Full day of quilting

And today I actually mean quilting. I had a day on the longarm machine today, which is good - my goal for this year is to get at least 10 quilts longarm quilted (as opposed to small quilts, wallhangings, baby quilts, anything I do on the regular machine). I have at least that many tops ready with the corresponding backings, and more tops with no backing yet, so it won't be too hard to find the quilts to do, just the time. But that's fewer than one a month, so I have high hopes.

This top is made entirely of hand-dyes, most of them my own, with a few in there from some swaps with my dye group - it's been hanging around for ages, so it was nice to finally get it quilted. It's not quite as swirly as I'd like from this particular pattern, but hand-dyes are notoriously hard to stitch through, so it's not entirely surprising. Still, the overall effect is good, and I'm pleased with it. At the moment, it has no intended function - I may just keep it for myself!

The backing is hand-dyed, too - you can just see the pink of it peeking out from under the top in the top photo - it's more variegated than that in real life, but basically, it's bright pinky purple.

Fabricmania

As promised, some photos of the fabric I bought at Farnham Maltings fabric sale/quilt show. The sale is always full of bargains - lots of vendors come with all the stock they are trying to clear out and sell for £3 and £4/metre, mostly. FQs for £1, or sometimes 12 for £10. Not cheap by American standards for fabric, but great for here. The pandas were not a particular bargain, but Alex is really into pandas at the moment, and he has a birthday coming up in a few weeks, so I thought they'd make a nice cushion or something - they are handpainted batiks, so it's not surprising they were a little dear.


In the other photo, there are two large pieces for backings (5m each) - one for a quilt top I've had around for some time that has batiks on the front - hopefully using this batik (the cream one) on the back won't kill me - it's not too tight, so I have high hopes that I'll be able to get through it without breaking a needle, skipping stitches or leaving huge holes... The purple one will be a backing for the nine by nine squares I've been making.

The other fabric, I pretty much just bought to have :) There are 3 one metre pieces, one of which we may use a bit of for a border on Olivia's nine-patch quilt. She bought something else which doesn't really match, so I'm trying to talk her into using the dark red, but you know how little girls are - they think they know everything. And the other pieces, I just liked. Oh, the batik FQs I will need for some swap blocks I'll be doing in February or March. Anyway, it was a fun day. And now I just have to wash it all!

Hoorah for fabric pages!

Not just because they are fun to make, which they are, but because my machine developed a bad noise (loud hum) and the speed really slowed down so I've had to take it into the shop - luckily, it is still under guarantee, so it should be free to fix it - the engineer says it could be as simple as a thread around something inside, but obviously one has to take the machine apart to figure it out... Or I suppose it could be a problem with the motor, but it's only 6 months old, so you wouldn't think so! The bad part about it being under guarantee is that the shop I bought it from (I bought it at a show) is about 45 minutes away, so Alex and I have had a nice drive this afternoon! There are sewing machine places closer, but not ones that will fix it for free - price of petrol these days, it's a toss up which is better value...

Anyway, the point here being that I can't sew at the moment (though I will borrow back Lana's old machine later in the week, so I won't be machine-less) - they said 7-10 days until it's ready. But with all the fabric pages to do (and a new lesson on Wednesday - can't wait to see what's next) I still have plenty to occupy me - I do intend to go back and add some decorative stitching to some of the pages, and of course, put more of them together, but that has to wait for a machine. So, the left hand side of this page set features some postage stamps, sheer fabric, skeleton leaves, some metallic fabric, German metallic paper cutout, a button and some stickers - on a background of hand dyed fabric. Both of these pages are on the same background fabric this time - I decided it had so much movement in it, I'd like to use it twice. It does need a little more, I think, but I'll do some stitching, etc on it later.

