Blogging and real life

Ta da! Lookie what I did today - I met up with Hedgehog at the V&A - we had a nice few hours of chatting and browsing the exhibits - and she graciously put up with my kids for the entire time. (More on the visit to the V&A on my family blog.) One of the things we did was have a little exchange of gifties - as it happens, she was my partner in a recent bag swap organised by Barbara - so I was able to give her her bag (yes, well spotted, it's also the April Challenge Bag from the BQL Bag Challenge, made with fabrics specially chosen to suit her preferences, which were given as "bright colours") with a few other bits and pieces inside. In return, she gave me this lovely selection of goodies - homemade Lingonberry jam (very Scandinavian!) , some Finnish napkins and some Finnish chocolate. The jam is in the larder (as we have jam open already) and the napkins (great design, eh?) in the cupboard, but the chocolate, I'm afraid, is no more. Geoff liked the chili one the best, I was torn between the white and the chili, Sarah liked the white best and I think Alex liked the one with hazelnuts best. But we agreed that they were all yummy.

Also acquired at the V&A were this bag - how could I resist it, given that it's patterned with, well, patterns? I also got a little packet of Japanese stickers, which I thought might be useful for cards and so on.



I also saw a couple of other great bags in the V&A shop - the one on the left, I adore and would really like to own - it's made of woven plasticised sewing measuring tapes - isn't it fab? However, it's not £80 fab - not to me, anyway. And the bags on the right had a much lower price tag - 75p - because they were made of newspaper and rope. I almost bought some of them to use as gift bags or something but in the end, I resisted. I did, however, take a photo in case I want to attempt to make one myself in future...



And finally, I arrived home to two lovely packages - the first, from my double inchies ("twinchies") swap on FiberArtBits - aren't they lovely? A great selection of little bits, aren't they? Not sure what I'm going to do with them yet, but I will think of something, I'm sure. And on the right, a piece of hand-painted fabric and a piece of hand-made soap from the lovely Vicki - and there were three little pressed flowers included as well - a touch of Virginia spring (though I notice there are only two in the photo) - aren't bloggers really really nice?

Giveaway winner

Thanks to everyone who entered the draw from last week - and to those who suggested I might be able to use the blocks in some other way instead of giving them away - that's no doubt true in principle, but in practice, the likelihood that that will happen is slim, so I'd rather the blocks went to a good home and were used by someone!

Anyway, the winner of the black and white blocks is Jenn, who I don't have an email for - Jenn, if you are out there, drop me an email at katelnorth at yahoo dot com and let me know where I should send your lovely blocks!

Lazy(ish) Sunday

Well, despite kids demanding my attention and husbands (well, only one) deciding to do stuff in the garden which then required him to ask me questions every 10 minutes (what is it with that?) I did manage to get some work done - these are the fronts and backs of the little notebooks from yesterday - I didn't do a lot to them, just a layer of sizeflor (coloured lutradur) and some embellishments - but they do make sweet little notebooks. I might well do some more of them - worth popping into Muji next time I'm in Kingston, at least.

And I also did some more little double four patches - these look a little odd, as there are some very dark and very light ones, and almost no mediums. But they'll all be fine when all 75 of the little beasties are together...

Also below, the two pineapples which came yesterday, which I promised to show - and here they are. These are from Nina. Thanks Nina!

Goals - but not too many

Well, didn't do too badly with my goals this week, despite the holidays - here's a round up:

• journal quilt for the week (deadline 12/4)
• work on "P" postcards (deadline 15/4) (done and posted this morning)
• possibly work on stamping swap for dyehard/surfacing (this could involve kids) (deadline 30/4) - decided not to tackle this with the kids home - just too much potential for mess, etc. Will try get to it early in the week after they go back to school.
• begin to quilt Four Seasons Quilt (deadline 1/5) (done - quilted, bound and labelled - ready to post - hoorah)

I also got a little work done on the Miniature Booty Quilt Swap quilt, and some blocks made on my dresser runner, so I feel pretty good about my week. Next week, my goals list will be even smaller, as in addition to the kids being home, we are up to Grandma Lucy's on Thursday, where there is neither time to sew or a sewing machine. I shall take my cross-stitch for the evenings, though, and probably make quite good strides with it. There is also no computer access (for four days - ack ack ack) but I shall attempt to survive.

