More houses

Today, I worked on (and finished, hoorah!) the little row houses for the swap on Lenna's Creative Swaps site - I have photographed each of the little houses individually as well as in this group; if you want to see them in more detail they are over here on flickr. They are all fairly small - can't remember the precise dimensions of all of them, but they range from about 1.5" to 3.5" wide and 2-5" tall. I like all of them, but I think my favourites are the butterfly (top row centre), the door (bottom row, 2nd from left) and the rust coloured one (bottom row, second from right).



And here's a journal quilt, based on the houses, only a bit more minimalist. It's a day late, but at least it's done! Goals tomorrow, as it's late and I need to go to bed.

Promised giveaway

So, here's the promised giveaway. I said when I stopped the weekly giveaways that there would still be giveaways in the future - and here's one of them. Up for grabs is a zipper bag full of bits and pieces which I don't want - a few orphans &/or widows, HST corners, and so on. To give you an idea of scale, that four patch of black squares is 4.5" square; the purple on black pp-ed star is 6.5".

If you would like this jumbled assortment of useless bits treasure trove of assorted bits and pieces, just leave a comment on this post by the end of August (allowing for people being away on holiday and me being lazy & busy at the moment) - I'll draw a name then...

Little houses

Here's what I got in the post today - it's an ATC from Shelina, which I was expecting, and a whole bunch of other fun stuff, which I wasn't. Isn't that cool?


And here's a little sneak preview of what I'm working on - not a lot to show just yet, but hopefully tomorrow there will be a lot more progress. These little houses are for a swap on Creative Swaps, which I just realised is due TO Lenna in the US by the 31st August, not due in the post by then. So ideally, I will finish tomorrow and get it in the post on Monday. It will then probably take only 3 days to get there, but you know if I don't mail it until the 25th, it will take 3 weeks! Anyway, these little houses are not fabric (though they may have some fabric bits on them - we'll see) but they should be fun anyway. I've only just begun - there will be a lot more embellishment before I'm through. Didn't have a lot of time to play with them as we were out on a picnic for most of the day. Despite the depressing forecast, the weather was actually lovely, hoorah.

Little Virtual Tour

...of my sewing room. As there was no sewing today (though we didn't do what was originally planned, due to lots of traffic - accidents, oddballs protesting on the M25 and so on) I have decided to share some of the lovely bits I am surrounded by while I work. Bear in mind I have a very small sewing room. Don't get me wrong, I love that I have a room at all - but it's not big - it's about 7ft x 7.5ft. It's remarkable how much I have fit in it, and just having it is really freeing in terms of work as I can leave things out when they are in progress. Big projects still need longer time, but if you can leave things out, it really is possible to do some work when you only have 20 minutes or so. ...



So anyway. Here's Mr Scrappy Crow, received yesterday from Julie, happy in his new home on my shelf. He's next to my winter Four Seasons Quilt Swap Quilt, from Jen and a piece I made for a poetry challenge somewhere over on about.com - the art quilting forum, maybe?

And here on the right is the wall as you come into my space - a pinboard crammed with bits and pieces - moo cards, business cards, ATCs and lots of other miscellany. There is also a waxed cloth picture from Uganda which I got from my friend Wil, a silver star Christmas decoration (which I like enough to leave up all year) from a swap with Lana, a pay-it-forward Dear Jane decoration from Cathi and a little hardanger ornament which came from the BQL secret santa swap one year. Then there's the Summer Four Seasons Quilt I got yesterday from Louise, two white quilties from a swap over on Creative Swaps, a piece I made from 4 Japanese Folded patchwork blocks I did in a class, the purple piece I received from Ann in the first miniature booty swap. Below that is a cross stitch piece I did, and some twinchies in a frame - from a FibreArtBits swap. Below that you can just see the top of a mini quilt my friend Sandra made for me - this was from a swap on Dyehard, my dyeing group.



