Brown Pineapple

...not something which would normally sound appealing, perhaps, but in this instance, I might make an exception. I had a few hours this afternoon where the kids just wanted to play the new DS game and watch a DVD, so after having a look at my list of February projects and goals I decided I'd tackle some quilting on the pineapple quilt. This is not a project I can do when I only have a short amount of time, because it requires me to move my sewing machine to the dining room table (I can do small quilts upstairs at my machine, but nothing bigger than a baby quilt - just not enough room on the table). Likewise, it's not something I can do when the dining room table is being used for crafts or homework or eating...

Anyway, without spending too much time thinking about how to quilt it, I started in - went with a meander with spirals and suns, in brown thread. I did consider pink, but decided it was too in-your-face. Debated a darkish red, but in the end, though the brown was really what I wanted as the pattern of the pineapple is striking enough that I don't need to add really showy quilting to it. I finished about half of it, maybe a little less, which is a really good start on it. We are around tomorrow for at least the morning, so I might give it another crack and see how far I get.

I don't really want to quilt up all my larger tops on the DSM, but there are a few which it would be nice to get done, including this one.

Lots of post

I received lots of lovely post today, which was a very welcome sight after a day spent in our local market town helping the kids spend their Christmas and birthday money (well, only Alex had birthday money, as the girls' birthdays are in Sept/Oct). It was a nice day, though rather tiring, and I didn't even manage a visit to my lovely local bead shop to compensate - decided it was a bit much with three kids in tow, even with my mother along for the ride.


Anyway, one of the items I received was this, which is Emmy's Exquisite Corpse piece. Obviously, you can't see any of it, as that's the point - there is actually a half inch showing, so that I can try to integrate my work with hers, but I have covered it for the sake of this photo. Emmy has also included an ATC for my collection and a notebook for those of us who are working on the piece to make any notes we wish to. I don't know what I'll do with this piece yet - and of course I won't be able to show you when I do work on it, but there you go...

Anyway, I got some other post as well, which I CAN show - two postcards for the Valentine Shaker swap, which have arrived just in time to be displayed with the rest of the Valentine's cards, before I change the postcard display to something a bit more spring-like - flowers, I think. These two cards are from Liz and Dawn.



And also, I received these items: on the left, a heart-themed tin from Flischa from the FAT trade; on the right, two ATCs from another trade on FAT - the For the Birds ATC swap. These two are from Suzanne and Michelle.

Tomorrow will be another no-sew day - we are going up to town with some friends for a half-term day outing. But on Thursday I have hopes of some sewing time before the promised swimming trip - not sure which part of my life is busier - the normal day to day busy-ness or the half-term "holiday".

Oh, and here's another fun thing - a while back, I sent a bunch of my small scraps to Betty, who was working on a project using 1" squares (unfinished) - well, she's now finished this quilt top, and it's truly remarkable - personally, I can't imagine having the patience for it, but it's definitely impressive -have a look.

Alice, birds, round robin

Here are some lovelies I got in the post today - on the left, the ATCs I received from the Alice in Wonderland trade on Creative Swaps. The cards are from (top row) my own, Frieda Oxenham, Linda Garcia; (middle) Sharon Walworth, Betty Cassidy, Darlene Kihne; (bottom) Jan Williams, Lynda Roddy, Shannon Lane Sawyer. They are all wonderful, as are the other cards I saw on the swap blog. I'm very pleased I participated in this swap, which I almost didn't sign up to because of the requirement of using images from Alpha Stamps' Alice collections. (Nothing against Alpha Stamps - indeed, the opposite - but I am trying to moderate somewhat the amount of stuff I order, so am limiting the number of swaps which require specific image sets.) But actually, it was well worth it, as look at the extra goodies I got returned with my swap - I got three image sheets on paper and a fabric transfer sheet AND I got a package of fabrics. All the swap participants got one or more image sheets from Alpha Stamps; the rest of the loot is from Lenna (the hostess), as a prize for her choosing my set of ATCs as a special honourable mention in the "most creative" contest. How cool is that?

