Christmas Quiltie Goodies

A while back I showed off most of the quilts I'd received in swaps, etc, but perhaps not all the Christmas ones (as some were packed away). Now, of course, they aren't packed away, so it's a good time to show them off...  Today's selection is actual small quilts - the one above is from the Four Seasons Quilt Swap (Holiday Edition) and was made by Cecilia. 

This one wasn't actually made as a quilt, but rather as a block for a birthday block swap I did - I turned it into a miniquilt and have it with the Christmas stuff because it seems Christmassy to me. It was made by Helen, and what perhaps doesn't show  in the photo is that it's made with lots of folds and flaps, so it has really interesting texture to it. You can see some of that texture here, where I originally posted about it.

And finally (for today) this miniquilt, which was made for the Miniature Booty Swap (Holiday Edition), and made by Toni, the host, herself.

I do have some other holiday quiltie goodies, but if I show them now, what will I show tomorrow?

Quilt swap quilts

Having now sorted out who's getting what in the ALQS6, I got to thinking (in light of having no idea where on earth I will hang another quilt in my house!) about all the quilts I have already up (and a few not on display) from swaps - both big, organised ones like this one, and private ones. So, I thought I'd show some of them over the next few days on my blog... The quilt above is, I think, the very first one I got in a swap - it was with the now defunct yahoo group QuiltSwap. I swapped with this group twice - the first time, in 2006, I made a quilt called Sunset on Another Planet, and received the quilt above. It hangs in my bedroom.

The second time, Quiltswap4 in 2007, I made a Sheer Pocket Quilt and received the flowers above. This also hangs in my bedroom, on my closet door. This group is where I took my inspiration for the revised swapping method of my own ALQS series of swaps - after round two created a lot of headaches for me with late, missing and inconsistent quality pieces.

Another early swapping series I took part in was Margaret's Four Seasons Quilt Swap. I missed the first round, which had an autumn theme, and joined in at the second round, Winter (Dec 2007), for which I made this snowflake quilt and received a red and white winter quilt from Jen in Finland, which is actually on display in my house on a small table, but I forgot to photograph it and can't be bothered to go back upstairs. You can see it here.

For the next round, Spring, I made this piece (I seem not to have photographed it with the binding actually finished) and received a piece called Watch My Garden Grow, which I don't have on display because it's a bit too big and doesn't really fit anywhere sensible in my house.

In the Summer round, I made a quilt with teacups and flowers - very English summer! - and received this lovely summer dress, which hangs in my sewing room at the moment. My sewing room is not big, and it's hard to photograph all the quilts on the wall in there because you can't get back from them very far!

You might think that was all the seasons, but Margaret did a 5th round, which was slightly different - it was seasonal and monochromatic, so we all picked a season and a colour and the quilts were made to that spec. The quilt I received was this lovely one, from Liliane in Luxemburg:

As you might have guessed, I picked Autumn and brown. This quilt hangs on the door to my sewing room. My upstairs hallway has 5 doors that lead off it, and they all have quilts hanging on them!

The quilt I made was for someone in Australia (I think - hard to remember that long ago!) who specified winter and blue.

And finally, Margaret ran one last round of this swap - a holiday edition in 2009 - for which I made a log cabin Christmas tree quilt and received this Christmas Tree in return. This one is not on show for obvious reasons, though it does come out at Christmas!

There are lots more, so stay tuned!

Christmas Quiltie

Although I've not managed to do any work myself since Tuesday (one of the other TA's in the class I work in, in the mornings has been off ill, so I've been working the afternoons as well) I do have something to show today - this lovely Christmas tree, full of very small squares and triangles, which is my mini quilt from the Four Seasons Quilt Swap. It was made by Cecilia and did come with some other goodies - a Christmas towel, a little ornament, some chocs and sweets, but the camera ran out of batteries and I was too lazy to go back and photograph them later! Anyway, the quiltie is the main thing to show...

It will make a nice addition to my Christmas decorations, but not for another week or two, as I'm not quite ready to decorate for Christmas - though of course, we will put the advent calendars up on Tuesday (ok, Monday night) and put the wreath on the door.

I hope to have some work to show after the weekend, but who knows - I have to brave the shops on Saturday to do some Christmas shopping, so I may have to spend all of Sunday recovering!

Little crosses

Today was quite a productive sewing day. I finished quilting the Christmas mini from yesterday and will soon put the binding on it - maybe tomorrow, depending. Then I felt like doing something simple and scrappy, so I just grabbed fabrics from my scraps and made this, which I think will be the centre of a baby quilt. It's not quite big enough to be one on its own, but with another border around it - perhaps a print on black - it should do nicely. It hasn't made much of a dent in my scrap boxes, of course (the blocks, without sashing, are 5" square) but it was satisfying to do - something to get me back into the swing of things. I hope to get some more sewing done this week - I don't suppose I'll accomplish great quantities of stuff, but at least I can do some bits and pieces! It's nice to be at the machine again - I missed it.

