Funky circle quilt a success...

Well, here's the completed funky circles quilt - finishing a top certainly goes a lot faster when a) it's small to start with and b) you tie it rather than quilting it. That said, I'll have another one finished shortly, and a bigger one than that, but that's by the expedient of sending it to the longarm quilter... I decided to actually pay my friend Lana to do some of my quilts that are hanging around, otherwise they might never get done, especially the ones requiring custom work, which I don't really feel confident to undertake myself.

Gave the quilt to Caroline this morning and she loves it - and as expected, it looks great in her conservatory room (the room has walls at the sides, but windows at the back and a glass roof, so it's sort of half conservatory, half room) - the walls are terracotta in colour, so you can imagine it's well suited. Some detail photos below...






I'm very pleased with how it turned out, and of course that it's one fewer project sitting around unfinished. I don't mind unfinished projects, but it is a bit silly to have something completely ready, top and back, and have it just sitting there. I think a few more of my quilts might be going to get tied...


And finally, here's an item from today's post - a card for the Picture Frame swap, from Evelyn in Germany. I enjoyed doing the picture frame cards, might use that technique on a future card, just for fun. Particularly useful if you have a central image which is just not quite larger enough.

Didn't get any work done today, but it's been one of those days. Probably won't get much done tomorrow, but might manage a little between helping at school & having my groceries delivered - at least I don't have to go out and get them, as that would eat up the entire afternoon... Hurray for Ocado.

Tuesday again already

Anyone know where June is going? Can't believe it's nearly been 3 weeks of it already!


Lots of goodies today, most of them in the post -first, the batik Jacob's Ladder blocks back from that swap. Guess I have to think about doing something with them now. At the moment, I have just filed them away to mature... :) And three back issues of Cloth, Paper, Scissors. I have several miscellaneous back issues, but I really like this magazine a lot, and want to fill in the collection. Luckily, it's not been going for very long, so it shouldn't be too difficult or expensive to do. Lots of treats to read, hoorah!

Another postcard from the tree swap also arrived today - this one from Judi, who has used a great yarn for edging as well as creating a really lovely tree. One more to go on that swap - there have been some great ones. I'm glad I signed up to it, despite agonising for ages over what to do (actually, once I got the triangle trees idea I was much happier). And the other "goodie" is two pack of cheap rubbers (erasers) from Woolworths - I was queuing up to buy some polo shirts (school uniform) and saw these on a rack, and thought they'd be great for carving rubber stamps from. And if not, well, they were only 65p per pack, so no great loss.





And this is what I worked on today. I decided to pull the scrapbuster blocks back out and work some on the black mock sashing - I decided I wanted more black space between the blocks, so have added another row of black squares on all the blocks. I like this better - more differentiation, even where some of the pieces in the middle have back or another dark colour touching the sashing.


The piece on the right is a start to my quilt for Quilt Swap 4 - inspired by a comment on my triangle postcards that they would make a nice quilt all sewn together. I am using these HSTs as a base - the piece above is about half the size I want it to be - at the moment, it's about 18" wide or so. I plan to add sheers on top of it, and use stitching and my soldering iron to make little pockets holding bits and pieces - not sure quite what all will be in the little sheer shapes - glitter, sequins, small beads, bits of fabric, thread, lace, ribbon, anything else I can think of that will work. But first to piece the triangles. I am trying to be quite random about it, though it's hard to resist lining them all up the same way...

I also finished binding the funky circles quilt - I tied and buttoned it last night and sewed the binding on today (luckily, it was already made) and took it to quilt group tonight, where I sewed it down. Productivity, hoorah!

Funky button circle quilt

A slew of photos... The quilt at the top left is one that I have had the top made for ages and ages, and have intended for a while now to give it to my friend Caroline because when I made it, it reminded me of her conservatory, which has terracotta walls and is very bright and cheerful and Mediterranean. I suddenly realised tomorrow is her birthday, and I am planning to see her later this week, so I thought I'd try to get it finished. The plan has always been to tie it and add the buttons shown above, so I might just have time to do it. If I hurry. So today I pinned it all together ready to be tied/buttoned. Hopefully I can get that done tonight watching telly and then I can do the binding tomorrow. So that was what I spent most of my sewing time on today.