The right hand page uses one of the image transfers I made on Saturday (the photo of the lady) and a piece of twill tape I printed with some words (If Cathi's reading this, she'll recognise them but for those of you who aren't quite the rabid Dylan fans we are, it's from a Dylan song called Love Minus Zero/No Limit) - I had a hard time deciding what to print on the twill tape (that was part of lesson 2, as well) and in the end, picked a couple of lyrics. They seemed to go with the lady. Anyway, also used some tissue paper, a bit of lace passed to me by my friend Barbara from the stash of a good friend of hers who was an artist who often used mixed media including fabric (unfortunately she recently died after a long illness - but I love having some of her stuff - there's a certain kind of poetry in the continuity there, doncha think? I have lots more bits and pieces from her stash and look forward to using some of them in time in my work.) Also another bit of the metallic fabric on the other page, and some shell beads. Whew!

Foiled again

One of the things that my surface embellishment group is doing this year is a series of technique swaps to explore different media and techniques. This month, the swap is using foils - you can make your samples any way you like (or ways) so long as you use foils - you then get a variety of different techniques back from the others. It's just a fun way to see what can be done with the material, perhaps in ways you never thought of.

As I've worked with foil a little before, using double sided tape and glue, I thought I'd try using bondaweb (wonderunder - fusible interfacing), which I'd read you can do. What you do is to cut shapes out of the bondaweb, then iron the bondaweb to the fabric, then place the foil on top and iron that.
So I thought I'd simply fold the bondaweb up in various ways (with the paper still on, of course) and cut designs out - a bit like making simple snowflakes.

This worked really well - the hardest part was keeping the bondaweb from getting all tangled up when unfolding it after cutting, but with a little care, it's not that bad. And you can get some very intricate designs, if you are willing to take the time to cut them. I am very pleased with the results and see a series of Christmas/winter cards with snowflakes on them, next year!

Fabric book - image transfers

Back to the fabric book pages today - the current lesson being about different ways to do image transfers onto paper and fabric. First I just practiced various image transfer techniques - using gel medium to move images from a printout to fabric and paper (mixed results, some interesting), using iron-on t-shirt transfer paper (really easy - I love it), printing directly to fabric and twill tape and so on. I did not yet try image transfer from transparency to fabric as I ordered the wrong kind of transparencies before and have had to order more - won't have them until Tuesday or so, but will try it then.

Anyway, the two pages I did today used images from the iron-on transfer paper, simply because I thought they went well with the yellow & gold fabrics. Other transferred images will make appearances later - some vintage ladies, for instance, who I think might like a pink background. And so on. I have also used in these pages ribbon, sheer fabric, textured paper, tiny beads, stamps, a charm, regular beads, and an image on a transparency, which is simply sewed to the fabric. Click here for close-ups of the left and right pages.

Sarah and Olivia helped me lay out the pages and choose items to put on them - they did some of this while I finished the blocks for the winter jewel tone swap, which can now go in the post Monday afternoon. Hurrah. Tomorrow I will spend not sewing or making book pages, but buying fabric - big local sale every year in January, and I'm looking forward to spending some money on fabric! Details of purchased will of course be duly shared here :)

Cheer in the post

As suspected, no time for sewing today, between helping in the nursery and going grocery shopping, but I did come home to find the postman had been and had left me not just a package from South Africa, which I've been expecting and which contains blocks for the scrapbuster swap as well as fabric for me!! but also this lovely kitty, who is the first to arrive from the January cheer swap. He's very cute and cheerful and I adore the retro (or maybe it's actual vintage) fabric used on the background. Thanks to Angela for this card.

The rest of mine will go in the post box tomorrow I think - I had hoped to get them out today, but I doubt I'll get them all addressed in time to hit the post box before the school run. But I might, you never know.

(Hopefully not) the last of the January cheer

And here are the rest of the January cheer postcards. I should probably consider myself lucky a)that these got finished b)that I can type and c)that I didn't throw the timing off on my sewing machine. That's right, kids, today's lesson is: don't ever try to poke a stray end of ribbon under where you are zigzagging - especially not with the tip of your finger. Ouch. Luckily I just caught the side of the finger, so while I do have a nice set of matching puncture wounds (in and out!) I didn't do serious damage either to myself or frankly of more import, to the machine. Or bleed all over the cards. And it doesn't seem to interfere with my typing too much!

