More funky houses

These are some more funky houses, not from the blocks I had in stash, but made specially for two projects. This one above is part of what will be (providing I get it bound in time) the BQL Skinny Challenge for March/April. Here's the rest:



According to this month's guidelines, the piece will be 7.5x24". I think I made 8" blocks, so it might need a little trim, especially as it's not that heavily quilted.



And there are 4 more, this time joined into a square, which will get quilted up soon and donated to a school art show. Again, the blocks finish at 8".

Lotto goodies

Here's a shot of all the blocks I got from winning the Block Lotto - there are 48 of them, but I don't really have space to spread them out properly, which is why it's a 7x7 layout and looks as though one is missing! Of all these blocks, only 2 had the same red fabric:



And there are three which are solid red, but they are all slightly different reds!

ATCs with the kiddies

Today we made some ATCs together for a swap - we did them all as round robins - we each made a background to start, and then passed left and let the next person add an element and so on until we'd gone all the way around. These are for a swap of ATCs done with your kids - the kids will each get an ATC to keep, in return.

This first one is my background, Alex's jewel dots, Olivia's mushrooms and Sarah's butterfly.



This one is Sarah's background, my leaf in the foreground, Alex's small leaf and woman's face and Olivia's black and white flower (the music was part of the background).



Here is Alex's background (half blue, half rose), Olivia added the bird, Sarah added the stripe of red tea paper and I finished it off with the word "rose" and the cut out roses on the bottom half.



And finally, Olivia's background; Sarah added the white glittery stripe and flower, I added the woman and the flower and dragonfly punches and Alex finished it off (with some trial and error and consultation) with the red gems and the red bird.

Purple scraps

Another set of blocks made up into a top - these are the scrappy purple and tan blocks I made recently from purple scraps. I fiddled around for quite a while with the layout but in the end decided on something quite simple. This one will probably go for a charity quilt in the end, but for the moment, it will sit in the pile of quilt tops and mature...

Funky houses

After I posted about my block stash last week, I decided that it was a bit silly to have so many sets of blocks hanging around to no purpose, so I'd make some of them up into tops (which I can then have sitting around to no purpose!). Especially the ones where it's fairly easy to work out what to do with them. So, first off, these house blocks - I decided to sash them with some grass and some sky - it's a little funky, but then, so are the houses. This will go in the stack of tops for when baby quilts are needed. I am trying not to keep too many of those around, as my friends seem to have stopped having babies for the time being!

More stars...

And this is the April block(s) for the Oh My Stars BOM - When this was done, I thought it might be fun to see all of the ones I had made laid out in the right order - and yes, it IS fun, but it just goes to show how many months are left!

Oh my stars - catching up

This is actually the March set of blocks for the Oh My Stars BOM - I am also working on April, but it's not quite done yet - perhaps tomorrow! I've done lots of other things, too, but am saving some of them to show for all those days coming up when I have to work and won't have done any sewing or other art...

Stained Glass - now what?

Or, more to the point, now that it's a finished top, what about the quilting? Not that I'll get to it particularly soon, but any suggestions would be welcome.

In the end, I decided to do the border this way - I did play around with something else:



but decided it was too busy (this shows the top folded in half with some test blogs on the side), so went with the above design.

New cross stitch

This was a mother's day present, so it seemed appropriate that I start it straight away after finishing Winter. Given how fast the beehive was to stitch up, I'm hoping the whole thing won't take too long - there's no tedious filler like the snow in the last piece (there's a row of grass, but it's not very high, so it shouldn't take too long). The shed is the biggest single thing, and it's going fairly fast. After this one, I really should get back to the beach huts - it would be nice to finish that (the last photo I seem to have on the blog doesn't show the piece as up-to-date as I know it is - for instance, I'm sure I've started a second hut! - anyway, if I go back to that once Quite Contrary is finished, I'll be sure to show a progress update on it.)

Stay at home robin

A tiny bit of progress on this - the past two steps were supposed to be applique or embroidery - I had a look at it and decided not to embroider, but I have added some more circles to fill a couple of black spaces and when it's quilted (the current step due) I will add a bit of texture and design to a lot of the shapes. As for the other stay at home robin, well, we won't discuss that one...

Block Stash, part 4 (final part)

These are all fairly recent additions, during my recent scrapbusting. The above are string hearts - 10 blue, 11 green and 2 red - shortly to be joined by 12 purple, once I finish those. These aren't really languishing in the same way as some of the other block sets, because I don't plan to do anything with any of them until I've finished the year's Rainbow Scrap Challenge - at which point I will have hearts in lots of different colours and can decide what I want to do...



These blue churn dashes were made with offcuts from the heart blocks - not sure if I will do the same with the green HST units or not, so they are just sitting.





And these are 6" and 4" crumb blocks, which again, are a result of the scrapbusting. They will be added to over the year and hopefully, used for something, if only charity quilts... I have 30 of the 6" blocks, which I don't really like making as much as the small ones. I didn't count the 4" blocks, but there are loads.

