ATC Round Robins

One of the things I've been doing lately is taking part in ATC round robins - this is where multiple people work on a project before it goes back to the owner. The way this particular one works is that one person starts 3 cards - similar, usually, though often not identical. They send all three to a second person, who adds something (again, usually similar). That person sends them to a third, who finishes the card, keeps one and sends the other two back to person 1 (who keeps one and sends one to person 2 - confused yet?).  Anyway, the upshot is three similar cards worked on by three different people. Each of the people who worked on the cards gets one to keep.  This is a set which I finished off -I was person 3 on them. (In this case, I think the first person did the background, the second added the photo, I added the musical tape, the caption and the fleur-de-lis.)

This is a set where I was person number two - I added the piece of lace and the lock and key charms before sending them along to person 3. 

And again, on this set I was the second person - I added the ribbon across the bottom and the line of funky stitching crossing the card. 

I have also started a number of card sets - I made the backgrounds and sent them off to be worked on by others - here are some with a coffee theme (it was a napkin)

and some with houses and maps (and Korean text from a Korean newspaper).

These cards are a background with felt stars sewn on, and I know that the second person has worked on them - if you want to see what she added, you can go to the A4A forum and scroll down this page a little - there's a photo. 

These are just paper collage

as as these - though the paper is quite funky here.  I try to send a variety of different types of things out so I get a variety of things back. I really like doing the round robins because other people think of different additions than you might otherwise use yourself - it's fun to see what happens!

Tiny log cabins

This is another top which I put together a few weeks ago - these blocks are the narrow scrappy log cabins in dark and light which I used as leaders and enders for  long time - the strips are only 1" wide, unfinished, so they are about 1/2" in the finished blocks. I played with the layout for a while (log cabins are nice like that) and decided to go with this medallion style. I love how you can really see the light/dark contrast this way. 

ATCs: Bird Collage

I didn't do any sewing today, per se (I did run some lines of stitch on some ATCs). These are for a swap, with the theme of collage and text.  I'm a big fan of text, so I had to take part.

The cards are all similar, with different positioning of the elements and different words. 

This one shall go in my gallery on A4A (http://www.atcsforall.com/index.php) for general swapping.

A few more birdies

There are still a few more to arrive, but here's the latest group...  I do really love these birds - not sure how I am going to put them together into a quilt, though - will have to have a think about it!

More blocks assembled

Here's another top I put together in my recent push to get my block sets into tops - this was scrappy centres bordered in neutral fabrics. Again, fairly quick to put together and creates a nice, scrappy quilt. I still have a few more to show - which is good, as I don't seem to be doing much sewing at the moment!

Cross-stitch goodies

I mentioned recently that I joined a new monthly cross-stitch club - these are the Little Sheep Virtues (from Little House Needleworks) - one per month in 2013, quite small, all with sheep and all with virtues. 

As the programme had started already, my initial parcel had three virtues in it - Hope, Love and Peace. I should get one more virtue approximately every month (because it's imported from the US, occasionally there are customs-related delays) until we've reached 12.  I will obviously be a bit behind for a little while, but they are small and look quite quick to stitch, so probably not for long. 

I have opted to turn them into individual pieces, with the coloured felt, partly because it looks pretty and partly because it's different from a lot of my pieces. 

I won't start the first one for a while - it's back to the Irises this week, and then the little Spring Sampler needs finishing. And then I have another installment of the Faith birds - but soon, perhaps, I will get to the sheep!

Cross-stitch update

A finish!  The sampler is done - it was fairly quick to stitch - I think the most time was spent working out how to space the letters of my name...

It was nearly done, anyway - you can see where it finished last time.

The next project in this week of the rotation is this little house, part of a seasonal sampler - I've done the Autumn and Winter ones, and now just have the Spring and Summer ones.  I actually have several new cross-stitch pieces waiting for me - the next bird in The Flock (the birds on the pink fabric) has arrived, and some parts to a new series I've signed up to; I'll show them later, perhaps tomorrow. 

Here's what the Spring Sampler will look like once finished. 

Big Flock of Birds

I should probably buy some lottery tickets, as I seem to be going through a run of good luck -

I have won the block lotto twice now, in three months.

And this time, I only made one bird, so I had a single chance in the drawing.

