Pencil roll and other stuff

Ta da - I promised useful presents, and here we go - a pencil roll for Olivia's friend (the perspective in the photo is a bit off - it's actually straighter than that) - we have made it with space for the 20 colouring pencils we bought, plus some plain pens or pencils, and other things like a small ruler, etc. Also a pad of paper in different colours - Olivia has decorated the cover. We did her friend's initials in gold foil and then added some stickers. I think this will be a really popular present - I hope so, anyway. I foresee more pencil rolls in my future!



I did some work of my own today, but some of it I can't show - I did three sample blocks for the February block lotto in the about.com forums - but it's a secret until 1st Feb, so no pics. Also, I pinned together another small quilt for quilting. It's a batik quilt, but not sure how I want to quilt it - I might do some leaves - so I think I will practice on a placemat first - I have been doing some enders and leaders with 3" squares lately, and I thought if I joined some of them up to placemat size, I could use them to practice FMQ designs on before tackling a large piece. Not sure when I'll tackle this quilting piece, but maybe later this week. I really must get some of these tops quilted! Here's a photo of the batik top before it was pinned. It's not that big - will make a large baby quilt.

Stars winner!

Well, thanks to DD2, Olivia, today's winner is the lovely Sequana - yes, she's won before, but I guess that's what you get for religiously enterring the draw every week! Congratulations, Annie - I have your address and will put the blocks in the post tomorrow (probably) or Tuesday. Tune in tomorrow for something a little different - I have some books and mags to send to new homes...

Quilted Snails...

Well, I know I just showed this, but I decided that I should probably at least have a go at quilting some of the many tops I own (I've only showed a few so far - I will share more in upcoming weeks) and this one is pretty small, so it seemed a good place to start. And I'm very pleased with the results - I did a basic meander, with some snail's trail type curves thrown in here and there. It looks nice - from a distance, it just adds texture, but I've shown some closeups so you can see it really is quilted.





I used a brown variegated thread which works well, I think. Not too wacky, but not too subtle, either. And another fun thing about it is that I used recycled batting - a friend had quilted a large piece of multicoloured fabric (like a cheater panel - looks pieced, but isn't) to make a quilted "dreamcoat" for her 7YO son who is really into Joseph & The Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat - once she had cut out the pieces for the coat, there were some fairly large oddly shaped strips left - these are what I used as batting (although there's extra fabric, because it isn't pieced, it quilted really easily). So, enviornmentally friendly as well!


Tomorrow I think Olivia and I will be making a pencil roll like the one Sarah made a while back - her friend G. admired it recently, and as she has a birthday coming up in the next few weeks, it seemed like a good present. I also bought a blank journal type book, which can have the front decorated. Useful presents, hoorah!

Swaps & cards

These two star blocks are both for the birthday block swap - both people this month wanted batiks, with cream background, so it made sense to do them at the same time. The purple one doesn't work quite as well, as there's not enough contrast on the inner star, but it' s ok. She wanted purple batiks, so I am a little more limited in what I could use. I'm still considering making it again with one of the fabrics different (the fabric which is in the place of the yellow fabric in the left block) - or even just trying another combination of purples - I do have one or two I didn't use. I also made the larger stars overlap slightly differently on the purple block, and I'm not sure it works as well. Anyway, it's not bad, I'm just nitpicking, I think.



When those were done, I worked on a pair of blocks for my African block swap with Karol Ann (who is actually IN Africa at the moment, so I have a chance to get ahead. Although I think I have to make one more before I'm technically ahead. Who can keep track.) This was a useful block for using up lots of smaller scraps - it's a bit wild, but fun too. I won't be able to make another one for a little while, as I am totally out of black fabric (plain black, I mean - I have lots of tonals, etc). Must have a quick check in my local haberdashery department on Monday - they don't have much selection of fabric (though are quite good on other things) but they might stretch to black cotton. Frankly, I don't need to be tempted by a trip to a quilt shop!



And loads of post today - M is for Modigliani from Brigitte in France (I love this card - it will probably stay up for quite a while); 1970's from Maureen; an orange block from Lynn; N is for necktie from Barbara. I do like getting fun things in the post. Must take my metallic cards to the PO - forgot to do that today!

