And that's it for Christmas...

Did a little more work on this Chrismas piece, and decided to stop until next autumn sometime. It's stitching up quickly (unlike certain angels one could mention) so I'm sure it will get finished during the next holiday season...

Little Houses

For an ATC swap with a little house theme - all the houses fit within a normal ATC size (2.5x3.5") - I cut the usual rectangle and then altered the rooflines. I decided to use the same two main background papers for all four cards, but to vary shapes and content. These were a lot of fun; I'd definitely like to do another house-shaped ATC swap...

Some ATC finishes

Here are a couple more round robin cards on which I was the third player... I added some flowers to these vintage cards with book text...

...and I added some lace trim and an interesting brad to these fabric cards. 

Cross-stitch update

Lots to show this week.  I finished the bottom of the dress on the green angel, and have put it away for another year. Not sure what I'll work on next year - the foot of the green angel, probably, plus I think the face of the middle one, as she's kind of creepy with no features, plus perhaps the bellrope (the one the green angel is holding) - we'll see...

When that was done, I picked up a small sheep virtue to stitch as I am waiting on some threads for the Cinnamon Christmas piece - and I finished the Love Sheep - they do stitch up pretty fast, these sheep!  4 down, 8 to go...

Finally, I did make a little progress on the Cinnamon Christmas - I was out on the weekend and thought I'd pick up enough of the dark brown (which is not on order) to finish the wording, but they only had Anchor, not DMC. I bought the equivalent, but it's not quite the same - still, it's fine for the dark brown bits which don't sit right next to the word Christmas. I think I have enough of the original colour to stitch "Merry" - I hope so.  Though of course, it's on my list to order...

Backgrounds in

A while back I made two sets of backgrounds for a background swap - these are the backgrounds I received in return - won't they be fun to play with!

Mixed Media: Sun

Cards for a mixed media swap with a sun theme - I used assorted paper on the background, stitch, metal and the yellow of the sun is made from some sort of non-woven fibrous stuff which isn't quite paper or fabric...

Framed Cross Stitches

One of the things we did over the holiday was take a trip to Ikea - I, of course, was armed with my list of cross-stitch pieces which need framing (and their sizes) and I managed to find frames for a few of them. Some of them are non-standard in size, and are harder to frame, but I'm sure we'll get there in the end...

Thought this winter wonderland one worked particularly well in the silver frame.  The others are simply wood or white. But they work!

Scrap stripy blocks

Here are 20 of the blocks laid out together to show what they'd look like as a quilt - not sewn together yet, mind you, though I am beginning to get them into fours. I actually ended up with 40 blocks, so there will be two quilt tops from these blocks.

Streak of Lightning!

Sort of.  These double chevron blocks in purple, grey and brown are the block lotto blocks for January. I actually finished these in December (due to the sneak peek for people who made blocks before the last week in December), which is even better as it's back to work in a few more days for me.  I had originally intended to make 6 blocks, but the other suitable grey fabric I had pulled out, didn't have quite enough to it to make the block. Oh well!

Quilting in the old year...and the new

At the start of the New Year, a lot of people are looking back at what they acheived in the previous year and making plans for the next year. I try not to make my plans too specific, especially now that I am working full time again and don't have nearly so much time for sewing, but it's nice to at least do a re-cap of a bit of the stuff one has accomplished, and look forward to the next year as well. Especially if you don't commit yourself specifically to too many tricky projects!

So, first things first - a recap of the quilts I finished this year...

From the top left - a quilt for a friend's 75th birthday, a comfort quilt for a friend undergoing cancer treatment, a baby quilt for a raffle prize for a fundraiser for my local library, a baby quilt for my new niece.  Second row: wedding quilt for Olivia's flute teacher, wedding present for friends, baby quilt for neighbour (not quite finished - binding needs sewing down, baby due in January, but I needed another quilt for the mosaic), baby quilt for colleague at work.

Third row: Christmas quilt for myself, 60th birthday quilt for my brother-in-law, 20 year present for a colleague of Geoff's who we know well; cat quilt for my mother.

I also made a load of quilt tops for charity (and a few to tuck away for future use, though not many of those). If you want to see those, you can look under the Project Linus tab at the top. 

In the new year, I hope to get some more quilts longarm quilted (actually, there's one with the longarmer at the moment) though I'm not sure if I'll have so many specific occasions for the quilts - maybe just a few to keep and a few to put away as spares...  I do have one baby quilt that I know of coming up - and I'm sure there will be more, as there usually are (though last year was a lot less full of babies than the year before). I've offered a small quilt to the Scouts for fundraising as well, so if they want that one, that will be another baby quilt to make.   Or rather, to quilt up from the stash of tops I have tucked away!

And as for personal quilting goals - well, I'm not really making any, though I want to make a quilt for my own quilt swap (Another Little Quilt Swap 8) and take part in Julie's round robin (Cotton Robin). I also want to follow along with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2014 - although if there's a month where I don't have a lot of scraps in that colour, I'll probably skip it. I don't have specific plans for how I'm going to play along with that - will probably let the colour choice dictate the type of project, though I'd guess that lots of them are going to be tops for Linus Quilts. This will simply be part of my ongoing project to use up scraps and other unwanted smaller pieces of fabric - a little direction, perhaps, as to how I want to do it. Although it won't stop me from doing something else if I feel like it!