Before that, I also finished off these three postcards - one for a birthday card, one for a baby shower card and one to set aside for a future birthday. Once I buy some more fabric for printing, I think I will do some more altered photo cards - I had fun with the flowers in particular, and the seaside photos.

The fabric isn't anything I dyed recently, but it's what I'm sending off for my next CCRR (complex cloth round robin) - this one should be a little simpler than the other one going at the moment, as it's with the dyeing group rather than the surface embellishment group. The idea is to send two similar/identical pieces (twins) out to two different people and have them worked on by different people in turn, and see just how different they are at the end. Mine went out today to the next people in the two groups, and will be worked on at some point before the end of July. It's fun.




And finally, the promised photos of the girls' quilts before they go off to Sandown tomorrow - Olivia's is small, (on the table top at the left) and looks pretty good, though it doesn't lie completely flat (not too suprising). Sarah's is much bigger, as you can see, and looks great, although the quilting is a bit basic and puffy, but for a 9 year old, I am very impressed - she did almost all of it herself, bar the binding and sleeve (and I did the rotary cutting - I thought she might need her fingers in future). We'll see what everyone else thinks, soon enough.

Triangle Day

Worked on the triangle postcards this morning - first, I finished adding the sheer to the top and stitching three triangles on each card, then I helped Olivia with her spelling homework while using the soldering iron to cut away from the outsides of the organza triangles. Then, back up to the sewing room to add some decorative stitching - everything I could find on my machine (which doesn't have vast numbers of decorative stitches) which had actual triangles in it - so not the normal zig zag, but there's a zig zag with bars across top and bottom and a couple of other ones which feature triangles.

And then back downstairs, this time with Olivia and Alex both helping, to stamp some triangles on using potato stamps (only triangle stamp I already had was really large). I'm not sure quite how helpful Alex was, but he seemed to have fun and only got one colour of ink on himself, which isn't too bad, as these things go... Finally, I fused the backing on really well as I knew I wasn't going to satin stitch the edge, for once. I did one row of straight stitch around the edge of the cards, leaving 1/8 to 1/4 inch free and then using my pinking shears to make triangle-y edges. Hopefully, they will be triangle-y enough!

Oh, and I forgot to say that both the girls' quilts for Sandown are now finished and ready to be taking to the showground on Tuesday afternoon. Not cutting it close or anything :) I will try to photograph them tomorrow, outside, if it's not raining.

A little sewing is a dangerous thing

I ended up not get as much done today as I thought I might, as there was an impromptu trip for Sarah with her friend Jess to their caravan (overnight) which we had to get ready for. And then I decided to take Olivia to the cinema as a treat, since Sarah seems to be having a lot of treats lately... We saw Bridge to Terabithia (sp?) which I thought was excellent - and very sad, too, so if you have a young child who can't handle some heavy emotion, you might want to think twice. I cried, I'm not ashamed to say it.

Anyway, before that, we got the binding sewn onto Olivia's quilt, so I can attach it tonight, and I finished up the other two beaded postcards, so they are ready to go in the post - I thought there were four people signed up for this swap, but there are only three, so the blue one is surplus to requirements - if anyone wants it, let me know - I'd be happy to swap for another postcard (doesn't have to be beaded) of pretty much any description...

Yesterday's blog

Friday was one of those days where I was barely home the entire day, so no chance of sewing, at all, but at least today looks better for sewing - it's raining. The girls will have to work on some homework, but otherwise, we don't really have much planned, so hopefully, a whole morning sewing (though I would have preferred it (the morning, not the sewing) not to start at quarter to seven). But as small boy is now installed with some cereal and the telly, I might go back to bed for a little while, or at least have a little more kip on the sofa.