A miscellany of Thursday

No work of my own to show today (well, I might share a few more tops a bit later - Lynda asked how many tops I had - I not entirely sure I want to admit it, but I think it's somewhere between one and two dozen) but I got these two lovely postcards, the metallic one on the left from Barbara, and of coure, being metallic, it didn't photograph well, but it's very pretty nonetheless. The houses on the right are from Francoise - I like these little house cards - they are great fun.

I also got this today - not the Dylan poster, which I've had for a while, but the Nancy Crow poster. My friend Brenda, who invited me to join her newly reformed quilt group, which is meeting on Thursday mornings, every other week, was having a clear out in her house, and knowing that I'm a Nancy Crow fan, passed the poster along to me.

The quilt group was fun - it's a small one, five people today and I think maybe seven if everyone comes, but that's fine - a good size for meeting in someone's house for a few hours. It's always nice to have some new people to chat with and do show and tell. We are going to make a group quilt using nine-patches and hourglass blocks - it will be a nice little project to work on together; I'm looking forward to it. All of the other women in the group are older than I am (some of them considerably) but that's ok, too, I'm used to being the baby in quilty things...



So, having admitted to owning lots of unquilted tops, I guess I'll show a few more of them - here are two, also both from swaps. The left-hand one is from a swap called Antique Neutrals - all the colours used had to be neutrals. Very effective, I think. The other was (you may have guessed) a log cabin swap. I liked this layout with the central star. This quilt might actually get quilted sometime soon by my friend Lana - it's fairly big, and it wants an all-over pattern, so it makes sense to longarm quilt it.

Journal Quilt Week 9, and so on

The colour's not great on this, but it's the start of my new cross-stitch piece. Not sure what part I'll do next - maybe start on a tree or two...


Right, so, Lizzie recently left a comment asking about what stiffening I used in the boxes I did before Christmas - I can't respond directly Lizzie, as no email or blog shows in your profile, so hopefully you'll read this and find your answer - I used what is here called pelmet or craft vilene - I think it's fairly similar to Timtex, so if you are in the US, you can use that or something like it. I use it for a lot of stuff - in fact, it's one of my main ingredients; I should probably buy stock!

Thanks to everyone who commented yesterday on my quilt tops (more at the end of this post) - unfortunately, it's about half and half as to whether I should keep the one top whole or divide it up (I was already about half and half in my own mind - oh well!), so I'll probably just keep it in the pile for a while until I make up my mind...




And now, on to some fun stuff! This is this week's journal quilt, which also serves the purpose of being an exercise for my class with Laura Cater-Woods. One of the assignments for this week is to take the image we worked with last week and develop it in a new way - either by changing colours, media, making it 3-D, or a variety of other options. So I decided to play with the tree using different media - in the end, this had the result of also changing the colour and making it somewhat 3-D. Originally, I had thought to use some yarns couched down to form the shape of the tree trunk and branches - when I had a peep in my yarn drawer I found something better - silk super crunchies, which I bought from the Thread Studio at the Knit and Stitch show. I don't really know how to describe these - they are hard (crunchy) fibrous stands of silk, hand-dyed, in this instance in lovely autumnal colours. They couched down nicely into a tree shape, and as you might be able to see from the close-up, the build up is quite nice - very tree-trunk like. The background of the piece is a piece of discharged fabric from my recent discharge swap, and the buttons just add some colour and movement. I am claiming artistic licence to allow for the fact that they are all from different species of tree...



Finished up the metallic postcards today as well - as you can see from the photo, I didn't have enough of the various ribbons to make them precisely the same, but the same basic construction carries through all of them. They'll go out in the post tomorrow - there's one extra which I think will serve as a birthday card later in the month.





Some items received in the post - a card from Dawn for the recycled and reused swap on BQLPC and a block from the orange swap, from Karen, which actually came yesterday, but I forgot to blog it.



And here are two more tops, as promised (threatened?). These are both small tops - the one on the left perhaps lap sized, the one on the right, more baby quilt sized. The snail's trail blocks were originally done for a swap, before I realised that I did them backwards (that is, with the spirals facing the wrong direction). So I just kept them all for myself. No worries.

