Good quilt for a crap reason

Well, today was another day I kind of went off-list in terms of my goals, but I do have a good reason for it, unfortunately - the reason being that a friend of mine has recently been diagnosed with Hodgkins lymphoma - she's got three kids under 5 (for another few weeks - then there are two birthdays - but still) - her eldest is in the same class as Alex. Anyway. Basically it sucks. But of course, being a quilter, my immediate reaction to just about any bad news (or good news for that matter) is to make a quilt - the intention this time being something lap sized for snuggling under during chemo or when she's shattered later. They want to start her chemo right away (Monday) so I am trying to see if I can finish this up if not before Monday, at least in time for Wednesday or so, when all the side effects will no doubt hit. Right, anyway - deep breath.


This quilt top is one put together a while back from pieces from a discharging swap I did with Dyehard, my dyeing group. It's been hanging around for a while, waiting for me to work out what I wanted to do with it, but today I decided that the quilt top was highly suitable for Sharon and after a lot of thought (this morning during quilt group, and so on) decided finally to quilt it with "toothed ammonites", a la Dijanne Cevaal, in a variety of coloured threads. I've started - done about a third or a quarter of the required number. I hope to work on it tomorrow and/or on the weekend. We'll see. Here are a couple of close-ups of the quilting - I think they are kind of fun. And the important thing is, they are versatile, so I can position them wherever appropriate - in some cases, overlapping the discharged squares quite a bit and in other cases, much less so.






Another couple of photos - here's the progress on the quilt we are making with my Thursdaya group - the entire centre is now together - I have brought it home with me to trim the outside triangles to the right seam allowance and to cut (and possibly attach) the narrow cream border which is going on it next. Sorry for the slight fuzziness of the photo, but it was taken with my phone, which is not quite as reliable as my real camera.

And on the right, some faces, words and letters which I made up earlier tonight while watching The West Wing (I've seen them all before, but I borrowed the complete set from my friend Cathi and am in the process of watching them again - I've just started the third season). I need to do some more letters, but can't decide whether to just do letters in different colours or try to think of actual words to do - and if the latter, which words (suggestions gladly taken - though not necessarily followed).

A bag and a block

The pile on the left above is some small batik blocks I've had hanging around for ages; today I decided to do another bag. Only a few more to go, and that's it. Bags for all! Unfortunately, I didn't end up using anywhere near all the batik strips I had for this bag, so I still have loads of them - perhaps the next bag will use some more of them; they do work nicely...

But the bag has come out well, I think, and will be a Christmas present for someone - not too surprising this time of year. Another case of I don't think she reads this, but why take the chance? I added a couple of charms up near the handles.

Some other things got made today - this block, which doesn't show very well in the photo - it's a lovely cream batik background and an interesting navy blue batik, but here it just looks black and white... Anyway, the block is for Anne, for the birthday block swap for November. She asked for this specific block, Spider's Den from Quilters' Cache, in this colourway. I can see why she doesn't want to make an entire quilts' worth of these herself - fiddly, especially getting the seams to work on the back. Not really that hard, just fiddly.

And I made some faces, finally. I had been waiting for an order of Sculpey/Fimo which has, I think, got lost permanently in the post - it's been in the mail for two weeks now, first class, and I figured that if having a face making session didn't make it come in the post tomorrow (!) nothing would. Some of these faces will shortly be on their way to Annie in Australia, as I promised her some ages ago. Most of the rest will probably become Christmas ornaments.

Here's a photo of my sewing room, with the Dotee angel on the wall - just thought that would be fun to share. A couple of hours after this photo was taken, it got very dark and started blowing hard enough to take pretty much all the leaves off the trees (although not off the one you see through the window, which is a holly tree - DH hates it, but it's in next-door's garden, not ours). And today's post included CPS, which I was expecting, as Julie got hers a few days ago, and...

a postcard from Anne R for the 1930's swap (King Tut's tomb discovered).

