Back to the UFO

Although most of today was spent out and about, I did spend some time yesterday evening and this evening (while watching telly) adding some beads to the UFO quilt. I didn't want too much, so the main emphasis is on the lines down the centre of the piece, with a scattering of beads to either side. At the moment, I think that's it, but you never know - it might want more later. Cobi left a comment the other day suggesting some foil and I'm going to mess around with that idea a bit - maybe test a bit on the back - as I think there are real possibilities there. Might also pull out a few other embellishments and see if anything speaks to me, but honestly, I'm not sure it wants too much more.

Then, the only thing I have to work out is how I want to bind it, and which way is up! I've been working on it with the long strip of solid salmon colour at the bottom, but I'm not sure, that might actually be the top - what do you think? I suppose I could always ask Deborah which way she intended the piece to be. Not that it really matters, but I thought I'd put a sleeve on it, so it would be good to know which side to put the sleeve on...

Little wings, beaded seas

So, today - didn't do a lot today that can be shown (mostly I tidied the little drawers of bits in my sewing room and put stuff away), except this little set of inchies - there's a new(ish) site I've discovered called Inching Artists, where each week a theme challenge is issued and you can make an inchie (or two, or nine) to that theme to show. Anyway, this week's theme (issued last Tuesday, so I have just snuck in under the wire) was Little Wings. I decided to use some of these butterfly sequins I had knocking about, as a single black inchie I had already made previously, to create a series. These inchies will go to Karen in South Africa shortly as part of a pay-it-forward swap I offered a long time ago (July). I hope she likes butterflies!



On the right, is something I finished a few evenings ago - another scarf, this one with the silk ribbon I bought in Ireland. I love the colour of this scarf, but it does have a tendency to roll up - probably would have worked better to knit it on straight needles (well, wouldn't have worked well for me, but in principle...)






And here's the fibre landscape, finished now (last night) except the finishing, so to speak - I am not quite sure how I am going to edge it, but I think the first order of business is another layer of pelmet vilene for stability, and then perhaps a nice fabric back (fused on) to be pretty. I think I might just trim the edges with a rotary cutter and paint them or something - I think a binding would detract. But then again, perhaps a binding would frame it, like a view from a window. All suggestions will be considered :) The closeup is a bit out of focus, but I thought everyone might like to see the beads in a bit more detail - it's come out just as I wanted, so I'm really pleased with that - don't you love it when something comes out like it looked in your head?



And here's my lonely postal offering today - not much in the post over the last few days... Anyway, this card is from the mask swap, Debbie (in New Zealand) has used a leaf to make a mask. And feathers. Forgot to photo it before I had put it up on the boiler, hence the magnetic clip at the top - not part of the card...

Tuesday night quilt group, even here!

Well, some photos of things I have been doing. Worked on the beaded doll watching telly last night and a few other times when I haven't actually blogged it - finished the front, and decided I would also do the back (I hadn't been sure before), so now I will begin showing photos of the back, when I get some more beads on it.

And I quilted the little retro quilt. Tonight Cathi and I went to her quilt group meeting - nice coincidence to have it the week I am here, don't you think? Anyway, met a bunch of nice ladies, doing interesting and varied work, and managed to quilt this - echo quilting in the blocks and free motion in the centre and borders. Detail below. Not perfect, but it works. Border to come, but not sure in what fabric.

Lotsa stuff on Monday

Great bunch of mail through the slot this morning - three different postcards, and none of them from myself (I always make an extra card for myself and post it, to check how well they travel). The one at left above is called "funny poppies" and is for the Sheers swap on FAI, from Kathy. It may be hard to see from the photo, but she's made the poppies (except the bits at the top of the heads) including the loose fibres in the tail/stems and then covered with sheer fabric, and then added the embroidery on top. Very effective; I like this card a lot.


The one at right above is for the summer swap with my dyeing group and is also a bit hard to see what's going on. Ann made the background "paper" from fibres and cling film (I think this was resulting from a Mixed Media class at Joggles) and added the butterflies on top of it. Guess I must add the clingfilm "paper" to my list of techniques to try...