More on method

Lynda asked yesterday about my postcards, whether I had a general idea in mind before I started working. I replied to her privately, and then decided that as others have commented similarly in the past, it was worth posting, and even adding a little more detail to. So here's my answer... It depends. (Great answer eh?) If the theme of a postcard is something specific (houses, leaves, 1940s, celebrations, starts with Q) then Iusually have a fairly good idea before I start. But for the vague themes (black & white, a single colour, metallic in this case) I tend to just get out a pile of stuff and poke around in it until I find one item I definitely want to use, then I build the card around that.

In this instance, I knew I wanted to use that fabric with the writing on it (although I had three different colours and wasn't sure which I wanted to use!) - I auditioned it as a background, but it was too busy, so I had to think of a different way to use it. When I saw the metallic frame stickers, I knew I was onto something - then, once I had the piece of writing fabric framed by the metallic frame, the rest of the card began to come together. (By which I mean, after laying a dozen or so elements on the card in various ways, I decided that the ribbons were the way to go - in the process, I have also rejected a various of items, including metallic tags with letters on them, brads, swirly metallic sequins, foil, copper shim, coloured wire and who knows what else!)

In many ways, these are my favourite types of cards to do because I just let the materials talk to me - laying out various elements to test them out is a freeing way to work - often things I pick up don't work for the current project but I see where they might work for something else, so they get filed in the back of my mind for future projects - and sometimes even used for them! It also helps me to get lots of stuff out, as sometimes I find stuff I forgot I had, or have simply never been able to think of a way to use before. The hardest thing with this type of card for me is knowing when to stop adding things. Which is why one of my artistic watchwords for 2008 is LISTEN - listen to my instincts!

Metallics, tops

From this...to these.

I worked on a few things today - finished the remaining "M" postcards, then went on to work on some metallic cards for that swap - when I have this sort of theme - a colour, a general theme, etc, I tend to just pull out everything I own which might work, and then mess around. In the end, I didn't use that many things for these cards - I knew I wanted to use some of the handwriting fabric and had thought it might work as a background, but it was too busy, so I ended up using it in a little frame. That, some metallic dragonfly fabric, few bits of ribbon, metallic thread, and finally, a bit of sealing wax to finish (I have all kinds of bizarre things in my craft stash). Of course they'll need finishing, and I will attempt to edge them with metallic thread - which hopefully, will behave.

Before I did any work this morning, I did something else - went through my entire stack of unquilted tops - and halfway through the shoeboxes of blocks which need making into tops (I got bored after the first 4 or 5 boxes). I hope to get a few tops quilted this year, and all the blocks either made into tops or given away (and in the case of some swaps, both - a few blocks into a baby quilt or wallhanging or bag or whatever and the rest, given away).

Thought I'd share a few of the unfinished tops with you (and more tomorrow)...

The one on the left is made from hand-dyed fabric, using a commercial white on white print. Frankly, I'm not entirely sure I like it - perhaps it would do better to be separated into two smaller pieces and used as baby quilts... On the right is a top made from pieces from a discharge swap with my dyeing group. This one I DO definitely like, but haven't decided how I want to quilt it yet. Might do it soon, though. More tomorrow...

Giveaway Stars

Now that I've put these blocks together into a tablecloth, I find myself with a few spare. Yes, I could keep them to make placemats or pot-holders or what-have-you, but we all know what will happen, don't we... So, consequently, I am offering these two lonely, leftover stars up as my weekly giveaway. As usual, leave a comment before Sunday to be enterred into the draw.

An amazing thing...

...arrived for me in the post today, from Australia. A mystery package - with the customs label saying it was a "book" - and although I am expecting a book from Australia (I ordered Dijanne Cevaal's "72 ways not to stipple or meander" back before Christmas), this was the wrong size, and anyway, the return address was someone different - a vaguely familiar name I couldn't place. I (rightly) assumed it was something to do with blogging, and after opening it to the stage above and reading the card, I realised that this was my Pay It Forward goodie from Julie H. Yippee, I thought! And that was before I opened it. After I opened it, I was a little lost for words, because, well, have a look at how totally wonderful it is:


That's the front on the left, and the back on the right - it's a little notebook with plain paper inside - about 3 inches high (you can tell by the handy wooden ruler she's used on the spine!) and maybe six wide, and it's just so wonderful I'm still a bit lost for words. You can read a bit about it on her blog, and I've put some more photos below to show the inside front and back covers, which are also lovely, even though a little plainer.


