Fundraising/Raffle

A few years ago, you may recall that I ran (walked) the Race for Life with a group of colleagues from work. My girls are both very interested in doing this walk as well (5K) and though we didn't get ourselves organised to do it last year, we managed to sort it out in time for this year, so Olivia, Sarah and I are all walking the fundraising walk in the end of June. Obviously, we'd like to raise some funds!  So, I have created a fundraising page and of course it goes without saying that this is a worthy cause (raises money for cancer research), and I would be very grateful to anyone who felt compelled to give, even if only a few pounds (or dollars, or whatever - you can give in any currency). 

However, as before, I have decided that as a further incentive (perhaps) to donating, I will  have a little giveaway to go with the fundraising. This top (above), which isn't quite finished yet, is a Christmassy (or at least wintery), paper-pieced scene and I'm going to quilt and finish it and offer it as a prize, to someone who has donated to my fundraising efforts - it will work kind of like a raffle. Virtual raffle tickets will cost £5; for each £5 you donate, you will get one chance in the draw for this little quilt (I think it's about 12"x18"). I promise to have it finished and sent to the winner by the end of July (the Race for Life date is end of June).  You are of course also welcome to give without being enterred in the draw, if you don't want this piece!

Our sponsorship page is right here!  

Please feel free to spread the word - I will gladly enter anyone at all into the draw, whether they are regular readers here or not, and if anyone is unable to give online through the Just Giving page, I am also happy to take cash or cheques in pounds or US dollars (ask me about a cheque in dollars - we can work it through my mother, who lives in the US) or cash in euros. Most people these days, I think, can probably give online, but just in case, I don't want anyone to feel left out. 

Sneak Peek

One project which I worked on earlier this week, I can't yet show - it's my second round addition on the Cotton Robin.  This piece was very different from the first one I worked on and it took me a while to decide how to approach it.   I'm pleased with how it came out, though, and here are a couple of tiny sneak peeks at what I've done - they really don't give much away....

ABC ATC's: S, T, U

A few more cards from my alphabet series - nearly at the end of the alphabet. 

A few V&A textiles...

A trip to the V&A always includes some interesting textiles, and our visit on Tuesday was no exception. We went up specifically to see the David Bowie exhibition, but of course had some time for other poking around.  My favourite textile find this time was these embroidered panels (I only photographed a few), which I'd never seen before, or never fully noticed, anyway, and which I love.  The story behind them is below...

There were a number of small embroideries as well, though many were hard to photograph as they were all behind glass and often in darkish rooms - this one came out nicely, though. 

These were part of a garment...

...and some other bits and pieces. As I said, always some lovely things to discover!

Cross-stitch update

Nearly finished now - and yes, I'm tired of it. I can't decide if I want to keep stitching because it's nearly done (but probably two more weeks of it - the snowflake border took longer than I thought it would on the other end) or just put it aside until winter and start something else - the weather is finally getting a little better, and I'm tired of wintery things.  I guess I'll decide next Wednesday. In the meantime, back to the new sampler...

Amish Table Runner finished

Just barely remembered to take a photo of this before it heads off to Germany tomorrow with Geoff - it's a little piece, 15" or so wide, by about 40" long - just right for a table decoration or a small wallhanging. Good thing I have some small pieces in my stash waiting to be quilted up, as I do sometimes get asked for things a bit last minute!

Purple, Blue and Grey Nine-Patch

So, having a little time to sew today, I worked on finishing off the scrappy blue and purple nine patch - I think this came out well. And thanks to my determination to sew up the rows as I went along, I don't have a big pile of blocks waiting for me to put them together. I have plenty of other piles of blocks, mind you, but not these particular ones.  Think I might send this one back to the US with my mother to go to Sarah's Quilt Ministry. It's a bit big for Project Linus...