Christmas Mini Update

I keep meaning to post this, but forgetting (started it yesterday, but was so tired in the evening I forgot to finish!) - it has been a super busy week, with lots of stuff on at school and home, culminating with a birthday trip to Chessington World of Adventures (theme park) with my newly 10 year old and two friends, yesterday. Today, I plan a nice, gentle day with lots of laundry and a bit of sewing, followed by an entire week off school. Much needed, especially as I have been offered work for a few hours each morning for the rest of the term (until Christmas).

Anyway, one of the things I hope to do today is finish quilting this mini - shouldn't be a problem, as all I have left to do is the coloured squares in the trees (which will have gold metallic stars) and the snow section. I did the sky background with silver metallic and the trees with a variegated green. None of it shows well in these photos, but I promise it is really quilted!

I know lots of us have to work in the week and get very little done as a consequence, but having had the chance to quilt and sew during the week for several years, I really miss it!

Trees - mostly

Well, here's the first of the two tree pieces, put together (and yes, I have just now noticed the blue and white piece which is in sideways. Sigh. Will fix it next time!). I think it works well - definitely was right to go with the lighter blues! And the nice thing is, the paper is all off as well, thanks to my laptop not working - I usually catch up on emails and stuff while watching telly, but I couldn't get the laptop to turn on tonight after it spontaneously turned itself off, so instead, I pulled papers. And then I cross-stitched. It's annoying, but good for my handwork! (I am fairly sure the laptop's problem is with the battery or the power cord/transformer as it wasn't charging properly earlier and despite being plugged into a power source and the laptop, the transformer wasn't getting warm at all - but I guess only a trip to the computer gurus tomorrow will tell for sure...)

Stack o' cabins

Yep, it's a stack of log cabin blocks - all finished! Now it only remains to lay them out, piece them together and them remove the paper. Oh, and then quilt them, bind them and so on. But at least the blocks are done...

The other thing accomplished today was an exercise in fabric selection. Sarah has a birthday in a few weeks and wants a sleepover. We decided to make little goody bags for the girls (there will be four in addition to her). How long does it take a nearly 12 year old to select fabric for bags? Well, just add a bit more time to your guess and you're probably in the neighbourhood. During the process, we came across a bit of fabric I love - half a metre of Alexander Henry's Bow Wow Chow Mein, which I have been saving with the intention of possibly making a bag from someday. Lovely daughter promptly asks "will you make me a gym bag" - which offer I declined due to lack of grommets and lack of interest in making a bag with complicated string pulls, etc, until she decided that actually, she would be more than happy with a simple tote bag to put her PE stuff in - and of course, I can always pinch it back in future if I decide to be mean!

Log cabin progress

I have actually been doing some work over the last few days, but it's more log cabin blocks - I have now done all the pieced blocks except the solid blue ones (done a few of those, as you can see) - it's beginning to take shape, though I don't really think it will show up properly until I get it all pieced together. Still, one can get the general idea. Only about a dozen more blocks to go and then it's a matter of piecing them together (along with the setting triangles around the edges, which I won't piece themselves) and then, taking all the paper out. That will be the fun part. Or not...

Log cabin update...

Well, I've been promising for several days to show these eventually, so here they are. Obviously, not in the right pattern, but you can get the general idea - and the contrast will work much better than with the darker blue. I have a lot of the rest of the blocks partly done, so with a few more days' work, I may have them all ready to put together. I have a few other things I need to work on, so I may take a break for a day or two, but I'm pleased with the progress and very glad I decided to do them over again with the different colour scheme - and pleased I decided to bite the bullet and make two - one for my partner in the swap and one for myself.

End of summer...

Can't believe there's only a few days of summer holiday left! Sarah is back to school on Friday (new school - secondary) - it may seem strange to start on a Friday - it's on the new students (Year 7's) who are going on Friday - everyone else at her school starts Monday. Gives the Year 7's a chance to settle in a little. The others in our house start on Monday, as well. Anyway. Today was a doing nothing sort of day - the kids played, Olivia had been at a sleepover, so she came home from that and hung around - no big plans. Needless to say, when the kids have no plans, I get to sew, so I did.

I worked on the log cabin blocks for the Four Seasons Quilt, but honestly, they wouldn't be that exciting to look at at this stage, so I've decided to post a cross-stitch update instead. Fairly good progress - would have been better if I hadn't had to rip out an hour or so's worth of stitching due to not being able to count! Still, better than nothing, and in a day or two, it will be back in the right place...