And these! These, which I did know were coming, are from Debbie in Australia (fast post, too, as she only sent them the other day) and are a set of her lovely metallic inchies, which she blogged about recently. I love them, and mentioned that in the comments, so she sent me a set. Here's where we insert that standard Kate's Blog Refrain - Aren't Bloggers Nice People? But they are - so generous with their time, methods, artwork. And I know, I give away stuff too, but it feels bigger and more important when you are on the receiving end. I will have to find a good frame for them, as they really deserve to be displayed well - I really think they are super. What a lucky girl I am - two things in two days - it's almost like it was my birthday or something :)

More seasonal goodies

Those of you who may have worried when I didn't do any work yesterday that it would become a regular thing, panic not - today I am back to my usual obsessive making of bits. Today, it was Christmas themed - cards and ornaments. I decided I would go ahead and show these cards - I hate not showing stuff as I do it - those of you who might end up getting one of these cards (and you might not - there will be a variety of designs) can just cope with it!

These are all snowflake themed - you probably guessed. I have used a variety of different kinds of snowflakes, including FME straight onto the card, FME onto organza, then attached to the card, a snowflake stamped into angelina, brads, stickers, snowflake jewels, foiling and of course, snowflake fabric to start with, in some cases.

I am a bit snowflake mad at the moment - I have always liked them, anyway, but they seem to fill my head lately. This may not be a bad thing, as I have a challenge quilt to work on with the new challenge group my friend Wil has set up, and the theme for that is Winter - so I am thinking, snowflakes!



And I made some more ornaments. Two more with faces & words (I need to make some more faces and words before I do too many more of these), and then half a dozen with snowflakes stitched onto organza, and also some Christmas trees in the same technique. Closeups of all the ornaments can be found in my flickr album.

Honourably discharged

Another fairly good day today, though technically I did the discharge yesterday and only ironed it today - the top pieces were done with a Clorox Bleach Pen (on left) and regular household bleach (on right). With the bleach pieces, I folded them up, like for tie-dying. The pieces at bottom left were done with discharge paste - I'm not sure if these are discharged as much as they could have been if I'd ironed them more, but I discovered that my steam iron leaks (it's fairly old & I almost never use the steam function), so that's as good as it was going to get. Funny thing is, I was thinking this swap was due the end of September, but it turns out, it's the end of October, so I'm way ahead on it - hoorah!

On the right, a piece I've been working on for a while, which I did some more on today. The deadline for this, which has been "a long way off" for a long time is actually approaching now (end of October) so I really need to get going with it. Today I mostly finished the light green (I may add a few more strands later, we'll see) and started the sky. The water I am planning to do with beads. (It's not a very big bit of water - the whole piece is about 18x24 or smaller).



I decided to make a few additions to the faces in flames piece - I knew it was wanting something, just not sure what. Today it decided it wanted some flames, made from organza, in a couple of colours, so I added those. It still wants something more, but it's coming along now. I'm sure it will let me know!

And this afternoon, I made some more faces - did this after school with Olivia & Alex (Sarah being at a friend's house) - my faces are on the right, Alex's are a thin line down the centre and Olivia's are on the left. Wanted to try my new(ish) moulds, and also, running short of little faces to use for inchies and things.

I did do something else today, quilt-related - I pinned together the little black and bright baby quilt so I can actually quilt it as soon as my machine gets back from the shop (I have a borrowed machine at the moment, which I am not happy doing FMQ on). The baby isn't due for a few more weeks, but it was threatening to come early (it turned into breech position at 36.5 weeks, the silly thing; luckily, my friend went in yesterday and they were able to turn it back around properly - hopefully it will stay that way until it's ready to come out!) so I decided I'd best get a move on. So much for my "spare" baby quilt top. Will have to make a few more (well, I'll have the flying geese one, so that's one, at any rate). Anyway, too boring to show a photo of that - it looks just like the top did, only with safety pins all over it!

Back to school, back to work

Here's what came in the post today - two postcards, one a belated Tree card from Angela - definitely worth the wait, as it's a great card. Frankly, with all the effort Angela puts into her cards, I'm not surprised she was unable to catch up quickly when life happened and she got behind in swaps. That's a compliment, really, in case you all missed that. :)

And the other card is from Jeanette, I for Imagine (the song) - great idea, and a fun card. Which reminds me, I should start thinking about what J might be for...



