Friday, April 10, 2009

Variety show

Well, a nice productive day today, with lots of variety. The productivity is due to the rain, largely - if it had been nice, we might have gone somewhere; as it was, I organised a tons of photos on the computer & sewed; Geoff did some work, read, went for a run; the kids played on the computer & DS and did some work on their puffle houses (they have been creating with cardboard boxes & making little creatures out of pompoms - it's a whole town in the living room - I should really take some photos only they keep telling me they aren' t done yet...)
First order of businesss was this block in black, white and red, which is the March birthday block for Vicki - I know, it's late, but she's running behind herself, so I have put it on a back burner for a while. Finally got a chance (and the inspiration) to do it today).
And then I made some ATCs, using (among other things) a bit of the paper I bought at the craft shop at Millet's Farm on Wednesday at the bloggy picnic.

Then I went on to work on the April calendar page for the BQL challenge - handbags - which I shall put together & quilt tomorrow. It's only small - the blocks are about 5 inches square at the moment. The handles I shall leave free floating (mostly - will tack a couple down in places).
And finally, this piece on the right is a small sample for a "class" I'll be teaching - sort of. I offered to run an after-school quilting club next term (an hour once a week for 10 weeks) for the Year 4s. A lot of the teachers & TA's at school run clubs once a week - there's a minimal fee for the children to take part - and last term, there was virtually nothing for Olivia's year available, so I decided to step into the breach. I needed something which could be done by hand and which would be simple yet impressive. I decided to start with a small wall-hanging, the background being 6, 5" squares with small appliques (fused, then stitched over, but raw edge) with some handquilting. I confess to piecing the background on the machine for this sample (and likewise, will attach the binding on that way - in fact, I may take in my machine the week we do the binding - I will sew it down by hand of course, but can't quite see putting it on by hand - I know it's possible, but it's not necessary!) but I did do the quilting by hand (yes, really) to show that it can be done. It's not wonderful, but I think it's good enough not to be shown up by a room full of 8 & 9 year olds!

2 comments:

Sew Create It - Jane said...

Love the birthday block...that centre looks quite intricate.

I've noticed a few of these April BQL quilts on blogs...I think it is the prettiest one yet...I never got past January! oops

mumzy said...

Love the birthday block.

The idea of putting on a quilt club day at the school is truly amazing and I'm sure those taking part will appreciate your efforts and your knowledge. Great job!