Lucky, lucky, lucky

Two really lucky things happened this month - one was having my laptop slide off the dining table onto the floor with a tremendously loud bang without any apparent damage (wipes sweat off forehead) and the other was winning this amazing bundle of new kona colours from Robert Kaufman.  They come from Judith of Needles and Lemons whose lovely blog was one of the first I ever read.   They are really beautiful fabrics and pretty much quadrupled my meagre supply of solids - I actually had to go and get a drawer from Ikea.  I am so grateful and promise to try to make good use of them. 

PS, do you think Birds and Bees is a good name for a beer?:-)

Daisy, Daisy

I am really looking forward to the Stitch Gathering this coming weekend and have nearly finished the homework I need to do.

Maybe you remember this?  This is the bag which is also an entry ticket, and the idea is to decorate it for your secret partner.

I have been staring at it on and off, waiting for inspiration - for a while I kept thinking of a quatro stagione pizza, but I'm not sure if anyone would appreciate that on their bag!

This is it now.  This is the front.

The centre of the daisy is FMQ'd with two layers of batting and is also sewn over a small wodge of stuffing to pad it.  The petals are made in the same way that I make speedy bunting flags, and I folded the bottom corners in and then threaded them together to hold the folds and gather them into shape.

This is the back.

The flowers and leaves are fused into place, then zigzagged round the edges (flowers) and free motion embroidered (leaves).  The stems are satin stitch (close zigzag on my machine).

I lined the bag with Ikea curtain lining fabric which was almost a perfect match.  I had already had to unpick the side seams and open out the bag in order to decorate it, so I cut a piece of lining the same size as the opened out bag plus a turnover allowance along what would become the top edges.  I folded and pressed this allowance down, then with the bag opened out flat and with wrong sides together I sewed the bag and lining together close to the top edge.  I then folded the bag back up (ie bag shaped, handle to handle) right side out and lining inside and zigzagged down each side before turning inside out again and sewing a straight line outside the zigzags, thus making French side seams.

Among the dumber things I did was fusing my blue-green circle to the bag before sewing the daisy on, which made the daisy very, very hard to stitch in place. One day I hope to get to the stage of being able to make things without it being a learning experience!

Bass Rock ATC

Thank you for the encouragement over this card - I didn't try to unpick but finished it off by sewing round the edge.  It's now going off to my secret partner, so I thought I would show a little bit more of the place it is inspired by.

We are lucky to have some beautiful beaches near us from which the island in my card, the Bass Rock, is visible from different sides as you travel down the coast.

It is one of a group of islands/rocky outcrops, most of which are volcanic in origin.The top of it looks white because of an enormous colony of Northern Gannets.

It always looks beautiful and fascinating whatever the weather, and these beaches are some of my favourite places to "get away from it all", which is the theme of this swap.

Thank you to Ali for once again organising this lovely swap. It was a lot of fun making this card and I was so pleased when I found out who my secret partner was.  It goes off with thanks for bloggy encouragement and enthusiasm!

The Bass Rock: tiny Oakshott scraps, fused, and machine embroidered.

Round the World Blog Hop

Nesta kindly invited me to take part in the Round the World Blog Hop which gives a blogger a chance to introduce themselves, and talk about the creative process.  I am in excellent company today with

Fran @ Patchy Rose
Hohenbrunnen Quilterin
Vera @ Negligent Style
Aylin-Nilya

So, for a bit of me, me, me:-)

Where I live or have lived  - North East of Scotland, Edinburgh, London, Edinburgh

What am I working on - WIP: Stripey Stones quilt

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This quilt has been on the go for too long.  I made six of the nine stripey stones I need, then it stalled for lack of suitable fabric, but must be finished before I start another quilt...   I have a bucket list of quilts which is probably now long enough to last a life time but luckily I will have got bored of some of the ideas before I ever start to make them!

How my work differs from others in its genre - I'm not sure it does! My quilts are not even very like each other.  It is very early days in my experiment with quilting and at the moment I am happy hopping from one idea to another and seeing what happens.

