ATCs on their way...

Before and after pics are always fun, but I'm too lazy to join them together, so here they are, separately. To the backgrounds below I added a transparency (they are actually Tarot Cards, I think, but they looked suitable for this card) and a nice acrylic star.  On to a third player now!

To the lovely stamped cityscapes, I added some clouds - in vintage foreign text, of course!

To the lovely birdcages, I added another bird and some text. 

And finally, last but not least, to the cross-stitched sledger I added some washi tape and a snowflake brad. Each card has a slightly different snowflake brad - no two alike!

All these cards will move along to a third player - and if I manage to be organised, I'll show a photo of the finished card(s) when I get one back...

Goodies in

A lovely treat arrived in the post - this little needle case from my friend Ruth, currently in Papua New Guinea. Ruth is one of my long-time blogging pals... One of the things I enjoy a lot about blogging is all the people I "meet". We haven't yet managed to meet up in person, but I hold out hope for someday. Though perhaps not in PNG...

Great card as well!  So sweet of her to think of me for the needle case - it will be perfect for my cross-stitch needles, especially this summer while I am travelling...

Cross Stitch Update

As I expected, I finished this little sheep during the week's cross stitching - I haven't stitched it into a little pillow or whatever yet, but I might wait until I finish them all to do that. Or not. Anyway, I haven't done it yet.

I started another one as well, and made some progress on that:

This one will say "hope" - you can see the finished sheep here. 

I've also been gathering supplies for the cross-stitch project I'll be taking to the US with me this summer - I really only want to take one (which doesn't mean I won't buy any more, of course) so it needs to be something reasonably sized, but not too complex as I might be stitching while on planes and certainly while chatting.  I'll show that to you at a later point, though...

Here's what's waiting...

At the moment, I have four sets of "starters" waiting for me to work on them  - I will add one or two small elements of some sort, and pass them along to another player. 

The big question, of course, is what will I do with them?

I like all of the sets, and they are all very different...

This last one was hard to photograph as the card is sparkly and kept reflecting the flash everywhere, but it was too dark to take a photo with no flash. 

I'll post them again when I've worked on them!

Fabric postcard giveaway

1) Spiderweb

I used to make rather a lot of fabric postcards, and for various reasons, have accumulated some extras - these are beyond any I may have made and mailed to myself.  I don't really need these, so I've decided to give them away to any blog readers who comment. (I'll draw names as necessary if I have too many people interested). Happy to post anywhere - I will be in the US this summer so can easily mail to that part of the world cheaply.  If you are interested, leave a comment saying which card(s) you like. I'll work it all out sometime between now and the end of July...

2) zigzag

3)Oriental lantern

4) brown and green

5) sunshine (this one didn't photograph well - it's a sun made using angelina and sheer fabric with stitching)

6) recycled (again, bad photo - all materials are reused, including clothing scraps, a bit of tin can, stamp, ribbon, button)

7) zigzag with buttons

8) silver & gold (again, hard to photograph - the flash on photo showed nothing at all beyond a glare!)

9) flower vase

A day of scrappy sewing

Anyone who has been reading my blog for any length of time at all will know that I'm trying to keep from generating too many scraps, and that I do this by sewing them together into scrap quilts...

Today, I was faced with the prospect of lots of time to sew - something which hasn't happened much lately - and to make it better, my choice of sewing project.  So I decided to tackle the scrap basket - which wasn't looking bad at all - 

and the strip bag, which was getting pretty full. 

I also had a look at the small pile of larger scraps, but decided to leave most of them be, except for a few which got turned into strips at a later point.

First step - sew the scraps together until I got 4.5" squares. I used some of the shorter strips at this stage as well. 

Then I made 4 patches, using some squares from my "green" scrap drawer.  These scrap drawers used to be full to overflowing and are now barely worth having - this is a good thing, as I'm hoping to phase them out a bit, maybe just revert to a scrap basket and strip bag. 

Then, I took the strips and added them, log cabin style, to the blocks, until I got a block at least 12.5". I trimmed, and that was the finished block. 

Here's another -very scrappy, but at least with some larger pieces it won't be quite so off-the-wall as a quilt.

And look at the scrap bag now - almost empty. It just has the strips which were too short to use, and the 1" strips, which I decided were too narrow for this particular project.

And the scrap basket is even emptier. At one point, it was actually totally empty, but of course, making the blocks has created some new scraps. 

I'm not quite done yet, still have to put strips around some of them, but that's a project for another day.

More Quilts I own...

A while ago, I showed some of the quilts I have in my house - the ones which live mainly downstairs. Here are some of the ones which live upstairs...  The first one is from a birthday-style block swap years ago - I asked for houses or buildings and got lots of wonderful pieces with tons of detail and embellishments. I quilted the quilt in the QAYG (quilt as you go) style so I could go carefully around the detail in each block.  This quilt isn't  out often, as it's more of a show quilt than a use quilt, but I do love it!

This bargello has fantastic fish print border which I love - for once, I chose the border print first and added the central part later. Only problem is, it's the wrong way round for a bed...

This quilt is another one which is the result of a group effort - not a swap this time, but a postal quilting bee where you add a block to what gets sent to you in the post (you send a starter). There are a couple of slightly odd fabric choices in this quilt, but on the whole, I'm very happy with it. It's not big enough for my bed, though, so it doesn't spend a lot of time out of the cupboard.