Anywhere, here's my attempt at a realistic goal list:

• journal quilt for the week (deadline 19/4)
• make a start on a set of brown themed postcards for a swap (deadline 30/4)
• Shape lottery ATC (just one ATC - should be able to manage it!) (deadline 30/4)

Nothing much to show today - we had friends around for lunch and I went to the farmers' market this morning, so no sewing at all done - I did get a couple of pineapples (not REAL pineapples - that would be a little messy) in the post, but I haven't photographed them yet, so perhaps I'll show them tomorrow.

This and that

Ok, lots of bits and pieces to show today. We decided not to do anything particular this morning - we had thought originally to go uptown to a museum or something before our appointments at the embassy in the afternoon, but as it looks like we will be going up to the V&A on Monday, we thought we'd skip it today - so I decided to do some sewing housekeeping. Got some sewing related parcels ready for the post office, made a few labels - one for the Four Seasons Quilt (which won't go off in the post until Monday or Tuesday as I want to buy a couple of little things to put in with it - nothing big, just maybe some chocolate and/or tea, etc) and one for the first Hawaiian quilt. I finished the last 6 inches of binding on the Four Seasons Quilt (must remember to take another photo before I post it) and attached the label tonight, so it's good to go. I also sewed on the label for the Hawaiian quilt, so it's good to go as well - I'll send it out whenever I get the FSQ ready.





Then I made a block for something a friend is organising for another friend who is having a rough time - that also can go out next week - and finished up the P postcards - they are now addressed and ready to go - if you click on the photo, you should be able to see that each one has a little puzzle - I had fun with those. There's a fifth one as well - another car one - which is my prototype, which didn't make it into the photo. Whatever!





And then I spent a little time working on the quilt for the Miniature Booty Swap - I am not going to show you much of that as I don't want my recipient to know what's going on, but I will share these two little teases - both of these blocks will probably have a place in the finished product. I notice that the broken dishes block needs a bit of a fiddle to fix the bottom point... Oh, and maybe I should just mention that each of these two blocks is 2" square. (Why yes, I am possibly insane...)



And finally, two acquisitions - on the left, some "keyring notepads" I got in Muji (or more accurately, the Muji concession in Selfridge's - we got up to town earlier than we needed, so poked around a few Oxford Street shops for 40 minutes or so - Disney store for Alex, Selfridges for me & Sarah - the Muji concession was mainly for her, as she's a stationery junkie). Each of them is about 1 x2" and I'm thinking they'd make lovely little gifties (altered). They were 99p each, so I bought three to try out, but if they come out well, I'll be visiting Muji again soon to stock up for Christmas. Luckily, there's one in Kingston. Not that I mind another trip up to Oxford Street, of course....

And on the right, some fabric which came from Pauline in Australia, as a thank you - I sent her some magic paper to try out and she sent me back this fabulous fabric with Australian birds printed on it in silver. Yum.

More beach, less sewing

There was no sewing done in the house today - well, not until this evening, when I sewed down some binding on the Four Seasons Quilt - will finish that tomorrow probably and show it then. But the lack of sewing was fine - we had a lovely day out (lots of photos over here) and I brought back a few wee treasures, which I might be able to use in future work (well, not the pebble so much - I just thought it was pretty). The kids collected many more bits and pieces, but I was going for small, relatively flat, and interesting.

Did get some nice post today - a brown postcard for an upcoming brown swap - a pineapple from Dorothy for my pineapple quilt and the newest Quilting Arts (despite them telling me I needed to renew my sub, I keep receiving it - I think they start reminding you to renew about 10 issues in advance...). I am not renewing my sub to this, or to any of my other quilting magazines - I just never seem to have time to read them and try any of the projects. Seems a waste to me. Doesn't mean i won't pick up some copies at shows, etc, but I am going to stop subscribing to them all. Probably even the online ones, though I haven't decided for certain about that yet.