If you are thinking of dipping your toes into the swap world and aren't quite sure where to start, you could do a lot worse than sign up to one of Lenna's swaps - not only are they incredibly well-organised and very prompt in their turn-around, but she puts a lot of work into thinking of interesting themes and ideas and always seems to include some sort of extra goodies in with the swapped items. Plus, she's really nice!

I did do some work this morning while the girls slept in a bit (having stayed up quite late with a friend sleeping over - it's the half-term holiday here, so no school this week - they were pretty quiet, so I didn't mind the staying up late so much!), but unfortunately, I can't show it to you, as it's the centre for my Spring Fling Round Robin 3 - we are making our own centres for this round, so in order to keep them secret from the next maker, we are not allowed to show them at all, not even a peek. When Margaret (the hostess) receives them, she will post them to the swap blog so we can all see them, without knowing whose is whose.

I can, however, show a little progress on my cross-stitch. Not a lot of progress, as I didn't work on it much this week - this is not simply because it's been boring me a little, but because I have done some beading on my 4SQS5 (blue winter) mini and done bindings on a couple of small pieces, so haven't had so much time for cross-stitching. Still, I managed to finish off Nebraska (Western Meadowlark) and do most of Nevada (Mountain Bluebird). Once I get him finished, I am going to start on the little house sampler for Cathi. Which I will enjoy much more, I'm sure.

Finished littles

Finally got the binding on these and sewn down tonight, so I can tick them off the list of projects. The one on the right (which I think of as "the red one" because it has a lot more red in it) will go home with my mother to live, as a birthday present (her birthday is early March). The other will stay here to live. These are 12" square, so even with my restrictions on wall-space I should be able to find a little place for it!

ATC Day

Today I made a load of ATCs - several of them to catch up with challenges on Textile Challenges, and others just for fun. The first one (above left) was for week 2 of our February challenge on Textile Challenges - we were to go to a room we don't normally work in, grab an object to use, then find 4 more items to use on the card, and make the card, with a 15 minute time limit. From my bedroom, I grabbed a small (defunct) coin from a box DH keeps in his dresser drawer, then grabbed a piece of background fabric, a ribbon and a buckle from my sewing table and assembled them. When I finished, I realised that I can't count, and grabbed the packet of "jewels" which form the line across the top. It took me 17 minutes, including a brief phone call and a short interruption to find all the newly washed fabric for my mother to iron (she offered). It's not my favourite of all the ATCs I've ever made, but it's ok, and again, an excellent exercise in not overthinking things.


Then I tackled week 3 of the challenge, which had no restrictions on it other than to keep an eye on how much time it took you. I decided to combine this with the colour combination lottery, in which my assigned colours were burnt umber and teal, so made two cards with that colour theme. I started with the background fabric which is a slightly reddish brown, and added teal and reddish brown wool fibres -I was originally intended to hand needle-felt them, but couldn't lay my hands on the needle bit of the needle-felter, so just decided not to waste any more time on that and stitched them down using some invisible thread. I then added some copper foil, which I'd punched with my new big punches (on half price sale, though still a little dear, so I intend to use them a LOT to get my money's worth!). Then I added some stitching in teal coloured rayon thread (nice and shiny) and some faces in teal polymer clay. These two ATCs took me about half an hour, including at least 4 minutes wasted on a background which really didn't work and has been stuck into the "do something else with later" basket. I really like these, and if I'd had more copper foil to hand I'd have made at least 2 or 3 more.





After I'd discharged those obligations, my mother and I decided to have a play - she had asked if she could watch me make some ATCs (which she certainly is welcome to do) but I suggested instead that we simply make some in parallel. However, as she's not really into sewing, we used mostly paper and glue with a bit of stitching thrown in. These (mine left, hers right) are done on a rusted paper background, with ribbons, paper, punched paper, polymer clay, beads, brads, buttons, bows, jewels and so on. We had good fun with them and now she has her first set of ATCs. I always find it interesting to see what happens when two people use the same set of ingredients - whether their end results are similar or (more usually) quite different.

