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?

Still more swap quilts...

Another series of swaps I was involved in was the Miniature Booty Swaps, organised by Toni, a while back. I did three rounds of this swap - the second round gave me the above quilt, which was made by Julie. That's the round for which I made one of my favourite quilts I've ever made for a swap, The Manhole Cover Quilt.

In the first round, my quilt was made by Ann in France and I actually made a quilt for the hostess - with lots of tiny pieces.

The third round of the swap was a special holiday edition, for which I made and received quilts in the blue/silver/white range of Christmas rather than the red/green range. I don't, for obvious reasons, have my quilt on show at the moment, but it's over here - and actually, was made by Toni, so there's a certain satisfying circularity to that! The one I made was a little slow reaching its destination, but luckily, did get there in the end.

I also have a number of small quilts which were the results of individual trades - and of course, there are even some hanging which I have made myself, believe it or not!

Booty!

First, a little work - finally today I got around to making a couple of pencil rolls I promised a friend ages ago (no pencils shown). And then I got a lovely box in the post - these goodies are all from Toni, the hostess of the Miniature Booty Swap (special Holiday edition) and my partner for this round. I can show you some of the goodies, but not all of them, because I didn't open all the little presents. Still, you can see a magazine, some holiday socks, pirate duckies, lots of fabric scraps (used to pad the package - great idea!) and a little snowman. And you can also see my little holiday themed quilt...

Isn't it great? I'm not sure how well it shows, but there's lots of silver metallic thread used in the quilting. It's a lovely piece, and I'm very pleased with it.

Super Saturday

As promised, something to show today - this is the finished mini quilt for the Miniature Booty Swap (special holiday edition) - I finished quilting it today, attached the binding & sleeve and then even managed to get the binding sewn down while watching Olivia's class perform in a performing arts festival (or, more precisely, between watching all the different acts perform). I do need to attach a label and then round up one or two bits to put in with it before it goes overseas, but on the whole, it's done. Whoo hoo. And that's all the mini quilts I have at present to finish - though I should be receiving the Spring Fling Round Robin soon, and will then need to quilt that.

Also did a variety of other work - some paper piecing started, which I will show when I finish - some more Amish houses and a start on the November birthday block. I also did this week's journal quilt - week no 51, if you can believe it - next week is the last one. I think I am glad to see the end of this project... And I put together 36 of the cracker blocks I received from the block lotto into a little baby quilt (well, the top, anyway). There were some more blocks, but unfortunately, some of them were too small to be usable, so I have set them aside to pass to someone else to perhaps make a Project Linus blanket from.

A little winter quilt...

This is my little quilt for the Holiday round of the Miniature Booty Swap - the top has been done for a while, but I hadn't had a chance to quilt it yet - today I had an hour or so free, so pinned it together and got started - I'm doing it with a few snowflakes, then filled in with swirls and a swirly meander - meant to look a bit like a snowstorm - hopefully that works!

I also managed to finish sewing down the binding on and adding a label to my quilt for the Twisted Mystery 2 - soon I will send that off to the hostess and eventually, finally, be able to show it - probably not until late November, though.

Booty!

Lookie what I got in the post today - woohoo! This is my quilt from the Miniature Booty II swap from Julie - some of you will I know recognise it from her blog... Anyway. It's great, isn't it? Julie says it's inspired by colours of Northern California in the summertime. Read more about it here...


I like it so much I had to hang it straight away - here it is in my living room (pardon the angle; it was taken through a doorway). I moved a photograph which was hanging in the same place - am waiting to see how long it will take DH to comment on it (or notice it!). Also got some lovely goodies - notepad, ladybird needlecase, little shaped erasers (which I foresee being taken straight away by small people) and a great cross-stitch pattern which I am itching to start but won't until I finish at least two of my already started projects.




I did do quite a bit of sewing related stuff today, as it happens, but I can't show any of it - there were some blocks for the September block lotto, which is still in the sneak peek stage and some further testing of the October bag pattern (nearly done!) and my quilt group came around and we did some work on our group quilt, which in theory I could show, but I forgot to take any photos. Who knows, maybe tomorrow...

Manhole, beads

Here's the manhole quilt finished and ready to post. I need to write a note to go with it, but otherwise, my Miniature Booty 2 quilt is done and nearly gone. I'll miss it, though!



And today I also acquired a few new beads - just a handful or so, but aren't they nice?

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...

Miniature Booty Swap - revealed!

Well, now that Toni has received her quilt safely in the post - I can show more than a tease. Ta da! I went truly miniature on this for some reason - had no intention of doing so, it just wanted to be little. The entire quilt is 10x20" so it's not absolutely teeny tiny, but frankly, I wouldn't want to work much smaller. I have a whole new respect for people who do miniature quilts (not that I didn't respect them before, but you know what I mean...) I really am pleased with how this came out, though I think if I did it again (not likely!) I might use a solid colour for the binding.

Booty call!

Lookie what I got! This is my mini quilt from the Miniature Booty Swap - isn't it fabulous? It was made by Ann, and I just love it. In honour of this little lovely, which I decided had to be hung on the wall in my sewing room, I have cleared off my pinboard today...

So that I could hang the little quilt above it. I noticed when I took this picture that I had hung the quilt sideways, so it's now hung the other way - like in the photo at the top of the blog entry. I know it's a bit cluttered, but it's not a big room... And you can actually see some of the cork in the pinboard for a change - not that that will last for long, of course!

Here's some more stuff which came in the post - a brown postcard for the beautiful brown swap from Leah, and the selection of goodies which Ann enclosed with her mini-quilt.

And finally, what else I did today besides tidy my wall - I made a postcard for a challenge on Arts in the Mail - the challenge was to use 200 items on the front on the card. And so, I have - there are 50 pieces of fabric - 10 thin rectangles, 20 triangles and 20 squares. There are 20 lines of stitching. Then, there are 10 buttons, 56 sequins (10 pink, 10 flower, 13 gold stars, 10 leaves, 13 misc small sequins), 20 jewels and 44 beads. Whew. Much glue was used in the construction of this baby.

I also did a little mono-printing as part of the May challenge for Textile Challenges - I intend to use the fabric as backgrounds for stuff - probably my journal quilt later this week, for one thing, and then, I think some more ATC backgrounds.

Lots of different stuff

Well, I finished quilting my Miniature Booty Swap Quilt - I can't show it here, because my partner is lurking out there, but I have put a little sneak peek up - ignore the gold flecked fabric, that's just masking the bits I don't want you to see. And that's all the tease you get - the quilt will go in the post later this week - I haven't finished attaching the binding yet, but as the quilt is really small it won't take long.

And here's the Spring Fling Round Robin with the vines sewn down and the pins out - it's parcelled up now to go on its way to the next person, who will quilt it and send it on the final recipient.

And I got lots of fun things today - three things in the post - the first are these little white quilties from the white quiltie swap which Lenna organised. My quilties are from Fiona, Susanne, Dawn and Val. Aren't they wonderful?

And these two birthday blocks came as well - on the left, one from Joy and on the right one from Patty. Patty's is a 9 inch block (I think) which is great - now I have several which aren't 12". Soon, I'll get all the ones I have received to date out and photograph them together - should be fun.

And finally, fabric! My friend Lana, who is moving to India for a couple of years later this summer is having a little stash clear-out before she goes - being a good friend, she gave me first dibs -

I got these three pieces to use for backings on small things; the coordinating pieces on the right will go to make a baby quilt of some sort, with a few plainer fabrics thrown in; and the fabric below was just because. When you are getting a bargain, you don't need a reason, right?