Anyway, there was a little bit of post yesterday, so I thought I'd get it posted before today's proper entry - these two cards came, which are the long awaited trees card from Kandy (I say long awaited because she posted them over a week ago (all within the UK, and with first class stamps), and none of us had had them yet, so we were worried they went astray - but now all of us in the group are receiving them, and they are lovely and worth the wait - looking up through the canopy, what a clever idea. And the other is the Green & Brown card from Faye for Arts in the Mail. And I got my own picture frame card back, but you've seen that one already!

Not much going on today

At least, not sewing. Spent the morning at school, for a change not helping in the nursery, but selling uniform at the New Parents Meeting - very exciting (not). I did find out which class Alex will be in next year, though - I'll tell you, though it won't mean anything to anyone reading, I'm sure - Fir Class (the classes are all called after trees, the nursery is Acorn class, the year sixes are Oak Class, ha ha...). And then I had a whole slew of errands (but not interesting ones) to run this afternoon - taking the uniform money to the bank, buying a thing of bedding plants for a school donation, doctor's appt, and so on. Did manage to turn these two beaded wonders into postcards, but that was it. And tomorrow, I have stuff at school more or less all day, so no chance of sewing then - I guess I will have to try to make up for it on the weekend...

More beaded cards

Three more in the series Open Theme with Beads (great name, I know). There are only three of us signed up to this particular swap, so I will probably stop at 4 cards, as that's enough for the swap and one extra. So with the brown, couched one I did the other day, this is it, for now anyway. Now I just have to turn them into cards - maybe tomorrow, though it looks to be a busy day...

A picture is worth 1000 words...

Finished up these cards today - just meant putting a frame around them and doing the edge stitching - I used gold metallic thread, so instead of my usual satin stitch, I did a zigzag - I used a metallic needle, which seemed to help (no breakages) but I still didn't want to risk the satin stitch. I think they came out nicely. The funny thing was, when I was cuttign the corners in order to "mitre" the frame, I noticed I had this little pile of gold triangles on my sewing table and thought "hey, triangles" - this immediately joined in my head with what I was thinking I'd do next on my triangle cards, which was to use sheers and stitching in some way, burning away the excess with my soldering iron, so...

Here's one triangle background (the background is a good half inch larger than the card all around, so will be trimmed eventually) - I sprinkled the tiny triangles on top, covered it in organza and stitched some triangles (what else) on it. Later, when I've done them all, I will get out the fine tipped soldering iron and trim around the triangles (I did make sure the tiny triangles were within the area of the stitched triangles). I think I will probably add one or two more things as well, but we'll have to see what it wants. Maybe some stamping, or if I can find any, triangle shaped sequins...

This is the other thing I worked on today - some blue and black bowties for the Scottie Dog quilt - as with the snowballs, I will do a double row of 10. Not sure yet whether I will put these with the same orientation for all the bowties or put some of them the other way, but I'm sure they will look sweet regardless. Then I just have to decide whether or not I need to do anything else above the top Scottie Dog row and below the bottom one - I'll have to measure the top and see how big it is before I make that decision, I think.

And some treats in the post, too - the new Quilting Arts magazine (I was expecting this, as my American friends got theirs recently) and a cute train postcard - this is from the Mixed Media Challenge on Arts in the Mail and is from Diane. She's used a variety of media, including metal washers and, my favourite - wallboard tape (the track). Alex likes this one, too. Not surprisingly!

The Postcard's Progress

A gaggle of miscellaneous unfinished cards - all of these are based on photos printed onto fabric. The two flower ones will be birthday postcards for the birthday group in one of my postcard groups; the mother & baby card (yes, it's me and Alex, now 4+) is for someone I know who's going to have a baby and the seaside scene is actually for a swap theme "picture frame" - I had a hard time finding a picture I wanted to "frame", but ended up with this one - of course, I can't resist messing with it first!

