Cloudhill & Corpse

We had another day out doing fun things today - Sarah went to tennis camp and the rest of us - including Geoff, who had taken a day off, and Stuart, whose last day with us was today, before heading up tomorrow to visit their mum - went to the London Wetland Centre. It was a lovely day weatherwise and we all had a good time. Tomorrow, I shall perhaps do some sewing.

Despite the lack of sewing on my part, I did receive some rather excellent post - my own quilt ("Cloudhill") from the ALQS3, which came to me from Lisa in Australia and which is absolutely perfect - and which doesn't have a great big shadow down it, unlike the way it appears in the photo. I have actually hung it in my newly painted toilet room, which is the perfect colour to set off turquoisey blues in the quilt.

The other thing is my own Exquisite Corpse, which I received from Emmy, who worked on the final section - the feet. The head is my own creation, the upper torso is by Nancy, then below that, Donna's section, with Debby doing the legs. There is some truly remarkable work in this piece and I'm very happy with it. I just have to now decide how to finish it off and present it...

Interesting challenge

My group Textile Challenges is doing a UFO swap/challenge (due at the end of June) where you swap small UFOs with someone else in the group, finish each other's piece off and send them back (they are also doing one where you keep the UFO rather than sending it back, but as most of my UFOs are larger rather than smaller, I decided to only take part in one of the challenges). This is the piece which I received from Deborah to work on - it may actually be upside down in this photo - I'm nbot sure yet which way is up. Or maybe it wants to go sideways. What you may not be able to see is that she's done some hand-quilting on it, very small stitches close together - in sort of bands across the piece (with other, unquilted bands). I have several ideas brewing on how I want to tackle this (it won't involve hand quilting!) and I think it's going to be fun to work with. I won't do anything with it right away as I need to get a few other things finished first.

I also received the next round of the Exquisite Corpse to work on - this one has a black background, which is different from any of the others I've had so far - and I will be working on the hips & upper leg region. Not sure what I'll do for that yet, but I'm sure something will come to me - it has for the other three parts, eventually! I won't be able to show it until the very end, of course, but someday it will sure be fun to show all these things...

I've not done any actual work today, I confess. I did empty all my bookcases, repair the backs (most of them are the cheap type with heavy card backs, which after a while, come loose), get rid of lots of books (not so as you'd know it from looking), help the kids organise their books, and so on, but no sewing. I woke up with a very stiff shoulder, which put me off - tomorrow I do hope to get some work done, though as it looks to be another busy week coming up.

Things I can show...

...and things I can't show. What I can't show is what I worked on today, which is the torso and arms section of the Exquisite Corpse. It took me a long time to be inspired to work on this section - I think it was a hard brief in some ways - but I'm happy with how it's come out and hope it will work with the piece in the end.


What I can show are these things, which have come in the post. On the left, some things from Plum - interesting papers, some scrim, some bits, an ATC and three inchie magnets, which are now on my fridge. She sent these because she was inspired to make inchies with her group from seeing some on my blog - isn't that lovely? And because she's a nice person, of course.


The other set of goodies is some stuff I ordered from Joggles. I order once in a while from various places in the US which have stuff we can't get easily here, but only once in a while. I think I will order from them again before my mother comes to visit the next time, so she can bring the stuff with her - it's all little and will slip easily into her suitcase, after all.

Things received, things bought

Well, as I can't show what I worked on today (round two of the Exquisite Corpse, finished - I wish I could show it, I'm really having a good time with it!), it's a good thing I have things received and things bought to show...

First, things received. The first is a very belated postcard from winning the December pc lottery on Arts in the Mail - I don't mind it being late, though, as I really like the card and am glad to get it. Cardinals are one of the things I miss from when I lived in the DC area - we don't have them here. The second is my March house front, this one from Pam, who has done "House from the Land of the Rising Sun", a clever interpretation of my theme (House of the Rising Sun). It's a great house, made mostly from stitch - the three large red panels are actually only stitched to the house at top and bottom, so they add a lot of texture. It's a lovely bit of thread painting, and I'm delighted to have it.

And now, things bought. Two sets of possible colourways for the commissioned piece - I have a feeling she will go with the one on the left, but you never know. I like both sets of fabric, so will be happy to have whichever bits aren't needed added to general stash. Once I know which fabrics I'll be using (and who knows, she might dislike both of these options) I'll work out what sort of pattern I want to go with.

The other fabric is fabric for binding the pineapple quilt (it's not quite as pink as it looks - it's more a deep red) and some of the green fabric with blue metallic accents which is in the lighter colour palette above - there wasn't much left on the bolt, so I thought I better buy it, just in case. You know how it is!

Lots of post

I received lots of lovely post today, which was a very welcome sight after a day spent in our local market town helping the kids spend their Christmas and birthday money (well, only Alex had birthday money, as the girls' birthdays are in Sept/Oct). It was a nice day, though rather tiring, and I didn't even manage a visit to my lovely local bead shop to compensate - decided it was a bit much with three kids in tow, even with my mother along for the ride.


Anyway, one of the items I received was this, which is Emmy's Exquisite Corpse piece. Obviously, you can't see any of it, as that's the point - there is actually a half inch showing, so that I can try to integrate my work with hers, but I have covered it for the sake of this photo. Emmy has also included an ATC for my collection and a notebook for those of us who are working on the piece to make any notes we wish to. I don't know what I'll do with this piece yet - and of course I won't be able to show you when I do work on it, but there you go...