Anyway. The cards are now done and six are in the post, with the others going out tomorrow, including one for dormouse and one for ferret. (Hmm, dormouse, ferret, hedgehog - a trend among quilty bloggers?) Penny will get her card a little later, as I haven't made that one yet - it will be one of my Valentine's theme cards, which I probably won't start until late January... Anyone else who wants a card, just let me know - officially I owe three more cards forward, but within reason I am happy to send a card to anyone who wants one, with the pay-it-forward proviso, of course...

May not get much sewing done tomorrow, as my life is full of fun mummy stuff - helping at nursery in the morning and grocery shopping in the afternoon - but you never know - there may be an hour there somewhere. If not, I may share photos of my very tidy sewing table, which I spent part of today tidying up so I could actually see the surface!

And a small gripe about blogger - seems like every single comment I get these days has no email address listed - SO annoying, as I do like to respond and I'd rather do it by email than on that person's blog, where you have to comment about something that has nothing to do with what you are actually saying. I hope when blogger finishes migrating everyone to the new blogger, this won't happen any more. Grr.

More cheer!

Finished six postcards today (of 16) - still need to be trimmed a little around the edges. I've decided I really love the pelmet vilene for the inside (instead of batting). Great to sew through and so firm I don't need card, which means I can use a fabric back, which means if I use a really heavy satin stitch for the border, it doesn't come loose (which it often does, with paper). Lessons learned, I guess! I did one of these (the first one) with a metallic thread around the edge - I love it, but you should have heard me swearing at it - can't tell you how many times it broke - just not worth the stress, so I switched to rayon - still nice and shiny, but much stronger. Still breaks a bit, but only once or so per card (and that's going around the edges twice each). Much more manageable. We'll see how the sequins go through the post as they are just glued on, but with LOTS of glue, so hopefully they will be ok. I only used really flat sequins, so no edges sticking up to catch on stuff. I like these much better than the solstice ones (the design was fine for those, but the finished product was too flimsy for my personal taste).

Ages ago I made reference to the pay it forward swaps that are happening at the moment on many blogs - where someone offers a piece of their work to the first five takers; in return you are asked to make a similar offer on your own blog. No one took me up on it at the time, so I still owe five pieces to people (if I can get anyone to take them, LOL) - I will have two spare cards from this swap, one of which I have promised to Dormouse, if she wants it but if anyone else is interested in a piece of my work in return for paying it forward on your own blog, there will be one card from this swap up for grabs, and more from future postcard swaps, as needed - the next theme I'll be working on when these are finished is a Valentine's swap. Not sure what that will be yet, but I think it will probably involve red and/or pink...

Book pages are red...

Today's book page theme was red (you may have guessed) - I found the red and white polka dot paper yesterday and considered that serendipity. This is the last set for a few days - I need to wait to see what the next lesson has us doing before doing any more, and anyway, I have other projects I need to spend some time with. When I started these two, I had them the other way around (left on right, right on left) but by the time I'd finished, they were telling me they want to go this way. Which seems fair enough.


The left hand page uses a number of items and techniques I've used before - sequins, ribbon, a fabric print (the woman), but also this time I have used some foiling and a number of metallic frame stickers I got from the card-making supplies section of a catalogue. I think. Also, I've done some stamping on this one.

The right hand page uses similar things, plus some metallic paper and sequin punch. Also, I couched some yarn down to the page to begin with - I think if I do that again, I might attach it to the interfacing at the same time, as that will help keep the page from pulling in, which this one did a bit. It won't matter, as I am trimming the final pages by half an inch anyway, but it makes it a bit fiddly to work with. When I thought I was finished with it, it told me it wanted beads, so I've used beads on this one, too. Well, it is a surface embellishment group!

Oh, I should also say that for the first time, I've actually used the same piece of fabric for both pages - but as it was a hand-dye, and I picked two very different parts of the fabric, they do look quite different. It works, though, I think.

January cheer

Yesterday I was making Angelina sandwiches for the postcards for a new January swap - it's a "big" swap, which means that as many people as like can sign up for it, rather than the usual limit of 7 in my postcard group. I think there were 14 signups, but I'm making a couple of extra cards, as it's nice to have some to send to other people for no particular reason - and as it's not a themed swap, my interpretation is kind of abstract so it doesn't matter if I make a few more...