All in a morning's work

Although we had plans today, they were for lunch and the afternoon with friends, so the morning was free. Luckily for me, the children decided that what they really wanted to do with their morning was lounge around in their pyjamas (not something we do much of in this house), watch rubbish on telly and then play on the computers. Which, frankly, seemed fair enough as this is the third day of the holiday and so far, they've had to get up and get started in the mornings due to long lists of things to be done, and will have to do so again tomorrow and Friday. And probably Monday. And Thursday next week. The fact that this meant I was likely to be able to get an hour or two's sewing in had nothing to do with my decision to encourage such sloth. (Sure it didn't.)

Anyway. I got the binding attached to the Four Seasons Quilt - now to stitch it down, do the label, and get it in the post - deadline is 1 May, so plenty of time for that, but I'd like to get it off before we go up to Geoff's mum's next week, just to have it out of the way. Still, it should only take me one evening to do the binding - the quilt is only 20" square (well, technically, I think it's 22" - hopefully that will be ok). And I also finished up some more little double four patches in the taupe/Japanese fabrics. I think that's 28 or so done; I need 75, so it will be a while before I get to the assembly stage. And as I have a number of other things with deadlines coming up, it may get put to the side, but it's a good project for the moment as it can be done in very small amounts, so is good if you keep getting interrupted.

One of the the things I have to think about is a new commission (yes, a paid one) - the sister of friend who I made a quilt for was very taken with it, and has asked if I'd make her something. After explaining that I was happy to make her something but that a)it wouldn't be just like the one I made Caroline and b)quilts cost money, she's still happy to commission, so I am happy to make, though luckily, she knows it won't be right away. I've potentially another commission in the wings as well, once I get my Hawaiian shirt quilts finished, so I'm very pleased about that. And slightly nervous, as one always is, I think, with commissions. I won't be really working on this quilt for my friend's sister just yet, but ideas will be brewing in the back of my mind and I may have to acquire fabric (tragedy, I know).

And speaking of acquisitions, here's what came in the post today. Four more pineapples, from Sophie - two actually from her, and two which had slipped down behind a table and therefore didn't make it with the original batch. I need to go count how many I have - I know there are a few more on the way, but I think it's getting to the point where I will have to plan what I am going to do with them. And see how many more I need to make...

And the postcard is the final one from the fastenings swap, this one from Kandy, who has cleverly used hooks and eyes in her design - really pretty, isn't it! A fun swap, in all.

Hoorah for DVDs

Well, I started the day with only a tiny bit of sewing time - just a few blocks made from the taupe fabrics and the rest of the backgrounds fused for the puzzle postcards, and I thought that would be it. However, after all the errands (school shoes, bank, Woolworths, Weight Watchers weigh in (lost 3 lbs) and dentist) and the trip to the park (bike riding, some tennis practice for the girls) they all decided they wanted to watch a DVD (how long will it take me to stop automatically typing "video", I wonder) - hoorah - upstairs goes mummy for an hour and half to quilt the Four Seasons Quilt Swap quilt. And it's done now. Yippee!

I decided that because it was a little sampler quilt, it really didn't want to be free motion quilted, just stitched in the ditch (more or less), which is what I've done. I've shown the back here, as well, as it shows better. I'm happy with the way it's come out, so now all that remains is to bind it and put a label on - then it can go in the post - hopefully early next week, well before the 1 May deadline. Whew.

Another Little Quilt Swap

Now, I know you all have tons of free time, no committments and really need lots of new projects, right? Yep, thought so. But here's a little something I'm putting together in the footsteps of the Four Seasons Quilt Swap, Toni's Miniature Booty Swap and various doll quilt swaps. Come on over and have a look, no pressure!

Monday miscellany

Well, here's what I did this morning (well, two or three are from yesterday) before we went out and spent all our money (new bike for Sarah, a few clothes for both girls including a pair of trainers for one, clarinet books, bike helmet for Olivia, etc etc) - I also got some more work done on the puzzle postcards, but they aren't finished yet - maybe tomorrow, though the morning at least is full of errands again (school shoes this time, dentist appointment, bank, Weight Watchers weigh in, woolworths).


And I got some fun stuff in the post:





both of these items are from Karen in Niceville, Florida (wouldn't you love to live in Niceville? I mean, I've never been there, no idea what it's like, but what a great name). Two blocks are for the pineapple comfort quilt, the other is from the orange swap I did a while back - the block got sent back to her (eventually) apparently because of "addressee unknown" - who knows why, as the address was completely right and was the same one she used the second time. Ah, the wonders of the postal service... Karen always does lovely work, so it's a joy to get blocks from her.