Anyway, I got some other post as well, which I CAN show - two postcards for the Valentine Shaker swap, which have arrived just in time to be displayed with the rest of the Valentine's cards, before I change the postcard display to something a bit more spring-like - flowers, I think. These two cards are from Liz and Dawn.



And also, I received these items: on the left, a heart-themed tin from Flischa from the FAT trade; on the right, two ATCs from another trade on FAT - the For the Birds ATC swap. These two are from Suzanne and Michelle.

Tomorrow will be another no-sew day - we are going up to town with some friends for a half-term day outing. But on Thursday I have hopes of some sewing time before the promised swimming trip - not sure which part of my life is busier - the normal day to day busy-ness or the half-term "holiday".

Oh, and here's another fun thing - a while back, I sent a bunch of my small scraps to Betty, who was working on a project using 1" squares (unfinished) - well, she's now finished this quilt top, and it's truly remarkable - personally, I can't imagine having the patience for it, but it's definitely impressive -have a look.

Saturday stuff

Had a trip to one of my LQS this morning (see below for booty) - and also to pick up a few more presents for my birthday boy (6 on Thursday - tough to believe) and this afternoon I spent some time sewing, thank goodness. Finished piecing the top for the Triptych piece for the Flickr group - I think I will quilt all three sections at the same time, so that the quilting is continuous, but I will then cut them apart and bind them separately. The central panel is 12" square, the other two are 8x12. Simple, but it works.


I also did this little ATC to start the February challenge on Textile Challenges - we were to grab an ATC base, and the first five ingredients we saw and make an ATC. I grabbed a piece of purple fabric, a dryer sheet & Markal paint stick (I counted that as one, as the paintsticks and dryer sheets were sitting together waiting for me to colour some), the orange flower, some flower brads (used the purple one) and a skein of thick purple thread. The back is orange and purple as well, but that didn't have to count as one of the five things. We weren't supposed to take more than 15 minutes (i.e. it's an exercise in not over-thinking things), though I admit to taking closer to 20 - for one thing, the hand-stitching took a while as the thread was very thick and hard to pull through the base. Also, I had to iron the dryer sheet dry (between paper) one I'd paint-sticked it.


And the main work today, I can't show, as it's my Exquisite Corpse - pretty much finished my head, though I have yet to attach the words to the section - need to double check how many as well as have a think about which ones (we are supposed to put some words on each section so it forms a sentence at the end. It's something like - hang on, I'll check - ok, it's "The adjective/ noun adverb/ verb the /adjective /noun") - so I will need to put "The [adjective]" in my square somewhere. Which is good, as I know what adjective. Whew.

These postcards arrived yesterday - they are the results of the painted bondaweb swap - four very different cards, but all nice. They are mine (upper left), Wil's (UR), Tracy's (LL) and Celia's (LR).

I also received my monthly fabric fix - purple theme this month, which is handy, as I happened to notice the other day I had very little purple.

And then there's the booty from the LQS - the batting for the pineapple quilt - which I still can't baste because having basted two baby quilts the other day, I don't have enough safety pins until at least one of them is quilted. But at least I have the batting now. I also picked up the orange fabric to send to Anne for the celtic knotwork on the Ostrich, though I forgot the thread - however, I should be able to get something at my local haberdashery department. I also got a metre of mustard yellow polka-dot fabric, which fulfills two different needs (plus it was in the sale section), a green fat quarter for my FQ swap partner and a replacement 8.5" square ruler as mine has a broken corner - it broke some time ago, and I superglued it back together. It's now broken again and frankly, doesn't seem to want to hold with superglue any more, so I decided I should just buy a new one. It's my favourite size, so it gets a lot of use. Also picked up two patterns in the sale bin (50p each) - one for pincushions and other bits shaped like buttons, the other for penguin Christmas ornaments. Successful shopping, despite the thread!

Some finishing up...

First off, this thrilling photo of my Exquisite Corpse project. Now, before Arlee panics, I will warn you that this is the ONLY photo you will see of my work on this project - either my piece or other people's pieces - until the entire thing is finished - not even sneak peeks from now on. What is an Exquisite Corpse, I hear you ask? Well, you can check out the blog here, to see the previous rounds which have been done, but in a nutshell, it's like a round robin, except you don't see what the previous person has done. The first person does the head & shoulders, the next the upper torso, etc. Once I do my head, I will cover all but a half inch of my work and the next person will take it from there, do her (or his) section and then cover all but their bottom half inch. We are working in 7 inch squares, and there are 5 people in a group. This round, we are all doing body or body type images, whereas in previous rounds, there has been more variety. I think this will be a really interesting textile/fibre project and I'm pleased to be taking part, even if it means I can't blog it!



So, following on from yesterday, here's what I did today - half a Japanese block of the month - there is a good deal more buildings, etc to fill in at the bottom, but I have absolutely no dark brown thread, not even a dark medium, so I need to pick some up tomorrow before proceeding. Luckily, most of the houses, etc have nice straight lines, so the applique should go quickly once I have the right thread. So then I decided to quickly finish off one of the almost finished projects from my unfinished section - I added a border to this little flying geese quilt, which will now go on the pile of finished tops waiting to be quilted.

I have added a "List of Shame" (tongue in cheek) to my sidebar to help me monitor my progress in moving those things from section to section and off the list entirely - we'll see how that goes!