Low Volume Hearts

No sewing today, as we had friends around for lunch & the afternoon, but I did get a chance to take photo of the low-volume heart blocks I won recently in the block lotto.  Having recently finished a quilt or two from previously won lotto blocks (like the Scottie Dog quilt I gave Sarah for Christmas and  the Red & White Split Four patch one I gave to Olivia's flute teacher as a wedding present) I feel less guilty at winning more blocks...

Not sure what I will do with these - there are 39 (38 officially, but one person sent me an extra block which was pieced with the strings going the wrong way, just on the off chance I could use it).  I'm not sure how I will lay these out - perhaps sashed? Perhaps will make a few more to be able to lay them out 6x7 - or perhaps I will use the "wrong" block as a label on the back and use the 38 plus four corner blocks of some other sort.  I'll have to have a think about it for a while - the only thing I'm sure of is that unlike several other lotto block wins (the red & white one, or the modern clover blocks, for example) I will NOT be setting this one on point.  Which makes my life at least a little easier.

Bright Birdie

This month, the block lotto is making bright birds against a blue background. I love this block, and it was surprisingly easy to put together - someone - I think the Lotto's hostess, the awesome Sophie - said that it actually takes longer to find and cut the fabric for the blocks than to stitch them, and that's sure true.  I only made one today because I was finishing the quilting on the Amish Table Runner (and attaching binding to it, as it needs to go to Germany on Thursday) but I will make more. Whether I will make more for the lotto itself will depend on my stash of light blue fabrics, which doesn't seem nearly as big as it used to be - this is a good thing, mind you!  Anyway, if you want to join in the bird fest, the instructions are here...

Another drawer tidied up

I forgot to take a "before" photo of this drawer, at least while it was still in the drawer, but here are the contents, tipped onto the floor, before I sorted them. As you may have guessed from the photo, this is the ribbon and trim drawer.   A lot of the pieces in this drawer I have been given by others, which means that they aren't all to my taste. I've also bought quite a few bin ends (as it were) and bits in jumble sales - you can pick up trimmmings quite cheaply if you know where to look.

After some sorting, here's what I decided I am less likely to use in future - this stuff has all actually already been given away, as I added the ribbony bits and pieces to my giveaway of sheers and shinies...

And here's the tidy drawer in the end - again, lots of space in this drawer, which is good, as the stuff will almost certainly have to move to smaller quarters eventually.

Amish style wallhanging

This little wallhanging (or table runner) will be going off with Geoff to Germany next week, if I finish it - another instance of not being given a lot of notice about a gift requirement. Luckily, I often have some small pieces hanging around waiting to be needed for something.   I'm not quilting it heavily - I've done most of the stitching I will do in the black areas; one more small black area and then I will add a little into the colours, perhaps tomorrow if I have time in the afternoon...

New Cross Stitch

Having finished part five of The Flock before my self-imposed Wednesday deadline, I had time to start a new piece swapping back to the Winter Wonderland pattern  - this is an antique sampler, the pattern for which I picked up at a big yard sale last time I was in the US (along with a few others and a lot of pieces of linen and other cross-stitch fabrics, for next to nothing). I'm not as keen on the second pattern in this samper, and won't stitch it, but I do like this one (the left hand one below).  It shouldn't take long to stitch as it's got lots of open space to it; I will also enjoy the fact that it's very different from Winter Wonderland...

Landing Bird

A terribly washed out picture, sorry - but it shows the latest bird in the The Flock installment - this one is called Landing Bird and is part 5 of 12, I think. I am impressing myself with how well I am keeping up with this - it helps that the installments are small.  I didn't photograph the whole piece this time (it needs pressing, really) but you can see that the new bird sits just to the right of the asterisk bird.  Finished on a Tuesday as well, which means time to start my new piece before I swap back to the Winter Wonderland.  But more on that tomorrow...