And finally, the blue beaded one is from Liz, and is from the July Challenge (beading) on Arts in the Mail. In addition to bearing some amazing examples of beading techniques, this card has the distinction of being the heaviest I have ever received, due to the lovely stones on it. Liz says it was the result of doing a beading course and then going on holiday for week where she could only hand-sew. I can imagine!



Also in the post, my copy of the latest issue of QA - I know this has been around for a while, but I don't mind if it comes to me a bit late - I usually have a big stack of stuff waiting to be read. And having it delivered through the door is a darn sight easier than having to track it down. (And what I spend on postage I save on the current exchange rate and the fact that by not going to a shop, I don't buy fabric!)

And here's a view of my beaded doll, coming along nicely. I have now finished the color, and filled in around the red design which I said I probably wasn't going to fill in around (it didn't look right, somehow). I have just added a line of bugle beads as a demarkation line for something - not sure just what, probably a few more lines of bugle beads below, but not sure what above. Terrible photo of the poor thing - better luck next time, I hope.




Today I worked on two sets of cards - to the right, contrasts, for a swap with Arts in the Mail. I'm not entirely convinced by them, but perhaps they will grow on me as I gradually edge all the little apertures. My original idea was nearly solid black, with just a thin strip of something else (or maybe two) running through it; I may yet go back to that and put these in the surplus stack. We'll see.

And the item at left is, as I hope you'll have guessed by now, an igloo. This is for the Starts with I swap. Originally I had thought to use small "bricks" of white fabric, but they didn't look right, so I'm going with quilting the bricks in. The cards will probably have something else on them as well, but I don't know what yet. I did three today - my bricks are getting better, I have to say. Perhaps by number six, they'll be perfect (ha!).

And once again, thanks to those who left comments (and who have subsequently been enterred into my draw) - newly added to the list are: Debi, Teri (if you don't know Teri's blog, StegArt, you should definitely go check it out), Sally in the UK, and Di. Sally asked about groups for swapping postcards; there are lots of them. I belong to a number of them, not all of which are public, but the public ones are: FiberArtistInternational, ArtsintheMail, ArtWeMail, and FiberPC. All of these are yahoo groups - if you go to groups. yahoo.com and put fabric postcards into the search box, I'm sure you'll come up with more. And of course, there are many other places to swap postcards that aren't on Yahoo. I also swap sometimes on the quilting forum at quilting.about.com. And I have so far resisted joining swaps on the many sites that are mentioned by those whose blogs I read, but trust me, there are tons. Not all of them are open to beginners, but many are. Likewise, if anyone is looking for instructions on how to make postcards, a quick google should offer far more information than you would ever possibly use.

Sheer pocket quilt and other unrelated stuff

And now for something completely different? My mother thought it was fairly different, at any rate (but I think that was different in a good way). This is a small piece, 18x24 and is for Quiltswap 4. Perhaps I shouldn't blog it, as the pieces are anonymous, but I can't imagine too many people in Quiltswap read my blog and if they do, well, will knowing a piece is by me make them like it more or less than they would have? I doubt it. It's not like I'm an internationally known quilter or anything. And anyway, I've already blogged it several times, so it's too late now!

The background is pieced from leftover batik QST units - I used them for a series of triangle postcards a while back and decided I liked the effect, so used some more here. There are still more of them, and I'm getting tired of them, so if anyone out there would like a handful, let me know! (I'm serious here - I'd be glad to send them to anyone who can use them - the units are about 2 inches square and each one contains one triangle in the yellowy sand colour and one other colour and I probably have a hundred or so left.)

Onto the background, I then attached pieces of organza, which I sewed down with cotton thread, capturing a variety of items inside and used a soldering iron to remove the excess organza. Next, I used Markal paintsticks to outline the edges of the pockets, and then couched a variety of threads all over the top, including around the organza pockets. The piece was then fairly heavily machine quilted using loops and vague flowers. Finally, after binding, I added strands of beads (which hang loose) at the base of each organza pocket. And that, as they say, is that. On the whole, I'm fairly happy with it - it's kind of funky and worked more or less the way I imagined, which is all we can hope for in these things, right?