I started with the yellow backgrounds (discovery: not much yellow in my hand dyes stash) in various yellows. Then I added shapes cut from the angelina sandwiches I made yesterday. Then I couched down three different colours of fancy threads - aqua blue, pink and purple. Next step is, I think, some decorative stitching in various colour threads. And then, sequins!

I've only posted a photo of the finished item here, but I put photos of the works in progress in my yahoo photo album for those interested.

Keep on booking

Did some more work on the fabric book pages today - my friend Vicky, who is also doing the class had a great idea, which is to make the same colour pages facing pages rather than back and front, so I decided to do a single page (the purple one) to make the first page (presumably we will make a cover at some point during the class) and put the first brown page on the back of that, the have the next page with the other brown on the front, then the first blue on the back of it. That in turn will face the second blue page and so on.

So today I made the purple page, did some stitching on most of the pages I've made already (not the second blue one) and put two sets of pages together, complete with interfacing. I decided to use pelmet vilene/stiff interfacing between the pages rather than batting, so that the pages will "turn" better, and anyway, I am not quilting through the pages - it would take too much planning to get quilting that would work on both sides! So I'll add some decorative stitching before I put the interfacing in, and then just sew around the edges (and I've used some glue to keep the interfacing in place - tacky glue is my new best friend!)

I meant to say before that the class is with Lenna Andrews who does classes at joggles.com and other places, and it's very good so far - the first lesson was really long and thorough and nicely assembled with pictures. Lenna has been great about putting up with our particularly talkative group and answering questions (of which we have a lot!). If you like what I've been doing, I'd recommend taking this class - I'm sure it's only going to get better - some of the techniques we will be learning sound great fun (like doing our own image transfers onto fabric and other stuff). And by the way - dormouse, if you are reading this, thanks for your nice comment - I was going to respond personally, your email address doesn't show, so I can't...

Also sewing-wise today, I made some little Angelina sandwiches which I'll be using later this month to make postcards for a "January cheer" swap. Not sure quite what I am doing, but it will involve cutting shapes from the Angelina sandwiches and attaching them to some fabric, then quilting in a funky way. Probably they will be quite abstract, but I have to play around a bit and see what I like. More on that in the days to come.

And finally, the last thing I did was to help Olivia (DD2, age 7) work on her nine-patch quilt. She now has all 12 nine patch blocks sewn together, and we're beginning to think about borders. She's done all the sewing herself, though I did the rotary cutting and most of the ironing - she's beginning to do a little of that herself, though I'm still wary. She also did all the fabric selection herself, but you may have guessed that already!

Fabric book - day two

If I could keep this up-to-date with all my projects I've got going, I would be a happy chick, let me tell you! Unfortunately, the key to my productivity this week is that although the kids are back in school, nothing else is back to normal yet, so things that I would normally have to do, I don't, which means unexpected free time. For instance, normally I help in the nursery on a Thursday morning, but because it was the first day back yesterday, I didn't, which meant that I could go to the grocery store in the morning, which meant I had sewing time in the afternoon... Same with today - a group that normally meets Friday mornings, didn't. Won't be the same next week, though.

Anyway, here's my second set of pages - blue today, with a snowflake kind of theme. The one on the left has wet glue on it still, but you can ignore that, I'm sure! Mostly I've used different kinds of paper and ribbons as background - the circle is made of sizoflor and the square in front of it is from fused angelina folded over on itself several times. The charm is one of a pair of earrings I really liked, but lost one of. Now that I've cannibalised it for this project, I will probably find the other earring (actually, I doubt it, it's been gone for years).

The page on the right, which is the back of this set of pages, uses more ribbon, a piece of batik with snowflakes (which is what started the snowflake theme), some sequin punch, and images from Artchix. So far, there is no stitching on either page, but I'm definitely going to do some to both yesterday's and today's, once they are dry. Not sure what yet, but something. And of course, I am going to put the pages together. I'm hoping to get a little time tomorrow to work, as I rather fancy a purple page. Or maybe yellow!