With most of the kids at school today, I did have a bit of time to myself, so of course I sewed. Alex had a picnic - or rather, there was a picnic for nursery and reception students - in the park at lunch time, but this morning after dealing with the uniform shop (chaos, horrors - first day of school - yikes!) I came home and finished the stripes cards (they were mostly done, as I mentioned yesterday). Now they are completely done (except the writing on them, which I will not waste valuable sewing time doing!). I think they came out well, and they were fun to do. The yellow stripe is a flange (i.e. loose flap) which is kind of quirky...



Then I also worked on this piece - finished quilting it with a flame pattern - and at the same time, quilted all the sunset postcards, as I was also using flames on them, and the same colour thread. Two birds and all that. Photos of them when they are finished - perhaps tomorrow, perhaps later. They aren't due out yet, so I might put them aside for a while.

Not sure whether this piece is finished yet or not (obviously the edges aren't finished) - might want something else around the faces. Will let it rest for a few days and tell me what it wants. On the whole, though, I like it. If I still like it when it's done, I might put it on etsy.

Loadsa faces

This morning, the guys took the littles to a soft-play place, and Cathi and I and my girls made faces (many jokes were already made about my girls making faces at one another...). And here are the results! Mine are the columns on the right, Sarah's are the two lines down the centre, Olivia's are top left and Cathi's are bottom left. I then made a couple of cards using a few of the faces. I definitely am going to order some different moulds, too. In fact, I'm going to do it right after I finish blogging!




After lunch, the big girls and the daddies went golfing (pitch & putt) and the littles stayed here with us to do dressing up and stuff like that. Cathi and I split up the lovely purple Civil War Repro fabric and pulled bits out of her CW repro collection that might work as well. We have decided to swap Dear Jane blocks in a 6" size - this is great for me, as I really like some of the DJ blocks, but have no real desire to do a whole quilt of them and Cathi is a big DJ fan already (check out her DJ quilt here - fab, isn't it?). With 6 inch blocks, I imagine I'll be able to satisfy my urge to make a good quantity of DJ blocks without a) making the ones I really don't want to and b) ending up with a huge huge quilt. I think I may end up with a lap quilt or something like that. Anyway, it will be fun - we are stealing the idea of a private swap from Karol Ann, with whom I am swapping African blocks - and basically going to do the same thing - swap more or less once a month, depending on schedules, with no pressure and no deadlines. We'll each make 2 identical blocks, keep one for ourselves and send the other. Fun.

Mum's faces

Hey, another post! But I forgot that I had this photo in my email - these are some faces that my mother made - she was in Joann's (my mum lives in the US) and saw some Fimo and moulds, and decided to have a go. As she's a potter, she intends to try the mould with firing clay too, to see what happens, but I have no reports as to whether that will work or not yet. Anyway, these are fairly cool, although (and she agrees) these faces are a little more realistic than is ideal for me.

Creative process

I promise not to do this to you very often, but for once, I actually remembered to take photos of a project as I went along, in lots of stages - I think it's interesting to see hoe we think about things, and choose what direction to take, and today, as I was working on something with no advance plan, I thought it would be a good opportunity to document it.

Above is the sort of finished top - as you will see below, there will be some embellishments added once it's been quilted, but here's where I'm stopped for the moment. But, how did I get to this point? Well... A friend of ours is getting married in October, so Geoff and I thought - wallhanging. I started thinking about what I might have already hanging around which could be a starting point, and remembered the shoebox full of black and batik blocks in 18" and 9" sizes. Surely something in there might be a nice jumping off point?

And sure enough, I found this block. Resisting the temptation to take it apart to fix the seams that don't quite meet (which would defeat in part the purpose of using I block I already had), I scrounged around for batik fabric which coordinated with the block - as I didn't make the block in the first place (it was from a swap) I didn't have precisely the same batiks, but close enough.

Next order of business was to put a black border around the starting block. Again, resisting my normal temptation to arrange things symmetrically, I put different widths around the different sides. Then, a simple row of squares, batik and black down the right hand side. What next? Some more black, don't you think?

