Knit & Stitch Show

Made it up to the Knit and Stitch Show, briefly, today - it's a huge trek from my side of London, so I think if I go next year, I will try to go on the weekend (wasn't practical this year) even if it means bringing a sprog or two with me. But still, I had a few hours there - enough time to see some exhibits, like the Valerie Campbell Harding retrospective - and I had a nice chat with Maggie Grey there, not just about the piece she was embellishing, but about blogs and blogging, too. Also managed to meet up with Susan, which is SO cool. She is here in the UK mainly to see her son Mathias, who is a dancer with the Birmingham Royal Ballet (I think) dance at Sadler's Wells, and what fabulous luck for her as a fibre artist that this happened to coincide with the Knit & Stitch Show. Anyway, we met up for a little chat, also with her sister, who lives in Germany but popped over to visit as well - the sister, Wanda, is looking to get into quilting, so I was able to give my expert (ha!) opinion. Anyway - how fun was that, too meet a blogger I am in regular contact with, and whose work I really admire... Have I mentioned before that I love blogworld? Yeah, I thought so. And yes - as you may have guessed, that's Susan and me in front of the Val C-H exhibit. I have a slightly odd expression on my face, not sure why, but you know what struck me when I looked at this photo? You guys are going to relate to this - I look like my mother! The thing is, I don't really look much like my mother, but in this photo, the expression in particular, I do. I guess it's true, we all turn into our mothers sooner or later...

And on the right, is most of the goodies I bought (ok, ok, Atet, you were right - I DID buy some goodies!) - I also bought a twin needle for my sewing machine, to play with texture, which didn't make it into the picture - and looking at the photo, it seems I forgot to put in a small bag of stuff from ArtVanGo, which had some textured gel medium and a couple of acrylic colours in it. This was probably because I had some help unpacking my bag and photographing my loot (4.5 year old help) and I was too distracted making sure the help didn't take anything away or open anything.

Anyway, what you are looking is is some textured paper (at back), some mulberry bark, rusted paper, threads and misc fibres, mostly from an Australian vendor called The Thread Studio - they are in Perth, so if we ever make it over to visit Geoff's brother, we'll have to drop in. Great stuff. Rusted paper had only just gone on my list of stuff to look for, so I was thrilled to see it. I think it was the only thing I bought that was actually on the list... Also bought a small Christmassy cross-stitch kit, but am not showing a photo of that, as I've put it aside in the present drawer for my birthday - so I'll show it when I officially get it.

I tell you what - I am SO glad that knitting is not among the textile arts I practise, because there were just so many fabulous yarns there - I'm sure I would have had to buy tons. As it was, I wouldn't have even known where to start, so I just walked around admiring stuff and stroking the pretty yarns...



And then, guess what, I arrived home to two postcards in the post (this strike action sure makes you appreciate the post). These two are from Ann in France for the monochromatic swap on FAI, and from Helen in Arkansas, a slightly belated "Something beginning with H" card. My "something beginning with J" cards are due out on the 15th (Monday) and if I don't manage to get to them on the weekend, they might become slightly belated too - actually, we have another strike coming next week, so they will almost certainly be belated. Even if they get finished on time.

Where was my head?

No, I haven't done anything wacky, that's the next challenge for Fluffy Fatbottom's Twisted Tuesday. Originally, I was toying with the idea of doing something with someone actually missing their head, but as I was looking through my ephemera and photos and stuff, I found this photo and the woman in it just looked sort of wistful and bad-tempered at the same time, like she wondered what on earth she was thinking. So I went with it - here she is with her DH and kids, while wistfully thinking of flying free in a more exciting life. Of course, I've probably got her all wrong and in reality she's simply wondering if she bought enough sausages for tea or something...

And - hey presto - the return of the post! Have to say, not much excitement, considering how long it's been since we had any, but I did get this lovely squishie from Totty Jo - some interfacing, which I knew was coming and some surprises too - green floss and lovely eyelash yarn. The interfacing (medium weight) tells me it wants to be painted, so perhaps that will happen at some point. And before the next strike, I really must get together the squishie I am going to send her!



And a couple more things to show - a princess crown block for MaryLou, who showed some on her blog and mentioned she'd like one from England, and some more attic windows. And that's today!