Black and white(ish) giveaway

Some time ago, I hosted a swap in the scrapquilting forum on delphi which involved blocks made with (in theory) only half-square triangle units. In the end, there were one or two exceptions to this rule, but on the whole it was fairly successful. Each person got to pick her choice of colour for the block she received (all had a cream background, but the other colour could be individualised). I chose black as my colour. Anyway. Although I haven't yet done anything with the blocks per se, I recently did sort through them and lay them out, and decided that I had too many blocks and that a few of them didn't fit in so well with the others due to colour variation or size of the triangles, so I have picked these four to pass along to another home. So you can see what I mean, below is a photo of the rest of the blocks - you can see that one of the ones I am giving away has a much darker background than the others and two have quite large triangles. The Dutchman's Puzzle block has neither of those issues, but what doesn't show in the photo is that there is a brown speck to the black fabric - which is fine, really, but it didn't make sense to have 17 blocks, so in the end it was the 4th one to go. The arrangement below (which I stress, are the blocks I am keeping!) is probably not how the blocks will be laid out in the final version (should I ever get to a final version, lol) but just how they came out of the box.

Anyway, as usual, if you would like to be enterred into the draw for these blocks, simply leave a comment on this post before Sunday.

Winner (jewel tone stars)

As there were only 5 people enterred into the draw this week, I used a different random number generator to pick my number - a six sided one. Had I thrown a 6, I would have simply thrown again, but as it happens, the number which came up was a 3, which means that the winner is Joanie Hoffman - congrats Joanie! I may well have your address somewhere from swapping with you but if you could make my life easier and send it again I'd be grateful - email address is katelnorth at yahoo dot com. Not sure what will be up for grabs tomorrow, but there's still loads of stuff in the stack, so do come back and check it out!

P is for Prototype/JQP week 21

Several things got sewn today, hoorah. After I had a brief play in the park with the Alex and Olivia (Sarah was at a sleepover) in our lovely snow (yes, really, snow), that is!

Consequently, I decided to do my journal quilt for the week with a snow theme - a heavy (for London) snowfall in April is too bizarre not to mark in some way... The photo doesn't really snow this mini quilt to good effect - I started with a piece of WOW fabric, and sprinkled some "snow glitter" which I bought in a kids' craft section on it - looks like small pieces of white cellophane chopped up - then covered that with some white organza and free motion quilted it with loops and some snowflakes, of course. Then I added some melted tyvek and a piece of white sheer fabric with stars on it and topped it off with silver snowflake sequins. The back is a piece of paper which says "let it snow" all over it. As I said, too good an opportunity to miss...

I also finished (mostly) making a prototype for my "P is for..." postcards. I wanted to use the theme "puzzle" but wasn't quite sure how to tackle it. I've decided I'm going to do small puzzles (fabric on pelmet vilene) inside a clear pocket, which will fasten somehow (I'm actually thinking something basic like a piece of sellotape) in the post. Then you can take the puzzle out and do it yourself. It won't be challenging - even Alex managed just fine - only 6 pieces. Also did a few more little double four patches, but I didn't photograph them; I'll do a group shot next time I manage to sew some - perhaps tomorrow, once the errands are run.

Goals - mostly

Not surprisingly, this week wasn't quite as successful goal -wise as the past few have been, but when you have a trackable reason for that (small child home from school but feeling very well and wanting attention constantly) it's ok - it's when you don't get anything on your list done but can't work out what you did instead of that stuff that you have to worry...

