Modern Clover

So, these are my block lotto blocks for April - I did think about posting a blog entry saying something like I'd finished all my UFOs and had no projects I was working on, but decided that while those of you actually reading on the day might get it (April Fools!), it might be confusing later on...

Anyway. Instead, you get my block lotto blocks for April. These blocks are a little more special than normal because this is actually a block I made up myself. A little background to that...

I've been doing the lotto for some time now - years - and am pretty good friends with the Grand Vizier of all things Lotto, Sophie, despite never having actually met her. At one point, when she was having some health problems and moving house, I even helped do the admin for the lotto for a few months (and boy was I glad to be able to hand that back to her - it's a LOT of work, even when everything goes totally smoothly!). Anyway, we frequently talk lotto via email and sometimes she bounces ideas off me or gets my opinion about a certain block or colourway (there are other longtimers who also perform this function...). To be honest, she's usually right in whatever she thinks in the first place - and sometimes, a block which I wasn't sure about actually turns out to be immensely popular and I end up liking it as well! But it's fun to throw ideas back and forth and to be a little in on the process from time to time.

This block came about as part of a discussion about possible flower blocks for the lotto - we were looking at all sorts of things, from the extremely simple to the more complex, and this was something I drafted as an example of a very simple flower block, made from (mostly) half-square triangle units. In the end, Sophie decided to use it for the April block, with a few refinements (like the colour placement - keeping the lighter fabric to the left), which is fun.

I was able to make these blocks entirely from my stash of scrap squares, as well, so that's a nice bonus!

I won the lotto!

Not the money lotto, unfortunately, but almost as good - the Block Lotto. I will be winning 48 blocks from the lotto - though I have elected to keep my own 9 as they were largely made from my scraps and therefore I can't duplicate most of them, so I will only be receiving 39 in the post. which is still quite a few. How fun! Gotta love the lotto...

More themes

Some more cards from the Pick-a-theme swap - this theme was vintage women or girls with wings. Nice theme - might steal it myself in a future swap...



This one was birds with accessories.



And this one, Scotland.

Pick a theme

A couple of ATCs made for a pick-a-theme swap (everyone chooses her or his own theme within a little group) -theme for this one was dragonflies, as you probably guessed...



...and Mardi Grad masks for this one.

Stained Glass...

Well. I added another row to this at the weekend, so now it's 6x6 blocks. I had originally intended it to be 6x7, but actually, I'm thinking now that I like it square. I intend to put a black border all the way around it, and am thinking about another border as well, but not sure if it will make it look too busy - I guess the answer is to get the black border on first and go from there...

Green string hearts

While I made the last block for the green quilt I was working on yesterday (you can just see the edge peeping out from under this stack of green hearts) I also did some string hearts with the rest of my green string stash - I made 12 of them, to go with the 10 blue ones I have. I did have 10 red as well, but donated them to Clare for Quilts for Leukaemia, so I decided I really needed to also make at least a handful of reds - don't have a lot of red strings, though, so perhaps I will do that throughout the year (I did make two, but that was about all my red strings were up to - which is good, really!).

Here's what's left of my stack of green strings now:



yep, just three strips. Not sure you can tell precisely how high it was when I started, but it was certainly a lot higher than three strips!

Green again

Well, I finished all the green blocks today - or rather, I finished the ones I had cut out, which was, apparently, 19 rather than 20 - guess what's on the cards for tomorrow! Still, I think it looks great and hopefully it won't be too annoying trying to get a good mix of greens for the last block - I've used up most of my decent sized scraps (the smaller pieces, I may be able to get from scrap) so it will mean cutting strips from my box of small greens - which isn't a problem, of course, as that's something I wouldn't mind reducing anyway...

ALQS5 - the other quilt

Well, I finally got around to showing the second quilt I received in the ALQS5 swap - this one was made by Peggy, and is a lovely little piece - it's very simple, relying mostly on the textures and colours of the fabrics for its effect, but I like it a lot. It's one of those pieces that is much more effective in person, I think, though you can get a general idea from the photo. I really like the burned edges as well. Very different from the other piece I got, but who wants everything to be the same?

Stickers and more

That was the theme of a swap I took part in a little while back - many swaps ask for one not to use stickers, or at least not to use them as a focus, which I understand, as a sticker stuck on a background is not a very thrilling card. This swap, however, was a chance to use some stickers - I've gone with a sort of Far East Theme. My friend Ruth in South Africa kindly sent me some pages from a book she was deconstructing, which featured old maps of China. I used these as background to the cards, along with some oriental paper, stamps featuring airships of various sorts (Korean and Vietnamese when I had them, but a few others, too), and the Chinese vase stickers. I finished off with some flower stickers. There were 5 cards - four for the swap, and one went back to Ruth as a thank you!

Not far to go...