Live Rust

Well, here's a desperately uninteresting approach to the Inching Artists Challenge for this week, the theme of which was Rust. Not having got around to doing any rust dyeing (though it's on my list) I really couldn't think of what I wanted to do. All I know is that all week, I've had Neil Young songs stuck in my head (My, my, hey, hey in particular - there's a line "it's better to burn out, than it is to rust" and for some reason, that's ALL I could think of when I thought of rust. So, in the end, I took an image of the album cover Live Rust and imposed the lyrics on top, printed it on sort of rust coloured fabric, and stuck it on some vilene - I'll edge it later. Boring, but whatever. Maybe a series of classic album covers, LOL?

And here's the colour wheel I dyed yesterday, all nicely ironed and laid out - a good selection of plums & pinks, I think.



Also did some piecing today - here are two African blocks - I don't think the one on the right works so well, but I didn't have enough of the fabric I used in the centre of the left block. The left one will be going to Karol Ann; I'll keep the right one. Also worked on some of these attic windows blocks with shoes in the centre - didn't do them all today, but as I just stuck them in a stack when done, I kind of lost track of which were today's blocks, so here's a pic of all the ones I have done. This will be a birthday present for a friend who turns 40 next year. Lots of those coming up, actually. Including mine (but not until NEXT year, I hasten to add).

Lots of stuff to post tomorrow, so if you are waiting for something from me, who knows, it might actually be on the way after tomorrow - hopefully, there will be just long enough break in the strike for some stuff to get to where it is going - another week of varied industrial action starts Monday. Grr. Ruth tells me that in South Africa, when they strike, they stand in the street and sing songs. If that were true here, at least we'd have some entertainment!

A picture heavy Monday

Yep - loads of pictures today. Did some dyeing - finally - as I have had some stuff waiting to be done - a couple of babygros for a friend who has had a baby, and a complex cloth piece, mainly. Above is the complex cloth piece - a little darker than I had in mind, but still fairly lovely. I used a technique called "ruching", where I rolled the fabric up around a string and pulled really tight before applying dye. I think the effect here is very good - looks a bit like writing. As this complex cloth piece is for my surface embellishment group (rather than the dyeing group) I don't worry too much about it being a bit dark, as there are lots of options for the subsequent people who are working on the piece. The fabric belongs to Cobi.




And here are the promised babygros - it was getting a bit dark by the time I photographed the finished result, but they are a pale blue with pink, purple and brown designs. I did the designs first and then overdyed with a pale blue, because I thought there was too much white on them. The other shirt is for me - I bought a white French Connection t-shirt at a jumble sale, which had the motto "cool as FCUK" across the front in small, hot pink letters. Not being a white t-shirt person, I decided to actually make it cool. I think it works :) Hopefully, it will still fit, and not have shrunk in the dyeing process. And once the postal strike is over, the babygros will be off to their new home - somewhere far away, but I'm not saying where - it's a suprise...



Of course I had extra dye when I finished the shirts - I always do - so rather than save it (who knows when I'll get to dyeing again) I decided to do a colour wheel between three colours (mulberry, hot pink and brown rose) and a sort of casual gradation of the chocolate brown I had left (casual meaning in this instance that I didn't measure, just eyeballed it). I did a piece appromixately FE sized of each of the colour wheel pieces and a bit larger for the browns. Again, didn't measure, just cut some fabric off the bolt. Also, I had a number of plain white handkerchiefs left from the bag I got at the jumble sale (I cut all the interesting bits off the fancy ones and put the plain ones aside for dyeing) so I shoved one of those in each pot of the wheel as well - I'll use those pieces for postcard or art or journal quilt backgrounds, etc.



While all this dyeing was batching, I did some other work, too. I finished the quilting on the wallhanging [thanks to all of you who have left advice or tips on gripping the fabric better - I will be looking at some of these ideas and trying a few out] - decided to do a kind of flame/wavy line in most of the blocks in the centre. And I then added the faces on all of the small squares, once the radiating lines had been quilted. I think it came out very well, except that I really shouldn't have quilted the black first (I did know this at the time, but I was hoping it wouldn't matter too much. And it didn't matter TOO much, just a few tiny tucks on the back, but the batik on the back is very busy and doesn't really show. You can see the batik I've used on the back at the edges below. So it will have to do). Now just the binding and sleeve, and it will be finished. Hoorah.



And, once the wallhanging was finished, I even had time to make up one of the blocks for the October ladies in the birthday block swap - this one was for a 12" block, any design, with oriental fabrics and a black or black-on-black background. This is a simple, but I hope effective block. And as soon as the postal strike is over, it will be on the way to Christine.