This is an old quilt (oldish, anyway) which I made myself (though it was longarm quilted) - it appears on the bed sometimes in the autumn - not really the right sort of mood for this time of year.

Another autumnal quilt - this one again, the result of a swap of autumn themed blocks.  

This one was the result of a swap challenge - we swapped "ugly" fabrics and then had to use them in a quilt, though we could add some solids, I think - it was a long time ago and I don't rightly remember the rules very well. Whatever they were, I was pleased with the resulting quilt and it often hangs out on my bed. 

And this is my default bed quilt - it's usually the one that is one top, as it's my favourite, and it's the biggest, so it's harder for my husband to pull it off at night and leave me freezing (admittedly, not such an issue right at the moment). 

Another charity top

This is another top I put together a while back - just haven't got around to showing it yet. I need to send some of these along to my friend who organises them being turned into proper quilts - just haven't got around to it lately. I think I have a drawer full. (Small drawer. But still.)  My weekend looks to be fairly relaxed (lately, it's been very busy at Chez North) so there may even be some time for sewing in my future!  Of course, the weather forecast is gorgeous, too, so perhaps I'll sit in the sun and cross-stitch instead...

Giveaway results

Only three people left comments before - I've emailed one, left a message another's blog and KMSC, if you are reading and would still like the little spring house, please email me with your address - I can't contact you because your email is set to no-reply.

Anyone interested in these patterns?  No one wanted them before, but I'm still happy to give them away if anyone wants them...

A little garden sampler - photo not great, but you can see it stitched up, here. 

This is actually a kit which was passed along to me from another person who also was given it as a gift. I kept it for a while, thinking I might get to it, but I have now decided I won't, so let me know if you want it. Although it's a kit, it's small and not heavy, so I don't mind posting it abroad.

This is a different lighthouse - just a pattern from a magazine; it's one page. It's quite sweet, but again, I'm not going to stitch it.

This one is a photocopy of a booklet I got from a friend of mine. I've finally decided that I'm not going to stitch anything from it, but it's got some cute stuff. 

And finally, another kit - it's for a bookmark, so again, it's small. But we have tons of bookmarks and I doubt I'll ever get to it. 

If you are interested in any of these, leave a comment and let me know which one(s) and I'll send them along.

Cross Stitch Update

A bit more progress on the Irises - you can see I finished the dish and am carrying on working my way around the border. The dish took quite a while - there are a lot of stitches in it - but it's easy to count, so that's ok...

Back to the little Peace Sheep this week, probably finish it. I have to start thinking what project(s) I want to take to the US with me this summer - I want to take something big enough to last, but not too huge - maybe one of my summer themed samplers or something. If I get my act together and look now, I'll be sure to have the right threads for it when I need them...

Together!

Here are the blocks for the bright stripy baby quilt, together. It's the other thing I managed to do this weekend besides the required bags and whatnot for the library fundraiser. I'm hoping to have some more sewing time this coming weekend - quilting this should probably go on the list, as well as seaming a backing for a quilt to go to the longarmer...  Probably need to have a little bit of a sort out of my sewing table before I go away for the summer, too...

The ABCs of Me

I don't take part in a lot of meme stuff, but I saw this on another blog and it looked fun. So here you go - the ABCs of me...

 A - Age: 44
 B - Bed Size: King
 C - Chore you Hate: weeding
 D - Dogs Name: don't have one now, but had Scruffy and Socks when I was a kid
 E - Essential Start of the Day Item: cuppatea
 F - Favorite Color: brown
 G - Gold or Silver: Silver
 H - Height: 5'6" ish.
 I - Instruments You Play: clarinet, piano - neither of them much
 J - Job: Teaching Assistant. And House Manager (neither of which pays as well as it should)
 K - Kids: 3 - Sarah (15), Olivia (13), and Alex (10)
 L - Living Arrangements - House, outside London, sometimes feels a bit crowded
 M - Music You Love - Pretty much everything except stupid pop music, hard rap/house music and weirdo modern classical
 N - Nickname - Technically, Kate is a nickname, since my birthname is Kathryn
 O - Overnight Hospital Stays - 3 - all to do with having babies
 P - Pet Peeve - bad grammar (funny enough, this is what the person I took this from had - and I'm going to leave it, to the surprise of no one who knows me!)
 Q - Quote from A Movie: Hmm. We quote movies (and songs) all the time but of course I can't think of a good one when I want to. I've always been quite fond of the conversation about men & women being friends, from When Harry Met Sally - especially when she says "Are you saying I'm having sex with these men without my knowledge?"
 S - Siblings: 1 brother. younger. 
 T - Time You Wake Up: way too stupidly early (6.45)
 U - Underwear: not optional.
 V - Vegetable you dislike - none
 W - Workout Style - walking, swimming, bike-riding
 X - Xrays you've had: Not sure, it's been a long time since I had one for anything. Teeth!
 Y - Yummy Food you Make: Everything. Well, not quite, but if you are interested, check out my family blog...
 Z - The Best Place to Visit:  (where's the z?) Going home is always lovely...

(Just realised, I've lost "R"  - will now have to try to remember whose blog I got this from so I can find out what it was!!)