Why I write/create - I make things because I keep wondering "what would it look like if you tried to do it like this?", or "how could I express this idea?".  I write about it because it's a way making contact with people who are sharing the same adventure.  Also - does a quilt exist if there's nobody looking?:-)

How my creative process works - I rarely sketch things out but add the name of a quilt to my bucket list and keep all the details in my head.   I spend a very long time thinking about a project, before finally getting started.   Then I spend a very long time making it mostly because I tend to keep thinking of different options at each stage and getting paralysed by indecision.

I often make a false start because I like stubbornly working things out for myself. Work and life get in the way too.  Either way I try not to feel bad about the lack of productivity!  Very rarely, I have one clear vision right from the start and work like a mad thing until it is done - it is lovely when this happens.

One of the "rules" of the Round the World Blog Hop is that you should recommend a handful of blogs and invite those bloggers to take part.  I always feel a bit uncomfortable about it in case it's not someone's cup of tea so I'm just going to point you towards a handful of blogs that I really like which you might not already have discovered, leaving it up to those bloggers whether they would like to take up the torch (or cup of tea) and run with it!

There is always something interesting to read, or lovely to see, here:

Faffling
Bottlebranch
Quimble
Dreaming in Stitches

WIPs

At the moment all other projects are on hold because I am working on ideas for the 4th Artist's Trading Card Swap organised by Ali of Very Berry Handmade.

This is my first card for this swap - I have a few ideas and have volunteered to be a swap angel, so I will have to make at least two.  The theme is "Getting Away from it All" and this scene, which I also photographed for my blog header, is one of my favourite places to do that.  It shows the Bass Rock from the coast.

This is where I have got with it - I'm not sure whether to call it finished.

It is not quite as wonky as it looks from the photos but I had difficulty turning it and I think I may have to unpick it and go back to the drawing board.  Or maybe I have to learn not to be too much of a perfectionist!

Thought it might make you laugh you to see how shamefully messy I am.  The card is only 2.5 x 3.5 inches, but it took this to create it.

I am very happy to have been invited by Nesta of the lovely blog Ella and Nesta's Little Room to take part in a Round the World Blog Hop.  Each blogger on the hop writes a post answering some questions about their creative process and gives a mention to a handful of other blogs.  Nesta has her own Blog Hop post today - please check it out, and if you are visiting from there hello:-)   I'll be doing my own Hop post next Monday, so I hope you might come back and see what's going on here.

Back in the saddle again - ATC swap

Once again I have joined up with Ali at Very Berry Handmade and am taking part in the fourth of her Artist Trading Card swaps.

I love the challenge of making something very tiny - if you want, you can see some of my earlier efforts, but you should definitely check out the cards in the Flickr group where you can see ones from the current swap, both finished and in progress, and have a look at some of the others from previous swaps too.  They are all beautiful and the difference in techniques and choice of subject matters is always really interesting.

The theme of this swap is "getting away from it all" - to be interpreted in any way you like, so I'm having fun trying to think of things that this idea means to me, that would be in any way implementable in a 3.5 x 2.5 inch format!

I'm back!:-)

Apologies for running late with the Slow Blog linky!

We arrived back from our summer hols on Monday, school started again on Wednesday, and I am only just catching up.  I have one piece of creativity to report.  Terrible picture but you get the idea.  If you are having deja vus this is indeed another robot quilt for one of my nephews who was very envious of the one I made his brother.  As a loving auntie I obviously had to oblige.

The rest of the summer has gone by in a flash.  I spent a special birthday in the highlands with my beloved and had this view from my window

and views like this outdoors:

We climbed Arthur's Seat for a view of Holyrood House and the Firth of Forth,

and spent a week in this - first camping trip with children, and a great success largely due to fantastic weather and to camping next door to my in-laws, including my brother-in-law the professional chef!  

Back to reality with a bump now.  What about you?    If you are a Slow Blogger feel free to link up a post of creativity or other distractions!