(funny how the light is completely different in the two photos, given they were taken at the same time on the same surface - the left is the more accurate one).

I really just love this little notebook (no kidding!) - it's fabulous. And it reminds me of one of the things I like about swapping and pay it forwards and all those sorts of things - not just that you often get really lovely pieces of work from great people, but that you can end up with things which are so different from what you yourself make - I doubt I'd ever make anything like this, so to be given it is perfect. Can you tell it really made my day?

This reminds me that I still have some places going on my own Pay it Forward offer - 4 spaces available (I've signed up for more than one!) and one taken by Karina, who left a comment but is not contactable - if you are out there Karina, please email me with your details or I won't be able to send you anything! Those of you who are sitting on the fence on this, it's really not hard - here's how it works:

"I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people [4 in my case] who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange. I don't know what that gift will be yet and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week, but you will receive it within 365 days, that is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog."

And to tempt you further, if you sign up soon, you are most likely to receive an arch page or something like that, as I am itching to make a few more of them, even before the next one for my swap!

As for me, I didn't do much work today as I had yoga in the morning and then had my hair done. I did set up another 4 M is for Monster cards after realising that I signed up for 2 groups in that swap but only made cards enough for one - I will do the FME on them tomorrow. They are like the others, slightly different shaped monsters, so not really worth showing today - will share when finished.

Winter Winner! and loot, too

...and the winner of the snowflake blocks is Joyce! Which is cool, as I know she has plans for the blocks. Technically, the first name drawn was Ruth, but she asked not to be in the draw, so I drew again (you'll probably never get drawn again, Ruth, LOL). And there you go. Joyce, send me your snail mail address and I'll put the blocks in the post to you.

So much for what Joyce got - here's what I got today. I went to the quilter's sale at Farnham Maltings (an annual event, where lots of retailers bring all the things they want to get rid of (and sometimes, some new stuff, too) and sell at greatly reduced prices. They might not seem like much of a bargain to you Yanks out there, but those of us in Europe, Australia, South Africa, even Canada, will sympathise!)

Anyway, my intent was (as always) not to buy too much - some years I make a list of tops I have needing backing, and buying backs for them there, but frankly, I did that with several tops last year, and still haven't got them quilted, so I decided just to browse and pick stuff I liked. I almost didn't buy any fabric, until I found someone with a whole shelf of Lonni Rossi fabrics, at £4 per metre. Who could resist? Not I! See below, right :) Yes, there are one or two other things in there - a pale green, which was just pretty, and the black on black, also in the £4/metre sale - black on black always being useful to me.





I also bought another cross-stitch pattern, from the same place (The Patchwork Rabbit) I bought several before - the vendor is American, and I had a lovely chat with her at the Surrey area day recently. I was going to buy more, but had run out of cash, so will order a few more from her online. I love these, not just because they are excellent designs, but because they are simple enough (in the sense of the pattern being not too dense and not too big) for me to actually finish. In a short amount of time. I'm looking forward to doing this one (having got tired of the NOEL stitchery, now that Christmas is gone).




And some other things - a hand needle felter - a special offer to buy the felter, and get the mat and spare needles free. As I have been thinking of getting one of these for some time, it seemed a sign from the quilting gods. I also bought a few miscellaneous threads (the polyester thread was 75p a reel - it's gone up from previous years, when it was 50p!) and a piece of lovely fabric - can't think what it is at the moment, it will come to me later.

And now for something completely different...

