Keeping my head above water

Wow well I can't believe how long it's been since I last posted. Things have been pretty hectic in my life over the past few weeks but I am just about keeping my head above water.

I haven't been totally dormant on the creative front and have still been making plenty of postcards and have been trying to get back to the quilt that I have been working on for my bed. It's all basted now and just needs quilting but I think that will wait until later in the year as I want to hand quilt it and we have been having some warmer weather so I just haven't fancied sitting under a pile of fabric and wadding in the heat.

July is nearly on us and it's 10 weeks until I go on holiday to Greece with my family for 2 weeks. I have put on so much weight since Mum died I really am now going to make an effort to try and loose a dress size before we go so here is to the start of a new me?!

I am also going to set myself a mini challenge for July and try and post to my blog every day. I think it will be a good opportunity for me to catch up and post pictures of some of the things I've been making this last month and of course all of the new things that I will be making in July! I wonder how long I will be able to keep it up for?

More Kitties

I almost forgot that also this week I made some more cards for the Fabulous feline trade that I am hosting on FAT at the moment I now have eight of my nine cards made. This time rather than using any commercial prints they are all my own design.

I used some rubber samped images on the glamour puss card as the challenge of the month on FAT was rubber stamping so thought it would be fun to include a bit of that too.

Plenty of Catching up

I haven't posted all week so I have plenty of catching up to do. I've been feeling pretty rough with a cold all week so haven't much felt like spending a lot of time at the PC.


First project for the week the FAT Monday night challenge. This was a new thing for the group where Listmom Nj set a theme and we had 2 hours to make a postcard. The theme was The Essence of Time.

I made a perfume bottle with the word time wafting out of it. For the first time ever I tried some vermicelli quilting in the background. It came out ok for a first attempt I think. The cards were all sent to the challenge winner Tonny :)


At my quilt class on Tuesday I started to piece a back for a quilt that I am making for my bed. The top is based on one of the Alley cat designs and I am making the back from 120 different 6" blocks all different cat prints. Who knew I had that many cat prints in my collection? I don't have a full picture of the front yet as I keep forgetting to enlist Mark's help for taking a photo, but here is a close up of one of the cats. I got all but one of the rows sewn together, now all I have to do is join the rows and add the border.

Wednesday well I posted a picture of the In the Ocean cards that I made.

On Thursday I spent some time making some cards for a blue/green swap that was due in the mail today. I decided to go for an abstract design using different backgrounds and some small patches that I had from an old swatch pack. All the cards are unique as I used different fabrics but they all pretty much are along the same design just with a couple of variations.



Yesterday was a bit of an odd day. Thursday night I'd been sleeping so bad because of my cold I decided to take a sleeping pill for the first time ever, well I didn't wake up until past midday, and felt really light headed and out of it for most of the day. Eventually I pulled myself together at about 10pm and made these dragons for a swap on the mixed media group I belong to. Mark designed the heads for me and I made them up using some tissue paper. I decorated the background card using some stamping ink and voila they were done. Made it just in time as the posting date was today.

I'm now all up to date with my swaps for the time being I have a couple due at the end of next week so I will be trying to work on them today. The first theme is Abstract with funky fibers I have an idea for my design and for a change want to try and work the cards in Satin rather than cotton but I'm not sure how well this will work out so I'm off to have a play now, if it doesn't work then I don't have much time to come up with a different idea.

In the Ocean

I finished up another swap yesterday. The theme was In the Ocean. I am not particularly good at drawing so Mark sketched out a cute octopus for me and I turned him into a postcard complete with seaweed and some bead friends. I am really pleased with the way he turned out, bright and cheery. I hope that he arrives at his new homes safely :)

Fabulous felines

I am currently hosting a trade on the FiberArt Traders group called fabulous felines. Everyone who signs up can make up to 9 cards, I am going to try and make all of mine different. Here are the cards I've made so far.

The first is called Cosmic kitties. Using some Laurel Burch print fabric and a pretty night sky background. I made a similar card for donating to AQS earlier this year and had lots of fun making it so thought I'd make another.