Bits and bentos

I did do some more work today - finished the rest of the bento boxes - 12 more, in a bit more girly colours - but I haven't photographed them - and am too lazy to do it now. Maybe later! But I have two nice things I got in the post, which I can show - on the left is my first ATC from the For the Birds swap on FAT (Fibre Art Traders) - mine went in the post this morning, so they hopefully won't be too long on their way to their new homes. This birdie is from Liz in Maryland - isn't he cute? The postcard is from Sharon for the swap called Angelina Fibres - it's late, but that's ok - it's a great card - of course it doesn't photograph well at all, as these shiny postcards with lots of funky fibres often don't.





I also put some binding on the two Japanese Taupe string mini quilts for the February BQL Challenge - tonight I will sew the binding down and then show it tomorrow.






Finally, these postcards aren't new - they are four spare ones I had knocking around which I have donated to Trashalou, for her raffle in aid of victims of the Australian Bush Fires. There are TONS of great prizes you can win - the way it works is, you make a donation to the Australian Red Cross via their website, then let Trash know how much you have donated and for every Australian dollar you donate, you get one chance in the raffle. Check out her blog for more info. I don't think my cards have been added to her list yet, but I'm sure they will be soon - and there are loads of other wonderful things that people have donated. So if you want to do something to help out in this terrible time, but don't really fancy making quilt blocks, or toys, or don't have time, here's another chance to help out.

Goodies

Didn't do any work today as it's Friday (I usually spend the whole day at school) but I did receive several nice things in the post - the ATC on the left came from Heather, who is doing a talk about ATCs and needed some more examples beyond her own to share with her group - she asked on one of my groups if anyone was willing to swap, so I was happy to send her one of my spares.

On the right, is a selection of goodies from Sara in Kuwait, who received some of my abandoned blocks a little while back - these are great goodies - some fabric, some bits and pieces from the souk (my favourite), an ATC, and a lovely little notepad case (with a slip in notepad, so it will be reusable. I had to hide that away from both of my girls quite quickly...

Tomorrow, there may be actual work to show - woohoo.

A new round robin

I'm very lucky in that I have been able to join in a new round robin, mostly composed of people in the US - this is a project organised by Sharon, and it's for a small quilt - finished size somewhere around 13x18" - where each person adds a piece of a particular size & shape or to some other instruction. But as it's a very small project, the amount of work you do each month, even if your addition is quite complex, which it often may not be, is minimal. Here are the quilts from the previous round - aren't they great? - as well as a description of how it works. I saw them a while back when Toni posted hers on her blog and admired them (and the idea, which is based on a May Britt idea) then. When a new round opened up and new players were being taken, I jumped at the chance. Luckily, several of the previous players, such as Toni and Julie, could vouch for me and I was allowed in - hurrah!

I will have to make a 4" starting block for mid-May, when the whole thing kicks off - lots of time to think about what direction I want to go in with this piece. Probably too much time to think about it, really - but that's ok, I have a number of things to sort out first. It's a long term committment - 15 months - but I love that each installment is such a small section or item - it will mean one can do something fairly elaborate if it suits the quilt without it taking too much time to be practical. Sometimes, of course, a very simple piece may well suit instead, which is also useful in terms of time management. One can only hope that the pieces demanding simple rounds will coincide with the busiest months!

Although it's yet another project I can't show in total, I will be able to show you my own starting square and then give teases as I go along. As we are all showing our starting squares to one another beforehand, I can also show the starting square of each piece I receive. I won't be able to show much else each month, though. Sorry about that...

All kinds of goodies

Spent the morning in the car, to and from the airport to collect my mother, who has come for a 3 week visit. She brought with her loads of lovely things for me, which I shall show below, but first, a couple of recent arrivals for Alex (birthday last week) - first, this cute little (about 12x14") panda quilt (he being obsessed with pandas), which came to him from Cathi - the panda is from a colouring book, aparently - he adores it, but not QUITE as much as this great shirt, which came from "Toby and Jack" - though we all know it was more likely their mummy who was responsible - he said, on opening it "this is like the best present ever". I think he was happy with it - thanks so much, Karol Ann. And thanks, too, for the photo, which I nicked from your blog - I had hoped to get a photo of said child wearing the shirt, but it hasn't happened yet - though I'm sure it will be the shirt of choice on the weekend, once school uniform is no longer required!





