More Swap Peeking

My sewing time has been taken up with swap items recently so nothing new to show apart from the progress I've made with these. I've done some quilting and hand embroidery on this little gift I'm making for the spring swap. I hope it looks spring like.


The picture below shows some more of the Doll Quilt 6 quilt. Sorry but it looks a bit out of focus. It's actually more of a wall hanging than a doll quilt but I think a lot of the members use them as wall hangings. I've added some flying geese blocks and am in the process of making some foundation pieced trees. I haven't decided whether to make one more or two more trees. I thought the little birdies may like some trees to fly off too. Above the line of trees I plan to do another line of flying geese flying in the opposite directions to the first row.

Once I've finished the swaps and the Linus quilt I'm looking forward to making something for myself. I've recently bought some yummy fabrics from America which I've had delivered to my brother who lives in New York, he's coming home for a few days at Easter so he'll bring them with him. It saves on the postage costs and the fabrics are cheaper than here although with the exchange rate as it is it's not as cheap for us as it was.

Bye for now, Maria.

Quilty Eye Candy

My creation
Originally uploaded by poppets1

For the doll quilt swap I'm participating in many of the group have made these mosaics of some of their favourite quilts etc. (from flickr) to give their partner an idea of their tastes. I just love the look of these mosaics and thought you may like to feast your eyes on all the gorgeousness (is that a word?).

All we seem to hear about in the news is gloom and doom so I hope these treasures brighten your day.
This also means that I can do a post withought having to take any photos!
Bye for now, Maria.

Edit: I don't know how to make the picture bigger but if you want to see it in more detail just click on it and it will be bigger.

Doll quilt swap peek.

Tweet Tweet! Hi there. Here is another peek at a quilt I'm making for a swap. It's for the Doll Quilt Swap 6 swap.

I've been doing some lurking on my partner's blog and fickr photos for clues to what she likes and this is part of the design I've come up with. I hope she will like it.

Now, I hope you realise that these are supposed to be bird houses/boxes. After spending hours making them I asked my 7 year old what he thought they were. The conversation went a bit like this:

Me: "What do you think these are?"

Him: "Um, Houses?"

Me: "Yes, but what type of houses?"

Him: "Flats?" (apartments)

Me: "What with doors like that? They're bird boxes"

Him: "Oh, right"

I had a similar conversation with my husband who thought the stands were paths leading to the front door!

I then decided to add the birds, which I hope clarify what it's supposed to be.

I think I should have made the houses longer and thinner. But never mind I rather like them myself.

It's a work in progress at the moment, you may be able to see that the blanket stitching around some of the birds isn't finished yet. I 'm making some flying geese blocks now to add to it.

I've been without a computer for the last week and have really missed reading blogs and following what others have been upto on the doll quilt flickr. I'm sure I wouldn't have got as far with my swap items if the computer had been up and running so maybe it hasn't been a bad thing. I'm sure a lot of other people spend too much time blogging too!

Bye for now, Maria

Spring swap peek

I mentioned in my last post that I've entered a couple of swaps. Linda's spring swap has the first completion date. I've started working on my item and I thought I'd show a peek of what I've been upto.

For those a) old enough to remember and b) live in a country where the programme was shown, in the words of Rolf Harris "Have you guessed what it is yet?"

I won't show the finished product until the recipient has recieved it.

I've been coming up with some ideas for the Doll Quilt 6 swap and will show a peek of that when it's started.

Bye for now, Maria.

Sew love to ......sow!

Is there a theme developing here? (see last post).

As we march into March I feel that spring is in the air and I'm looking forward to getting stuck into some gardening. We have lived here for just over two years and we're slowly "doing" the garden. We have been given a greenhouse and I'm really excited about growing some juicy tomatoes and flowers for the garden.

Yesterday we went to a garden centre and bought some seeds.


These were my husbands choice........

And these were mine..........

It's funny how men go for vegetables, women for flowers and children for Sunflowers - my son chose those.

This picture may not look very exciting but snuggled just under the surface of the compost are some Echinacea seeds. Hopefully in a few months time they will magically turn into huge pink flowers. The packet says that seeds sown in February will flower in the same year, well it's only 2nd March so don't tell the seeds and perhaps they'll put on a display this year. They're now going to be popped into a plastic bag and placed on a window sill. Then I'll just have to wait.

I've been a bit slack on the sewing lately but am begining to feel the urge to get going again especially as I've joined two swaps which I'm exited about. Firsty there's Linda's Spring swap and secondly the Doll Quilt Swap 6. There are buttons for both in my side bar.

Bye for now, Maria