KnitYoga

Sampler Quilt Blocks Laid Out

Here are my sampler quilt blocks all laid out on top of the bed. This is the order they will be in when the whole thing is joined together.

Since this pic was taken, they have all been joined in strips of three and one strip has been hand quilted. So, I have the rest to hand quilt and then the strips to join together. Then I need to make a border and join that on and then make a binding. Question is - when will I do this?? There always seems to be something else ...

Sampler Quilt

This has been cast aside for too long. From starting to learn hand patchwork and quilting, I had all of my blocks sewn and ready for quilting and assembling within 6 months and, apart from quilting three of them, I am still at that stage. As usual, I am like a butterfly and keep getting distracted. I have shown some of the blocks I have done in previous posts so will post pics of the rest now so that I am up to date at least with my quilt. First, is Geese in the Cabin, then Oak Leaves and Acorns, Corner to Corner Curve, Mariner's Compass, Floor Tile, Tangled Star, Interlocking Squares and Clamshell.

Miss Hannah's Hideaway

The latest copy of Inspirational Embroidery and Cross Stitch arrived in the post this morning. There are some wonderful projects in there but this dimensional embroidery cottage has to be my favourite. It's 3D and can be used as a box. I soooo want to make it!

Upcycled Pincushions

Lately, I've been into making pincushions using recycled items. This fairy house uses a recycled baked beans can for the house and the garden part is formed by a circular wooden sample that was left over from when we had to choose a colour for our garage doors.

This one has a recycled shipping tube as its base and I left the lid at the bottom to allow for storage.

This last one has a recycled bottlecap as its base and, as it was snowing when I made it, I was inspired to embroider something that I hoped would resemble a snowflake.

Playing with Tomato Puree Tubes

Sorry about the long absence again. I have loads to show but I will have to do it bit by bit. It all seems a bit overwhelming and onerous to update a blog when you are so behind but I am going to bite the bullet and start with my most recent endeavours. A couple of weeks ago, I bought a book by Ann Parr called "The Art of Stitching on Metal". I have been dipping it into it now and again but haven't had time to give it a proper read. However, one thing that caught my eye was a brief mention that the metal that tomato puree tubes are made of can be used to stitch into, emboss, etc. So, that night, we had spaghetti bolognese and I used up the half a tube that I had left in the fridge, cut it open, washed it and ended up with a nice rectangle of copper coloured metal on one side and tomato puree advertising on the other. The first thing I did was to emboss it and colour it to make an autumn themed embellishment.

Then I die cut some flower and leaf shapes from the tomato puree tube metal, coloured them, layered them up and glued them to a bangle from a lot of bangles that I had bought at a charity shop for peanuts. Total cost was probably about 15p.

I love recycling/repurposing so I had real fun with this and can see lots more possibilities.

Hi again, I've been lazy!

I've been really lazy about blogging lately or maybe it's because I've had so much filling up my time. I'm sorry to have been AWOL for so long and thank you, Katie, for the blog award. I am chuffed to bits that you think that my blog is worthy and not a little embarrassed that I have left it for so long to thank you. Thanks also to remoteknitter for being concerned about my absence. Apart from laziness, I have truly been strapped for time. The everyday necessary stuff takes up far too much time to my mind but has to be done and that only leaves a certain amount of time left for crafting, blogging, etc. Added to that is the fact that I've increased the amount of arty crafty stuff that I'm doing which includes a weekly patchwork and quilting class and a City & Guilds Traditional Hand Embroidery Level 2 course that I started in January.

The initial idea of starting a blog was to have some sort of diary of my crafty endeavours and I would like to keep that up so I need to catch up by adding pics of some of the stuff I've been doing since I last blogged. I might have to do this a bit at a time to catch up though! Unfortunately, I haven't blogged since around Xmas last year so the first pics I'm going to post are going to be of Xmas projects. Sorry!

First up are some Mexican style embroidered hanging tree ornaments - patterns came from here.