I've been working on a lot of little things in the past few days, so today I decided to piece together some blocks I won from the block lotto on the quilting forum at about.com. I won them a few months ago, but didn't get them until my mother came over in December. I decided today (having encountered this problem at Christmas) that I could really do with a tablecloth for my dining room table and thought that it would make sense to make one. So I decided to use the blocks in a long, row layout, using 28 of the 8 inch blocks (I had 30), with some other batiks from my stash as borders, including a striped batik I've had for a while and not been inspired to use in other projects. Notice the nicely mitred corner!

Anyway, it obviously still has to be quilted, but I'm very happy with the layout at least.

I did also edge and back the little house postcards from yesterday, but as they look essentially the same, only with a little zigzag on the edges, I won't bother with another picture.

Arch revisted, box in detail - and a great postcard

Well, remember I said yesterday that the line above the archway bothered me? After auditioning about a million embellishments (ok, maybe a dozen) I decided to add this lace flower, which I think helps tone it down. I promise this is done now and I won't touch it again except to write something on the back. I promise!



A lot of people have talked about having a "word for the year" rather than a resolution, and while I haven't really got one per se, I was thinking that "listen" might be a good one for me - not listen to others, so much, as I like to think I do a fair bit of that already, but listen to myself and my instincts and trust a little more than my artistic sense knows what it's doing. I'm sure most of you can appreciate how hard that can be to do - in fact, it's one of the things that I like about blogging - getting feedback on things. Not that I get much negative feedback (if any) but of course some things get more positive feedback than others, which accomplishes a similar purpose - it tells me what works and what doesn't work so well...

I've had a number of people ask about the box I did yesterday - I didn't take photos to do a step-by-step tutorial, but I promise, it was very simple - here are the basics:

1. Decide on the size of your box and cut the following pieces of stiff interfacing/craft vilene/timtex: 2 for box top/bottom (mine were 8"x5"); 2 for box front/back (mine were 8 wide x4 high) and 2 for box sides (mine were, you may have worked this out, 4x5. (You could also make one big piece and cut it apart before step 5 if you wanted to. I didn't, because I did the pieces a few at a time while doing other stuff and because I didn't think of it until just now while typing this!)
2. Fuse fusible adhesive to each side of each piece of the box. If you are using one without paper (like mistyfuse) I would only do one side at a time; if you are using one with paper (like bondaweb), leave the paper on the side you aren't working on.
3. Lay your scraps on top of the fusible until you are happy with the arrangement; it doesn't matter if they extend off the edge or if they overlap a bit. When happy, iron down, then trim back to the size of the interfacing. Repeat this step until all pieces have scraps fused to both sides.
4. Stitch down the scraps. With nice thread in bobbin and on the top of the machine, either do some FMQ, or just stich some simple lines, etc. The purpose here is simply to hold the scraps down, the stitching can be as dense (or not) as you like - mine was very simple as I wanted a quick project, and also, I didn't think the box would get much wear, so it doesn't matter if the scraps are mainly held down by fusible. If you wanted to, you could also embellish further at this stage - add buttons, beads, sequins, glitter, you name it. Just leave a gap around the edges so you can...
5. Finish the edges. This is the slowest part of this project - satin stitching the edges of each piece of the box. Boring, I know, but worth it in the end.
6. Now, to join the pieces together. This is the part that's going to be a little hard to describe without pictures, but I'll give it a go. Take the bottom and one of the front/back pieces and align them. Using a wide zigzag, fairly long stitch length, zigzag along where the two pieces abut (be sure to backstitch at both ends to keep it from unraveling). This should give you a piece which is joined up, but which hinges back and forth fairly easily. Now do the same with the other front/back piece. And then attach the side pieces to the bottom in the same way - this yields a piece which looks a bit like a "T" or a cross but which is still flat. I'd also attach the top to one of the front/back pieces at this stage in the same manner (though I didn't when I did my box as I was orignally thinking I'd leave it open, like a square bowl, then changed my mind).
7. Now the tricky bit - sew the sides to the front/back, to make the box 3-D. If you are not a lazy person, the easiest way to sew the sides together is to whipstich them in place by hand. (Simply lift one side and one frontbback upright and stitch) If, however, you are lazy like me, you CAN do this on the machine - here's how - lift the side and the f/b piece upright to make them meet in a corner, then lay them flat on your machine bed, squishing the bottom of the box flattish as you go, as necessary. Now, using the same wide zigzag, stitch down the two piece, being sure to have the stitch extend off the edge of the piece, so that the zigzag isn't too tight - if it IS too tight, the corner won't unfold nicely and meet in a right angle. This probably sounds a bit convoluted, but it should make sense if you actually have the piece in hand at this point. Carry on around the other three corners of the box.
8. Now it's time to make the fastening for the box - I'm sure there are lots of options, but I went with the easy one - sew a button onto the front of the box, approximately in the middle (I used one with a shank, to make it easier to fasten), then take a piece yarn/cord/etc (I used some gold elastic cord I had leftover from something) and make it into a loop. Loop it around the button to determine where you will need to sew the cord onto the top of the box, then stitch it down either by machine or hand, as you prefer). If desired, you could put another button or something on top to cover this stitching. If you are lazy like me, you'll just leave it.

