What to do with a charm pack...

...watch this space.

Block Set Update

About time for another update on the block sets which I have hanging about my house, waiting to have something done with them. I've got immediate plans for a couple of these sets, especially the one at bottom left, which you can see I'm ready to stitch together into a top. Some of the others will wait a bit longer to be put together.  The only two sets which have been in this basket for a really long time are the birds and the circular flying geese, but both of them are a little special, so it may be a little longer yet.

ATC Friday

A couple of sets of ATCs where I was the second person to add something to the card. As I've said before, these are my favourite to show because I can show all three stages - the finished product, 

what came to me (the starter) 

and how it looked when I added my addition. 

Coincidentally, in both of these sets, I added a large wooden flower. 

Bordered Wonky Blocks

And here are the blocks, the beginnings of which I showed the other day - wonky four patch centres, with different neutrals around them. At the moment, no plans to do anything specific with them, so they'll just go back in with the block sets. And wait.

Cross Stitch Update

(not much of an update - just a little bit of what will be the "drink me" to the cake above's "eat me". As soon as the girls are done with their exams, I'm sure there will be more telly watching in the evening, and I will get more stitching done!  In the meantime, I'm reading more, so that's something...

Tuesday Trunk Show

Here's another oldie - this one was made for my in-laws back in Dec 2000/Jan 2001 for their 50th Wedding Anniversary. I don't actually know what's happened to this quilt now - perhaps one of my brothers-in-law has it; wherever it is, I hope it's happy!

Again, the quilting is very basic, as I didn't really know how to machine quilt yet!

Something else with wonky four patches

I showed some of these wonky four patch blocks in a double four patch setting yesterday; these remaining blocks will get bordered with some neutrals to make larger blocks (which will then eventually get assembled into a top).   Here's the start of it - haven't got very far yet!

Some more of that blue batik

Not a lot of it left - but with the smaller bits which I did have, I made some double four patch blocks, using some small wonky four patches. Haven't had a chancen to stitch them together yet, but that will come!

Rectangular Blocks - and blue batik

... not to be confused with the aqua blue batik from before.  And that's it for these rectangular blocks, at least for the time being!

ATC Friday

A couple of Round Robin ATCs which I started, and which have now come back to me finished. Starters are always fun, as you never quite know what direction the card will have taken by the time it comes back to you...  These blue and brown cards came back with musical kittens, for instance.

And these dictionary pages have come back all saintly...

Rectangular Blocks...and aqua blue batik

Just like the top the other day, except not bright orange. Quite a difference, but equally effective.  One more to come!

Cross Stitch Update

Slowly but surely... I finished the banner across the top, except for some white dots in it, and the tag, which will say "Eat Me" when I do the backstitching, which I'll do later. The little cake is nearly done as well. Progress, though I wouldn't call it speedy!

Tuesday Trunk Show

Another oldie - it's fun working my way through my old quilt book. I can't take a photo of this one in person (though it's probably still at my mom's house somewhere, so perhaps I'll try to photograph it this summer when I visit). I made a note that it was made in part to go with their downstairs, where one room had a burgundy wall. 

Not much in the way of quilting, but this was the old days (for me), so it would have been mostly straight (or not-very-straight) lines, stitch-in-the-ditch and so on.

I did, however, put a label on it, so at least I know it was finished in December 2000.  (Actually, I have a note that it was a Christmas present that year, so I would have known even without the label...)

More rectangles

Here's a couple of other fabrics I'm going to use with the rectangles. Both have served as borders for Linus quilts already; this is what's left over. Might be able to get another border from it, might not - but they will certainly serve to alternate with these log cabins...

Rectangular Log Cabins with Orange Sunset

Well, I think the setting fabric looks like a sunset... so here's the rectangle crumb log cabins set with some orange alternates. There are more of the rectangle blocks, though, so another quilt top (or two) are in the making...

Rectangular Scrappy Log Cabins

Starting to do something with these scrappy blocks- there are loads of them, so I think they'll be around for a while.  Still, it seemed too good to miss out on, that I had some 6.5" strips of this variegated orange print (I used it as a border, but there wasn't really enough for another border) - same width as the log cabins!  So, I'm pairing them up and setting them alternately in rows. Should be a nice top when it's done.

ATC Friday

Two more sets of Round Robin ATC cards - once again, these are cards which have been sent to me to finish off. The sail away cards didn't need much as they were not only quite full, but also nicely balanced; I just added some text (something which often works well, at least in my books!)

These were very different - but again, didn't need a lot. I had some nice vintage floral heart papercuts which matched well & threw in a couple of words for good measure.

Bordered Linus Top, Take 8

...and as promised, another top with the same border fabric. This one is slightly larger, with 16 blocks instead of 12. Blocks are from the same master set as the others, though.

And that's all the bordered tops, for a while at least. I have two more tops paired up with suitable fabrics, but btoh will want to be mitred, so they will probably wait a while until I feel up to the slightly additional effort.

Cross Stitch Update

Only a little done recently on the cross stitch - a single cake. Because the girls are both revising like mad for their upcoming exams (one down today: Sarah's C1 Maths resit (she took it last year but wants an A or A* on it, rather than a B, so she's taking it again); one coming up Friday; Olivia's Spanish GCSE) we are watching almost no telly in the evenings; this really eats into my stitching time!  Anyway, maybe more next week, who knows.

Thanks to those who were interested in the cross-stitch patterns; I'll be in touch soon!

Tuesday Trunk Show

The next in my series of virtual trunk show pieces. This is a really old quilt; it's probably the very first one I made when I took up quilting again as an adult (I did a little in university). According to my book, it's from 1999. Apparently the pattern was from a book called Easy Log Cabin quilts or something like that. Not a book I have any more, despite my enduring love for log cabins.  Anyway, here it is, pictured on my bed, and the photos below are scanned from my book. 

The quilting is very minimal, just straightlines down the blocks, but in a spiral to the centre of the log cabin blocks. I actually forgot I had this quilt, so it's nice to see it again (it's in a pile which are in Sarah's room).