And now on to other things. I received the above fabrics in the post today - my fat quarter frenzy club - and they have been duly washed and ironed (though not put away yet). The good thing about this club (other than getting fabric in the post each month) is that often the fabric is not stuff I'd necessarily choose (though I usually don't dislike it), so it fills holes in my stash - very useful for block lottos, swaps, challenges and so forth. And postcards, of course.

Two postcards finished today - one will be going out as a birthday card tomorrow, the other will form, with its yet-to-be-completed comrades, my cards for the 1900's swap on Arts in the Mail. Hopefully I will get a chance to finish them tomorrow. It may not show in this photo, but I've added a sheer layer over the nouveau print and cut-out, stitched it down in a few places, and edged it. This card is much simpler in technique (or at least in the number of techniques!) than many I do, but I think the print in many ways speaks for itself, so I didn't want to do anything too distracting. I did try one with some fabric paint, but didn't like it, so didn't pursue it further.



And finally, I managed to finish off my sunprints today for the swap with my dyeing group. The sun immediately went inside as soon as I got my prints all out, so except for the salt one (left), I ended up finishing them off in the oven. I tried doing some folding and tying on them to see what would happen, in addition to using my favourite method of scrunching - I'm not sure the others worked very well, but this one, which I painted and then gathered into a loose spiral (like for doing t-shirts) and then dunked one side of into a different colour paint, before setting out in the sun/putting in the oven came out really well (or at least, I love it. Actually, I realised I now have 9 pieces and I only need 8, so I'm keeping it . So there.) The rest are here on flickr - the first 6 photos in the set are today's pieces.

Oh, and nearly forgot - thanks to Myra and Susan for commenting and thereby enterring the blogversary draw. We're up to 12 people now. Hopefully, there will be some more - you have until the 26th to comment, so even those away on holiday and stuff will hopefully get a chance - details are here, if you missed them before.

Beaded doll again, other bits, blog contest

I had every intention of doing some sewing today, but with one thing and another, just never got there. I did get a lot of stuff done (caught up with email bigtime, collected the car from the garage, had shopping delivered & put away, rearranged the girls' bedroom furniture, watched a bunch of kids including the two daughters of a friend who was in the back garden putting up our bike shed at the time, did laundry, and so on) just no sewing. Good thing I saved last night's efforts in beading, then!

As you can see, I have finished her "hoodie" as it was described in an earlier comment - green on one side, gold on the other. Not sure what I will do below the neck yet, will play it by ear. I think she looks great - I am getting fonder and fonder of her as the days go by. I had an idea to give her as a present to a friend with a 40th next year, but I think I will have to make a different one for that, as I don't think I'll be able to part with this one.

Also got a card in the post today, amidst the various junk which otherwise forms the bulk of my mail - this is an "H is for" card, from Annette. Great approach to this theme, I think. My next alphabet challenge will be to think of something for "I". I have a few ideas floating around, but nothing has really clicked yet. Of course, being the type of person I am, I feel like I really need to "catch up" on the series - I have a "G" (the flying Geese cards) but no A-F. As I need cards for miscellaneous other occasions, I might well do some other alphabet cards - small series of 3 or 4 perhaps. Going backwards and starting with "F" first, maybe. Or maybe not - we'll see. I guess it will depend on whether I think of anything inspiring for those letters...

Thanks again to those who have commented in order to be enterred into my blogversary draw - I have now added Joyce and Ruth into the pot. Liz, thanks for your second comment, but I'm afraid your email address still isn't showing (it comes through as no-reply@comment.blogger.com or whatever the anonymous default is) - you can either send me your email address privately to katelnorth at yahoo dot com, or just be sure to keep checking back here to see if you've won - and if you do, let me know your details then - I don't mind which way you do it, but I'd hate to see you win and then not be able to get ahold of you.

Beaded doll - progress

See? I told you I'd done some work on it - although these photos actually incorporate two nights' work - and I was right I wouldn't get anything else done today - and no postcards to show (except my own pink & purple one back). Anyway. Here's the doll. Don't ask me why I felt compelled to surround the head in green, I just did. I am going to continue the green around the bottom of the face/nack until I run out of green or get a little more than halfway around, whichever comes first. Then the other side of the head will be filled in similarly, but with another colour, not sure what yet. I'm not sure what I'm going to do below the collar, but I think I will leave some space around the red thingy (technical term!). I haven't done anything on the back yet, but probably will, before I am done. We'll see how it goes. At least it will give me a valid excuse to buy some more beads at Festival of Quilts!