And that's it. I promise it's not hard - and of course, if you want a faster option, you could use a single piece of fabric on the box pieces rather than scraps, but part of the point of the exercise for me was to use the scraps...

And finally - lookie what I got in the post today. It's even more pretty in real life than in the photo - isn't it lovely? It's from my friend Kandy and is simply an RAK - a thank you for co-moderating on BQL. Aren't I lucky!

Couldn't resist this one...

I've been resisting a lot of the quizzes going around, but those who know me will be entirely unsurprised to see I was unable to resist finding out which Austen heroine I am. And I'm delighted to say,



Take the Quiz here!

Thanks to Sophie (Emma) for the tip-off on this one.

Arch, box, houses

Well, here's what I did today - I worked on an arch page for a swap with a new (to me) group Textile Challenges, which is run by the lovely Carol T. The swap is for the whole year, one page a month to a different person; we each have expressed some preferences about colours and themes and so on. This month, I am making an arch for Judy, who said that she liked trees, doorways, leaves, ancient artefacts, oceans and I forget what else. She didn't specify colours. Given that I'm into trees at the moment, I thought that was a sign, and decided to make a tree the focus of the page (which, I should say, is essentially 4x8 inches, only arch shaped, of course). The tree is done the same way as yesterday's tree - free motion embroidery with brown thread and then over top with the neutral variegated.

The background behind the tree didn't photograph well - it's done with Stewart Gill MetaMica paints - a blue and a green together and looks a lot less silver in reality than in the photo. The archway is German scrap with some views from an ArtChix sheet behind it; the bird is also German scrap. [Looking at it again now, I think the line at the top of the archway piece is a bit harsh - I might play around with it and see if I can soften it somehow.] The charms in the trees are silver keys and parts of an old earring - I loved those earrings - they had the three dangles shown, plus two other longer ones in different colours. Unforunately, as is so often the case with favourite earrings, I lost one of them. This was about 10 years ago and I have been hanging on to the other one ever since, because I knew I'd find something to do with it - and look, I did!

I have stamped in the bottom right corner with a fern stamp and then added some pressed flowers - these were pressed for me by my lovely DD2, Olivia, last summer. Again with the whole "using things someday" lark!

I hope Judy will like it - as this is the first month, I'm flying a little blind, but I had fun making it. The back is a piece of shibori-ed fabric, on which I will write something (not sure what yet); thought it best to keep it simple.




Another thing I did today is this box (which I actually started yesterday) which is made from scraps from the Hawaiian shirts - I had a big freezer bag of scraps; this has barely made a dent in it. But I think it's fun, and I have promptly put it to use holding scraps of pre-fused fabric. It's 8"wide x 5" deep x 4" high. A nice compact size, but big enough to be useful. This was inspired by the scrapbag challenge on the Fibre and Stitch group - I have actually already done one thing for this challenge, but hey, another one gives me another chance in the draw...



And finally, I worked on my postcards for the Little Houses swap. I knew from the time I signed up for this that I wanted to make the basic houses in the same way I did the ones for the Inching Artists challenge, but wasn't sure what else I wanted to do with them. Given my tree theme this week, I decided to add some trees, and some lawn/grass in variegated green. It remains to edge and back the cards, but the basic work is done. And that was my today!