MIA

Well my wonderful Internet friend Vi, emailed me today to say that she has been missing my blog posts (thanks Vi!) and I have to say I couldn't believe it when I logged on and realised how long it has been since I posted.

I have to admit that I haven't been feeling very creative the last few weeks. I have been too busy fretting over Dad's upcoming operation and my heart hasn't felt creative at all. Dad's op is on Monday so hopefully all will go well and things can get back to normal. Tomorrow I am off to stay with my sister for the week, so that I can visit Dad everyday until he is well enough to leave the hospital.

I have to apologise to everyone who might be waiting for swap items from me at the moment. I have started to slip behind a bit but I am planning on taking a few bit's to my sisters next week and hopefully once I start again I will hit a creative streak again. I will catch up as soon as I can and thanks for your patience.

As I don't have anything creative to share I thought I would post a picture of a wonderful gift that Terri sent me a couple of weeks ago. I have been meaning to share for a while but I couldn't find the charging lead for my digital camera luckily I found it last weekend under a pile of junk.
I am absolutely in love with all of the wonderful kitty fabrics which came tumbling out of the package from Terri, they are just beautiful. When Mark saw these he just rolled his eyes, each time I add to my cat collection he is sure there just can't be any cat fabrics that I don't have, lol! Not only did Terri send these wonderful fabrics but I also received this pretty little Terri original. I will have to come up with a special project just for me to use this on! Even though I have spent the last couple of weeks generally feeling sorry for myself a few exciting things have happened. I went to see Buckcherry in concert which was just great I haven't been to see a band in a while so that was great fun. And last weekend Mark and I spent a day over in Wales visiting a few sites, ending up in Porthcawl for the sunset. We got trapped on the beach as the tide came in but it's very rocky around the beach so we managed to climb up the cliffs otherwise we may have ended up spending the night stranded on the rocks! Mark has some lovely pictures of our day on his blog but here are a couple of my pictures from the day

It was such a lovely spring day with plenty of sun, there were some great reflections in the rock pools on the beach.

These pictures are actually taken at Rest Bay just outside the main part of Porthcawl. This picture of the end of the beach was taken just as the sun was starting to go down. There are so many interesting rock formations to look at and photograph.

There weren't many clouds around and this created some lovely pastel colours in the sky as the sunset.

Before I sign off there are a couple of other exciting things I want to share. While I was at the Exeter quilt show the other week I signed up for a new Internet based magazine. I was chatting to Margaret at the stall as she was showing me some of the articles that they have had in the magazine we got talking about postcards and I promised to send some pictures of my postcards. Well Margaret included a picture of one of my cards and a link to my blog in the latest issue which was really exciting to see. Here is a link to the site and there is a free sample of the magazine to have a look through too.

Also a little birdy has told me that a picture of one of my postcards might be featuring in a local magazine soon too, in an article about another swappers collection of fabric postcards so I will keep my eye out for that. The magazine is dedicated to the County of Wiltshire where I live so it will be fun to look out for the upcoming issues and see if a picture of one of my cards does make it in!

Seeing Double

More postcards again today. These are for a Fabricards swap entitled seeing double. Of course my first thought was to do a couple of kitties but someone else in the swap beat me to it. So here is what I came up with instead.

I only had three to make and I made them all in different colourways but this one turned out to be my fabourite, mm could it be something to do with the orange, lol!

The only other things I have managed to get to today is posting some kitty fabrics on my for sale blog. For anyone concerned that I may have harmed my kitty fabric stash in anyway please be assured that these are pieces cut from yardage that I have so I have kept plenty back for myself :) There is still plenty of different fabrics left for sale so please check them out. I will probably leave everything up for a week or so and then everything left will come down to go on Ebay.

Take a Stitch Tuesday - Cross Stitch

Ok so I have already confessed to the fact that I have been totally useless when it comes to keeping up with the TAST challenge. I know Sharon has said that it is something we can all dip in and out of but I had hoped to have been in more than out when this first started.

I have been keeping up with all of the wonderful creations that have come out of the challenge though and there has been some stunning work. I decided that this would be the week that I get my butt into gear and make something for the challenge again so here it is.There are so many lovely stitches for me to catch up on but I decided to go with the cross stitch. In the past I have made lots of cross stitched pictures and cross stitch was my Mum's passion. I thought it would be interesting for me to use the stitch in a different way so have made all my stitches totally wonky, very different from the hours I have spent in the past stitching even little stitches over aida. I just loved the process of making this poatcard, very liberating to use the cross stitch in this way.

This card will be going to SuZ for the FAF birthday swap.

Texture

Well as much as I had hoped I would keep on top of things this year I have managed to fall behind with a couple of swaps. It's not too much of a disaster at the moment and I am going to work hard over the coming week to make sure that things don't snowball.

