Monday, August 07, 2006

Lots of Pictures

Hi Everybody
As Promised – more pictures and less bitching and moaning.

I did a bit of a tidy up in my room yesterday. I re-arranged the big plastic tubs of craft stuff so I’ll be able to find what I want WITHOUT basically dumping everything out on the floor and digging through the resulting pile. I did quite a good job as I now have 3 empty shelves in my cupboard that I can use for storing other stuff.

Here are the 3 big plastic tubs FULL of spinnable fibre. It would help if I had more than 5 minutes a week to spin, but it is so cold at the moment I could use it as insulation if I needed to.

Here are some cross stitch pictures that I just need to get cleaned up and framed.

This one, which is a birth announcement for my son, has been waiting for this since he turned 1, which is when I made it. You can do the maths and work out just HOW LONG this has been waiting. The alphabet is from a Burda book of Alphabets (I think) that I’ve had since I was a teenager.

The next two are from Teresa Wentzler. The first is a freebie called “Tempest in a Teacup”; the second is “The Castle”. They’ve been waiting about 2 years to get finished off.

The last one is from Marilyn Leavitt-Imblum. It’s called “The Quiltmaker”. This has also been sitting around for about 2 years too.

Now on to the quilts. I Have NO IDEA how long these have been sitting around, but seeing just how close I am to finishing so many of them inspires me to get working on them again.

This one I call “Big Sue”. I just need to finish quilting the border (yes, there IS only a little over half of it to go) and sew on the binding. The centre block is a super sized Sunbonnet Sue. The small squares in the border are all hand dyed (by me) and leftovers from the fabric I dyed for my Millennium Quilt swap (no, I never made THAT quilt either).

This was inspired by Ami Simms’ book “Invisible Appliqué”. In it she talks about using the method to piece curved blocks. I had some hand dyed fabric leftover from another quilt I never finished (Fair play it was supposed to be for a friend of the EX and he dumped me before I’d even sewn the thing together so I dumped the blocks) and I’d always wanted to do a tumbling blocks quilt so I designed a curvy version and, as they say in the classics, just went for it. This is also nearly finished. Once this is done I’ll probably make it into a bag or something as I need a nice knitting project bag (or 50).

This needs to be quilted. The blocks are hand pieced (also from leftover hand dyed fabric from the MQ swap), the assembly was done by machine, and I’m waiting for my Thimblelady book on “Hand Quilting Without Pain” to get started on this one.

These are blocks that I did on a sampler course. I only did the course because I wanted to do the “Advanced” course offered by the shop and they insisted you did the “Beginner” course first. Well, I was so unimpressed by the course and the rather Bolshy attitude of the teachers that I never went back. Now I look at them again I’m starting to like them all over so I’ll do something with them SOMEDAY. Hell, maybe I’ll put borders round them all, practice quilting, and make me a heap of throw pillows.

This is a top that I did from some other hand dyed leftovers from a hand dyeing course I did AGES ago. I started off doing asymmetrical log cabins but got bored so I cut them all into wonky squares and alternated them with squares of the hand dyes. I just need to slap a border on this puppy and quilt it.

This is a top that needs a new home as I’m never going to finish it. In 1998 my son’s aftercare teacher fell pregnant. I started this quilt for her. Then, I found out I was pregnant, so I changed plans, decided to buy her something, and allocated the quilt to my baby. Then I miscarried at 9 weeks. It wasn’t a good time for me as I hadn’t told lots of people so not many of them knew why I was the way I was and sometimes, you know, you just DON’T want to talk about things like that. Also, I had people say to me that I shouldn’t have found out so early as if I’d waited a month or two I’d never have known and things would have been fine. What can I say – I have Rh negative blood. I NEED to know these things as I need an injection of Anti-D or something like that to stop me building up antibodies which could jeopardise my health or the life of any future babies I might want to have.

Anyway – enough about the extreme insensitivity of people. I tried to make the quilt for the other baby but it just didn’t work. You can see from the CRAPPY border I put on that I was NOT doing well. I have offered it to a friend and if she wants it and will finish it, it will be hers to do with what she will.

OK – This was supposed to be posted this morning but Blogger wouldn't let me post pictures. Hope you like the pics. There will be knitting ones once I sort that bit of my stuff out.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

hey, you should take part in bethi's abc project with michael's cross stitch! http://berthi.web-log.nl/berthi/2006/04/abc_lapje.html

nice pics. in your case it's really rewarding to clean out the closet!

Anonymous said...

[oh that was me, nrrdgrrl]