Don't get me wrong, I liked the low-volume hearts that I won in February, but these birds I more than like - 

I adore them. 

I haven't received quite all of mine yet - I think about 4 or 5 more sets to come - 

but aren't the ones I have so far wonderful?

Every time I open a new package, I have a new favourite.

Though I have to say, I really like the legs on the top one in this photo - black and white stripes - very cool.   It may not be my favourite birds, but I think he has my favourite legs.

Somewhere, too, there's the one that I made for the lotto, which I am keeping to add to the flock. 

Scrappy Log Cabins

Among the many quilt tops I've been putting together from my stash of blocks, there are 3 scrappy log cabins  - these are easy to put together because the order doesn't matter. 

Some of the other blocks are much trickier as they have to be laid out a certain way and then kept in the right order.

Frankly, if all of them were as easy as these to put together into tops, I probably wouldn't have a stash of blocks!

Textured Tree ATCs

No proper sewing today (although I did use my machine) as I had some ATC committments to fulfil - first on the cards (so to speak), a set of ATCs to the theme "textured trees".

I started with this textured blue paper and some brown linen fabric from an old pair of trousers. 

I couched the fabric (rolled up) onto the paper, to make the trunk. 

Then I added a little more fibre to the main part of the trunk.  After some experimentation, I decided to go with a variety of green leaves in paper, card and foil,  

stitched on in 2's and 3's. 

And finally, after sewing the cards to a backing (they were quite floppy at this point) I spritzed them with sparkly paint stuff (see top photo). They're fun, but I actually think I liked them best when they were just bare trunks!

I also added something to three different round robins of cards and made three sets of backs to send off to start new round robin cards. Perhaps that's what I'll show tomorrow!

Goodies

I didn't do any sewing today, as I went swimming with the kids (finally had a week where I could go myself, though the pool was packed so it was hard work doing lengths) and then had a load of errands to run in the afternoon, but one of the errands was to a fabric shop in Kingston, to look at things for school.  It's not a quilt shop, it has far more of the shiny, stretchy, furry type fabrics, but on a small table there was a selection of fat quarter bundles marked "quilting collections".  It's probably not the very best cotton fabric, but it's 100 per cent cotton, and better yet - £3.50 for 4 fat quarters (yes, I hear you gasp, that works out to £3.50/metre). How could I resist?

I also dug through the remnant bin and found this (hard to see - it's kind of meshy, very soft, would do well for layering in arty projects) - there's at least 70cm of it - for £1. I will probably only ever use about 12" square - this is why I had so many sheers and things like that in my bin I recently cleared out - when you use this sort of thing on tiny projects you often end up with lots of leftovers.  But for now, I'll keep it all, and someday, there will be another clearout...

And finally, in Wilkinsons (which for those outside the UK is kind of like Woolworths), some washi tape - 2 rolls for £1.75.  I'm sure it's not the best washi tape - it is Wilkinson's, after all - but at that price, it will do me just fine!  Tomorrow will perhaps bring some time for creating (though there's a lot of cleaning to be done as well...)

Low volume hearts

One of the many tops (or rather, two) that I put together over the weekend are these low-volume hearts. I decided to make them into two baby quilt tops as I thought they really suited the baby quilt idea...  So, here's one top with 16 hearts - this one will get made up fairly soon and donated to our local library's Friends group to help raise money for the library organisation - they are having a fair in July and I have offered a baby quilt for the raffle.

And this one, made from 20 hearts, will go into my personal stash for when I next need a neutral baby quilt. Although looking at the photo, I'm finding the balance a little off - the right hand side is all very light blocks, so I might shift a block or two around.  Or not, depending on how much time I have!

I was left with three blocks - one is one I made myself, which had the same background as two others I made, so I didn't feel bad leaving it out. One is a free, extra "wrong" block one of the players sent me along with her correct blocks - the strips point outward instead of inwards. The third one, there is really nothing much wrong with - it is a tiny bit out on size in the upper right corner (but well within the margin of error) and had a similar background colour to a number of other blocks - and I needed to lose one more block, so it came out. These three will go in my orphans bag, and will either languish there until I use them for something, or, more likely, go with other orphans to a friend who has a quilt ministry and often can use spare blocks.