Here's what I set out to accomplish last week:

• journal quilt for the week (deadline 5/4) (finished that up this morning, as per the previous post)
• make-up block for Kathi, birthday block swap (done and posted off)
• begin to quilt second Hawaiian quilt (begun - not a lot of progress made due to small person home, but at least it's a start - goodness knows when I will next work on it - it's not the kind of thing I really want to tackle with the kids home as they will be for the next two weeks)
• pin and begin to quilt four seasons quilt swap quilt (mailing deadline 1/5) (got this pinned and ready, but not started - hopefully will get it started next week despite kids, as it's small enough to quilt in my sewing room, without taking the machine down to the dining room table, like I need to do to have space to manouevre the Hawaiian shirt quilt)
• prepare materials for another cat block (done this morning)
• work on set of postcards for theme: Starts with P (deadline 15/4) (not really - did try out a small part of my idea as a prototype and have pretty much planned what I am going to do, but you couldn't really call it "working on the cards")

The next two weeks' worth of goals lists will be a bit shorter and less ambitious as it's the spring holiday from school, so not only are the kids home, but we have a lot of stuff to do, both in terms of errands (dentist, school shoes, passport renewal, etc) and in terms of social stuff (friends to see, museums to visit, grandma's house to take a trip to). But here's what I hope to acheive this coming week:

• journal quilt for the week (deadline 12/4)
• work on "P" postcards (deadline 15/4)
• possibly work on stamping swap for dyehard/surfacing (this could involve kids) (deadline 30/4)
• begin to quilt Four Seasons Quilt (deadline 1/5)

And I rather think that's enough. I should have a little time to work - even though we often get going fairly early, I still get up before the kids are ready to move out (I consider sleeping to 8am "late" and 8.30am "really late", compared to my normal schedule, so I could easily have an hour in the morning without even feeling deprived of my holiday lie-in; every hour counts, right?). Wish me luck with that! No doubt there will be slightly less blogging over on this side of things and slightly more blogging over on the family blog, for those of you who follow that side of my life...

Journal Quilt Project - Week 20

Well, I did manage to get my journal quilt done today, just. I decided that as this was a kind of scrappy, unfinished sort of week in the end, I would let my journal quilt reflect that. So I've cut coin pieces from my scrap basket, stitched them together and just run a few lines of quilting over it. I've finished neither the back nor the edges, and I think I will leave it like that, except that I will just do a quick running stitch around the edge to keep it from fraying and pulling away from the vilene stabiliser, which is what I use as a base. Anyway. In some ways I am very tempted to finish this piece more, but I'm going to resist, because it is a much better representation of my week if it's not finished, as a lot of my week hasn't been finished!

On the right is another (new, I confess - what am I like!) project - I need a new runner for the dresser in our bedroom which DH uses - there's one on it, but a) it's old and I'm a little bored of it and b)it would be nice to have a spare anyway, so one can go in the wash when it gets dusty. The dresser is a (minor) antique rather than your sort of average Ikea type furniture which is what we mostly own, so I like something on the surface to protect from general kid damage & water rings. Anyway, I thought I'd make some nice double four patches (such a great block) using my Japanese taupe type fabrics - these blocks will finish at 4" square, and I'll need 75 of them for the runner. Probably not the size block you want to use for a king sized bed quilt, eh?

Lovely post...

...just as well this came in the post, as I didn't get a chance to do any quilting or sewing today - I did manage to catch up on some email and do some laundry and change 3 of the 5 beds (Alex has bunk beds - we don't always change both sets of sheets but the last few weeks he has been sometimes sleeping on top, sometimes on bottom) - but no sewing. However, I did get this in the post, which I think WALKED here from South Africa (it came surface - took 2 months) from my friend Karol Ann. It contained a large piece of black and white fabric (the piece you can see is folded - there's lots of it) which will in time be overdyed in a variety of ways and some of it sent back to KA, three FQs of African prints and a large number of shwe shwe FQs - including one red one, which I have never seen before. The blue is the most common, and I have seen some brown ones, too, but not a red, which is good fun. And a string of seed beads - literally. Everything has now had a nice wash and hung out to dry in our one nice spring day before the weather goes to hell in a handbasket again.

I also got two postcards, one from Wendy for the fastenings swap, the other is a "P" is for Pansy card from Maureen. I think I know what I am going to do for my "P" cards now, as I was testing an idea out the other day - whenever it was I last had time to sew - and think it will work, with a little fiddling. Might get a chance to work on that tomorrow. I am also hoping to get my journal quilt done tomorrow morning - we have a busy day tomorrow, but the morning is just Sarah's tennis, so Geoff will take her to that and I should get a little time free. I should do fairly well with my goals, I think, maybe one thing not done, but given the suprises in the week, not too bad...