Here's the view of my little wall above my sewing table, next to the window - another little white quiltie, a lovely card and little charm from Penny, a dottee angel from Julie, a wee birdhouse which was actually from a Valentine's ornament swap organised by Lenna, but which I like too much to put away, and a set of metallic inchies which Debbie sent me after I admired them on her blog.

On the right is the door to my sewing room, which has a Nancy Crow poster and the cards from the Angels, Faeries & Divas swap hosted by Lenna.



Here's a bit of my extremely crowded windowsill - a plastic bag chicken I bought in Camden Market, a little fabric box from a swap on my surface design list, a little African doll from Karol-Ann, and the wee doggie I got from Amy in a Valentine's Swap organised by Lucy Locket. And finally, another shelf - the piece of cloth is a complex cloth round robin don't on my surface embellishment list which I like too much to cut up and do anything else with and the red bag hanging on the end of the shelf is from the bag swap organised by Barbara. It was made by Weronica.

So there you go. I did receive something quilty in the post today - the centre of the Spring Fling Round Robin 2 piece to work on, from Helen. But I can't show it - when I've done my round, I'll show a sneak peek, but for the moment, you'll just have to do without! What you can see, however, is this lovely little journally book which she included in the parcel for me - hard to show both inside and outside, but here's a bit of a view - the pages inside are mostly white, with some lovely blue papers interspersed....

I also got two postcards for the batik beauties swap - these are from Sharon and Susan.

I know I promised a little giveaway, and we'll still get to that - just haven't remembered to photograph the stuff yet. Maybe tomorrow.

Excellent postal day

Welll, my excellent postal day started before we went out to the zoo with friends (and spent the WHOLE day at the zoo) and continued on my return - how cool is that. This morning, the doorbell rang and it was the guy who drives the van bringing around the parcels - it was two things, one was the fabric I ordered from equilter (pic below), the other was the above, which is my little summer quilt from the Four Seasons swap - it came from Louise in Australia and is called The Summer Dress - isn't it great? Almost makes me wish I had a dress like this, too, as well as having the quilt (but a dress like this wouldn't suit me, so it's just as well I just have the quilt). Thanks so much, Louise!

Then I also got this, this evening when we got back from the zoo - it came via the regular postie person, later in the day - it was Mr Scrappy Crow, who I won in Julie's giveaway. He's come to live with me, in my sewing room. Isn't that lucky for me? For him, too, I hope! And there were goodies, as well - how cool is that? The chocolate is somewhat gone (but not entirely), and the other things are happily up in my sewing room.

Here's a closeup - and here are the fabrics I ordered from eQuilter - the batik is due to be a border for my friend Caroline's sister's quilt (the diamond one) - luckily, it goes nicely, I think.

Fun ATC Challenge - CLOSED!

So, here's a fun (I hope) challenge for you - while tidying up in my sewing room today, one of the things I did was cut a lot of miscellaneous old reject projects and so on into bases to make ATCs with. I ended up with a LOT of bases (i.e. 2.5x3.5" rectangles). I've done a quick count and I reckon there are at least 150 in there. Some are just fabric, some have wadding between two layers of fabric, some have pelmet vilene in between - depends on what they used to be.



basket of ATC bases waiting to be used; sample selection of various ATC bases


So, here's the challenge - I will send 5 assorted ATC bases and a little tiny zipper bag of embellishments to the first 10 people who are interested. You will need to use one of the bases to make an ATC to send back to me - I don't mind in the least how you use it - you can sew, paint, embellish, felt, staple :), whatever. I would just like you to use it as the base for an ATC, the rest of which will be of your personal inclination. The other four, you can do with as you like. I don't mind if you use any of the embellishments on the card or not (they will probably mostly be sequins and small beads as that's what I have the most of!). ATCs are due back to me by end of September or so. I'm not too fussed - this is for fun. If it's popular, I might run another round in the autumn in honour of my birthday (yep, the big 4-0) in November.

So, any takers?