Odds and ends

An odd assortment of stuff got worked on today - partly, it was just really hot and who feels like doing anything that involves keeping the iron on, when it's hot... So I worked on the quiltswap piece, which might actually get done after all (it was beginning to look as though it wouldn't). I did a lot of free motion quilting on it today - it looks ok, though not brilliant. But it did acheive the effect of really making the pockets stand out, which is what I wanted, so I guess it was successful in that respect. It still wants something, I think maybe strands of beads dangling off it. We'll see. Binding attached ready to stitch down, so at least it's nearly a completed stage.

Another thing I worked on is a piece for the sheers swap on FAI - it will get cut up into postcard sized pieces (in fact, it already has done, but that was after this photo). I did the usual (for me) sort of stitching organza on top of an interestesting piece of fabric, then using the soldering iron to remove pieces here and there. I'll do something else with the cards, too, but not sure what yet. And it strikes me that the August challenge for Arts in the Mail is to do with burning or melting, so I may be able to kill several birds with one stone here...

And finally, I made a little doll-type form for one of my lovely faces which Dy sent me a while back - the intention is to bead the form, as the spirit dolls one sees are beaded. I've actually made a start on it, but of course, that was after the photo was taken (well, I have to save SOMETHING for tomorrow, in case I don't get any work done - a real possibility, as we have to take Grandma to the airport, which will eat several hours of time.)

Weird beaded card...

Today I edged some purple postcards. The purple and pink ones are mainly for the pink & purple swap - I worked on them the other day, but didn't get to edging them until today. Two of them will go to people on my birthday postcard group list. The other card (with the beads) is for the July challenge on Arts in the Mail, which was beading. I was trying to do something a little freeform and funky, but think I probably only acheived weird. :) But the colours are pretty, at least.

I'm not getting nearly as much work done as I normally do (you may have noticed) - obviously this is partly due to the kids being home for the holidays, but also due to my mother being here, and just a bunch of stuff. Today, for instance, I spent most of the day emptying everything out of the brick shed in the back garden, laying the wet things out in the sun to dry, cleaning it out (including a few small puddles of water), making a big pile of stuff to go to the tip (some just junk, a few things water damaged, though nothing important - just stupid stuff you have in your shed, like a billion old tennis balls and the offcut from the roll of vinyl flooring in your kitchen (we had two - one seemed fine, if a little damp, the other was discoloured for the 8 or so inches that had obviously sat overnight in water) and so on). And then, of course, putting everything back IN the shed. Ah, the joys of the British Summer (but I do keep telling myself that it wasn't in the house, for which we are intensely grateful).

Not much going on today

At least, not sewing. Spent the morning at school, for a change not helping in the nursery, but selling uniform at the New Parents Meeting - very exciting (not). I did find out which class Alex will be in next year, though - I'll tell you, though it won't mean anything to anyone reading, I'm sure - Fir Class (the classes are all called after trees, the nursery is Acorn class, the year sixes are Oak Class, ha ha...). And then I had a whole slew of errands (but not interesting ones) to run this afternoon - taking the uniform money to the bank, buying a thing of bedding plants for a school donation, doctor's appt, and so on. Did manage to turn these two beaded wonders into postcards, but that was it. And tomorrow, I have stuff at school more or less all day, so no chance of sewing then - I guess I will have to try to make up for it on the weekend...

More beaded cards

Three more in the series Open Theme with Beads (great name, I know). There are only three of us signed up to this particular swap, so I will probably stop at 4 cards, as that's enough for the swap and one extra. So with the brown, couched one I did the other day, this is it, for now anyway. Now I just have to turn them into cards - maybe tomorrow, though it looks to be a busy day...

Some stuff

A nice postcard in the post today - this is to the theme Summer, from Harriett on FAI - it's a photo from her garden - isn't it lovely? And my fabric from my Fat Quarter Frenzy club - roses and toning fabrics, which will I'm sure prove very useful. Whee.