Dresser Runner finished

Our original plans for today - to try to visit a lido (outdoor pool) near us - had to be put aside, partly because the weather was a bit dodgy and partly for Alex to go to the dentist, but I still managed to get some sewing time in, and my planned visit to the LQS (which is near the lido). In my sewing time, I finished quilting the dresser runner - I did take a photo of it which showed the entire length, but this one in the dining room actually shows the effect of the quilting much better. And a detail of the quilting - I just did lines across the width of the piece, with little seed heads, like grass plants. I thought it looked slightly oriental and it was simple to do.



The trip to the LQS produced the fabrics on the left - who knew there were so many Christmas/winter themed light blue fabrics? In addition to the blues and whites, where my stash was very slim, I also replentished my stash of greens. I am thinking, perhaps a little madly, that I will make two of these pieces - I really like the effect, and don't have a lot of Christmas pieces. I have a feeling I might be reluctant to part with the piece once it's finished! Anyway, I can use the all green blocks I made before, though of course the other ones won't be useable. I'll use the dark blue blocks and the blue and green to make something else.

Oddly enough, one or two other things found their way into my shopping basket - a copy of Quilting Arts for me - I haven't bought one in a while - and the other things for Alex and Olivia, who were with me. Normally I only buy them a fat quarter each, but Olivia found this great little roll of red and white strips, so I couldn't say no - she has good taste, doesn't she! In light of that, it didn't seem fair to make Alex choose between the two fat quarters he liked.

What day is it again?

I didn't do much sewing today, as I was feeling lazy - about sewing anyway. Alex and I had a nice walk to the B&Q to look for a replacement lightbulb for the one in the fridge and then to Tesco to pick up a few things to eat. I kept forgetting whether it was Monday or Tuesday - summer holidays do that to me, I guess. When I got back I decided to tackle Nann's block for the Around the World Quilt Swap - here's my block and all the blocks together. This block was paper-pieced as the finished size needed to be 7". I did also start quilting the Japanese Taupe dresser runner - didn't quilt a lot of it, but at least I made a start. I'll save that photo for later in the week, when either it will be finished or I'll need to show something because I've not done any work at all - like Thursday, when we have planned a trip to Legoland.

I also spent some time re-planning the log cabin Christmas tree mini quilt - obviously this is just a rough plan as the fabrics I use will depend on what I find at the LQS, but I think the lighter colours will work much better. I had considered the light blue previously, but it was Margaret's comment about white as a snow background which really clicked - thanks Margaret!

Log Cabin Trees

Here are the finished blocks, laid out together. I am going to go ahead and put it all together, but I think I am right in thinking it doesn't have enough contrast. Not sure if I will take up Margaret's suggestion and use light blue or white (i.e. snow) as a background, and re-do it, or whether I will try something different. I still like the basic idea, and I do like log cabins - even paper-pieced ones, so perhaps I will make another one. I will have to shop for fabric first, if I do, though, as I have depleted my (relatively small) stash of Christmas fabrics and don't have anything suitable for snowy background. I was hoping to visit the LQS in the next few days anyway, and they have a whole room of Christmas things, so perhaps I will have a browse there...

Two-tone log cabins

Today, I finished all the log cabin blocks which need to be both green and blue, and made a good start on the 13 which need to be all blue. I'm not sure there will be enough contrast in this quilt for it to work, but I guess we'll simply wait and see. It's possible I can enhance the contrast with a lot of quilting, if need be...

Log cabins everywhere...

I had a request from the budding teenager not to wake them up this morning, so I let them sleep in (which they did until 10.30 or so) and did a bit of sewing on the log cabin blocks for the Christmas tree piece. Once they started stirring I put it all away and focused on getting them out the door so we could go to the British Museum for a few hours - really needed to do something and I wanted something cheap and rain-proof (and not involving eating at McDonalds, having had quite enough of that already this week). But still, I got the 6 all -green blocks done, and will now start work on the 12 which are part blue and part green. I wonder if the ones which are all blue should be pieced as well, or just whole fabric - will have to check how the textures work, I guess.

Speaking of the British Museum, check out these mummified cats - especially the pattern in the left-hand one!

Picture-full...

The opposite of picture-less, of course. And hurrah - internet seems to be back. Thank goodness for that. Here's the EQ5 sketch of the christmas tree quilt - it won't look quite like this of course, as I will use scraps of Christmas fabrics, rather than coordinate all the rounds...



I thought I'd start it nice and early so that in addition to being sure I have time to make the deadline I can either make something different if I don't think this works, or if I really love it, have time to make myself one...