And finally, there may be no postal delivery, but this arrived today anyway - from a non-postal carrier. I've been looking forward to it. If you haven't ever read Jane's blog - do.

Congratulations again on the book, Jane - well done.

Monday giveaway (times two)

Welcome to Monday! No pressure on all you ladies who have won blocks, but look what Ramona has done with the flying geese blocks she won a few weeks ago - impressive, isn't it? I'm serious, though, when I say that there is no obligation to do something with your winnings, ever. But if you DO do something, I'd love to see it.

Today's giveaways are a little different, in that they are books, rather than blocks. I have a few more blocks to come in future weeks, but I was making shelf space and came across these two items, neither of which I really need any longer. The postcard book is virtually new - I bought it in a sale or something, but frankly, it's a bit basic for me these days, being the postcard expert I am, LOL. Great for someone who hasn't yet tried pcs, though... And the other book is the Little Book of Patchwork: Stars - basically, just what it says - stars. Neither is very heavy, so both are open to anyone, anywhere. If I ever get rid of a heavy book, I may have to put a UK only restriction on it so I don't end up paying a fortune in postage, but so far, it hasn't been a problem (though several people have asked, so thanks for asking, but it's cool!)

As usual, if you would like one of the books, leave a comment on this message before Sunday and you will be enterred into the draw - I will draw two names for this one, so if you have a preference or only want one of the books, please be sure to say.

Quilting, quilting, quilting - and a winner!

Did lots of work today - most of it quilting (though I did cut some pieces while talking to my mother on the phone). First, I finished quilting this baby quilt, and have attached the binding so I can sew it down. When I last saw the recipient, she had not yet had the baby, but there was always the weekend. Anyway, close enough! I didn't do anything fancy on this, just random lines crossing the quilt - was going to do diagonals across the blocks, but I thought that might be weird with the crazy nine-patches, so I just sewed a line for a while, then turned and sewed in another direction. It was kind of fun, actually.

So then I dropped the feeddogs and did FMQ on this (though actually, it occurs to me that while I changed the foot to the darning foot, I think I forgot to actually drop the feeddogs - can't say it made any difference, frankly, if anything, it might have worked better) - oh and what do you guys think, is it REALLY lazy of me to wish I had space enough to have a second machine which always had the feeddogs dropped and the hopping foot (or whatever) on it, so I didn't have to change back and forth when piecing/quilting? :)

Anyway, this is going really well - I quilted the black background quite densely, with a kind of sun meander. Each of the squares will have a little doodad like this one in the pink square in it, though there will be clay faces on top of them, so the centres won't show, only the edges. I've done the yellow diamonds with a kind of flame. The large pink parts in the centre will also have a similar meander to what's in the black. And not sure yet about the blue star points and the small outer pink triangles, but we'll see when I get to them. Had to stop because my wrists were beginning to ache, but I did more than I thought I could. I am finding it fairly slippery work, though, so I must look into either a hoop or grippy things or something - tried just using rubber washing up gloves, which works surprisingly well, though they make my hands hot. Anyone have a favourite tool for gripping the top surface of a quilt when doing FMQ?

OK, finally, the moment you are all waiting for. The Christmas blocks were pretty popular, but I am pleased to say that the lucky winner was commentor no 11 - otherwise known as Di. Di, send me your address and (when the postal strike decides to finish) I will put the blocks in the post for you.

Tomorrow (providing I remember what day of the week it is, of course) there will be a new giveaway - something a little different this time, but still fairly popular, I hope!

Shameless self-promotion

Nothing wrong with a little shameless self-promotion (as I was remarking to Atet the other day) - in this case, the only thing I am promoting is, literally, myself. Carina (of wardi.dk) is starting a series of interviews of non-famous artists/crafters and she asked if I'd be interested in being her first victim subject - and seriously, I was very flattered that she considered me interesting enough to want to encourage me to ramble on about stuff. Anyway, the interview is now live on her blog, so if you want to know more about me and what I think about stuff (art & craft related stuff, that is) - go on over and check it out. And heck, her blog is great anyway, so even if you don't want to read about me, you should check her blog out!

Region Two Area Day

Went to a nice quilt event today - an area day arrange by Region Two (Kent, Sussex, Surrey) of the Quilter's Guild (of the British Isles). Region 2 is really big, and I am right on the edge (near Region 1 - London), so many of the events for Region 2 are not very close to me. So when there's one literally down the road (15 minutes on the train) I jump at the chance.

