Take 5

1) It's the time of year for the Spring Bloggers' Quilt Festival over at Amy's Creative Side, so many amazing quilts to see already over there. Voting starts on 22/5, so if you want to enter a quilt you've still got time. I decided I'd enter my 'Fishing' Baby Quilt, into the Small Quilts Category, it's 160" in perimeter so fits nicely in there.

My quilt was inspired very much by my 'fish a day' sewing that I started earlier in the year, and after finishing the quilt, I'm back on the daily fish wagon:

Some of the jellyfish which appeared in the fishy bag, some rainbow striped fish and a little turtle. I'm starting to see the end quilt in my head as kind of an 'I spy under the sea' quilt.


2) Charity Shop buys - some lovely wool blankets...

And they said cushions with flowers to me. So, especially as I have no hand sewing on the go at the moment, I've been sitting cutting out petals and flowers from gorgeous, colourful wool scraps...

I might even get round to sewing them soon!


3) Calling all new Quilt bloggers, there's a blog hop, specifically for you, about to start. I participated in the 2014 Blog Hop and it was really useful, full of lots of tips - both quilting and blogging, and also a great way to get to know other bloggers. Here's the very basic info:

If you are interested in participating in the 2015 New Quilt Bloggers Blog Hop and have been blogging

1. mainly about modern quilting*,
2. for less than 2 years,
3. writing at least 4 posts a month,
4. are willing to agree to be actively involved in the blog hop through visiting and commenting on the other blogger’s hop posts,
5. and have or are willing to open a Facebook account to participate in the group discussions,

*Modern quilting to you is modern quilting to us.

Note that we will accept 100 participants for the blog hop this year. The sign up form will be available until May 31, 2015, or until we reach 100 participants.

You can find out more and sign up over at Quilting Jet Girl, who is one of the hosts this year. (And she also has 2 gorgeous quilts entered into the Bloggers' Quilt Festival, so look out for them.)

4) Another, very different, link for you - have you heard about 'Den Making Day' ? It's running from the 29/5 to the 6/6, in aid of Save the Children. The idea is that children are sponsored to create dens - whether that's behind a sofa, or at school, or in their gardens.

There's an adorable clip on You Tube, to promote the campaign:


Particularly with the disaster in Nepal so recently, supporting this campaign seems more important than ever. Save the Children estimate that just in Nepal, 2 million children have been affected by the earthquakes, 320000 children made homeless and 5000 schools destroyed.

And if you're looking for ideas and inspiration, as usual Pinterest is a very easy source - try this board with lots of child friendly ideas. I think my favourite on there might have to be this colourful teepee.

5) Following on nicely from that, I'll just share a few photos from my Saturday night at the weekend. I went camping in our local woods with the boys and 2 of their friends. Happily it was a lovely, sunny evening...

I had a small, pop up tent, but of course that was far too tame for the boys. Sam and one of their friends found a brilliant little den area, very sheltered and secluded within a clump of trees...

But Theo decided to build his own sleeping platform in a tree. There's a little source of scrap wood very nearby, which a building site puts out for the local community to use - I think the expectation generally is that it's free firewood, but Theo trotted off to scavenge some 'suitable' pieces there and brought them back to create this temporary (no nails or anything!) structure!

It was very difficult to capture the full glory of his sleeping platform on camera I'm afraid!

It was probably about 2.5 metres up in the tree, and despite its very precarious angle, Theo did demonstrate to me how difficult it was - due to the positioning of posts and branches - to actually completely fall out of bed. His pillow did slip off during the night, but when I went to check on him, just before 5am after being 'woken' (in inverted commas because I'm not sure I actually 'slept' at all during the night!) by an amazing dawn chorus, he was very much still asleep in his bed!

Despite it being a lovely, sunny evening, the night was really cold. And although I was in my tent, fully dressed in several warm layers with a woolly hat on all night, in a sleeping bag with 3 blankets and a coat over me, I did feel very chilled all night. And it brought it home to me a little more, how hard life must be for so many, children and adults, in Nepal at the moment who are struggling to find warmth and shelter.

This Moment

Here's a link to Soulemama's moment, and here's mine. I'm sure you'll forgive me a couple of extra photos this week, especially as I seem to have forgotten to have a moment last week!

{this moment} ~ A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

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A mermaid block and a fairy block

With my renewed determination to finish Maria's quilt, I have been working on a couple of blocks for it. I think they will probably be the most time consuming blocks which will go into the quilt. The kind of blocks you'd only make for a quilt for someone you really love.

First up a mermaid...

I drew her on a scrap of linen, and stitched around my drawing a couple of times.

With a rainbow tail to match Maria's!

Here the scales are just cut out and roughly arranged to give an idea of how they'll look.

 

Then starting to sew them on, from the bottom up.

Here they are all stitched down, I changed my thread for each colour layer, definitely a labour of love!

A background created, ready for the mermaid to dive deep... 

And after some careful cutting out, in she goes...

And I stitched her down with a couple of lines of stitching all around - again with thread colour changes on her tail!

And that's just the bit that's hidden in the block!

Here's the finished block...

 And out comes the mermaid...

More info on making a block with a 'flap' back here.

 And then just a couple of finished photos of this next one. A simpler block...

Hiding a little fairy on a toadstool...

