Apologies to all for the delay in posting. Not because of a hiatus in craft related activities, but rather the reverse. The craft room now looks like an explosion in a card factory, as the next Greyhound show is on Easter Sunday and for the first time I will be sitting on a stall fundraising by the sale of hand made cards. I have never done this before and am feeling a variety of emotions including excitement, worry and curiosity. Although I make cards regularly for the GRW shop, I don't actually come face to face with the buyers so it will be interesting to see what sells (if anything) and get feedback.

I attach a photo of an Easter card made for my in-laws, who we are visiting today. The design was cross stitched, using soft shades of blue and coffee tones. A darker brown thread was used for stitching the message. I then applied seed beads (a dark rainbow assortment) to represent the spots as I am still not up to French knots. The design was mounted in a cream coloured aperture card. Along the bottom, I applied ribbon, brown with little blue dots and finally applied a fabric flower in blue, attached by a pale blue crystal brad. The envelope has been adorned in my usual style with an exuberant assortment of Easter stickers.

Quilting class tonight. Our homework last week was to complete an appliqué block, which I did. I'll post a photo of it shortly. Anything computer-y has been at sixes and sevens because of the computer falling over at the end of last week, and we are only now getting back to some sort of normality. Tonight we started work on the big centre block which will be in the middle of the quilt - an enjoyable piece to work on. Marianne showed us how to do one of the quarters in class and we now have the others to do for homework. I had some very positive feedback from the other ladies who had bought Mothers Day cards, saying that their mothers and mothers in law had liked them very much. It's so nice to know this.

The shop is currently having a big sale and all of us were drooling over the wonderful fabrics that were in the sale and imagining projects. I've decided to make a visit later in the week, partly because it's better to look at the colours in daylight, but also to make a more sober assessment of what I can realistically achieve and not to get too carried away (which would be so easy to do!!).
At the moment, my current (very vague) list would be to make :-

A gothic purple one for Sarah (my friend's daughter, who is a 17 year old Gothic princess)
A tablecloth for the kitchen
One for my aunt
One or more Christmas hangings, cushions or lap quilts for our house and possibly also as gifts.

The shop has also released its plans for its tenth anniversary this year and is having a special exhibition of quilts later in the summer. I don't know at the moment whether to put in one of mine. Also they have released details for a programme of summer classes - there are some really nice ones and I think I will sign up for them. Generally they fill up quickly so I will get my skates on. One of the ones that had us all in giggles tonight was a one day workshop on "Decorating Your Bra for Belly Dancing" - I say why stop at Belly dancing? Why not for doing the hoovering or the washing up? Or even walking the dog?

So, to write about the quilt. I bought the jelly roll just before Christmas and didn't have time to play with it, what with making cards and various other things. Anyway, it was calling to me so I needed to go play. I did some searching on the net for clues on jelly roll quilt blocks, and came across a photo of a nice simple one, that I liked the look of. I made nine blocks. Each block was made up of four squares - each square made up of four rectangles of strip, cut using my rotary cutter. Because the strips are pre-cut accurately, this makes it very fast and easy for the cutting. Each square was joined together with the next one with a ninety degree rotation, so the ends of each quarter face a different way. Having made up the nine blocks, I then added a vertical sash to join them into three rows of three, then horizontal strip to join up the three rows. Finally added sashing round the edges and the top was done. It's going to be a lap quilt, so is a nice size. All I had left over was one whole strip and a couple of short pieces - perfect. The fabric was by Moda, who do a lot of jelly rolls and also charm packs, which I like the look of too. Hmm, so many quilts, so little time.

At quilting class on Wednesday, I took the finished top in with me, so I could choose a fabric for the back. I ended up with a very pretty apple green, with a coral print of tiny flowers and some yellow dots. This works very well with the colours on the top - lots of greens, yellows, a little lilac, some pink and some coral red. Masses of happy floral prints. I also bought my quilt batting, and when I took it home, Andy thought it was a new toy. Yesterday I made up the backing piece, and cut the batting approximately to size, then basted it with my curved safety pins. By that time it was time to go cook and my shoulders were stiff anyway. Today, I fired up my Janone with the quilting thread, which is an enchanting variegated green and yellow - perfect for the colours. I've been quilting in the ditch, every two strips in the squares and that looks lovely. It's now done, so tomorrow I will finish off the seams and it will be ready to give to my friend. Then I need to work on my class homework!!

I must say this has been such an enjoyable quilt to make - it's given me so much pleasure.

