Busy Beaver

I have been busy making things recently.  Making up for lost time during the year I spose.

Some fabric ATC's - there was 3 more but they have already been given away:

Some Christmas Ornaments for my niece and nephew:

Some more ornaments for some friends:

Also made 2 Christmas stockings, 1 for my Sister and another for a friend, plus the friend's hubby got a knitted willy warmer.  Sorry guys - no pics of these.....

I had lots of fun making all of these shut away in my Craft Room.  I have to shut the door otherwise I get help from Neo.  Here he is sitting on the ironing board not impressed that I won't let him sit on my knee or what I was working on at the time.  He often helps me type things too......

New Purse

Ok, so It's not really a new purse, but I was tired of the outer layer of my purse flaking off.

See the discoloured bit in the middle - that's where the vinyl came off.  It was horrible.  The stuff would end up all over my hand.  So after 1 hour of cutting, stitching and glueing I now have a 'new' purse.

Isn't it pretty?  No more flaking stuff.  It's been like this a ciuple of weeks now and so far it is holding up quite well.  I wanted to sew on the fabric all around, but the vinyl was gumming up my needle too much - I ended up gluing half of it to the original bit.

Here is some little cross stitches I did for my eldest daughters cali team members.  They did bugs for one of their items.

newest quilt

Ok, so the other day I had read about a technique on speed sewing a quilt top using nothing but a jelly roll - I think it was called jelly roll 1600.  This had me intrigued so I went to my LFS to get a jelly roll.  I found 1 that I liked, but it had been 'broken into' and did not have all the lengths it should have had.  So I went to the sales table and lo and behold, I found 13 coordinating fabrics.  This really rare for me, never mind the sales table.  They were all from differnt ranges too, which I think made it better.  Since I found this many I decided that fate was playing a hand and I bought 1m of 12 of them.

Here they are.

I Sunday I sat down to make me a speed quilt.  I cut 3 2.5" strips from each of the fabrics, dumped them all on the floor and randomly picked up 2 to sew them end to end.  I kept going until all 36 strips were used up.  The only rule I had was to not put 2 of the same fabric together.  I did diagonal seams for interest.  Once together I got the two ends and then sewed down the length - I went from a pieced strip 1512" long to one that was 2 strips wide and 756" long - had to cut the strip in half when I got to the end (middle??). 

Here's the pile that seaming made.

Then I found the ends again and sewed the 2 strip sets together along the length, cut the end and repeated it twice more, until I had a finished quilt top.

All in all it took only a couple of hours from start (cutting the strips) to finish.  I picked up the strips randomly, so what surprised me was that twice, when doing the first long seam, I had the same fabrics being sewn together and then on the next long seam they ended up near one another.

I showed it my youngest and she thought it was quite nice.  I haven't measured it yet, but it is a nice large lap size.  It has inspired me to make another one from the same fabrics since I still have 80cm of it left.  I'm thinking this one will be more ordered with some sashing and some plain borders.

Cross Stitch

Thought my readers - that's if there are any - might like to know of a website for cross stitch that I frequently visit.  It has lots of lovely patterns and a new freeebie is added every day.  If you go there through the following link, and join up for their free newsletters, you will get some points so you too can download their cross stitch files.

http://cross-stitchers-club.com/?code_avantage=mfjbku

 

Hope you enjoy the site.

BOM

Just found a new Block of the Month program on the Canton Village Quilt Works blog.  It has only just started, so I am going to keep track of it over the coming year . Well that's the plan anyway. 

You can see them on the link

http://cvquiltworks.blogspot.com/2011/09/bloggers-bom-quilt-along.html

I tried to pick up the button link too - but it appears I am not that tech savvy.

Now to actually take part.......

Next Blog

Every so often - usually after I post something - I view my blog and then click on the 'next blog' link at the top of the page, just to see where it gets me.

I find it very strange that every day there is a different series of blogs that I end up linking to, all with a similar vein/thread.  Just now I did this and was 'rewarded', if you can call it that, with a series of blogs that had religious overtones - not my cup of tea at all!!  Some days they are all about quilts, others crochet, some in spanish.  NOw if todays were about a wicca journey - i might read those.

I did find a really interesting one once - the writer was an avid rennaisance faire goer.  She even made her clothing in the way of the time - hand sewn and embroidered, etc and tired to base them on patterns from the time.  Some nice pics too.  I like to embroider, but would never go to that extreme.

Comfort Doll

I was on the Comfort Doll Project website just now (http://comfortdollproject.blogspot.com/) and I saw that they have an Australian contact who will organise the distribution of these dolls.  That's great news. 

I had thought of making some of these and sending them off, but the thought of them going to the US was a bit daunting considering the postage rates.  Now I can make as many as I like and send them to an Aussie lady and they will go to other Aussie ladies in need.