Fabric book making

So I'm doing this online class with my surface embellishment group (a spin off of my dyeing group) - the class is on making fabric books. Today I had a go at the first page - this is the front (left) and back (right) - I think I am going to put pelmet vilene (a stiff interfacing) between the pages instead of batting. And I'll probably do a little decorative stitching on the pages before I finish, but these photos were taken after glueing - you can see that the glue under the skeleton leaves on the left is not dry yet.

There is almost no stitching on the pages yet, just some yarn couched down on the front page - it was more evident originally, but then I decided to put some gauzey stuff on top of it. The photo is a transfer I bought commercially (from artchix) and the window is a bit of thin metal (from the same source).

On the "back" of the page, I used some metallic paper I've had for awhile, can't remember precisely where I got it - from a quilt show somewhere I'm sure. And some of the same sheer fabric I used on the front, and some of the same yarn (the spiral in the bottom corner). The stars are actually from some Christmas confetti I bought at Ikea a few years ago and the flower is a cut out from the ribbon I used on the front. The building is from a sheet of images I purchased from artchix. There's no stitching at all on the back, so far. This may change.

We are supposed to do two pages (front and back) or more for the first lesson; I think I might do the second set in greens and blues, but we'll see what happens when I actually get to it. Hopefully, I WILL actually get to it!

A few moments to myself

Not necessarily what I expected today, with the kids still out of school and a trip to the pantomime (Peter Pan) planned for the afternoon, but I did get a little sewing done today. First I fixed a little bit on my sunset quilt - I had to unpick a small section where I had added some extra angelina and accidentally sewed it on through the sleeve (oops) - so, after detaching it from the sleeve and sewing it on again, this time NOT through the sleeve, I put it aside to finish the binding (and sewing down the edge of the sleeve) and decided to do some more of these winter swap blocks. Again, the colour isn't great in the photo, but the four colours I am doing for the swap are a sort of topaz-gold colour, emerald green, a ruby red (bottom left) and a purple (amethyst?). I need 16 blocks and have done 8, so I feel pretty good about those. They don't have to be mailed out until February, so I'm doing ok on that one...

More show and tell

Well, I said that when I had another non-sewing day (which I had today, as expected, though we did get all the Christmas decorations down, the downstairs thoroughly cleaned and put back together and the various decorations and ornaments rearranged and rotated for 2007, so I don't feel I've accomplished nothing!) I would show my Christmas placemats that I got from my Pick'n'Mix Swap secret santa. Aren't they great? Technically, I don't know who made them, as it's a secret santa, but the group has been together for a number of years now and when someone makes something for a swap (which wasn't required) we tend to recognise the style, so I do know whose work they are. She must have spent ages on them, but I love them and they aren't anything I ever would have made for myself as those of you who know my fondness for applique can attest! (OK, I don't hate it, but I sure wouldn't do anything like this by hand - ever.)

I've put them away now, but I put them in the "early Christmas" bag - the one with the advent calendars, the door wreath and the window snowflakes in, so at least next year I'll get to have them on the table for the entire month of December - not that I'll let anyone eat off them, but at least they can adorn the table in the interims between meals!

January sneak peak...

Spent some time working today, hoorah! Finished off (I think) the sunset piece - added a little more angelina to soften the look. Now I have to bind it, and sew down the sleeve, and it will be done.

That didn't take very long, so I made four pairs of double four patch blocks in blue and white-on-white for the January Block Lotto on quilting.about.com. Technically, it's not January, but as the instructions are up early (there was no December block), I won't be spoiling anything by sharing this photo. The other three pairs are similar, but with different blues.

And then (productive day, or what?) I also worked on some blocks for a winter swap in jewel tones on quiltshoppe forum on delphi. This photo is a little dark, but essentially, the corners are to be a deep, sapphire type blue, with the central stars in another jewel tone - the three gold ones are a topaz type colour and the dark one is actually a deep purple - just doesn't show well. As the background for those is white on white as well, it seemed sensible to work on them at the same time.

I probably won't get much sewing time tomorrow, as New Year's Day is traditionally when I take down all my Christmas decorations, and in keeping with that, I usually rearrange some of my ornaments, too - I do have one box of stuff I rotate, as I have too many pieces of pottery, etc to keep them all out at the same time. But I only allow myself a small amount of stuff in storage or it just gets too silly. Luckily, I didn't get any new ornaments/knick-knacks for Christmas, so I don't have to do TOO much rearranging, but I do like to move it around from time to time, otherwise, I think you stop seeing things so much. And this is a good time to do it. And give everything a really good dusting at the same time...