Little stars

Today I did some more work on the blue and purple nine patches, but the project looks more or less like it did yesterday, only with two more rows attached - not the most exciting photo to share... Instead, here are the 16 (so far) little scrappy stars, which I am currently using as enders and leaders. I had originally cut enough small pieces for 20 stars; today I cut enough for 20 more (mostly from my scrap basket). They are only 4" finished squares, so I will want lots of them - not sure how many, but I think I will be making them for approximately forever...

Blue & Purple & Grey Nine Patches

Made some more nine patches today -these with purple squares alongside the grey. For once, I decided to stitch the blocks together as I went rather than waiting until they are all done. There will be 9 rows, so there are 6 more to go, including...

lots of nine patch blocks left to make (and yes, first thing I do tomorrow will be to cut more grey squares). You can also see a little pieced part of one of my leaders-and-enders blocks (I'm still doing the little scrappy stars - I may do them until the end of time, at the rate I get through them). 

Back from the longarmer

This one came back from the longarmer the other week, and I have attached the binding, though I am still in the process of stitching it down. One more evening perhaps...

Grey and Blue 9 patches

Today I was looking for something easy to do, as my mother is here and she often comes up and chats to me while I sew. This is fine, but if it's something which requires carefully measuring or lots of counting that doesn't work well. As this is the beginning of her visit, I don't want to chase her away, I want to chat.  So, I decided that I couldn't go too far wrong with 2.5" squares. I found a piece of neutralish fabric (grey) and tackled my box of small blue scraps.  I'm going to alternate these with some purple ones, which have 5 grey and 4 purple,  so they chain. But that's a task for later. Actually, I'm not sure how many of these I made already, so I should count them and see, but I have a lot more scraps, so I can certainly keep going.

More tidying...

When I'm showing photos of my tidying up, I'm never sure whether to start with the end result (a nice tidy drawer, like the one above and a windowsill with a big empty space like the one below)

or whether to start with the "before" pictures - here's the drawer when I started

and here are the three plastic containers which were in that space in the windowsill, and which have since been emptied (one was empty already) and put away in the cupboard in the loft which has storage boxes in it. 

Several things were got rid of -  this tea box had all the bits from the sides of pieces of hand-dyed fabrics I've made  - I had been saving them because I might do something with them someday. We know how that goes!  I emptied out these bits and instead used the box for the ultra-fine glitter which was in the top of the three storage boxes above.

Not sure what this stuff was doing in that drawer in the first place - a little bag of memorabilia. I've moved it to a more appropriate place (that's my tassle from my college graduation cap - it used to be black).

These three boxes are now empty - I've put them for the time being in a boxes of storage pots which I have set aside - they may not stay there forever in the grand scheme of things, but at least there will be some small containers if I need one during the rest of my clear out.

Obviously the drawer in the top photo is nearly empty and could hold a lot more, but as the storage unit that those drawers are in will be something which goes in my grand reorganisation (it will probably be given to Alex for his stuff), the less that's in the drawers which needs to be stored elsewhere, the better.

Cross stitch update

Not a lot of progress this week, but then I've only worked on it once, I think, or maybe twice - one night I finished off the other piece, one night I went out, a couple nights I've been stitching down binding...  This week, I was going to start a new piece, but before I could do so, I received part six of my birds in the post, so that will be next. It's a fairly small section, though, so I don't imagine it will take the entire week to stitch - although, there is more binding to do, so who knows what will happen!

Giveaway winners!

Many thanks to the six people who were interested in my big pile of shiny stuff.  It's quite a big pile of shiny stuff, and I think you are all in the UK, so what I'm going to do is send some to everyone. I might also throw in some bits of ribbon and lace I am getting rid of (I haven't technically sorted out that drawer yet - it's next on the list, though) as well - between waiting for that and sorting the big pile into smaller piles, I won't be mailing stuff until some time in the Easter holidays.

So I will be in touch shortly to ask for addresses - I'm sure I have some of them.  Congratulations to Anna, Marei, Lyndsey, Marion, Wendy and Carolyn. Thanks for reading :)  And I'm sure you'll have fun.