite nice and the framing keeps them from being too overpowering, despite several strong fabrics. And even if it doesn't make much of a dent in the stash, at least it will make me feel better not to see the questionable fabrics in my colour boxes every time I look through them!

How does your garden grow?

Having now finished all my committments on other people's round robin quilts, I have had a good long look at mine, and it's great. I am very happy with everyone's choices for this quilt and I think it accomplishes the main aim of a round robin well - to have something which I like (because I got to choose the style of the starter) without being like what I'd make if I were doing it all myself - for instance, I probably wouldn't have chosen to add a cat because I tend not to think of cats (but it suits it beautifully); I'm not great at hand applique, so I wouldn't have put a gorgeous flower like that on; I certainly wouldn't have hand quilted it because again, not my strength! though it's a lovely choice for this quilt.

My starting block was the paper pieced flower in the top left, and looking back, I think it was a really good choice of fabrics, as the addition of black and white fabrics has carried on through the quilt and kept it from being too bright for my taste. Overall, it's a nice mix of colours and fabrics and I'm very pleased.

For those of you interested in my Stay-at-home Robin, I'll be posting the first month's instruction next week - we are starting in July! It won't be a big piece (something like 4x4", though I can't remember off the top of my head what I decided to start with) but of course, you can still make it quite complicated, if you like - the joy of this is, it's all up to you...

Winter Round Robin

Here's another of the little round robins - I think this is my favourite so far - of course, it's all in my kind of winter colours...

This came to me as a completed top, onto which I was to embroider words and/or add another applique. I did both -I appliqued the little silver snowflakes on dark blue backgrounds and embroidered a quote, which reads:



"his soul swooned slowly...



...as he heard the snow...



...falling faintly through the universe...



...and faintly falling..."

This is from James Joyce's Dubliners - it's the last line of the last story (The Dead) and is one of my favourite closing/opening lines in literature. The line finishes (which seemed less appropriate for this quilt) "...like the descent of their last end, upon the living and the dead." In fact, the whole last paragraph is lovely. [Here's a place online with the last few paragraphs of the story...] Indeed, the whole story - if you never read any other James Joyce (which I can understand happening), this one is still well worth it. Or watch the John Huston film.

Storm at Sea Round Robin

Here's another finished Round Robin - this is Swooze's, and she'd had a bit of a stormy year, so she chose to have her quilt portray that - with the piecing representing the storminess and the embellishing, applique, etc representing coming out the other side and things improving. I think it's a lovely quilt, one of my favourites so far (though there's at least one more I've seen I like even better - a winter one). I had this one quite near the end - all of the piecing was done and the large butterfly was appliqued on. My task was to embroider something, so I added a quote and some snowflakes and flowers.



The quote is from Albert Camus and reads "In the midst of winter, I found within me an invincible summer."

Around the world quilting bee

Here's another block for the ATWQB - this quilt started with a block with teapot themed fabric, so a teacup is a natural addition. I sort of wish, in retrospect, that I'd done this block the other way around with the light fabric for the cup and blue for the border, but still, it's not bad and it will go nicely with all the other blocks already made for this quilt...

Another Round Robin

This one is Margaret's piece - she chose - obviously - a patriotic theme, and made the pieced flag as her starting block. I don't have a lot of patriotic fabrics (or any), so I made the red, white and blue flying geese.

Scrappy Baskets

Here are two baskets for the Block Lotto for June - both do actually have yellow backgrounds, but the left is a quite dark goldy yellow and the right is much paler. The baskets are free-form and require only the yellow backgrounds, red handles and bases and a scrappy central main basket part. They are good fun and I am hoping to make some more before the end of the month, but who knows - it's going to be a busy next few weeks, so I might not get around to it...

Brown triangle ATCs

Some ATCs today - mixed media - background is paper & fabric (the brown), then added sequins, charms, paper flowers, self-adhesive jewels, and stitching (though not in that order). Now I just need to get some of these off in the post to the June birthday girls in the ATC swap...

What I can show...

is this lovely package of goodies I got the other day from Lisa, as a thank you for some things I sent her. Moda charm packs, here I come! Actually I have too much stuff to work on to do anything with them for the time being, but perhaps someday.

What I can't show is the work I did today, which wasn't a huge amount, but is something which I don't want to show before it's acheived its purpose (ALQS4 work) - once the swap is over, I'll show for sure!

More bloggy robins

Here's a few more of the blogger round robins - this is the applique I did on Julie's oriental quilt - and here's the finished quilt...







This paper pieced boat and lighthouse is what I did for Toni's quilt - this is a 4x5" rectangle, and it was only the second thing on the quilt - the first being the flip flops - so this was one of the ones I was most interested to see the progress on. And didn't it turn out nicely?



And this one is Amy's piece - I don't seem to have a photo of my contribution, which is the paper-pieced duck at the top and the squares next to it. The cute baby is hers, of course, and was the starting piece.



I've had lots of potential interest in the stay at home robin idea - which is great. I think it will be a lot of fun, and I'm glad there will be other people working on projects which I can watch the progress on! I've worked out instructions for two different sizes - 15x15" and 16x18" - haven't decided which one I'm going to do yet, but either way around, it shouldn't be too much work over the course of a year!