[edited to say, sorry, I've had 10 people already - in about 2 hours - wow! But I promise we'll do it again before long]

Lovely children

ATC from a swap with Gunnel, which came in the post today

I have really lovely children. Some of you have met them, and may or may not agree with that, but honestly, I do. Today, my children got up late (i.e. after 9am), fed themselves, entertained themselves, pretty much tidied up after themselves, barely argued at all AND washed the dishes and mopped the kitchen floor [they were playing a game involving running a cafe - "Mummy, can we do a pretend cafe, only using real food, and just eat that food as our lunch?" - um, duh - yes! (oh, and on a note of further parental pride, can I say that the menu in the cafe consisted mainly of toast and fruit salad, so I didn't even have sugar buzz issues later - did I mention I have lovely children?)]

Anyway, what did Mummy do while my children (and my bonus child for the day, Sarah's friend Jess, who went home from the sleepover around 3) were lovely? I'd give you three guesses, but heck, even if you've never been to my blog before you probably don't need them!

Mummy was a good girl and the first thing accomplished was to finish testing the September bag for the BQL Bag Challenge. The bag is lovely, anyone doing the challenge will enjoy it, but you'll have to wait until September to see it.

Then, I (let's quickly drop this odd 3rd person thing) worked on my "T is for" postcards - trees, as I mentioned before. I also took advantage of the time to have a good tidy up of a bit of my sewing room - mainly the embellishments bits - lots of new embellishments, which had been stuck kind of randomly into my little wooden drawers and everything was a bit, well, higgledy-piggedly. I also have this one drawer full of "bits and pieces" which are too good to throw away but... Well, you can imagine what that was like. Also tackled my scrap basket - didn't empty it, just neatened it a bit so it will hold more. And tackled a pile of discarded experiments and projects, which I'd been intending to "do something" with at some point. Well, I decided what to do with them, so have cut them all into ATC bases (2.5x3.5") - more on that in a separate post.



Here are the trees - they are all different - well, they'd be different anyway, as they are free-motioned but I mean they all use different colours of fabrics (dug out of the scrap basket) and a different variegated thread (yes, I am a variegated thread junkie, I confess), and then different embellishments at the end.

While I was doing that, I also turned a few of my ATC bases into ATCs with trees and embellishments, too. There will be some ATCs for trading in a week or two - watch this space!



Tomorrow, I'll have a giveaway for you as a result of the clearing out (there won't be sewing tomorrow - we are going to the zoo with some friends), so there's another reason to watch this space!

And, in honour of my 2 year blogversary there will be a more substantial giveaway later in the month (the blogversary is the 26th August - over on my family blog, I hit SIX years of blogging in July - can you believe it!) so do keep coming back. I know - you do anyway...

Less like a manhole cover

At the risk of being arrogant or whatever, I have to say, I really like this piece. It just kind of sprung, perhaps not fully formed, but at least partially formed, from my head, told me what it wanted, and then, just kinda happened (ok, I confess, I had a hard time putting it down). I did most of the rest of the quilting on it this morning - the centre and two of the corners (the lighter two ones, in a purple variegated) and had to set it aside, so we could go out while the cleaners came (we were actually planning to go out anyway, as it happens). But then, when we got back from a day swimming at the cool pool with all the slides and running errands in Guildford, Sarah vanished off to the park with a friend and Alex and Olivia went off to play a computer game, so, not having to produce dinner (a quick survey of kids produced the result that they didn't care and would happily eat cold cereal) meant I could slip upstairs and work more. So I did - finished the quilting on the other two corners - this time with plain purple rayon (this not so much because of any design theory, but because I was worried there wouldn't be enough purple variegated left to finish - and two corners of each is balanced, whereas three and one looks like I ran out of thread...)



Here she is after quilting - as you can see, I decided to go with the basket weave type stitch in the background - I like it - adds texture without being too obtrusive and works fairly well around curves. I also decided to trim the piece more or less on centre (despite what it may look like from the angle of the photo) - it's 21 inches square - technically, it's only supposed to be 20, but it seemed a shame to lose that extra inch, so I'm going to sneak it in anyway.