Didn't do any sewing yet today, though I might do a little more beading tonight - this morning I stayed at school to help and this afternoon my friend Lorayne and I went with our littles (she has a 4 yr old too) to Garsons Farm, a pick your own where we had a picnic lunch and then picked loads of strawberries and broad beans. Lovely!

I did do a little more beading last night, but as I haven't finished the piece yet and as I had other photos to show, I think I'll wait until it's done to share it...

Open theme with beads...

I didn't actually do any work today (though in a moment, I'm off to watch an episode of NCIS on DVD and will probably do some more beading) but I did do this beading last night, as part of a postcard series for the theme "open theme with beads" - which means I can do anything I want, as long as I use beads somewhere in the design.



I decided to pull out a basket of 5 or 6 TAST stitch samples I had knocking about doing nothing and add some beads to them - I will then turn it into a postcard - the total area wasn't much more than 4x6, though I will loose a bit off the sides, which is fine. The sample is from the week we did couching & I have added a lot of beads, though I'm not sure how well they all show up. The other samples will be quite different, as they are less free form than this one, but I'm sure they'll work equally well in their own way.



I did actually do something sewing related today, though, as Alex and I had a trip to the quilt shop. I needed some plain black for a couple of projects and the local department store with haberdashery department was out, so off I went to Creative Quilting in Hampton Court. My fabric purchases were fairly dull (the black, and some unbleached calico, which I am also out of) but I got lots of fun bits - some embroidery threads, three spools of variegated thread (I like them for postcard edging), some packs of buttons, some sewing machine needles (not that exciting, but the local dept store w/ hab dept doesn't carry the quilting or metallics, only the standard ones so it was worth grabbing some while in a proper quilt shop) and a fun pack of stuff to stick on postcards. The brightly coloured cat fabric is a 10cm strip which was Alex's bribe for good behaviour (he wanted a bigger piece - they learn young, don't they!)

Beaded circles again

Here are what will probably be the last of the beaded circles, at least for this series of postcards. I really love this idea, and may well use it again later in some other way. This shows four sets of circles on a single background - I will cut these apart into smaller pieces to use for postcards, of course. Each of the sets uses a different group of blue beads - I actually had 5 different blue bead selections, believe it or not. One has a few green beads in it, and I really like that combination. I like the others, too, of course.



Now I just have to work out how I will postcard these (postcard being a verb, apparently!) - probably just very simple quilting lines around the circles, but we'll see.

Purple puffs

The latest in the puff series. Strangely, the two background fabrics are exactly the same in both pictures, taken in the same lighting conditions, with the same camera, etc. It must have to do with the colour of the beads, which are different. Anyway, you get the general idea. Did these last night in front of the telly (Persuasion - not bad) and tonight have plans for some more. Maybe blue? Green? They are kind of addictive and I don't have any other hand work at the moment, except some binding I need to do. Perhaps I'll do the binding first, actually, come to think of it.

Anyway, didn't do any other sewing today, due to a bunch of errands (paint for the fence and the front door, towel rail, 99p shop) and spending more time than usual on the computer, as I have finally bit the bullet and decided to try to sell a few things on etsy. Gulp. More on that later...



Oh, and I forgot to say, I received two postcards in this morning's post - both from the My Favourite Colour Swap. I'll leave you to guess what colours. Thanks to Kathy & Mary for these, they are both great.

Puffing away

The only work from today are some more puffs, as I spent most of the day doing errands (farmers' market), chores (laundry) and taking some girls out shopping as part of Sarah's best friend's birthday present. (Q: How long does it take two 9 or 10 YOs to decide whether or not to buy a particular skirt? A: about three times longer than you want to hang out in Woolworths.)

Anyway, here are some more puffs - two more on the brown background - one more with orange puffs, and one with mustard yellow puffs - the colour combo looks better in person than in the photo. Then I did some blue on pale purple, which I decided doesn't work as well as light on dark. Am also working on some purple on purple (darker background), which I'll share tomorrow or whenever they are finished. I'm having fun with these - I was only going to do the required number for the swap, but they are going a lot faster than I thought they would, so I think I'll do a few extra, as usual. Watch this space :)