I forgot to mention that the other thing I did yesterday morning was to pin together two small pieces for quilting - the fish quilt for the toilet room and the Japanese Taupe dresser runner. Hopefully they will both get quilted in the next week or so. Both are small, so shouldn't take long to quilt. I probably won't even have to move my machine downstairs to the dining room table, which is always a plus.

Picture-less!

Well, I have been doing some work today - been starting to work on what might be my quilt for the Holiday Edition of the Four Seasons Quilt Swap. I even remembered to put a picture of it on my memory stick. What I forgot, was to bring the memory stick to the library with me. Sigh.

Anyway, what I am playing with is using small (3") foundation pieced log cabin blocks to make Christmas Trees in a night sky background. We'll see how it works out - a picture of the plan will be uploaded as soon as I remember to get all my stuff together in one place at the same time. Yes, I am definitely not coping well with not having internet at home!

Loads of stuff today

Look what I got in the post today - isn't this great? Now I realise some of you probably aren't as crazy about brown as I am, but even so I'm sure you'll admit this is a lovely piece - I've tried to show some of the quilting detail as well. The brown leaf quilt was made by Liliane, who was my partner for the Four Seasons Quilt Swap 5 (Monochromatic). Yes, I know, I'm a lucky person!

Today I put the border on the Contrary Wife quilt, and pieced the backing (the yellow stripe you see beneath the top in this photo). Now it needs to be pinned (perhaps tomorrow) and quilted (Easter Holidays). I also made several blocks for the April block lotto - but it's still in sneak peek stage until tomorrow, so I won't show them yet.

And tonight, I sewed down the binding on a couple of small pieces (and Olivia's teddy bear quilt, which is upstairs with the teddy bear), which I can now hang up somewhere. Where is the question, as wall space is something we're a bit short of around here most of the time - needless to say, I have already found a home for Lil's quilt.

Blue Winter Hillside

Well, I didn't really work on this piece today, other than to attach a label, but as it's going in the post tomorrow or Tuesday (to someone in another country - which I don't think gives much away as there are only two or three of us in the UK playing along this time!) I thought I'd show it again with the beading done and the binding sewn down. You probably can't see that in addition to lots of blue beads in the trees, there are also a number of clear beads sewn into the sky - terribly hard to photograph, but in person, it does add sparkle. Anyway, I'm hoping its new owner will be pleased with it - I was very happy with how it came out.

I did actually do some work today, but it was yet more pineapple quilting - nearly done now - there is only about an 18" strip left to do, so probably one more good session will finish the quilting. Hoorah! And now that I've finished with the very centre of the piece, it will be much easier for my poor little machine to cope with. Actually, the machine copes very well, despite having only a normal sized throat - it's my shoulders and arms which suffer, with trying to manouevre all that fabric around under a little DSM.

Snow Day = Sew Day

As those of you who live in the UK will be aware, we had some serious snow (for London) today and school was therefore closed. This was thrilling to the kids (and fun for the grownups, too) and it also meant that although I did have a brief (but at an hour and half, not quite brief enough - brr) trip to the park this morning, I got to spend most of the day at home, indoors. I didn't even have to deal with three children demanding things, as after we were at the park, my girls went to a neighbour's house - their friend Dasha, who is in the same year of school as Sarah, but at a different (private) school. The three of them had a great time, building a snow fort in the back garden (a suggestion from Dasha's mother, who used to do it as a kid - in Russia, so there was admittedly a bit more snow!) , watching movies, and various other things. Tania fed them both lunch and supper, so I had a lovely quiet afternoon with Alex - who played on the computer for much of the time as there was no competition... Needless to say, I sewed.

I did some work this morning - quilted the winter mini quilt. There was a suggestion that I use silver thread, and I'm sure that would look great, but I almost always have trouble with metallics when doing FMQ, plus I wanted to quilt it TODAY and didn't have any silver - and with the weather, well, it just wasn't going to happen. I have quilted it in white, with lots of swirls, both top and bottom, and it works fine. I am going to finish binding it (it looks a bit wonky above - that's because the binding isn't yet sewn down on the back - I just pinned it back to show the piece better - that, plus it's laid out artfully in the snow on my patio, so it's not sitting flat), then I think add a load of beads in blue and white (and perhaps silver, if I have any).

This afternoon, I quilted the triptych panels - it may be hard to tell from the photo but I quilted them very close side by side, and the quilting pattern overlaps from the edge of the side panels into the edge of the centre. The quilting design in the side panels is the same as the centre, but with a different orientation - i.e. sideways rather than up and down. Once again, the binding is only pinned back, rather than sewed down.

If you are interested in our weather, there are lots of photos over on my family blog and flickr album...

Oh, and although it's not stopped snowing, school is also closed tomorrow, so I have more time to look forward to - not bad considering I normally get nothing done on Monday at all, and not a lot more than that on a Tuesday.