This moonlit kitty card is one of my own designs. I used it for a moonlit night card swap a couple of months ago and thought it would be fun to include a few of my own designs in this swap as well as using images from commercial prints.

This card is called the odd couple. It uses commercial prints and has a colourful paw print and mice background. I've used some eyelash yarn around both of the kitties.


The final card that I've made so far is called under the sea again using commercial print fabrics. I knew that I would be hosting this swap soon so I made it at the same time as I made my challenge card for the FGM group a couple of weeks back.

I have lots of ideas for my other 5 cards just need the time to put them together. I have one more swap that I am behind on to catch up with and then I will be ready to work on these again.

Catching up

I'm now playing catch up as I am behind on a few postcard swaps. I've been able to work on bits and pieces through last week but nothing like the amount of sewing I usually do. This morning I have managed to finish up a couple of sets of cards though.

Here is one of a set of cards that I have made for a self portrai swap. Ok so I don't really have pink hair but I've always fancied trying it just never been brave enough. I made 8 cards for the swap the faces are all the same it's just the fibers that make up the pink hair that vary slightly.

This second set of cards were made for a swap called kites and air balloons. I painted the kites and the K and added some stitched highlights and then used my new machine to add some text to the top of the cards.

Busy week

Had a fun week with my sister and nephew staying last week so I haven't had time to post for a while. Here are some pictures taken when we went to Bristol zoo for the day.

Dinner Time?

Mark and I went walking today near the Cotswold water park, South Cerney. We were wandering along a track next to a disused canal when Mark spotted this scene in a field and managed to snap a picture. I bet we'll never see anything like it again. I think the fox was giving us the evil eye for interupting the build up to his dinner!


It was a really lovely walk taking in some parts of a disused canal and disused railway as well as some of the lakes that make up the waterpark.

Wish You Were Here

Well the challenge is done and the voting is over. Here is the card I made for the FGM Wish you Were Here challenge. I didn't win but my card did get a few votes and I had great fun maing it.

I called it Wish you were here under the sea, dancing with the fishes and me. I used some images that I had on novelty fabrics for the mermaid cat and the fish, some yarn for seaweed, a starfish bead and a few sequins for bubbles. It's now on it's way to a new home as a RAOK (Random Act of Kindness) hopefully it should be there soon.

Postcards

I made a few more postcards yesterday. First off these balloons for a birthday group I belong to. I used the same design as before but put the balloons onto a dark background instead of light. I think I like the light background better as you can see the happy birthday text better.

The second lot of cards I made was for a cat themed swap. I just used a simple design cutting some inages from a novelty print that I had and adding some fibers round the cut images and a nice bright background of paw prints and mice. I think they look pretty cute but then again I like all things cat!

Cherhill

Yesterday Mark took the afternoon off work and we went for a picnic to Cherhill a village a few miles away from here. There is an old hill fort here on the ridge, a monument and a horse cut into the chalk on the hillside.
Here are pictures of the horse and the monument from the bottom of the hill we ate lunch at the top sat at the bottom of the monument. As you can see the skies were blue but it was windy, fortuantely it wasn't a cold wind so we sat around for a while enjoying the sun.



This is the view from the top the tiny white speck in the middle is a large house and our car is parked somewhere near it you can't even make it out in the picture. It's a hard climb to the top but the views are worth it and we had a great picnic.

Lottery Blocks

Today I have been trying to catch up with the mailblocks lottery blocks that I owe. Fortunately I knew that I would be busy so I only owed one block of the chevron pattern this will go in the post this afternoon to the lucky winner this month.

While I was at it I thought I'd try and get ahead and make this month's blocks in plenty of time. They were really good fun to make and I used up lots of scraps I think this will make a great quilt for the winner. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hoping that I will be lucky!

Mum

Today is a difficult day for me as it is Mum's birthday. So I'm dealing with it by trying to keep busy.

Last summer Mum, Dad, Tyler and I went to Clacton for a day by the sea. This is really the last time that I saw Mum up and about as she gradually lost strength with her chemo treatments. Here they all are ready to take a train ride down the sea front. I didn't go as Mum had a wheelchair which wouldn't fit on the train. We all had such a fun day, it hardly seems real that she is gone.