Yes, more black. Except, with the really wide border at the bottom it now looks a bit odd. It needs something in that space. I didn't photograph some of my failed attemps - first thought it might want circles (luckily, it didn't), then did some squares on their sides, but not aligned - didn't like that look either, looked unbalanced to me. So I decided that there is a time and place for symmetry, and this row at the bottom wanted to be symmetrical. And - stroke of inspiration! - added one of the squares/diamonds to the centre of the main block - and wow! what a difference that made.

So then, as I was standing there thinking about it, it suddenly occurred to me that what the piece wanted was some embellishments on top of the squares and diamonds. And what's my current favourite embellishment? You guessed it -

Faces. Of course, I didn't have the right sort of faces in stock, so them ones on the left are just there to see if it would work (it does) - so I appliqued the squares down (invisible thread using blind hem stitch) and later this afternoon, made some more faces in the right sort of colours. Which will be duly added to the top once it's been quilted.

How to quilt it? I don't know, that's the next thing to think about. Some sort of meander in the black, I think, but not really sure what I will do in the squares and stars - perhaps just simple outline quilting in the major pieces - it's got large enough pieces for that. Anyway, that's a project for another day.

So, there you have it - a glimpse into how my mind works (or not) - I did lots more stuff today as the kids were having one of those lovely days where the didn't argue and just played with each other all day without needing my input - so I will blog the postcards which I finished (I is for...) and the dyeing I did, a bit later.

Sunprint idea - realised!

Well, I did it. Decided to take my idea of using the sunprint piece as a background for something small but interesting, and went with it (I am trying to be a bit braver and just go for it when I have an idea, instead of analysing it to death and/or putting it aside for when I "am better at X"). First I heavily quilted the sunprint using a pale blue thread, then I added the centre - a black rectangle with a blue rectangle and a face, with some yarn as hair (technically, I planned the centre before I did the quilting of the background, but in terms of actually putting it together...) And there it is! A detail of the quilting is below. I won't say it's perfect, but it works fairly well. Only the binding left, which I'll do later, either black or navy, most likely. I'm very happy with it - now I just have to find a place to hang it (well, I have to add a sleeve, too, so finding a hanging place is not a matter of huge urgency...)




Another thing I did with my little faces today was to take the little inchies I made the other day and frame them on a fabric background - this is just a little cheap Ikea frame and I've wrapped the fabric around the glass, then added the faces on top - I couldn't have used the glass at the front anyway, as they aren't flat. I think it works well; as I'm sending it to a friend, hopefully she will think so, too.




Didn't appear to get any actual post today, but I did have a trip to the sorting office to collect two things they couldn't deliver while I was away at my MIL's - one was this calendar I ordered (I need my next year's calendar by about September - too many things to keep track of, even that far in advance!) - if you want to see the photos of the pieces on the calendar, check out the Quilting Arts website. The other parcel was from Annie, who swapped me for all my spare batik HST units. I'll tell you who got the better of this deal (!) - look at all the lovely lovely things she sent me - funky yarn, lutradur, some flip flops and printed twill tape, an amazing piece of I'm not sure what, printed with bright hearts and other shapes and a huge baggie of different colours of eyelash yarn (I had mentioned I on a list we are both on that I don't buy a lot of colours because it seems extravagent for just postcard edging - she apparently has a huge collection :) and said one of her local shops has some on sale at just $1 per skein - at that price, I'd have a huge collection, too. Even at £1 per skein, frankly! Anyway. Have I gone on and on recently about how much I like bloggers and how generous people are? I'll spare you that whole speil, as I'm sure you've read it before, but can I just say, see what I mean?




For once, I actually planned things well, because I was going to finish off these contrast postcards this morning, using black and white satin stitching, but decided to wait and do them this afternoon after I did my errands (including collecting my parcels). I'm glad I did, as there was this multi-coloured eyelash in Ann's parcel, which was perfect as a card edging. I'm still not completely convinced about these cards, but they are in the post now, and will have to do...



And finally, the other thing I did today was to make a few blocks for the August Block Lotto on about.com - I didn't make anything for July, as I was just way too busy (and it wasn't my favourite kind of quick block, though I would have done some anyway, if it hadn't been July). Anyway, these are Oriental Attic Windows - an oriental print in the centre, with a selftone to one side and black at the bottom. I think they are quite pretty, and whoever wins them will have a very nice quilt....