In addition to all the stuff that my mother brings without any prompting on my part, I do also sometimes use her as a courier for things from the US - for instance for swaps, or to save postage costs. This little quilt on the left above is from the Twisted Mystery 4 on the quiltshoppe forum and I had it sent to my mom's house because the first time I played in the TM, my quilt went astray (the one to me, not from me). I've had lots of things safely sent and received since then, but I hate to take the chance. Anyway, this quilt came to me this time (my fabrics, at least mostly) - you may remember the Hallowe'en quilt I made for my partner in this swap - who turned out to be Colene, who I "know" - which was fun. Actually, I might never have shown this quilt, as I wasn't allowed to do so at the time, and who knows if I ever remembered to do so - I don't see a photo of it on the blog, in a quick look - anyway, Colene blogged it here, so if you are interested, you can have a peep. Genny & Mary (who are mother and daughter and worked on their Twisted Mysteries together) did a great job on this quilt for me, which used a particularly challenging feature fabric - which is why I'd never managed to do anything with it yet! It also features log cabin blocks, which are a firm favourite, though they couldn't have known that as they didn't know who they were making for!


On the right, is a great piece of oriental fabric from LisaJo, who sent it as a thank you for the string square blocks I sent her. Not sure what I will do with it yet, but I do love it.




And here is some more fabric - for this, I have my mother and her local JoAnn's to thank - actually, it's not her local anymore, as it shut, and it was never a great branch - there's a much better one a bit further away - but when it was going out of business it had fabric and notions for some stupid prices, so she went and bought some for me. My mother is every quilter's dream mother - she loves fabric, loves to buy it, but doesn't sew. So guess who gets the fabric?! The pieces on the left are quite large as they were really cheap ($2/yd or something like that) but you had to buy 2 yards, minimum. On the right, fat quarters.

And below, on the left, some notions from the JoAnn's closing sale, along with a bag of buttons from a yard sale/flea market, some handkerchiefs from the same, and a gorgeous piece of heavier red fabric with dragonflies on it - not sure what I will do with that, but something, for sure.


And finally, on the right, some fabric I ordered from eQuilter with a voucher Cathi gave me for my birthday. I waited until they had their big sale and made my money really go a long way - all this fabric was something like $4/yard. Aah, fabric. Always nice to perk up the stash a little. Now if only there were somewhere you could go to order more time for sewing in!




Won't have any work to show for another day or two, though I do hope to get some done this weekend. I have been adding beads to the little blue and white winter quilt, which is now bound, so might have that to show in the next few days. But that's about all for now...

A quick mention...

Elizabeth is giving away a fab padded heart over on her blog - as much as I'd like to encourage you all to stay away and NOT sign up to her giveaway so I have a greater chance of winning, I can't really do that, so do be sure to go check it out!

Cross stitch Monday

No sign of the birds this week (actually, it's a fortnight's worth of update as I didn't post my cross-stitch last week - I had actual sewing to show because of the snow days) as I have been finishing up this heart - decided I'd like to have it finished before Valentine's Day so I could enjoy it seasonally. And yes, I'm putting off going back to the birds. But next cross-stitch back out of the box will be the birds. Of course, I have several things that want binding (though it's not attached yet, so it may be a little while) and the winter blue & white mini quilt wants loads of beads, so that may be the bulk of the hand-work this week.

I did actually pop into my local haberdashery shop today, but as what I bought was 3 metres of bondaweb (I should really buy it by the box - I go through that stuff like my kids go through cereal) and two spools of orange thread (which means I can send my Ostrich off to Anne later this week - woo hoo), I thought I'd spare you the photo.

