Recent ATCs

A selection of ATCs made for various swaps recently. The one above for a swap involving paint chips (which I love to use anyway). The one below for a swap with a brown theme - a large brown element required. I used rusted paper.

And finally, a purple/blue/green abstract art theme. As usual, the purple hasn't scanned as well as it could have done. In real life, it's more - well - purple!

Pattern Giveaway, part 3 (final part)

This last part is all quilt or sewing project patterns - as before, leave a comment if you are interested; be sure to say which pattern(s) you want.

Beach Hut update

Lots of progress on the beach huts this past week, and I am so close to finishing that it's tempting to keep working on it for another week, but I'm not going to...

Pattern Giveaway, part 2

Today's pattern collection is three different Christmas patterns and one notions pattern which isn't Christmassy but doesn't really match either yesterday's stuff or the stuff that's left for the last part of the giveaway.... As with yesterday, if you'd like any of the patterns, leave a comment saying which one(s) and in a week or so, I'll draw (if necessary) some winners. All free to a good home, etc.

Pattern Giveaway, part 1

In my recent sewing room clear-out I found a number of patterns which I will either never make or never make again, so as usual, I'm offering them up to those who might want them. Today's selection is for bags and bag-like things. Any interest, leave a comment (make sure to say which pattern you are interested in); I will randomly draw between multiple interested parties if there are any, in a week or so.

This one is for a child's handbag, shaped like a house. The original instructions are actually in, I think, Dutch, but there's an English translation as well.

End of Day scrappy quilt

So, here's a small quilt top made from one of the Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt blocks, which I did the other day. A little more time and effort than many of the scrappy quilts I have been doing to de-stash, due to the angled cuts and joins, but still not difficult. Blue is still the main area that my stash of scraps and small pieces of fabrics bulges in, so I decided to grab a few slightly larger pieces and see what I could do with them. I decided to use tan fabrics with the blues, because they look nice together... This one will also go on the Project Linus pile.

Goal roundup

I used to do this all the time - have a review of my previous week or month's goals and see how much I accomplished, then set new ones - haven't done it lately, but feeling I want to again, so, although it's a few days into September already, who cares - here goes for August/September.

August Goals:

• 5 Farmer's Wife Blocks - made 4
• blocks for August block lotto (31st) - done
• August blocks for Oh My Stars BOM - done, thanks to Julie, who worked out the layout and emailed it to me.
• nos 2 and 3 of 7 baby quilts - one completely finished and ready to give, the other is quilted, and binding attached, but I've not yet stitched down binding.
• at least one charity baby quilt top - two made - a little nine patch with an extra block and the Hawaiian shirt white string top

So that's not too bad - just the one Farmer's Wife Block not done, but as that's an arbitrary number of blocks to achieve each month, I'm not really that worried. I've also done a lot of other things as well - attached binding to a few other quilts (and sewn one down), quilted a lap quilt which my mother made, done a couple of sets of ATCs, and other bits and pieces. Even did some mending, and made a tote bag!

So, on to the new list...

September Goals:

• 5 Farmer's Wife Blocks
• Blocks for September block lotto - done - actually did these in August during the sneak peek window
• September blocks for Oh My Stars BOM
• birthday ATCs
• nos 4 and 5 of 7 baby quilts - one quilted, just the binding to sew down
• at least one charity baby quilt top
• Lynne's quilt - top made, just needs quilting

We'll see how I did next month at this time (more or less)

Another baby quilt finished - mostly

On my quilting day the other day, I not only managed to strew bamboo across my mother's quilt, but I also did a quick clamshell pattern on this small baby quilt, which will be for Sarah's form tutor, who is having a second baby later this autumn (she's leaving at October half term). Only (only!) about 3 more baby quilts to go...

This is one of my favourite quilting patterns, but as it's labour- and thread-intensive, I only do it on small quilts.

Block Lotto for September

Hard to believe it's September already, but there it is. And here are my blocks for the September block lotto, which is a curved rail fence block, using batiks. These blocks were quick to do and are very effective.

Cross stitch update

I am beginning to move a little further out from the centre in this piece, finally. The dark green at the left is actually the far left border of the design (it doesn't have a clear edge, it kind of fades out) - woo hoo! Again this week, there's actually more done than it may seem, as there's quite a bit of white and pale cream stitching which doesn't show much.

