Stackin up the ICADS

My cards:



Buddha statue in the garden looking after my cards:



All of our cards:



Gman's cards:



Only 10 more days to go! Eeeek!

Unruly Nephew (and Wife?)

True to my promise to myself, I have made a start on my next present for Allie's Christmas Through the Year challenge. I am making name panels for all my nieces and nephews using Unruly Quilter Tonya's techniques. You can see previous panels here, here, here and here. This one is for my second eldest nephew, Charlie:



As you can see, it's not quilted yet. I think I will have to keep the quilting pretty simple given the crazy nature of the background fabric!

And, then I have this Unruly Farmer's Wife thing going on in my head. You will probably have seen all over blogland, peeps taking part in the Farmers Wife Quiltalong. Now, I don't really *do* making other people's quilt patterns, or following rules and templates but I keep seeing the blocks and thinking "ooh, that could be free pieced". So now I'm thinking "how about a liberated/free pieced/wonky farmers wife quilt?". And I could call it the Unruly Wife, which would be much more up my street!! I'm still thinking about it...but it is growing and growing in my head :-)

And I realised I haven't blogged about the ICAD Challenge for a while. I have still been creating an index card a day, although I admit it is getting harder to know what to do each time! Here's a few recent ones:

Cards inspired by my love of quilts:


Doodley ones:



Favourite poetry:


Cards reflecting my spiritual journey:


But of all the index cards I have made, none of them make me smile as much as this one made by my six year old son, Waif:



I love it!

ICAD Challenge - Sometimes it's hard to stop at one...

...well the paints were out ;-)






"I'm starting to unravel" is a line from current favourite song - "Bats in the Attic" by King Creosote & Jon Hopkins, rather than an indication of my state of mind...or the state of my embroidery floss. Though that too :-)

Ah, sewing...!

Regular readers may have been wondering what happened to the sewing part of the "Sew Much Progress"...but I have been sewing, I promise! It's just that it's mainly been hand quilting and that makes for sloooooow progress. But I made it!!! I finished quilting Gman's red and black quilt. I am waiting for a sunny day and a willing and able volunteer to hold it up in order to get a photograph of the whole thing but here's a little taster:



I went for fairly simple, unmarked quilting using pearl cottons and a big needle. I can't imagine going back to tiny between needles and regular hand quilting thread now!

I have also been dabbling in a bit of arty stuff. I painted another spread in my old Eagle annual:



This is made of layers of gesso and watercolour paints. The buildings were constructed by scraping acrylic paint using an old credit card, then details added with a variety of markers. Something was missing so I highlighted a selection of random words from the story underneath and quite like the effect:



I completed the next week's spread in my Good Things Moleskine:



And, of course, there's been more index cards for Daisy Yellow's Index-Card-a-Day challenge. Here's today's:

Have you taken up the Index-Card-A-Day Challenge?

If not, what are you waiting for?!?! Visit Daisy Yellow to find out more about the challenge, and for lots of prompts, inspiration and linky loveliness.

I have created an index card a day every day in June so far (and so have my two boys - you can see some of their creations on our home education blog) and it's been a blast. Here's a few:







And just to prove that you can fit index-card-a-day in with your other summer plans, here I am, having created my card on the train yesterday:



Yes, I know I look like a complete nutcase. The camera does lie. Sometimes.

You've got until 15 June to get started ;-)

Planning Big

Since finishing off three bed-sized quilt tops earlier in the year, I have been working mainly on smaller projects - journal quilts, name panels, fabric postcards - but now I am yearning to get my teeth into something a bit bigger again.

Last night I sat and did a rough sketch of a quilt that's been brewing in my mind for a while now, and which I am calling "hug a tree" :-) I am thinking something a bit Gwen and Freddie, but with a mixture of liberated piecing and applique. My idea is that the quilt will be made up of different trees, all on yellow backgrounds and with the trunks made up of black and white fabrics, and the tops various bright colours - hot pink, lime green, polka dots, swirls... To give the eye somewhere to rest between all this I am thinking black and white sawtooth and flying geese strips. Oh yes, and a big smiling sun somewhere at the top :-). Here's a very rough plan of what I have in mind:



Once I'd made the sketch, I raided my stash to see what suitable fabrics I had, and put together this little pile:



The top row will be the tree tops, the middles for the trunks and borders, and the bottom row of yellows the background fabrics. Yum yum.

Can't quite believe I already had all of this fabric in my stash *blush* - that's what comes of having multiple hiding places storage areas for fabric I guess ;-)

Meanwhile, I have been steadily hand quilting Gman's red and black quilt and am confident that this will be complete by the end of this month. Watch this space.

And the whole family's been getting involved with Daisy Yellow's index card a day challenge. Here's one I prepared earlier:



The others (including ones the boys have doen) you can see in my Flickr set here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/towardsagoodlife/sets/72157626850045908/with/5789516391/

Christmas Through the Year - May

Phew, another nephew's name panel finished for this month:





This time, instead of sewing on a hanging sleeve, I did "fast triangle corners" as recommended by the Alzheimers Art Quilt Initiative. The quilt is just a little one, 13 x 10 inches, so think this will be a fine and dandy way to hang it.

I have now made name banners for four of my six nieces and nephews - just Charlie and Harry to go.

Hop on over to Allie's blog to check out what all the other Christmas Through the Year participants have been crafting up.

And talking of challenges, I have decided that I will join in with Daisy Yellow's Index-Card-a-Day challenge this summer. The idea is to do something creative on an index card each day throughout the summer - be it drawing, painting, doodling, poetry etc. The boys will also be joining in on this one, so I will be posting updates on this blog as well as on my home education blog here. Why not join in too? It's achievable and should be fun :-)