A good week so far.

The Purple one

Spotty Bookwrap opened out flat

Essential Dots by Moda!

So far this week I have been to the Norwich Creative Embroiderers and collected 30 Bookwraps that they've made for me with more to come.then today I went to Winterton Quilters and gave out instructions sheets and notebooks to the girls there and made two Bookwraps as demo pieces so they can see how easy it is. I made the purple one and was given a lovely purple button to go on it, then after lunch (jacket potatoes cooked in the kitchen to warm us up) I made the spotty one for fun.
This evening I made a Modern quilted cushion (picture on my other blog, here) as a raffle prize for the group I go to tomorrow - The Pennyloaf Patchers and hope to get some of them into Bookwrap manufacture...

Paper Bookwrap Gems

Newsprint Bookwrap front

Newsprint Bookwrap back

Paper bag Bookwrap 1

Paper bag Bookwrap 2

Here are the bookwraps made from the paper experiments.
I went to the Norwich Embroiderers class today run by Sheila Ford and they had made some lovely Bookwraps Gems for me. I will have a boxful to send to Conference!
Fortunately Pat Lowe has said she'll take them for me as the postage would be impossible!

Star Gardener Block

Star Gardener block

Wow... finally got this together and the little block took nearly an hour, juggling with seam allowances to get it to press reasonably flat - I used so much steam I fogged up my glasses! Mind you I did stop for coffee half way through.







Here is the felt bookwrap I made on Monday, now completed. Mostly hand stitch as that was the day I took my Embellisher machine but not the lead.
This is made with some lovely wool felt given to me by Jean who had found a huge piece at a car boot sale. I put it through a hot wash and it felted up nicely, but wasn't quite wide enough so the lining was cut wider to act as a binding to control the slightly frilly edges.

Fame at Last!

They've put up my pic and instructions for making a Bookwrap on the wordpress bookwraps site here!

 

version 1

Playing with tiny triangles today, just trimmed 50 of the little blighters, put in a new blade halfway through and wondered why I didn't do it sooner... I am planning to make Farmer's Wife Star Gardener block.  

 

 

 

 

 

I laid it out on the table and it didn't look right:

I realised I had the half square triangles rotated so the dark was where the light should be.

I started to turn them round, then found another interesting combination before arriving at the correct layout.

 

 

version 2

 

 

 

 

 

I just hope they don't all get mixed up again when I sew them together or I'll have yet another version...

version 3

Just needs Binding!

Had a good morning so far, stitched a grid to make a quantity of about 50 half square triangles for the little blocks, made two Hovering Hawks blocks, one for me and one for Michelle, got the washing on and postman came with my Pineapple quilt! all by 10am...

Hovering Hawks

Heartsease Quilt

 I'm sure I made this block into a quilt once before, it's an asymmetric block and you get different pattern developing where the blocks join.

Found it in my Flickr photostream
here, but you can see that the lights and darks are reversed.
I really must update my photos there...

Pineapple ready for binding

Just have to get on and put on the binding and it will be ready for the Pennyloaf Patchers quilt exhibition at Fleggburgh in April, . Now I have to make them a cushion and a bag for the raffles they have each day.

No Longer Clutching at Straws!

I have, after about a week of frantic searching, finally found the power cable and foot control for my Embellisher machine. I had tidied everything away for Christmas visitors and then not been able to find it when I next needed the machine. But there it was, hiding in a bag of felted blanket, just as my dear husband predicted...

I've finished more bookwraps, here is one with a different angle on the stitch-and-flip and quilt-as-you-go technique that has kept me busy lately.

 The farmers round here are trying to get the Sugar Beet in and I saw this huge machine trundling along the field with scores of seagulls hunting among the soil but didn't have my camera. When I came back half an hour later the lads had stopped for lunch!
They gave me a friendly wave as I snapped them from the car.

I am planning some paper-fabric bookwraps and today prepared the paper. The light one is newsprint, saved from a previous paint session as it was part coloured already having been underneath.
I attached it to some lightweight felt (cleaning cloths) with Bondaweb and added some more paint.

The red ones are a red paper bag from the local quilt shop Sew Creative at Wroxham Barns, crumpled and straightened out then stuck to the felt with Bondaweb and added decoration with some print blocks and metallic paint.

They now need stitch to hold the layers together and acrylic wax to give it strength and a nice soft surface sheen. Hopefully they will look like leather.

I like the idea of something from nothing, if you don't think about the cost of the Bondaweb!

Patchwork Journals

I've had a nice day making more Bookwraps. These are two more stitch and flip covers, and I have written up the instructions for them, partly so I can remember! No hand sewing except for the button and using left-overs from the quilt I made for my daughter's friend Jacky.