Found!

We finally have set a date to have some work done in the house, which will eventually necessitate my moving from my little sewing room. This means I am going through some of my stuff with an eye to getting rid of it/re-housing it/using it up.  In a drawer, I found this stack of pieced 3" squares - I think I was going to make some placemats with them to practice FMQ at one point (in fact, I think I did make half a dozen or so and then quit).  Anyway, I decided that they'd make a quick and easy quilt top, which I could then border with something recently acquired for that purpose, so I quick stitched some of them together (the others, I have other plans for - watch this space!)

Cross stitch update

Made some progress on the penultimate section of this piece - there's another leaf to do and some words, I think, and then the final section in the bottom right corner. Won't be long now!

Bluebird

I realised when I was tidying up my sewing room today that I neglected to blog this piece last weekend when I finished it - it's a small, simple piece, but I like it. Love the small touches of red...  Stay tuned tomorrow for your usual Wednesday cross-stitch update!

State of the Scrapbasket

Had a look in my scrap basket today and decided it was getting a bit out of control. It may not look full, but it's a big basket - you don't want to see how much fits in it when it's full.... Anyway, as I had the day off and intended to spend a large part of it sewing or doing other sewing type things, I decided it was time to trim scraps. 

These little boxes (which fit in little frame things) hold my scrap squares - 5" is the largest size (the boxes are essentially 5" square anyway) and they go down in half inches, until the last one, which is "smaller than 2" square).  But not much smaller - I don't keep the teeny tiny stuff. 

Here's what a few of them looked like before I started cutting - not too bad.

Here they are again, when I'd finished, 

here's the scrap basket

and here's the pile of strips I added to my bag of scrap strips

which is looking a little full.   Guess what's next on my to-do list!

All together now

Here's one of the pink tops for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, assembled and ready to be stacked in a pile to giveaway.  I won't border this one, I think - it looks fine the way it is.

Another exercise in clearing stash

Today I decided to do something that wasn't pink - I've done a few pink things already, so it's not that badly out of control. I have a drawer of batik fabrics, and I wanted to clear it out a bit - get rid of some of the smaller pieces and then put the remaining pieces in a box in line with my storage for most of my smaller pieces (i.e. larger than a "scrap" and smaller than a 1/2 m). So I dug through my larger pieces of fabric and found the perfect thing - a neutral batiky fabric. I used it for the squares that cross the batik pieces and used the coloured batiks in the background squares. Each block is different, and I appear to have 33 of them. (That was the number I could make with the neutral batik I had). Not quite sure how I will use 33, but most likely a few will find their way into my Bag of Orphans. For the moment, though, I've put the blocks into my basket of blocks which need to be stitched together (it was nearly empty the other day; it's getting fuller now with all this pink stuff and the lotto blocks, and now these...)

Winner!

Once again, I have been lucky enough to win blocks by playing the Block Lotto (if only my lottery syndicate at work was this lucky!) - these are the January double chevron blocks in grey, purple and brown tonal fabrics - here's just a selection of them - more are on the way, hurrah!

A few round robins...

Sometimes, when making a card background for a round robin, you can have a reasonably good idea where it will go.  This one, for instance, is not all that unexpected - I like it, don't get me wrong, but it leads on naturally from the background, I think. 

Sometimes, however, cards go to quite a different place than you might expect - for instance, this card was more gentle and flowing than I would have predicted from something quite stripy - and despite the blue and red and stars, the card didn't end up at all in the patriotic camp, which I wondered if it might (not a huge fan of patriotic themes, so that was ok with me). 

And this one, while I didn't have any ideas where it was going to go, it certainly wasn't here - though again, I really like how it came out. Once again, justification for doing round robins with others!

Cross Stitch Update

A bit of progress, though not a lot. Perhaps this next week will be more productive!

Given away...

Thanks to those of you who expressed an interest in the quilt tops I had to give away - all of them have been sent out to their new homes as of today, except one, where I've not yet received the address to send it to (Greta). Hopefully, they will arrive safely soon and make nice quilts for your various causes.

Watch this space for similar giveaways in future!

Tumblers

...with what makes a great border, I think. If I knew anyone having a baby boy, I might save this one for them!

And now for something...not very different

Yep, another set of log cabin blocks (well, courthouse steps, perhaps, which is a LC variation) - these in pink - the colour of the moment in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge - with a little black thrown in for good measure.  There is something very satisfying about sewing log cabin blocks, and watching them grow and grow with each round. These aren't stitched together yet, but they will be before too long. And then I'll have to decide whether to border them or not. Decisions, decisions.

Log Cabin

Another top which I had the blocks knocking around for (I think there's only one or two sets left, not counting the new, pink blocks I've made recently).  All assembled into this cheerful top (don'tcha love log cabins? I do, as you may have guessed!)

Birds of a feather...

I chose these two cards to show together as I think they are a great example of how different things can turn out - the crow on this card is the same stamp as the bird on the bottom card (which was done in gold ink). Amazing difference, isn't it!

(You can sort of see the stamp, especially if you enlarge the photo).

Strippy quilt with birdhouses

This blue strip top, made for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge in January, works perfectly with this birdhouse border fabric I picked up for a song at the Farnham Maltings Sale. 

Cross-stitch update

Amazing the difference  in the photo depending on the light, isn't it! Not a huge amount of stitching done this week- between being tired in the evenings and being out several times, I didn't sew much.  Not sure if I will switch back to the other piece or carry on with this one - I guess you'll find out next week!

And another bordered top

Yep, another one. I am so all over this! And yes, there might be more featured in the near future.  Woo hoo.

Another bordered quilt

Here's another top which was hanging around waiting for a border, which no longer is.  I will add this to my charity pile... And the stack of tops waiting for borders is smaller - hurrah!

...and a pink Sunday, too...

In addition to working on something I can't actually show, I also pulled out some more pink (and other) fabrics to carrying on with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. These brown and blue fabrics are part of the same range - they have writing on them and pools of water (I think). I had half a metre (or perhaps yard) of each of them, more or less, but they have proved to be slightly awkward to work with, so I thought they'd go well with all this pink. This might not be the final arrangement, as I might try to get some of the blocks with the same pinks moved a bit further away from one another, but it gives the general idea.

Pink Saturday

February's colour in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge is Pink, so away with the blue scraps and on to the pink.  These blocks aren't strictly made from scraps, but as my actual scraps are fairly well under control, I am mining my boxes of small pieces (i.e. smaller than 1/2 metre - most of them are a FQ or less) for bits which can be used. Always happy to make log cabin blocks, so here are 16 of them (10" finished size) with pinks on one side and neutrals on the other.