This day consisted of two talks, some demonstrations, a small quilt exhibition by Pilgrim Quilters and some traders (yes, of course I bought some stuff - I'll show you at the end). And a raffle, of course. (Always a raffle - and actually, I was kind of looking forward to the raffle because last time I went to a Surrey area day - 3 years ago - I bought 2 strips of raffle tickets, and had two of my numbers called - I got two different show guides/small books from shows I hadn't been to, so that was nice. Anyway, I thought, hey, maybe I'll win twice again this year. Now, you aren't going to believe this, but I did. I got a bottle of champagne the first time and then, the very last prize, my number was drawn again - but as it was a bottle of cream sherry, I declined the prize and had them draw someone else - cream sherry's not my favourite, and as I'd already won once, it didn't seem like much of a hardship. But how funny is that!)

Anyway, the talks were both very interesting - the morning talk was by Sheena Norquay, a Scottish quilter who doesn't seem to have her own website that I can find, but if you google her on images, you can see some of her work. She showed slides of her early work, which was very interesting - to see someone's development in the field, especially someone who started in the late 70s, doing what was then the main thing patchwork-wise in the UK - piecing over papers. She also had some of her more recent quilts with her, so we got to see lots of her work. She's an amazingly talented machine quilter.

The afternoon talk was by Barbara Weeks, whose work I'd seen recently at Hever Quilt Show and liked very much. Her talk was on "Instant Colour" and as it was largely about dyeing with either Procion dyes or steam-fixed silk dyes (not a technique I've tried, but I know the theory) I didn't learn much per se, but she also talked about her own work and brought lots of quilts to look at and hear about. And she told us of an art shop right near the British Museum, which I just might happen to visit when we go up over half term to see the Chinese Warriors. Such a hardship!



And here's what I bought from the traders. The book was actually in a box of secondhand books being sold for £1 to support the new Guild Resource Centre in York (or something like that). Not that I have a lot of interest in minature quilts, but there are a few in here with very interesting techniques, like a paper quilt and one stitched with a double needle - for £1, it was well worth it. Also in the left picture are some cross-stitch patterns (small, acheiveable ones), some cards, and a paper-piecing pattern, which I might give as a gift, with the fabrics to make the hanging up. On the right, fabric. A few things which I actually needed - some black on blacks, some orientals, both for blocks for the birthday block swap, but mainly just fabric I liked. A few beads and bits, as well. I discovered the other day while working on the back of the beaded doll (yes, I'm still working on the back) that I have almost no black beads. Yikes! That's remedied now.

Anyway, in all, it was a lovely, peaceful day, with lots of grownup conversation. Following on from a dinner at friends' last night, for which we got a babysitter in for the kids, you might think I was actually a proper grownup! (But you'd probably be mistaken, lol)

Longarmer bonanza

So, here are the photos of the two quilts I got back from the longarmer yesterday - the first one (top) is blocks from a Chinese coins swap, and has been quilted with a big fern meander - just adds texture, really, as the top is quite busy in itself.

The second is a very old quilt top - I think this might be about the 3rd or 4th top I made - or maybe not quite as old as that, but it's certainly been around fora very long time, the centre of it, anyway. The borders may have gone on a few years later. Anyway, I love this apple panto on it - really makes it feel lovely and autumnal. I think this one might go on my bed - it has a nice feel to it, and the dense quilting certainly helps with the places where it was a bit puffy.

Fish out of water

Because of course I need more challenges in my life (not) I couldn't resist this new one - Fluffy Fatbottom's Twisted Tuesdays. I mean, how could I resist something called Fluffy Flatbottom? The idea is a postcard sized piece of work with "off the wall, different and sometimes twisted challenges" each week. Sounds good to me. You can work in any media, so being me, mine is fabric based, though I thought with these, I'd do a little more collage, etc. with paper and mixed media. I have lots of bits of paper and images I have been collecting, so a chance to use some of them would be nice.





This week, the theme was "a fish out of water" and the brief was to have a fish doing "something totally different than swimming comfortably in water". As I was rummaging for some imges of fish I just got from Artchix, I came across some gold German scrap wings (also from Artchix) and suddenly, knew what my fish would be doing. Today, the idea of the nest with baby fish waiting to be fed came to me, so I added that. Ta da! This was fun and very quick to assemble - I think with these it will often be the case of an idea percolating for a day or two in your brain before the idea is put down on a card. Anyway - do join in, if you are into this kind of stuff - it promises to be great fun.