Firstly, many apologies for the delay in updating, although I have so busy I think it is just about excusable. Our last quilting homework was to make FOUR corner blocks, each block made up of two halves (one A and one B), each foundation pieced, using seven different pieces. I managed to complete all four A's, two B's and joined a pair together to make a finished corner unit, but I was slowed down by being visited by the quilting imp from below. This little devil sat on my shoulder and ensured that somehow even the simplest tasks would not go right. My rotary cutter wouldn't cut whole cuts, the needle kept needing to be rethreaded and when I did it, I did it wrong, the fabric was the wrong way round, and so on. I'll stop or you'll be as miserable as I was. Anyway, I was very pleased to complete one, so I could at least take it into class and reassure our lovely tutor that I was getting the hang of it. The irony is that I really like foundation piecing as a technique- just seemed to be having a rought time of it.

More happily, my previous card provision had led to a request to supply an assortment for Mothers Day, now fast approaching. I've photographed an assortment and am very pleased with what I made. Some are cross-stitched, some are made using recent K & Co purchases (pure papercraft) and I made four that are from a stamp I am particularly fond of. The image of a vase of flowers is stamped and then heat embossed. It is then painted using Twinkling H2O paints, then dots are inserted using a paper pricker. Finally, the dots are sewn using a variety of coloured threads, adding texture and further colour highlighting to the card. The finished image is fixed to a card blank and I usually add ribbons at the side, and a couple of gems below. Anything more would be too much. So the cards went in to class last night and were met with a very positive reception, which means more money raised for GRW. The block we were doing last night was a Mariners Compass. Marianne gave us a choice of doing eight or sixteen points - I wimped out and opted for eight. Even that is difficult, but the technique is very beautiful when it is finished, so it is worth persevering, I think.

ATCs first. In the post today, I received my Lovers swop cards, which are beautiful, and I'm thrilled. Also received an email to say that the patchwork set have arrived safely, which is good news. The twinkling H2O swop cards are complete and I posted them off today. Photos illustrate the three I made, all broadly similar but just slight variations in the colour scheme and background stamp used. The chocolate and pink one uses a pretty brown ribbon with pink edging that is from the new stash I recently ordered from QVC.

Went to quilting class tonight - I attach photos of the Friendship star block that was started last week in class (using Foundation piecing) and completed at home, also the previous week's one. Tonight we started work on the corner blocks for the quilt which use the FP technique but in a more complex way. Also received a request to bring in some cards for Mothers Day. The lady who bought the card for her niece was saying how thrilled she was with it, and that she is now going to frame it, which I was absolutely delighted by.

Today I posted off my most recent Patchwork ATCs, so now am looking forward to seeing what comes back.

Our lunch guests yesterday are fellow greyhound enthusiasts and volunteers with GRW. As well as their greyhounds being ringbearers at their forthcoming nuptials, they are organising a show on Easter Sunday. They have asked me to do a stall featuring home made cards, and I have agreed. So I will be busy manufacturing between now and then.

Today, I visited Moo.com, and have added the site to my bookmark list. I have ordered some of their mini cards, with my email and blog details on, with pics of the greyhounds on the front, partly prompted by the forthcoming show but something I thought of for a while. The website was easy to use, and fun to select and crop photos - I will report back on delivery times. Also very reasonably priced - twenty five pounds including postage for two hundred cards (basically a tenner for a hundred). According to the website, they will be dispatched on Thursday. These will also be useful to include in with ATC swops and so on.

That Friday feeling

Quilting on Wednesday was good but exhausting. We were learning Foundation piecing, a crucial technique. It was difficult to get my head around it at first, but Marianne, our wonderful tutor, kept going so gently and patiently that by the end of the evening we had begun to understand it.

I have uploaded some ATCs that I have recently made on the theme of patchwork and also a recently made card. The ATCs were made by chopping up a combination of some new K & Co papers plus I used some stamps to stamp images which were then coloured in using Twinkling H2Os. For those who don't know, these are paints which have a subtle mica based shimmer and are in a fabulous range of colours. The stamped images were heat embossed with some new powders I have been trying (from QVC) called Moonglow - again, a shimmery effect. The randomly sized pieces were applied to the card base, then in each case I added a subtly different topping, including brads, stickers, ribbons and die cuts. I am very pleased with them, and look forward to seeing what I receive back, which is always intriguing with these swops.

The card I made is a pink card blank, covered with a piece of the new K & Co paper, topped by a stamped image which was then coloured in using Twinkling H2O. I trimmed it neatly and added it to the base paper, then finished it with a Lakeland card topper. I'm pleased with this too, and think it will probably be sent to someone rather than going to the shop. Latest box of cards was sent to the shop yesterday.