My Mum's name was Susan Hart she lost her battle with cancer on 27th December 2005 she was only 51 years old. She is sorely missed by everyone who knew and loved her.

Furbabies

I decided that as I haven't posted any pictures of the cats for a while I'd take a few of them enjoying the sunshine in the garden yesterday. The only one missing is Hugo. Both of my white babies are very skittish and the slightest noise can send them running so he tends to only pop in and out of the garden as there are too many strange noises. Here is Pip who has grown so fast, he tends to try and eat all of the food which is supposed to be for all 4 cats which is why he has such a gigantic bum!


And here are Oscar and Hector enjoying a rare moment of peace together. Oscar spends most of his time outside, so is the total opposite to Hector and they still tend to be a bit wary of each other sometimes but it looks like they have buried their differences for a while in order to share a nice spot in the sun!

Oriental

I've been working on several postcards but most of them are for challenges or upcoming swaps which haven't been announced yet so I don't want to spoil any surprises, but here is one I can show you. The swap theme was simply 'Oriental' so I decided to get some of my rubber stamps out and stamped an image of a Chinese Dragon onto fabric and then made his scales sparkle with some glitter. I then added a simple border of some oriental print fabric.

Great Bedwyn and Milton

Well here we are and I have managed to go a few days without posting so I'm on catch up. On Monday we went walking around a couple of villages called Great Bedwyn and Wilton. It was a lovely walk down by a canal and through some woods. Here is a picture of a lock and some boats on the canal.


Near the village of Wilton is Wiltshires only working windmill. As it was a bank holiday the mill was open to the public but there were so many people around that we decided just to admire it from afar.

Shoes, Hat and things

The second lot of postcards that I have been working on this weekend are for a swap called Shoes, hats and things.

I didn't have any hat fabric in my stash but plenty of shoes and bags so I decided to just use what I had. I found some cute bag and shoe mini embroidery patches at Hobbycraft yesterday which I decided would be perfect for finishing these cards off.

I have also been busy cutting the pieces for several other postcard swaps and trying to piece the back for a quilt that I am making for my bed so hopefully there will be more pictures to post in the next few days. I finished up a card for a challenge on the FGM group called Wish you Were Here but as there will be a vote for this I will not put up a picture until the voting is over.

Flower Postcards

I have been working on a couple of postcard swaps these last few days. Here is the first for the Quilt Europe group. The swap theme is flowers.


All of the cards are slightly different but I used the same method to construct them all, based on an idea I saw in a magazine. I have to confess that I can't remember where I saw this so I can't give credit for the technique it's just something that stuck in my mind.


Basically I bought some artifical flowers and ripped them apart so I was left with the flat shapes. I attached these to the background using some sequins and beads and then added some glitter detail just to jazz it up abit. When putting them together I added a layer of dress net on the top to stop the petals getting mangled when they go through the mail (at least I hope this is what will happen!)

Fairy seed packets

Finally the remaining three seed packets for the FGM swap have emerged too. I had so much fun coming up with the ideas for these. I took them to my quilt class last night and everyone thought I was quite mad.


First off here are some Prince Charming seeds. Everything I used to make this card came to me as gifts from other members of the FGM group! The idea is to plant these seeds and grow your own prince charming. However there is a disclaimer on the back of the packet as not all seeds will produce a prince charming you must nuture them well or you will end up having to kiss a lot of toads!



The next packet is for growing your own shooting stars. I used a pretty cat image from a Laurel Burch print. The idea behind this is that shooting stars are infact not stars at all but actually fairy cats frolicking in the heavens.



The final packet is for Bubble seeds. I used a painted image for this one, and the idea is that bubbles are the favourite mode of transport for baby fairies so you should plant these if you want to bring some fairy magic back to your garden!

Geisha

The third postcard swap that I finished up was called Oriental Images. It turned out to be only a small group swapping so I decided to paint some geisha faces and add them to a red background.

I love this background fabric it is red, gold and black with large butterfly motifs. I had lots of fun painting the faces too. I am not very good at drawing so I use a lot of royalty free images from the internet and design books but I am really enjoying experimenting with paint at the moment