Except for the baby card, which is fairly straightforward, the other cards all feature various alterations to the basic photos - the pink lilies feature organza sewed on top of the flowers, with the extra bits cut away with my soldering iron (I like the definition you get with this technique and will definitely use it again); the yellow irises are stitching and angelina with lumier paint on top (they aren't done yet - not sure what's next, but something) and the seaside card has some sheer fabric across the sky and real sand glued on over part of the sand in the photo. And yes, that's me & Alex, too. No one can say I don't put anything of myself into my art now :)

I also worked on these little nine-patch in a square blocks - they are for the June Block Lotto on the quilting forum at about. I was going to make three pairs, but actually, I don't really have much country fabric, so I was a bit limited. But two will do - having won (some of) the blocks from last month's lotto, I did want to send in some blocks for this month, even if it meant stretching the stash a little.

And to the right, some fishies - an Under the Sea card from Kathy - I think that might be all of them, but not sure, really should check that and see. Anyway, nice fishies - and nice use of beads for the bubbles - thanks Kathy!

And finally, I also got this in the mail, which is the start of a new complex cloth round robin - this one with the dyeing group, not the surface embellishment group, so what I do with it will involve dyeing in some way, rather than anything funkier than that. We are doing a "twins separated at birth" CCRR this time - sending two identical (similar) pieces out to be worked on by different people, and seeing how different they end up when they come home. Luckily, I don't have to work on this piece until July - she's early - so I have time to let it sit and whisper to me about what it wants to have done to it. At the moment, it thinks it wants to be tied up in some way before dyeing (that sentence sounds very odd out of context) but it could change its mind...

Scottie Dogs revisited - and thanks!

Didn't have a lot of time to work this afternoon as I spent part of the time acquiring a new toy but I did manage to get a bit done on the Scottie Dog quilt - I finished sewing all the snowballs together and did a row of 10" pinwheels blocks, too. I have one more row of dogs to add on, and I'm thinking I'll put a row of bowties between the bottom dogs in this photo and the other row (maybe double, the way the snowballs are) - just need to work out sizes. Then I'll see how big the whole thing is and if I need to add anything to top and bottom, but I do feel progress is being made. Hoorah.

Nearly finished stitching the binding down on Sarah's quilt, so perhaps a photo of that tomorrow. Or the next day. Has to be finished fairly soon as I have to take it to the showground next week. Yikes. Have to finish Olivia's binding, too, but as her quilt is only about 36x42, I'm not so worried about that. I always tell myself I'm not going to leave things until the last minute, but do I listen? :)

Also, just wanted to say thanks to everyone who posted about my postcard wallhanging - I've replied to most of you, where I could, but those ones where I couldn't, well, just wanted to say thanks to you guys too. I never quite know what to do about comments where no email address shows - at the moment, I get few enough comments I can still respond to people, which I like to do, though who knows whether that will always be the case. But when there's no email address and no profile showing (and so no link back to the commenter's own blog) well, what can you do? But I appreciate the comments anyway - please don't stop!

A is for Africa...actually

Looks like a repeat of yesterday, I know, but actually, it's much better - here are the African blocks again, this time paper-pieced, the right size, flat, and all those other lovely things. I still really like the block, and now I can bear to send it along to someone else without cringeing. That was it for today, but I did get myriad other things accomplished, just not sewing related. However, I do have binding to sew down tonight (Sarah's log cabin quilt) so I guess there will be more to come!

A is for Africa...almost

And here's today's pretty pictures... Some treats in the post - in fact, just what I like - only two items of post, and one was the May/June issue of Cloth, Paper, Scissors (I only just subscribed, so it's probably coming later than most people have got theirs, but that's ok, I'm looking forward to reading some as my bedtime reading tonight - flipped it open randomly and landed on an article about Janet Bolton, who is one of the few quilt artists I actually know anything about already, having been to one of her talks (she gives good talks, so if you get a chance, go. Also, because her background is as an artist not a quilter, sometimes her perspective is really different than those quilters who come from dressmaking backgrounds - which is a good thing, especially if you yourself came into quilting from dressmaking rather than art).

Anyway. The other postal treat is below (today's photos being arranged by size & shape rather than theme) and is a card from the tree swap, this one from Janet, a lovely card of the Weeping Willow in Winter. It's fabulous, isn't it - painted silk, I think, with an appliqued tree branch, and then all the willow fronds done in machine stitches with little French Knots on the ends. The tree series is producing some great cards.