Nearly done now - I have the rest of the roof and the chimneys, some snow on the trees and a couple of snowflakes and the word winter in the background, plus a narrow border. This one is taking me much longer than something this small would normally take!

Log Cabin Star going travelling

This is a quilt I've had around for a while - the blocks came from a block swap ages ago and were eventually made up into a quilt in May 2008, apparently (according to my handy blog!) - the problem with this quilt is that it's not quite big enough for my bed (it should work in theory, but I tried it for about a week and it just wasn't right) and a little too big to just hang around the house as a throw quilt - it would be fine for a double bed, but mine is larger. As it's never really been used, I've decided it's the perfect quilt to donate to a collection of quilts going off to Japan to help furnish some of those who have lost everything with a new start, in a few months time. Midsomer Quilting in Bath is acting as a collecting centre, liaising with a quilter in Japan. I'm sure there are probably other initiatives as well, but this is one I happen to know about...



Obviously, other things are needed in Japan as well - I'm sure donations of money can be put to great use, especially in the short term - but as I am a quilter, I almost always have several "spare" quilts floating around my house, either because they have been put aside to be presents at some future point or because they were made with no specific purpose in mind and therefore, don't always suit our house - so it makes sense to donate one. I did think about using a quilt as a raffle prize to raise money for Japan on my blog* but in the end decided to simply donate an actual quilt as I think it will be gratefully received and hopefully respected as well. Quilting has a strong tradition in Japan, and while this is nothing like some of the tiny, intricate pieces I've seen made by Japanese quilt artists, it's certainly a quilt I'd be happy to own, even if I hadn't just lost my home...

*I've seen this done before on a blog - someone offered up a quilt as a prize and basically, if you donated money to whatever the cause was, you got chances in the raffle - it works on the honour system - the person auctioning the quilt has to trust that people aren't lying when they say they've donated to the Red Cross or whatever - but we're all trustworthy, aren't we! But in the end, I decided I was too lazy, and just donating a quilt would be a lot less organisational effort.

In these shoes?

For a swap with a shoe theme, I decided to go with collage featuring shoes (what else) and the Kirsty MacColl song "In these Shoes"...

Not easy being green...

Here are four of the finished 12" green scrappy blocks - in this photo, the greens look quite brown - this is partly because they happen to be fairly brown greens, but it's also a trick of the light...



Here are some in progress on my chair...



...and sewing table...



...and cutting table.



And here's what was left of the stack of strips once enough for 20 blocks had been cut - this is quite impressive as none of the strips left are long/wide enough to even get a 1.5"x18" strip from, which is one of the smallest requirements (other than the 1.5x3.5" centres for some of the blocks - those, I could have made a few more of...)

What doesn't show is that I also dug into my stash of smallish bits of green (these range from about 10" square up to larger than a FQ but smaller than 1/2 metre) and managed to use up quite a few of the smaller pieces in that box. Which is great. Of course, I still have to finish assembling the 20, 12" squares, but I think I'm going to be very pleased with the result!

Green scraps

The colour for the scrappy challenge this month is green. I saw a project on Julie's blog, and decided to unashamedly pinch it for my green scraps this month. So, here's a bit of a start on cutting - so far, I have only used pieces from my stash of green strips:



though I can tell that I will have to cut into some larger pieces before I finish all these green blocks - I have a limited number of strips which are long enough to accomodate the longest strips needs in this pattern. But that's alright.

Postage Stamp Cards

A couple of different takes on the theme Postage Stamp - this one mimics the stamp itself...




while this one uses the stamp as part of the scene....

Queen for a Day

Another couple of ATCs - these for the swap Queen for a Day - just had to have a crown. I used rusted paper as a background, punchinella (sequin waste), green paper, etc.

Jack of Hearts

One of four cards for an Altered Playing Card swap - I went with a Lily, Rosemary & Jack of Hearts theme, from the Bob Dylan song. The other cards are similar - lyrics, a person or two, a flower of some sort, green stems.

Cross stitch update

Finally finished the snowy lawn tonight (hoorah!) - so there's not a huge amount more to be done - some trees, a border, the word winter in the background and a few other bits of filling. I'm hoping I'll get it done before I get so tired of winter I want to run away screaming - oh wait, that was several weeks ago! Anyway, should be finished soon and then I can move on to something a bit more cheery... Or perhaps something completely different! Goodness knows I have enough stuff knocking about.

Here's where it stood last time I posted about it - about 2 weeks ago.

Lady of the Lake

Two blocks by this name, for a swap I am doing with my friend Cathi - one is on the way to her with some other bits and pieces, the other is going in my drawer here to someday be made into a quilt top. Ah, triangles. Gotta love 'em!

Brown and Blue D4P

With some border fabric added, this one is all ready to go now - off to a friend for a charity quilt. I do like the colours in this one, though - might have to do something similar again.