Bento Boxes

There has been quite a bit of discussion on one of my yahoo groups (BQL - British Quilting List) - about Bento Box quilt blocks (aka quarter log cabin), and being me, I have been itching to make some. But I don't really need more blocks or more unfinished projects, so I was resisting. Today, however, it occurred to me that I need to have several 12" blocks to send to Margaret along with my centre for the Spring Fling Round Robin 3 (in lieu of postage payment), so I could satisfy my urge to piece without actually creating more blocks for myself. Almost. I grabbed my shoebox full of 2.5" strips and went to work - I created 12 (four shown above left), 12" blocks suitable for use in boy quilts for Project Linus (this is what Margaret will be using her blocks for) and have also started on some girl ones - admittedly, I only needed to produce two 12" blocks, but I know she'll be happy of extras - and she does a lot of work hostessing this swap and others, so I thought a little extra wouldn't go amiss.


I also made four (or rather, they will be four once the quarters are joined) for myself from some strips I forgot I had - they came in with my Christmas Booty Quilt from Toni as part of the packaging and though I love these retro prints, there weren't really enough to do much with - in fact, I have added 4 strips of an Amy Butler fabric which is not the same range, but just about matches enough to work. This piece, I will keep for myself, I think - unless an occasion comes up which demands it, of course.


While doing all this (and several loads of laundry, which seems to be my main function in life most of the time!) I also managed to pin baste the brown pineapple quilt - hoorah! - the last of my Janaury goals can be struck off the list - not bad, considering I didn't make the trip out to get the batting until the 31st of January. Of course, my mother arrives Wednesday and then it's half-term the week after, so my free time for sewing in February is going to rapidly diminish. Might be able to squeeze one or two things in, but frankly, it's a good thing I got a lot of them done in early February.

A few bits

Not much to show today as I was at school this morning helping in the library and then at work this afternoon, so no sewing today (still, can't complain - it's been a very productive working week). But these bits of loveliness arrived the post yesterday - a padded heart from Annette for the Textile Challenges swap and two ATCs back from the swap with Cyber Fyber - these came from Kaite (who is in the Exquisite Corpse with me) and Paula. And now, to bed!

A little spare time

Not much, as I was busy baking a cake this morning, but while it was in the oven, I did manage to get these two quilted - they are only 12" square, so it didn't take long. Both are done with hearts with the background filled in around the hearts - on the red one (left) I did the hearts and the fill both as I went along; on the right hand one, I did columns of hearts on a string first, then went back and filled. I think both methods work ok, frankly. Not sure why hearts - I guess because it's February and everything seems Valentine-y at the moment.





And here is the triptych piece - it wasn't done today, but I did finish stitching the binding and sleeves last night, so it's ready to show properly. I hope the new owner (can't think who my swap partner is - will have to look it up again) likes them.

Back to school...

Finished up the dresser runner today in another unexpected bit of time at home - mostly on Wednesday mornings I've been going swimming with some friends, but we didn't go today for various reasons, so I snatched a little more sewing time before heading to work (school back today, which means work today for me, though I spent most of it outside in the snow, first at lunchtime with big kids and then in the nursery with little kids. Fun was had by all.) So I finished this first - only took about half an hour as it was in rows already. It's not that big - the squares are only 4", so the overall size is about 20"x60" or so. It will cover the full depth of the dresser, but will hang over the sides at each end.

And then, as I still had an hour or so, I pulled out this baby quilt which I'd handily pinned earlier, and did a quick allover double loop meander on it. Not very inspired, but it works. And the quilt blocks are great for a baby quilt - an instance of a set of swap blocks that really works. Even the one block with a rather light navy blue doesn't look too out of place...

Snow Day, Mark 2

Another snow day today - back to normal tomorrow, though. But in the meantime, I spent a good part of the day sewing (though we did go out to collect a friend of Sarah's and get some donuts from Krispy Kreme - these two things are often connected, as Jess lives just up the road from the Krispy Kreme shop) and the kids mucked about outside playing snow games, having snowball fights and so on. But by the end of the day, they were getting a bit fractious, so it's good they'll be back to school tomorrow.

Today I worked on two different projects, both involving Japanese taupe type fabrics - both authentic taupes and some fabrics which aren't really, but look it, which is good enough for me. On the left is my dresser runner, whichI have been in the process of making for a long time, but which had kind of stalled. Today I finished the last dozen or so blocks and started putting them together - here, they are in twos and threes, so it's getting there. Might get it finished tomorrow morning.