I did some work myself today, unlike yesterday, despite spending a good part of the day in the park, where there was an open day with lots of free sporting activities, including tennis coaching and free crazy golf - the crazy golf pitch is new this year, so we've not played much yet - Sarah, Alex and I had a go around while Olivia was playing tennis; Sarah liked it so much she queued to play at least once more, possibly twice. Anyway. This morning I managed to do some sewing including finishing up the snowballs - they aren't quite all attached into a single row, but are now in groups of four.

I also finished the background to the triangle postcards - all those batik HST units. No idea what I'm going to do with them next, other than it will involve triangles in some fashion. But they aren't due to post until the end of June so I have a few more weeks to worry about them. I think I'm going to put them to the side for a little while so I can have a think. I have to do some Picture Frame cards first anyway. As well as finish the Open Theme with Beads (though I know more or less what I'm doing there, it's just a matter of actually doing it).

And I worked on some African blocks for my private swap with Karol Ann (who was right in thinking my purchase of black fabric meant I'd work on these blocks) - unfortunately, they didn't come out well - I used a design from Judy Martin's Block Book, and was reminded of everything I don't like about this book - all that cutting parallelograms & odd triangles, and then trying to work out how to align them and what not. Ick. I think I am going to get rid of that book as it never fails to annoy me when I go to put the blocks together. There are some nice designs in it, though, which I could no doubt adapt to another method of piecing, so perhaps I'll just write myself a note on the cover...

I do like the way these blocks look in principle though, if only they were flat and not too small, so I am going to do this design, but I am going to paper piece them. I almost paper-pieced them in the first place, and now I wish I had done, but hey, live and learn. Anyway, I have printed the papers out, so will get started on them tomorrow or some time, but Karol Ann, I'm afraid it's going to be several days before yours is in the post!

Some stuff

A nice postcard in the post today - this is to the theme Summer, from Harriett on FAI - it's a photo from her garden - isn't it lovely? And my fabric from my Fat Quarter Frenzy club - roses and toning fabrics, which will I'm sure prove very useful. Whee.

Didn't do any sewing yet today, though I might do a little more beading tonight - this morning I stayed at school to help and this afternoon my friend Lorayne and I went with our littles (she has a 4 yr old too) to Garsons Farm, a pick your own where we had a picnic lunch and then picked loads of strawberries and broad beans. Lovely!

I did do a little more beading last night, but as I haven't finished the piece yet and as I had other photos to show, I think I'll wait until it's done to share it...

Open theme with beads...

I didn't actually do any work today (though in a moment, I'm off to watch an episode of NCIS on DVD and will probably do some more beading) but I did do this beading last night, as part of a postcard series for the theme "open theme with beads" - which means I can do anything I want, as long as I use beads somewhere in the design.



I decided to pull out a basket of 5 or 6 TAST stitch samples I had knocking about doing nothing and add some beads to them - I will then turn it into a postcard - the total area wasn't much more than 4x6, though I will loose a bit off the sides, which is fine. The sample is from the week we did couching & I have added a lot of beads, though I'm not sure how well they all show up. The other samples will be quite different, as they are less free form than this one, but I'm sure they'll work equally well in their own way.



I did actually do something sewing related today, though, as Alex and I had a trip to the quilt shop. I needed some plain black for a couple of projects and the local department store with haberdashery department was out, so off I went to Creative Quilting in Hampton Court. My fabric purchases were fairly dull (the black, and some unbleached calico, which I am also out of) but I got lots of fun bits - some embroidery threads, three spools of variegated thread (I like them for postcard edging), some packs of buttons, some sewing machine needles (not that exciting, but the local dept store w/ hab dept doesn't carry the quilting or metallics, only the standard ones so it was worth grabbing some while in a proper quilt shop) and a fun pack of stuff to stick on postcards. The brightly coloured cat fabric is a 10cm strip which was Alex's bribe for good behaviour (he wanted a bigger piece - they learn young, don't they!)