The toadstool needs some spots still, I haven't decided yet whether they will be embroidered or tiny, white buttons.

This one is very much a mini version of my original, and rejected, block for the quilt. Vaguely Maria-ish but I didn't stress about trying to make her identical, it's just too small to manage, for me anyway!

I think that's now 7 of 12 blocks done, so over half way at least, and I have a plan for the remaining 5 too. Still seems a long way left to go though.

Sally.

Fishing Baby Quilt

It's been a long, long, long, long time since I've said this - I've got a finished quilt to show you!

I know it's only a baby quilt, but still a finished quilt is a finished quilt!

And I have really enjoyed making this one - it's full of so many of my favourite elements. And obviously having an excuse to head to the beach for photos is always good too.

I kept the fish really simple, no eyes even.

In fact all the applique is very simple.

A faceless fisherman!

And a solitary seagull.

And I had the perfect backing fabric...

I found a massive remnant of this ages ago in a Charity Shop. There was plenty for a quick quilt bag...

And probably a couple more quilts if I ever get round to making them.

It really has been so long since it last happened that I'd kind of forgotten how satisfying it is to actually finish a quilt! I think (hope!) it might spur me on a bit now to get to the finishing line with Maria's quilt too.

And in celebration of an actual finish I'm linking up lots too - with Confessions of a Fabric Addict and the wonderfully named link up 'Can I get a whoop, whoop!' (great blog name too, and a gorgeous stained glass window quilt there today), over at Quilt Matters who's hosting TGIFF, and with Finish it Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts.

So here's to finishing, whether it's quilts or anything else in life!

Sally.

Take 5

1) The daily fish sewing is slightly floundering at the moment, but I'm not beating myself up over it since it's because the fish seem to be spilling out into other projects right now. First up a simple little bag, that's part of a present for a little boy...

And the other side...

2) And on a larger scale, there's the beginnings of a new baby quilt for a little boy, who is already a couple of weeks old now, so I'd better get a move on with it!

These strips are sort of following the principles in this quilt-as-you-go Herringbone quilt. Here they are sewn together with some fishy additions...

This quilt is very much inspired by a comment from the lovely Carole at Fresh Off the Frame. She suggested that my daily sewing fish might end up on the end of a fishing line in her house. Although that's not my plan with my daily fish (poor things, I couldn't do that to my little babies!), I did really like the idea and it popped into my head when musing over baby boy quilt ideas. So thank you Carole! Although these fish are going to be caught in a net, as you can see...

I have a sky section almost pieced together and then a boat to create, hopefully it will all come together quite quickly now.

3) Another bag with some rainbow scraps, to be part of another present...

4) My friend Emma organised a craft evening recently to try and make white flowers for the charity North Devon Against Domestic Abuse.

Most of the flowers we made were fabric, and involved very basic hand sewing.

But some did not even require any sewing - these are made from milk bottle cartons with a button glue gunned on to them.

After being inspired by the poppies on display at the Tower of London, the charity decided to create their own version in Barnstaple town square to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the North Devon Women's Refuge being open. The white flowers are to symbolise peace, marriage and love, and they're aiming to have 4000 flowers to display by November (you can read a little more about their plan here). So if you're interested in contributing some flowers there's still plenty of time.

5) May has arrived with pretty horrible, wet, windy, cold weather. As I write I have a hot water bottle ready to take up to bed with me since my bare feet are icy! But the lilac tree is just coming into bloom and looking beautiful, and I couldn't resist this bright green vase the other day in a charity shop - it is making me feel Spring like even with my icy feet!

This Moment

Here's a link to Soulemama's moment, and here's mine...

{this moment} ~ A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

. . . . . . . . . .  

Mouse Picnic Mini Quilt

I've had a little girl present to make this past week, and after a bit of thought decided to make another Mouse Picnic. I've had a thrifted miniature picnic hamper sitting in a cupboard for quite a while, and a separate thrifted bundle of tiny cups, saucers etc too, all waiting for the right occasion. Perfect time to empty a little out of my cupboards rather than the more usual reverse process. So I was all set and just had to provide a mini picnic mat and the mice...

It is really a lot more 'square' than it looks in this photo, I promise! It's just that there's some very long, uneven grass underneath!

Although the squareness isn't an issue in the flesh, there were several niggles with this make. First up, I was going with a rainbow approach to work with the bright cups, but you might notice, as Venetia did, that I've got my violet and indigo back to front. Unfortunately she only noticed once it was finished!
Then I did think it would be a great idea to try and quilt a sunshine on one side and a cloud with rain coming down on the other. But it really didn't work as I'd imagined it in my head! My 'sun' turned out very weird, and the whole thing is just far too much on top of each other, you can see the failed attempt more clearly on the back.

Ditto with the long grass!

Happily, I don't think it looks 'bad' on the front, just not what I wanted, and not as good as other designs could have been.

And lastly I did actually start off making a completely different mini picnic mat and mice!

But I didn't consider the tea set in question when I was making it, and when it was finished and I put the really bright cups etc with them, it all looked terrible! And these mice are very particular mice who really don't like clashing tea sets! So now they're suffering for their pickiness and are a little sad that they have been put back in said cupboard, and are waiting until I find another tea set for them...

And another little girl of course!

Sally.