And, as I usually do, I want to take part in the Block Lotto as many months as I am able to - this year, Sophie promises that the blocks will be largely geometric, which is something I love, so I'm guessing there won't be too many months I want to skip (in fact, I have already made blocks for January, which I will show tomorrow!)

Cross Stitch Update

Real progress being made on this green dress - the basic shape is all there and it just needs filling in, in a couple of shades of green. I imagine I'll finish in the next few days - and I'm not even tired of it, like I am some years. I think just planning to complete a small area helped me not feel overwhelmed...

As I finished the Winter Wonderland piece on the weekend, I also pulled out another easier piece - one last seasonal one - to use as an alternate when my eyes or my brain can't quite take the detail in the angels.  For an idea of what this one looks like, check out these photos on The Patchwork Rabbit (Karla is my enabler supplier for all things cross-stitchy).

Oh, and Happy New Year!

9 Stripy Blocks

...and here are all the lotto blocks which I made, together in one photo. I have actually had a chance to make some blocks for the January lotto, but of course I can't post those until at least tomorrow...

Pick a theme Swap

Some ATCs for a pick-a-theme swap - instead of a common theme, you request your theme when you sign up, and those in your group (usually 5 people in total) make a card to your requested theme. These cards were scanned, and are fairly 3D, so came out quite blurry, but I promise they are in focus in real life...  The top one is for a theme "must include colourful postage stamp in design" - the stamp is from South Africa...

This one was "design to include weeping willow tree and antique key" - I decided to stitch the tree - and the sun, too...

The theme here was "literary dragons" - I chose to use the dragon from Eragon (I know that's not the name of the dragon, but it's the name of the book...) by Christopher Paolini.  The background is made of strips of a variety of papers, but doesn't show well in the scan.

And finally, this theme was "monochromatic (not abstract) including words or poetry" - I've done a faerie in a garden with flowers and leaves with a tiny bit of found poetry.

And an extra card for the hostess - she doesn't choose a theme (and the card is not required, but many of us include one as a thank you for the effort involved in hosting) - I know she likes oriental things, so I've made a Chinese feel card. Just realised the scan is probably upside down.  Oh well.

Winter Wonderland

Finished!  And yes, I am still working a bit on the angels and do still plan to finish the green dress before I put it away until next season. I really can't do much of that piece at one time - it hurts my head. Too much counting!  I just can't really cope with that sort of intense cross-stitch any more. Perhaps I should double check all my patterns and get rid of any more which are that complicated and dense, as it's not likely I'll ever stitch them now...

Three last lotto blocks

I haven't been making lots of blocks for the block lotto lately - sometimes because I don't have time, sometimes because I don't want to spend the money to send blocks to three different winners and sometimes because they aren't really my style of blocks. This block in December was really my kind of thing - quick, easy, useful for using up scraps, so I wanted to make lots of them. I made 9 for the lotto, with the WOW (white on white) fabric, and loads more for scrapbusting/charity quilts with a neutral fabric from my stash. Sometime, I'll photograph all 9 together for the lotto blog.

Stack of fabric, incoming

When my mother and I cleared out her fabric stash this summer, there was a lot of fabric which she no longer wanted and which would, in the fullness of time, come live with me. I didn't have space in my suitcase for much of it, so she's bringing it over a little at a time when she visits - here's this visit's installment (plus a piece left from backing a quilt) - I just have to measure the pieces and make sure they are folded to fit on my shelf... 

Inspired by the block lotto...again

Today I needed something to sew where I didn't have to think a great deal, and which would attack the scraps which are once again building up in my strip bag and my scrap basket, so I decided to go with the idea of the December block in the block lotto (with strips added down the sides to make it a square). There are more to come, but these were the finished ones - others are still in process. This will probably be the first quilt top for donation made in 2014 - though I do still have a stack of 2013 tops in the house...

Cross-stitch update

Not one, or even two, but three items of cross-stitchy goodness to report this week. I finished this little one, Kringle's Crow (photo's a bit washed out, so the off white stitching doesn't show well, but it's there) a while ago. I knew it wouldn't take long.

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I did some work on the green dress on the angels - you can see it's coming along slowly but surely. I'm not sure if I'll finish the dress this year, but that's my general goal - to make good progress on the green dress or even finish it. That will be plenty of stitching on this difficult, intricate piece, especially for my tired brain!

And once the crow was finished, I needed something else to use as a relief from the angels, so I pulled this one out, which is also much easier to stitch - I'm sure I'll finish this one this year, as it's only the house in the box to finish and the rest of the border and lettering.  Who knows, I might even need something else wintery to work on before I go back to the pink birds or the little sheep or...

Advent Calendar, Christmas Day: Baby Jesus in a Manger

Lots of advent calendars only have 24 spaces or doors, which makes sense, as it's counting down to Christmas Day itself, but the design of this one is 5x5, so there's a space for Christmas Day itself. Despite the lack of organised religion in this house, we do always use this one on Christmas Day...

Second Scrappy Block

This one, same colour scheme, I think works slightly better than the one from the other day. When they are all together, I think they'll be alright, so I'm going to keep going with this colour plan. It's only a scrappy quilt, after all...