A bit later in the evening, Sarah came back to the house with her friend Jess asking if she could stay for dinner, so I decided perhaps they should have some proper food after all (or semi-proper, anyway), so I sent them down to the chippie. Hey, it's summer, a little slack can be cut. Though I think next week will involve large quantities of veg. In the end, Jess stayed for a sleepover (one does wonder why we call them that - they mostly seem to involve very little sleep) as DH is away anyway, so it doesn't matter if they stay up late giggling - I'm a night owl anyway, and there's no way they are going to disturb Geoff all the way out in Oxford. But the good thing about the sleepover is that the three of them just went off and did stuff. [I actually really like having Jess over, partly because she's a nice girl, but also because she is very happy to include Olivia in most of the games they play, which certainly makes my life a lot easier - Sarah is more willing to be tolerant of her ltitle sister if her friend initiates it, than if I ask her to include Olivia...]

All of which left me free to embellish. I told Alex I'd watch a film with him before he went to bed, so he picked out Pippi Longstocking, surprisingly - I rather thought I was going to have to sit through half a dozen episodes of Power Rangers - and we sat companionably while I laid out buttons on the top trying to get the balance right. [A note to Helen here, if she's reading - as it happened, I actually had another large packet of lime green buttons, so I haven't had to use up all the ones from you, but I did use some, to get the sizes right...]



The main problem with laying out buttons on the quilt until you are happy is that once you have all the buttons laid out on the quilt, it's virtually impossible to begin to sew them down without messing up your layout! At least, it is until you remember you have glue dots in your house. God bless glue dots. Anyway, did the buttons and the large rings in the centre and corner, then put Alex to bed, put on something more interesting to mummy, and moved on to embellishing the little circles.



I've tried to do this in a way that shows the background fabric of the little circles, and I think it's worked. The only circle I didn't embellish is the one that looks like a button - this is actually a tiny scrap of a sunprinted fabric (sunprinted with buttons, that is). Anyway, I'm really pleased with how it's come out - now it needs a sleeve and binding and a label - but not tonight.

Tomorrow, we have NO PLANS, which is great - Sarah asked if she and Jess can just sleep in late and then hang out (duh - um, yes please) so I'm going to sort Alex out with something or other to do and then - yep, you guessed it - SEW. And first order of business is I'm really going to finish that blessed bag. And then, I've just remembered, I have a set of "T is for..." postcards which need to go out by Friday. I'm doing free motion trees (yeah, I knew that would shock you). So sue me - I like free motion trees...

The manhole cover quilt

Doesn't really look much like a manhole, does it... But perhaps you can see the inspiration (see yesterday's post, if you're lost here!) anyway. I originally thought about doing the little wedges all around, the way they were in the manhole itself, but I didn't really like the complete symmetry (I have a tendency toward symmetry, which I am trying to keep under control, at least from time to time) so I went off centre and made the wedges a bit odd sized. And then added a whole slew of little circles. The intent is to quilt it, then add loads of embellishments - buttons, circular shells, french knots, sequins, what have you - not sure quite how it will work - I know the little circles will be embellished but otherwise, well - it will tell me what it wants.


Here it is after the quilting was begun - I did the purple wedges in a kind of flame thing and am filling the green with circles upon circles in variegated green. Not sure what I will do with the purple outer borders yet - the finished size of the quilt will be a bit smaller than this - I have left myself a little extra room for shrinkage and in case I decide to cut the final piece off centre (playing with that idea now) and well, just because. again, I will wait until it tells me what it wants.






So...I feel like I got a lot accomplished today (though it was only an hour or so this morning - I actually cut the shapes out last night - one advantage to DH being away is that if I happen to get inspired at 11 at night, I can do a little work then...) - hopefully tomorrow I will get a bit more done. Though I should also sort that September bag - too many things to do, too little time!