Still felt like doing small things today (am procrastinating quilting that baby quilt - bad me) so I did some inchies for a swap I found while bloghopping last night. This is a monthly inchie swap, with a given theme - you make 9 (0r more), send in 8, and get 8 random ones in return. The theme this month was black & orange, so I've done a dozen black and orange inchies (the number being determined entirely by my pulling out a spare scrap of vilene and finding it was 6x2). One of them has something Hallowe'eny on it (the bat) but for the rest, I have resisted, despite having an entire set of Hallowe'en themed confetti - pumpkins, bats, black cats, and two other things, I forget what.

Also finished up the Autumn Colours postcards, though they won't go in the post until Wednesday, as there is a postal strike until then. Grr. With these, I didn't do the standard satin stitch edging, but decided to do a straight stitch around the outside of the cards, and then dip the edges of the cards into paint to finish. A fun technique, makes a nice change.


And here are the last of my postal treasures until at LEAST Wednesday, possibly longer (they "can't promise" service will resume normally after the strike. Did I say Grr already?). Anyway, these two are: left - a poppy from Anne R for the 1910s swap ("In Flanders fields the poppies blow" - the poppy is the symbol of lives lost during WWI). And on the right, a recycle card from Flischa, who has used bits left over or discarded from other projects to produce this lovely blue and gold piece. I think I'm going to go through postcard withdrawal!

I also had two quilts back from my friend Lana, the longarmer - one was a practice quilt for her to play about with her new Intelliquilter on, one was something she's had for ages, which finally came out to be quilted - I'll show them tomorrow, as I will be at school all day working in the library, etc and then there's a disco and then we are going out in the evening, so there will be absolutely no chance of sewing and I'll need something to show (and of course, there won't be any post tomorrow because of the strike - did I mention there's a big postal strike? Grr!)

Inchies - and postcards - and comments

You all probably know by now that I'm a little obsessive about some things. When I discovered the Inching Artists Challenge, it was in week 3 of the challenge. I knew all along that I would not be able to resist going back to do the first two weeks' worth of challenge (especially as I liked both themes). Had it been 6 months into it, that would have been a different story, but two weeks would have bothered me for the rest of - well, a long time. So today, I felt like inching anyway, and hadn't yet decided what I will do for the current week's challenge (Rust), so I went back and tackled week 2: Under the Sea and week 1: spirals. I think DD2, Olivia, has her eye on the mermaid. Plus she loves dolphins. So I think I might know where those are going. She has a birthday coming up anyway, so I might do something fun with them for her...


And then I finished up my leaves cards - actually, I did them concurrently, really, as edging postcards is kind of boring. Though this time, I did them a little differently from my usual thick satin stitch, as I thought that might overwhelm them a little. Originally, the idea was to go around with a wider zigzag in a couple of different colours, but after the first time around, I was really pleased with them, so left them. You'll notice I stamped the back with some leaves as well - was trying to work out how to get those stamps in, as well, and decided they were pale enough to go on the back...


And finally, a quick note about blogging and comments. Those of you who have been hanging out here a while know that I love comments and I love responding to them. I don't respond to every comment, though I do tend to respond to most of the ones that I can - the main exception might be if someone leaves me several comments in one day, I might not reply individually to all of them...but on the whole, I like to respond. However, a lot of comments, while not "anonymous" in the sense that they have no name on them, come through with no return email address (it shows as noreply-comment@blogger.com). Sometimes, I know who you are anyway, and have your email address from another source (like if we are on one of the same lists); sometimes you might have a blog, so I can go leave a reply there, if a reply is in order. But sometimes, there's just no way to get in touch. So, if you leave comments and I never respond, this might be why! If you don't mind that you don't hear back, then don't worry, but if you are someone who comments regularly and would like me to reply to you, you can either email me directly, off my blog, at katelnorth at yahoo dot com (convert that as appropriate) or you can leave your email address in a similarly safe fashion in your comment. I'm getting more comments these days than I used to, so it's beginning to take a little longer to respond - but don't let that stop you commenting, I do love to hear from you - after all, part of the reason I blog is to share my experiences with the blogworld...