Block Stash, part 3

I got rid of (or used) many of the block sets I had as a result of the years I did loads of block swapping on online forums, but I did keep a few - these framed batik 4 patches were a case in point - I got rid of some of them, but kept enough to make something with - I have 36, 10" blocks.



And these are a recent acquisition with my dyeing group - they are 12" wonky log cabins entirely in hand-dyes - some wonkier than others. There are 12 of these, so they'll make a nice small quilt.








These guys are three sets of Roman Stripe HST units - I used to have even more of these - goodness knows why - but they are 6.5" blocks and there are 32 with light blue triangles, 40 with purple triangles and 60 with dark blue triangles. I've used some of them in borders, etc, but really must get around to doing something with the rest of them.

Block Stash, part 2

More block sets I have hanging around - these are obviously a very recent addition, the green scrappy blocks I just made up recently. Hopefully they will get made into a top before long. There are 20, 12" blocks.



These are 16, 6" blocks in Japanese taupes, in a corn and beans pattern.



And these are 9, 8" funky houses, inspired by the block lotto one month last year. I want to use these for a funky baby quilt, but again, have taken a pauseto think about sashing...

Block Stash, part 1

Although I've been de-stashing, getting rid of block and tops I may never use and generally thinning out my quilt related stuff, I still do have a number of sets of blocks hanging about (as one does). Thought I'd share...

I have 17 (can't count) brightly coloured Tic-Tac-Toe blocks. These blocks are Julie's fault. And maybe Sophie's fault, too (not my fault, of course!). See, back a while ago Sophie chose a tic-tac-toe block for the Block Lotto, though that was bright colours on a white background. Then Julie came to London for her annual visit in February (2010, this is) and brought me 3 of these inverse blocks as a gift. So I made enough more for a small quilt top and then - nothing. This is partly because I can't decide if I want to sash the blocks or do a straight set. And partly inertia!



Ok, these blocks are 48 x 9" squares which I made back in (apparently) July 2008. There's really no excuse for not doing anything with them.





These are 36 each of 10" scrappy log cabins in warm and cool colours, respectively. This was an exercise back in March 2010 to emtpy my scrap basket and it made a good dent in it. I haven't yet done anything with the blocks, but it's a step in the right direction.

New cutting mat

the old one is even worse than it looks in the photo. It's got valleys in it, and lots of bits of thread sticking to it... Frankly, it's a wonder I can cut on it at all!



[edited to day - this is actually the better side of the old mat - the other side is even worse and has paint stains on it, too! - and I do change my mats fairly regularly - this new one is at least the 4th or 5th I've owned since I got into quilting and fibre arts on a serious basis...]

Pick a theme, again

These are more ATCs done for a swap where the players chose their own theme - these are all done in fabric & stitch. The top on is a somewhat loose representation of the Church of the Dome of the Rock and the Wailing (Western) Wall in Jerusalem. Her chosen theme was places of worship. This is one of my very favourite cards I have made recently - for some reason the wailing wall popped into my head when I read her theme (no idea why) and this card came out very much like I'd imagined it would look before I started stitching. Which I'm sure you all can sympathise, is not always the case!



This one is for a Folk Art theme...



and this is a hostess card - she wasn't in my group, but in her group, her chosen theme was old fashioned beehives.



And this one was African culture.

Done!

Finished! What more is there to say, really. I was debating what I'd start next, when the question was readily resolved for me, in the form of a Mother's Day present - I'll show that one next time a cross-stitch update is due - one thing I can say is, it sure doesn't feature any snow...

Spot the flower

Four cards for a swap called spot the flower, where a flower had to be included, but in a subtle way, rather than being the focus of the card. I really liked how these came out, especially the background, which is from a page someone gifted me during a trade - really good background text, I think!

Purple strings

These are the strings which are going to end up as purple hearts - haven't started adding the white corners yet. I think I made enough for 16 purple hearts - there were a lot of purple strings in the box. And now, there are fewer:



Though not as few as the green ones, where there were only three left. Still, it's progress. I wish I'd taken a photo of the pile before I started!

And I wish I'd taken a photo of how full my box of strings was, before I started trying to bust my scraps this year (it was overflowing) - progress is definitely being made here...

Purple - I hope!

As many of you may know, I'm following along with the 2011 Rainbow Scrap Challenge (button in sidebar) as I wanted to reduce my scrap stash anyway, and this seemed a fun way to approach it. We started the year with blue, then moved to red in February and green last month. This month, while there has been no official announcement of the colour chosen, the background of the So Scrappy blog has changed to purple (it has matched the colour every month so far), so I'm gonna take a leap of faith and assume purple is the chosen colour. And if not, well, I've still reduced my scraps, right?

I started by weeding out all my purple 5" squares, and combining them with some 2 3/4" squares in tans and pale browns to make no-waste flying geese blocks. I then took these blocks, added a two inch strip down the side (using my purple 4" squares) and then a strip along the bottom (from my purple strip stash), to end up with a block about 5.75" square. The blocks really are all purple and tan, not blue, but you know how hard it is to photograph purples accurately.

Anyway, I have some more to make yet, but when they are finished, they will have made a reasonable dent in the purples - and I will also make some purple string hearts to go along with my blue, red and green ones, of course.