Here are my first catch up cards. These are for a texture swap over at AFPC. Although I have been totally hopeless myself at keeping up with the TAST challenge. I have been keeping my beady little eye on what everyone else has been doing. Some of the work coming out of this challenge has been just amazing. Inspired by all the TAST work I decided to use some hand stitching for these texture cards, just some random straight stitching and some french knots using different threads and fibers. I'm pretty please with the way they have both turned out.For this purple one I starting out stitching over a 7 x 5 piece of fabric and pulled some of the stitches a little tight to creating some puckering in the background fabric to add to the texture of the card.
For this pink card I started out with four strips of fabric which I just layed straight ontop of my Timtex middle. I used the hand stitching to secure these pieces. I'm hoping that the edges of these fabrics will start to fray as they go through the mail again adding to the texture of the piece as it makes its journey

Folded Flower

Well it's been a few days since I posted but I haven't been idol on the creative front. I had great fun at my machine quilting class on Thursday. I didn't take any pictures at the class itself but I will share pictures of how my blockes turned out just as soon as I have finished them off.

In the meantime I have some postcards to share. First off at Artsnthemail, the March challenge is to incorporate some folded work onto a postcard. Here is the card I have come up with.

I made some 6 x 6 blocks similar to this for a swap I took part in last year. It was great to revisit this and have another go at the folded flowers. I used some instructions from Kimiko Sudo's folded flower book for creating the flower itself.

Blocks

Before I share the pictures of the blocks that I have been sandwiching ready for my class on Thursday I just want to answer a couple of questions left about the teapot in my last post.

Terri asked how big it it. Yes you are right Terri it is resting on my hand. Not including the felt handle it stands about 4 inches high.

Sue asked what the fabric is formed over. Its a styrofoam ball. I bought a pack of two at my local craft store. I'm not certain what they are used for ordinarily but they make a nice firm circle to stretch your fabric over.

Ok on to my blocks. As I mentioned yesterday I am going to a class on Thursday to try and brush up on my machine skills. We have been asked to take along a few blocks sandwiched and ready to stitch on.I have been raiding my box of blocks and half started projects and picked out a few different themes and designs, also blocks made using various different construction techniques.Hopefully I have given myself enough to play with. I might make up a couple more this evening just to be on the safe side.Some of these blocks I just trimmed down a bit and others I've added borders too and they have all ended up different sizes. I'm thinking that if any of them are particularly successful I might use it to form the first page of a journal just for me. We'll see. Also at least one of them will form part of the FGM quiltlet donation for the Alzheimer project.

Teapot

Recently I have been inspired by all of the lovely Teapots that Sue has been making. Sadly I'm not as clever as Sue as to come up with my own pattern, so I decided to try out a pattern from one of Kumiko Sudo's books. Here is what I ended up with.I think it turned out pretty cute. I decided to send it to Ali as part of an art meme I had posted sometime ago, I know she received it today so it's safe to share the picture without spoiling the surprise.

This evening I have also been working on putting a few little quilt sandwiches together. I decided to take a machine quilting class at my local LQS. I have gotten out of the quilting habit recently and as I have two quilt tops but together waiting to be finished I decided it was about time I took a class to brush up a bit. It will also do me good to be show at last how to get the best use of that walking foot that I got with my machine :) The brief for the class is to take a few little quiltlets along to practise different techniques so I have been adding some borders and things on to a few orphans that I have lying around. I hope to get some pictures up tomorrow of what I have done so far and will then show the after pictures on Thursday night after the class. I'm taking a day off work to take the class so I'm looking forward to lots of fun.

My Weekend

I've had a really lovely weekend. Not been able to do much in the way of creating, but we have been making the most of the spring like weather and have been out and about. Yesterday we went walking in the woods. Today I went to the SouthWest Quilt show in Exeter. Sadly O forgot to take my camera but I had an enjoyable couple of hours wondering around all of the quilts and trade stalls. I managed for the most part to keep my cash in my pocket but I did decide to treat myself to one book that I have wanted for a while.

I am a big fan of Patti Culea's work, and hope to be able to experiment with some of her doll patterns later in the year when I get a bit more free time.

The rest of this evening I have spent posting most of my fabrics for sale over on my new blog. Some have already sold so if anyone is looking to fill out their stash a bit more :) check out my fabrics for sale here, any help that anyone wants to give me in my bid to declutter will be much appreciated!

For Sale

I just started on my items for sale blog. Check it out here. So far I have started off with a few patterns that I have and am busy scanning in some of the fabrics that I have so those should be up soon. If you are interested in anything please just leave a comment on the relevant post along with your email address and I will get back to you as soon as I can.

If any items prove to be popular I will sell on a first come first served basis to be fair. This is a bit of an experiment but thanks to Anna for the suggestion of a blog sale. Even if it's a failed experiment I will end up listing the items of Ebay so hopefully I will declutter one way or another :)

Chunky Book swap

I have done some more papercrafting over the last few days. I managed to somehow overlook the fact that I hadn't sent my page for the February round of the chunky book swap over on ANUK, I can be so simple sometimes.

Anyhow a couple of weeks behind schedule here is the page I made. I managed to get the photos totally out of focus and the page is already on it's way to it's new home so no chance of getting anything better, so apologies for the poor quality but it gives you an idea. Here is the front

And this is the back, can you tell I love fairies?