Most of today was spent up in town doing stuff, including a quick visit to the bead shop in Covent Garden where I got some goodies, very few of which are actually beads...

Goals & Inspirations

Although I did do a little work today (on the September bag testing, which I can't show), most of the day was taken up with taking Geoff over to Oxford for a conference he's attending next week - it was a nice day out (pictures in my flickr album) and one of the things I saw - this manhole cover with plants growing up underneath it has given me inspiration for my Miniature Booty 2 quilt. In an abstract sort of way. Now if only I get a little time to work on it!

Ok, so that's the inspiration - now on to the goals:

• journal quilt for the week (deadline 9/8) done.
• quilt a bit more on the Forest Challenge - nope - but the week was even busier than expected, really.

Next week looks likely to be busy as well, but at least when I am home, I'll be able to work - the problem with the floor being done was that all the furniture had to be moved into rooms other than where they were doing the floor, including my sewing room, so sometimes, even when I was here, I couldn't do anything... At least next week there might be some time in the morning to work, before we go out and do stuff. But I'm not going to set myself a long list of goals anyway - that would be foolish...

• journal quilt for the week (deadline 16/8)
• quilt a little bit on the Forest Challenge (eternal optimist!)
• finish testing September bag pattern
• start Miniature Booty 2 quilt

Ok, that's four things, but luckily, two of them are very vague so can be interpreted liberally...

Patriotic?

Here are the fruits of today's labours - a block for Anne for the birthday block swap (as I know she likes to be surprised I wouldn't normally show it, but she's away on holiday, so I'm going to risk it) - patriotic colour choice was hers, but I think it's come out nicely. She asked for Mariner's Compass or "other multipointed star blocks" - I decided to give this one a try - it's from a Judy Martin book and I do like the way the two red contrast (which they do more in real life than in the photo).

Also accomplished today is my journal quilt for the week, which is made from the rejected block from yesterday, embellished with other red and blue threads and some bits and pieces.

And last but not least, I wanted to mention that the second round of the Another Little Quilt Swap is now open - for information, you should check out the swap blog itself...

A little something

I did do some work today - quilted the two halves of the September bag (which I can't show) and then worked for a while on the August birthday block, for Anne. I did most of it, then decided I really didn't like the way it was coming together and that I would redraft the pattern slightly larger and for paper-piecing. Also, I'm not sure about the central print - I love it, but it has quite a bit of white in it, and Anne asked for tonals (I only though of this after I pieced it - as one does) soIi might redo it with a different blue. Sometimes I think I overthink things - but I do want to do it properly. And I can use the rejected block for my journal quilt if need be.

Vintage Bride and other stuff

Lookie what I got in the post today - my August arch from Carol T - yippee. I don't know for sure whether she's a bride, but she looks like it, doesn't she? Love the beads around the edges, too...



And here are some little blocks I made today - I did some work on the September bag testing, but I can't show that - I did these at the same time, as I was working with the same fabrics... Tomorrow, I hope to get the bag finished and maybe work on one or two other things. We'll see!

No sewing again

Well, no sewing to report - today I couldn't even get IN to my sewing room due to other furniture being piled in the doorway, but look what I have to show for it - lovely new floor in my bedroom. And as this photo has a nice view of a quilt in it as well, it seemed an appropriate one to show here. Tomorrow I hope to work on the BQL September bag (which I won't be able to show!) testing - probably won't get it done, though, as my day needs to involve grocery shopping. Gotta love summer.

Not very much

As expected, I didn't get much done today, sewing-wise (we pretty much just vacated the house while they worked on the floor). I did finish the centre block for the round robin (which I can't show) but I can't post it off to the next person quite yet as a)I need to take the paper off and b)I can't actually get to the drawer where the envelopes are at the moment, as there is too much stuff piled in front of it. They hope to be finished with the living room tomorrow, so perhaps I'll mail it Wednesday - it's not due to go out until mid-August, luckily, so it's not really a problem.