Quilting day

So, with various members of my household sent off in different directions - to work, to see the film of Glee Live, to the Victoria & Albert Museum, to the living room to play Monopoly with a friend - I managed to commandere the dining room table and quilt my mother's oriental quilt (she pieced the quilt together, and during her last visit I had an abortive attempt to quilt it, but the batting was really puffy and not cooperating, so she took it home and tried a few things - wasn't happy with any of them, so I said I'd quilt it, but this time using 80/20 or something sensible like that).

It's a lap-sized quilt, so I didn't want to quilt it too heavily as it's quite a nuisance to move around under the machine if you are doing much more than wavy lines or meanders. So I did a wavy line with some leaves thrown in. The variegated thread shows a lot in the border fabric, though less in the main fabric, but I think it works well enough. Later in the week I will attach the binding to it, though she'll do the hand-sewing part.

I actually quilted one of my pending baby quilts as well, but I'll show a photograph of that another day...

Farmer's Wife block no 12

Number 30: End of Day

I really liked the design of this block, and got sidetracked from the next one (which has lots of little pieces) into making a scrappy quilt top with this one...not in this colourway. More on that in a day or two.

Autumn Sampler

This quilt was put together some time ago from blocks from an autumn swap. But as it's large, it had to wait to be quilted for a while, as I wanted to have it done by my longarmer friend, Lana.

We chose an all-over design with pumpkins and leaves...

Oriental Cat Bag

While searching for something in my stash, I came across this piece of fabric - cats with oriental motifs on red. I have no memory of buying it (and don't usually buy things with cats on) and figured my mother bought it and gave it to me. She doesn't remember it either, but she likes it, so I offered to make her a bag from it. As she has several regular tote bags, I made this one a bit more of a shopper - wider at the bottom and with a (removable) lined cardboard insert to hold the bottom in shape (that way, you can wash the bag). I also doubled the ribbon for the handles, for strength, in case she does use it to grocery shop at all.

Farmer's Wife blocks 9, 10, 11

Block 9 - no 58: Mother's Dream

Block 10 - no 77: Seasons

Block 11 - no 1: Attic Windows

Oh my stars...block of the month

This month's installment wasn't posted until well after the middle of the month (I stopped checking after a while, though it's there now) - however, my friend Julie, who is also making the quilt, worked out the pattern in EQ and sent it to me as well, as she got tired of waiting. My version is slightly different than the Planet Patchwork one as the snowball has bigger corners and the flying geese at the bottom left are a bit truncated. On the whole, it works, though.

If it's Wednesday, it must be cross-stitch...

A fair amount of progress this week - finished part of the structure of the fourth beach hut, as well as quite a bit of sand in front of it. I might even finish this one before it becomes unseasonal...

Finished violet top

Here's the violets with the 3" blocks included and all sewn together. I love the way it works. Not sure how I will quilt it, though...

Finished funky baby quilt

The binding is now sewn down, so the quilt is ready to go to the person it's intended for - or really, the mother of the person it's intended for, that person not being born just quite yet... I have another baby quilt which is quilted and only the binding remains to be sewn, but after that one, there are still about 4 more to do - most of them need to be done by late October - one, luckily, has a Christmas due date (luckily for me, at any rate - perhaps not so lucky for the mum, as she already has one Christmas baby!).

And speaking of babies and quilts - here's a photo of the happy recipient of the brown and purple quilt. Isn't she a sweetie?

Flowers in progress

A new work in progress today, but one which has a designated purpose - Geoff's boss is leaving later this year, and this will be a leaving gift for her. It will be 24" square and yes, I've made more of the African Violet blocks I did for the August block lotto. The largest one (bottom right) is a 12" block, the others vary - there's a 9", an 8", four 6" blocks and so far, five 4" blocks. The rest of the fill will be seven 3" blocks. (Yes, they are fiddly, but I think it will be worth it.) Luckily for me, the instructions for the lotto blocks included lots of different sizes, so I didn't even have to think very hard about it! (Not the 3" block, though, I had to figure that one out myself.)

Some careful research (in the form of Geoff emailing her PA) determined that Lynne likes pink and yellow together and isn't fond of blue, so pink and yellow it was - not a complicated colour theme... and I had just enough of the green left from the border & binding of my autumn sampler quilt to do the background with. And I mean that literally - I think there was about a 3x4" rectangle left when I'd cut all the background squares!

I may change the layout around, of course - this is just a rough draft.