Sawtooth Stars - and more

It's funny how things work out sometimes, isn't it. I had an itching to do some piecing today, and could have done some block for the birthday block swap, but wasn't really inspired. I was going to suppress the urge, then I remembered it was time for the next block lotto on about.com - and there you go - perfect for what I was looking for. Batiks, which are among my favourite fabrics; sawtooth stars, which are simple and blocks which I am not obliged to do anything with, as they are going into a lotto. I made 8 (they are 8" blocks).







Before I did the stars, I did do some more work on the leaf postcards - finished attaching the skeleton leaves to the fabric & vilene. They will all have a selection of leaf sequins and plastic leaf thingies (that's the technical term) attached as well, but that's handwork, so after doing one as a tester, I set that aside to do tonight watching telly. They are bright, but I like them...



On the right here is a sunflower card (brief moment of panic - did I unwittingly sign up for a sunflower swap?) which is from Myra - it's a sympathy postcard - and if the intent is to cheer, it certainly does. Lovely card, Myra, thanks again.




Another card I received today is this fabulous sunset tree, from Audrey. The sunset cards are really spectacular - I'm enjoying them a lot. It will be hard to see them put away from display when something else arrives. I think quite a few of them will make it into the wallhanging in the living room, at least until Christmas decorations come out - which, despite my giveaway yesterday, won't be until the beginning of December, at least (the advent calendars come out 30th November, other stuff in the week or two following that).

Ran out this afternoon to do some errands, including finding new welly boots for Sarah, who has outgrown last year's (and now that it's October, it's decided to rain constantly, so it's welly-boot season again) and of course ended up in two of my favourite places for stuff - Woolworths (where, admittedly, I did legitimately look for (and buy) wellies) and Tudor Williams' haberdashery department (no real excuse, though I did need a few more eyelets and wondered idly if they sold them).

So, of course I bought stuff. In Woolworths, I found the notebook on the right - not sure you can tell - it's got a rainbow of unlined paper inside, plain black cover. I'm going to embellish the cover for Olivia's birthday, hence the dolphins, which she is very into at the moment. I think I have a dolphin hole-punch somewhere; must try to find that...

At left is what I bought from TW (plus the dolphins) - mostly from the sale bins - some sticky ribbon, an alphabet, some skeleton leaves in various colours, some Christmas paper in "contemporary colours" (i.e. pink, purple and blue) and lo and behold - the eyelets, which they had a quite remarkable selection of. I swear that department is a Tardis - and there's more in there every time I go in. Today there was a new display of embossing powders and a whole second display of Dylon dyes & paints. Danger, danger!

A little bit - or several

So, here's today's offerings. Only a tiny bit of work (and I mean that literally) - these four inchies are for the Inching Artists challenge, which this week was "mirror, mirror" - with the instruction to show what you see when you look in the mirror. Resisting temptation to take the easy road of just using a photo of myself, here's what I've come up with. The first inchie is simply a mirror, so when I look at it, I do see myself. The second is some watch gears, which symbolise how busy I am and how time is important in my life and I wish I had more of it. The third (bottom left) is a kind of mother and child image; the last is a tangle of fibres sewn down, which is there to represent how important fibre arts are to my life. So, there you go. Can we please have something easy next week like "Blue" or "Underwater" or something :)

The rest of today's offerings are just things received in the post - a postcard for the leaves theme from Joan; an issue of Selvedge, which I acquired from Carina, who was trying to thin down her collection of stuff a bit; and a selection of goodies from Artchix, where I am taking advantage of exchange rates to stock up on stuff. Most of that stuff is just stuff to have, though I do have plans for the flappers...

Christmassy Monday giveaway...

Anyone feel like Christmas yet? I've been avoiding the sections of the big shops that already have Christmas stuff in them as I can't bear the thought quite yet, but I guess if one is going to make a project for Christmas a bit of lead time is in order...

Anyway, this week's giveaway is this lovely set of 8, twelve inch Christmas stars, left from a swap. There is nothing wrong with them, indeed, they are very pretty; but they are not my Christmas colours (and I have some of the same blocks, only in colours I prefer, which I will eventually do something with). I had thought originally to make something for my MIL with these, but then I won a set of basket blocks which she will like even better, so decided to pass these along.

As usual, to have a chance to win these blocks, simply leave a comment on this message before Sunday. Oh, and Merry Christmas...

Edited to say, Susan asked about the pattern for this block - I can't respond directly as it was an anonymous post, but you can find the block here, on quilt.com if you want to make your own - it's very pretty...