Aside from this page, I have also finished off the final 14 charms that I had left to do for the one inch swap on Surface Design and have also made a good start on sorting through my fabrics looking for things to declutter.

As many of you predicted the whole decluttering thing is much harder than I thought and I know if I manage to sell on some of the fabrics I will find the perfect use for them the day after I don't have them anymore! Still I really think it needs to be done I am just running out of space. I am thinking about starting a new blog for my stuff for sale to see if there is any interest in private sales before going to Ebay, it would be nicer to think that some of my treasured fabrics will be going to friends. I will also have a few books and patterns for sale to start with and other items will come once I have time to sort through everything.

I just found out today that my Dad will need a serious operation next month to remove one of his Kidneys. The doctors have found a cyst and a mass and they think it will be better to remove the whole kidney to try and get all the bad stuff at once. He will be in hospital for a week and off work for at least 7 weeks after that, I will probably be making plenty of trips back and forth to make sure he is ok, which will be another good reason for me to try and get organised now.

And the Winner is ....

I just got Mark to pick the winner from my 250th post celebration.

Stitchety-Grub you are the winner! Please could you email me your address at angelcatcards@yahoo.co.uk.

I thought it would be a nice RAOK to say thank you to everyone so I would like to send everyone who commented an ATC. I already have some of your addresses but if you know I don't have yours please also email me. I can't promise when you will get them as I have a few swaps to get on top of first but you will get something eventually.

Thank you

I just want to say a huge thank you to everyone who commented on my last post, and indeed to everyone who has been leaving comments on my blog for the last few months. I just love stitching and blogging and would do it even if no-one was reading but it's wonderful to have so much support from blogging friends.

I'd also like to thank everyone who left comments about Mark's blog. He was thrilled to get such lovely comments about his photos. I'm forever telling him how great they are but I think he thinks I'm just being nice most of the time, so he loved getting such nice feedback from others.

Stuff

Wow this is my 250th post can you believe it. I think this calls for a celebration. Everyone who leaves a comment on this post in the next couple of days will be entered into a draw and the first name out of the hat will win a fiber creation. I don't know what it will be yet but hopefully the surprise will all be part of the fun.

I haven't been very creative again the last few days, I have decided that I need to have one giant clear out at home. My stuff is starting to take over every room in the house and I just can't find things when I want them. This is an example of what pretty much every surface in my house looks like at the moment.Drastic times call for drastic measures so over the next few weeks I am going to have a massive sort out and will try and get rid of some stuff on ebay. I have about 6 totes full of fabric at the moment which is probably more than I will ever use so yes even some of the fabric must go. Even if I get rid of half my stuff I've no doubt there will still be plenty littering the place, lol!

I have made one thing today though and that is a card for my friend and work colleague Yvonne. I used to do a lot of card making but not so much recently, however as Yvonne does card making herself someone suggested that as she is retiring soon she would probably appreciate a hand made card more than a bought one. Here's what I came up with, hope she likes it.It took my ages to make but mostly because one of my cats, Hector, is in a fussy mood tonight and kept walking all over everything to try and get some attention. Even when I had the camera out he was trying to make sure I wasn't looking at anything but him.

Christina's spirit doll

Ok as promised here is some of the bead work that I have been doing for one of the round robins that I have been participating in. This time round I had Christina's beautiful Spirit Doll. Here she is before.And this is her after I had added my bead work.I found the shape of the doll difficult. Don't get me wrong Christina has made a wonderful form but I just didn't know where to start with the beading, no doubt that is just my beading inexperience shining through. Christina said that she likes texture so I added some stone chip beads around the face cab and then used different, sizes and types of beads to create some interest and different textures on the 'tail'.

Even though I am finding these dolls a challenge I am also really enjoying the beadwork. It takes quite a bit of time but when you have finished filling an area and it all comes to life it is very rewarding. I am already in possession of the dolls in the next rounds of both the mermaid and the spirit swap and am looking forward to getting started.

Brecon Beacons.

I can't believe that it has been almost a week since I posted here. really I just don't know where the time has been disappearing too the last couple of weeks. I have grand plans for a creative week last week but every evening after work I just felt so tired that I couldn't seem to motivate myself to do a lot.

We had a fun adventure on Friday/night Saturday though, which included sleeping in the car and walking up a mountain in the dark to capture a beautiful sun rise over the Brecon Beacons. I forgot my little digital compact camera, but the trip was really so Mark could get his camera into use and he has some great photos of the lake in the mountains that we visited and the Lunar eclipse that happened on Saturday night at his blog here. If you have time to visit and like his pictures please leave a comment as he is always bemoaning the fact that his friends own friend rarely leave any comments :)

I don't have much time to post properly at the moment as I am on my lunch break and have just popped home to pick up some stuff I need for this afternoon, but hopefully I will be back later to share a picture of the latest doll I have been working on for one of the beaded RR's that I'm in.