Sunset, sunset

Spent my sewing time yesterday (nice to have some of that!) working on the little art quilt "Sunset on another planet" -- first I finished the quilting, mostly in the orange variegated thread, but also added a little red, including some quilted circles. Then I used angelina to make some sheer suns to add on top. Then I took it downstairs and added some foiling and tiny beads. I think the foiling looks a little raw, so I think I'm probably going to add a little more angelina in places, just to soften it a little - especially on the sun with three foil stars. Then I think it's probably finished (though I still have to stitch the binding down, as you can no doubt see in the photo. On the whole, I'm happy with it, though, and as it's not "due" until the end of January, it's nice to be ahead of time, for once!

Sewing holidays...

As expected, not much sewing done over the past few days, though I might get a little done today, before Sarah's friend comes to have a sleepover (a bit of a misnomer, surely, as they get very little sleep, but you know what I mean!). Thought I'd share some quilty Christmas presents instead - the bag is from my Secret Santa swap on BQL (British Quilting List) - I don't know who made it, but it's a "green" shopping bag for life - just the right size to take out shopping, and very cleverly, it doesn't drag on the ground when I hold it by the handle - so many shopping bags are too long! Anyway, it's had good use already, shopping for half price Christmas cards in New Malden on Wednesday with the kids and my mother in law, and it went to London Zoo yesterday to hold our lunch - I anticipate it will get used until it falls apart...

The fat quarters and cotton are from my other Secret Santa - BQL runs two groups - a "made" Santa, where you have to make a present for your Santa (that was the table runner I was working on in late November) and a "bought" Santa, where you buy a gift up to a certain value. I've been pretty lucky over the years with what I've received, both bought and made - for instance, last year I had a packet of coordinated hand dyes for my bought present and this year I had these lovely black and red orientals, with the variegated valdani cotton. It's fun to have some presents under the tree which you know will be quilty and which you haven't picked yourself!

I also did a Secret Santa swap with my small group, for which I got an amazing set of Christmas placemats, but I'll show pictures of them another day - I'm sure there will be more days I don't get any sewing done!

Sunset on another planet, revisited

Made some progress on this little quilt today - put the red/orange "suns" on, and began quilting it - I've got a nice variegated orange thread which I'm using, which I really like the look of. After I finish quilting with the orange variegated I think I'm going to do some more in gold or red or possibly both - I think it wants lots of quilting. So far, so good - we'll see how it comes along.


I also did some more of the 9x9 squares - just finished up what I started the other day - photos of them on another day, perhaps, when I don't get any work done - like tomorrow & Thursday... And I've received a really super set of Christmas postcards and Winter Solstice ones, too, so I should really get some photos up of them. Especially the Winter Solstice ones, as there are only 7 of them (6 +1 still left to arrive) and the others, though great, are essentially just Christmassy, for the most part.


I meant to put up a photo of Sarah's log cabin blocks, which we worked on on Saturday (I think - I'm losing track of days a bit at the moment), but forgot to photograph them, and can't really be bothered to get them back out and do it, but next time we work on them, I really will remember to take a photo. She's doing all the sewing, although I am doing the rotary cutting - just too hard for a nine year old, especially a left-handed one with a right-handed mum - and frankly, I don't like watching her touch the rotary cutter in the best of circumstancees!

More of the same...

Did some sewing today, as you may have guessed, just more of the same - one more of these 9x9 blocks finished, and two more partly finished. This is a pink batik - not necessarily apparent in the small photo, but should be visible in the enlargement. Also did some more of the 4x4 scrap blocks for that swap. I already have far more than I need for the swap, but there's no harm in having extra blocks, right? *g* Not sure how much more time I will have to sew between now and Christmas, but the kids seemed to calm down enough today to give me an hour or so, which was nice. Maybe that will be true tomorrow, too. After that, there's some serious cooking to be done, so who knows...