On the right is the February challenge for BQL - sort of. I used the same sort of string pieced triangle blocks but have made mine smaller and put them together in a different kind of configuration. And yes, there are two, I know. Originally, I had planned to put them together differently and make a larger hanging, but as I was playing around with them, I decided I liked this arrangement better. Even if it did mean two. One I shall keep for myself, the other will be made up as a present for someone, so it won't go to waste. Not that they are quilted yet, of course, but at 12" square, that shouldn't take long.

Snow Day = Sew Day

As those of you who live in the UK will be aware, we had some serious snow (for London) today and school was therefore closed. This was thrilling to the kids (and fun for the grownups, too) and it also meant that although I did have a brief (but at an hour and half, not quite brief enough - brr) trip to the park this morning, I got to spend most of the day at home, indoors. I didn't even have to deal with three children demanding things, as after we were at the park, my girls went to a neighbour's house - their friend Dasha, who is in the same year of school as Sarah, but at a different (private) school. The three of them had a great time, building a snow fort in the back garden (a suggestion from Dasha's mother, who used to do it as a kid - in Russia, so there was admittedly a bit more snow!) , watching movies, and various other things. Tania fed them both lunch and supper, so I had a lovely quiet afternoon with Alex - who played on the computer for much of the time as there was no competition... Needless to say, I sewed.

I did some work this morning - quilted the winter mini quilt. There was a suggestion that I use silver thread, and I'm sure that would look great, but I almost always have trouble with metallics when doing FMQ, plus I wanted to quilt it TODAY and didn't have any silver - and with the weather, well, it just wasn't going to happen. I have quilted it in white, with lots of swirls, both top and bottom, and it works fine. I am going to finish binding it (it looks a bit wonky above - that's because the binding isn't yet sewn down on the back - I just pinned it back to show the piece better - that, plus it's laid out artfully in the snow on my patio, so it's not sitting flat), then I think add a load of beads in blue and white (and perhaps silver, if I have any).

This afternoon, I quilted the triptych panels - it may be hard to tell from the photo but I quilted them very close side by side, and the quilting pattern overlaps from the edge of the side panels into the edge of the centre. The quilting design in the side panels is the same as the centre, but with a different orientation - i.e. sideways rather than up and down. Once again, the binding is only pinned back, rather than sewed down.

If you are interested in our weather, there are lots of photos over on my family blog and flickr album...

Oh, and although it's not stopped snowing, school is also closed tomorrow, so I have more time to look forward to - not bad considering I normally get nothing done on Monday at all, and not a lot more than that on a Tuesday.

Pyjama Day

Geoff went off early this morning to Spain (for work) so the kids and I decided to have a do-nothing day - or rather, they did nothing (meaning watching telly & playing on the computer - though Olivia & Sarah did get bored at one point and decided to make a Roman chariot out of a shoebox) and I did lots.


This afternoon, I did the above piece, which is for the Four Seasons Quilt Swap 5: Monochrome. You can probably guess that the person I am sending to specified blue and winter... We are allowed to add white and/or black to the one colour; I have obviously gone for white. I will trim the piece square after I quilt it - no point doing it before that. I think I will quilt it in white, but not quite sure just how, yet.





This morning, I did two sets of postcards - one for the "Z is for" swap - I chose zig zags and decided to make the piece as a single unit and then divide it into four - here it is (above) both as a single piece and then as four. This is the last of the alphabet swaps I will be doing - I joined when they were on G, and although I was very tempted to go back and catch up with the beginning of the alphabet when it cycles around again (and had originally intended to) I have now decided not to, as I am moving away from swapping quite so many cards and only joining in swaps which particularly interest me.


These other four cards at left fall into the latter category - I have never done a shaker card before, so when I saw the swap come up I decided I'd give it a try - and as I have a small collection of Valentine's themed cards, which I have displayed in my postcard holder at the moment, a few more will make a nice addition...