Among the errands we ran today to take us out of the house, I popped into my local haberdashery & craft department for a zipper (see - there's a zipper in the above photo!). Technically, I did also need the plain black fabric and the black thread, too, but the other stuff just kinda jumped in the bag (and yes, there are a lot of brads there - I kind of have this brad thing* at the moment, and there are so many nice ones to be had these days) - between the order from the Fruit Pixie and this, my embellishment stock is in much better shape than a few weeks ago - now if I just had some time to make things, we'd be sorted. [Other errands included a haircut for Olivia, the bank to pay in the school uniform shop money, booking a fun day for Alex during the week the girls both have tennis (i.e. no kids in the house between 10 and 3 - how much work do you suppose I can cram into that time?) and various other bits and pieces - such is the excitement of my life...]

*I was going to make a Brad Pitt joke, but couldn't really think of anything funny, so decided not to.

Goals

Weekly goal round-up time - feel free to skip! Last week's goals were:

• journal quilt for the week (deadline 2/8) - done
• July arch for Textile Challenges (deadline 31/7) - yep - done, posted, received, admired.
• batik beauties postcards (deadling 5/8) - tick
• quilt a bit more on Forest Challenge - nope - this is proving hard to find a chance to do - with the kids all hanging around, it's harder to move the machine downstairs onto the dining room table. I doubt it will get worked on this week much, either, with the chaos that is currently my dining room, but you never know - the eternal optimist in me will keep it on the list

OK, next week. Lord knows what my time will be like between the floor and the kids being home, so I'm going to go really minimalist:

• journal quilt for the week (deadline 9/8)
• quilt a bit more on the Forest Challenge

Silk purse?

I didn't make this today - today I did no sewing related activities at all as I was busy sorting out my living room for a new floor tomorrow - this is the August bag for the BQL Bag Challenge, which I made in June... It's rather different from most of the others - won't be putting any shopping in this one any time soon! Anyway, maybe someday I'll go to a formal enough occasion to use it. I now have the pattern to test for the September bag, so hopefully sometime this week I'll be doing that - won't be able to show photos, of course - man, the number of things I am working on at the moment where I can't show photos - it's very frustrating!

Oh, but I've just remembered, here's something else I wanted to share: another (less literal) instance of a silk purse from a sow's ear or rather, a whole lot of little sows' ears - back ages ago in my blog giveaways, Helen won a bag full of HST units. Here's something she's made with some of them - it's for a hospital incubator - and very welcome it will be for sure. Read more about it over on Helen's blog.

Unimaginative blog post title

(someday I'm going to get the hang of coming up with catchy post titles - but not today...)




Lots of stuff accomplished today, as the kids got up late and then entertained themselves for quite some time (like until 1pm or later) while I worked upstairs. I only had to go downstairs a small handful of times to settle disputes, cut and toast muffins, look at improvements on Club Penguin and so on. Bless them. As a reward, because it was icky weather out, I took them out this afternoon to see Wall-E (verdict: as good as the hype).

Anyway. Here's what I did - first, a journal quilt as a prototype for the batik beauties postcard swap - and the postcards themselves. I wanted to try a landscape type card - I've never done one before. They aren't quite perfect, but they aren't bad.

Also did nearly all (but not quite) of my centre for the Spring Fling Round Robin - but I'm not going to show the whole thing, even when it's done, as we are restricted to sneak peeks (this is to help keep people from working out which quilt will be theirs, as we have been allowed to specify colour & style preferences this time around). I didn't get any quilting done on the forest challenge quilt, but otherwise, I feel I've accomplished a lot this week, even with the summer holidays wreaking havoc with my schedule.



And even a couple of things to show - a late card - "P is for Pussy Cats" - from Angela and a treasure trove of stuff from The Fruit Pixie - been using a lot of bits and pieces lately, and decided I really needed to boost my stock a little. What's a girl to do?