I also found out that Hedgehog is coming to London next week/week after so I am hoping we will be able to find a time to meet up - perhaps a trip to the V&A or a visit to Hampton Court Palace and the quilt shop around the corner. It may not be logistically possible, but it would be great if it worked out.

Finally, here's something I've actually finished - it was only a matter of sewing the binding down, but even that is done now - I guess it needs a label, hopefully I will be able to get that done this weekend so I can get the quilt off in the post next week some time. This is the first one, for my stepmom; the second one is the process of being quilted, though I don't know how much I'll get done on it in the next few weeks - a little, I hope. School holidays are always busy, though the kids will no doubt want at least one slumping-around-doing-nothing-watching-telly-all-day kind of days - and given the weather forecast, I should think they'll get at least one!

Peacock, moo, booty

As expected, I didn't get anything done today - I decided to get Alex out of the house for a while, so we had a visit to a local city farm. Thought you might like this rather impressive peacock - more pictures and text if you follow the above link over to our family blog...





I also have this to show - the left photo is my new moo cards - these are the mini cards - and there are 12 different designs - they were fun (and easy) to make and I look forward to giving them out to all and sundry - the fronts feature a variety of my work - some fibre & mixed media pieces, some dye work, and even a few traditional quilts. At right are a selection of fabrics which I may use for my miniature booty swap quilt - my partner likes bright colours, particularly purple, turquoise, orange, and so forth. I will probably add some hand-dyes to these as well, but haven't dug them out yet. I have an idea what I think I am going to do, but I won't be showing more than a few teases here as she wants to be surprised - so I don't want to risk giving it away. Especially since she knows I am making for her. You will of course see the whole thing in due course! I probably won't start on it right yet, though, as I have some other things I need to sort out first.

A little more conversation (a little less action)

Didn't do quite so much today as I had originally hoped, as I had Alex home with impetigo - he feels totally well, but can't go to school, as it's highly contagious (to touch) - so they have to stay home until the sores are more crusted over, etc. Which means he probably won't go back until after the school holidays. The main problem with having him home is that he feels well - it's not like I would wish my child ill, but if he has to be home from school on a schoolday, it's a shame he can't have one of those illnesses which involve lying somewhat limply on the sofa and watching DVDs all day. Today it was all "mummy can we do this, mummy can we do that". It wasn't without its fun parts, but as they are all off school for the next two weeks starting Monday, it's not the best timing. Anyway. During part of the day, he played on the computer for a while and I made a quick escape upstairs to do these blocks for the mystery quilt I am doing. I also managed to pin together the Spring Four Seasons Quilt, though I didn't try to quilt it at all, as that's not the best thing to try to do when you are constantly being interrupted.

I received the above card in the post - it's for the fastenings swap and features a button, a popper/snap and a tie. I particularly like the fish fabric underneath the little window.

Then Alex and I decided to watch Dinosaur on video, or rather, he wanted my company while I watched it, so I grabbed my scrap basket, which is getting a little full, and decided to have a little bit of a sort-out while watching. Here's the before picture, and here's the after:

on the left is a pile of scraps I sent to school, some large pieces which have been folded for filing in a roper box and some strips for the strip basket. On the right is the inside of the basket now - there's not really that much less in there, but it's much neater and will consequently hold a lot more scraps before I have to really really empty it!

Tuesday...

Well, I did get some work done today -started quilting the Hawaiian quilt - as tempting as it is to continue tomorrow, I might try to do some of the other stuff on my list, particularly any of the things with deadlines coming up. Not sure I can do the "P" postcards, as I don't really know what I want to do yet, but I'm sure there are other things which need tackling.

Got some things in the post today - my Japanese club - fat eighths this month by accident (instead of 16ths) but that's ok - I'll use them, I'm sure... And a postcard for the fastenings swap - bit hard to see in the photo, but inside the card, which zips open, are lots of other fastenings being used. Clever card - it's from Ruth. Also got a few bits and bobs - had to pop into the haberdashery department for bondaweb (which I have spared you a photo of) and these were on an attractive display, and three for two. I think they are probably card toppers, but of coruse, I will use them for something else. Not sure what yet.