Postcrossings: Progress Report

A few months ago I posted about one of my new hobbies: Postcrossings.  This is a website for sending and receiving postcards around the world.  I love to get and send mail, so this seemed like it was made for me and I enthusiastically dove in.

I just wanted to report that it has turned out to be all the fun that it promised.  So far I have sent 20 postcards, received 17 and presently have 7 "traveling"...that means that I've mailed them but they haven't been received yet.  Some countries, particularly in Eastern Europe, seem to take forever to arrive.  It has made me realize how the internet has really changed the world!  Before email sending communication to some countries took quite awhile.  Now an email travels in a fraction of the time that snail mail does.  It has truly made the world smaller in that respect.

But....as with any progress, there is a price.  Just as you absorb more culture when traveling to another city than you do by looking at pictures of the place; you learn more about a country's culture through a written postcard than you do from an email correspondence.  Everything from the stamps to the handwriting to the embellishments (stickers, etc) to the card chosen communicate something about both the sender and his location.

Here are a few of the ones that I've received:

It's been great fun and I hope to keep this up for awhile.  The only disappointment is that occasionally a postcard seems to not arrive.  They "time out" after 60 days.  I have one that I sent to Belarus that will time out at the end of the week and mysteriously, one to Texas that has been "traveling" for 34 days!  But, maybe now that the Christmas rush is over it will be found in some forgotten mail bag and make it's way to Texas. 

 

So, for snail mail fans.....Postcrossings is definitely worth a try!

 

Whisper Block #1

Remember the children's game - we called in "telephone" - where one person whispers a sentence into someone's ear and then they in turn whisper it to the next person and so on down the line.  The last person says the sentence as they understood it and often a LOT has been lost in translation!  I'm not sure that this game really had a winner or loser; it was just a little fun activity to pass the time of day.

Well, I joined an activity at my local quilt guild that is based on this children's game.  We are organized in groups of five.  The first month everyone comes to the meeting with a picture they like.  The picture is given to another member in the group.  So each of the five go home with a picture and create a 12 inch quilt block based on the picture.  You don't have to make the exact image.  You can use the colors or the theme or just one part of the whole picture.  The next month you give the picture back to the owner and the block to another person in your group (all the exchanges have been planned by the coordinator).  The second month each person goes home with their own picture and a block.  They are then to create a block based on this first block.  This goes on for five weeks and at the end you have four blocks from your original picture.  The fun is to see how the elements were "whispered" from one person to another through their creations.

It sounded like fun when I signed up.  And then I received the picture:

And I sort of panicked!  There were so many elements in the picture and there was that darn perspective with the downhill and background.  Several months ago we had a speaker at guild who talked about "looking through the window"...how to create perspective in a piece. Of course, I didn't attend that workshop and now I was wishing that I had.  So, I pushed this to the back burner for quite awhile.  I took the picture to several people and asked them what they saw.  The husband commented on the thatch.  A friend commented on the hill.  I saw very muted colors, a narrow palate and a grey sky.  In the end I came up with this:

I sort of cut off a bit of the grey sky in this picture.  The "thatch" is wool that I bought back when I made llama's for "this".

 

So, it's not a work of art, but let me tell you it was difficult to figure out how to fit that all into 12 inches.  And I'm not really sure what I could have done differently or better.  I hope my next picture is a bit easier.  And as usual, I learned a lot along the way.  



 

Country Threads Block of the Month December - 2013

It probably looked like I dropped the ball on this one and it DID slip a little!  But last week I got the last two blocks completed for the Country Threads Block of the Month 2013 project.  Sorry for the bad photos.  We had a few precious minutes of sunshine during which I tried to quickly snap some pictures.  The top block is actually a six inch square and the bottom is 12 inches:

Once all of these blocks were finished there were a few blank spots in the layout to be filled in with half square triangles.  I decided instead to add a few more blocks of similar design.  So far I've added these:

And here's the whole collection on the design wall.  I'm still planning on sashing between the blocks since it looks a bit hectic to my eye.  I'll probably rearrange a bit also since a present I have a lot of similar blocks together:

 

And then this will be added to my "ready for quilting" pile.  Can you see why my 2014 goal is to just say "No" to new projects?  I really want to get these all completed before moving on to other things.

 

Celtic Solstice: The First Blocks

Bonnie Hunter revealed the layout for her 2013 mystery quilt on January first - three days earlier than expected.  I really like this layout, but you'll have to follow the link above to see the whole thing because I'm a long way from having my top finished.

I did manage to complete my missing step 1 before the last step was published:

And I've put a few blocks together in-between working on a few other projects:

This is the second mystery I've done with Bonnie.  I like the mystery idea and I like that it causes me to stretch a bit and improve my piecing skills.  While I always admire patterns with all these small pieces they are not ones I often choose to make on my own.  I've decided though that if she offers one next year and if I decide to play along I'm going to try to make it NOT scrappy.  I'll just buy yardage in each color and go with that.  While I often feel like I have too many scraps I always seem to struggle to find ones that I think will look good together and I end up doing a lot of second guessing along the way....you know, like, "Is that green too light?  Is that orange piece too bright? Does that blue offer enough contrast? and so on."

So, I'm going to plug along on these blocks between other projects and hopefully I'll soon have a top to share!

I'm linking up with Bonnie today!

Old Business and New

This holiday season has really flown by.  Unlike past years it seemed like there was little time to reflect on last year or think about goals for the new year.  So, I'm going to keep it easy.  This year my quilting goal is, "Just say no."  I get seduced by the many, many wonderful ideas and opportunities online and the beautiful fabrics in the stores and I want to do them all and use them all.  So, consequently I have several projects mostly finished and that sort of frustrates me.  So this year my motto is to just say, "No."  I may "Pin" or download a pattern or idea but, at least for the next six months I should be able to keep busy with finishing up my "mostly finished" projects.  I'm allowing myself one exception (I know, that's a slippery slope!)  The gals at Fandom in Stitches will be having a monthly block around the theme of the movie The Princess Bride.

 This is an old romantic fantasy comedy from 1987.  It sort of has a cult following and the boys and I are part of that cult!  We've been known to quote lines from this movie in everyday conversation.  Last year I bought them each a DVD of the movie.  So, I'm going to take notice of the blocks (this is a paper pieced project) and may play along.

And that was actually my "new business".  So, in old news I want to share some of my Christmas presents from this year that I couldn't share before the holiday without ruining some surprises.  I made several pants bag ala Jennifer at Glinda Quilts.  I was gifted one of these by Jen and absolutely love it.  She shared a tutorial at the link above.  Here are my versions:

The one in the upper left was made with the circle attachment on my sewing machine.  Turns out that it is easy to work and really awesome!  I don't know why I waited so long to try it out.  The three on the bottom left were made for the sock monkey recipients from earlier last year. 

I also made a few potholders and two aprons (which I forgot to take pictures of).

So, I'm off to work on some blocks for my Country Threads BOM project.  I actually have the December blocks done but haven't had a chance to take pictures.  AND.....if anyone is keeping score, I've finished my step one of Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt.  She had a surprise reveal on New Year's day and I'm slowly putting the blocks together....more about that later.
 

Celtic Solstice Step 5 and Christmas Wrap-up

I'm just sort of barely keeping up here, but I think the holiday activity has pretty much come to a close.  There is still all of the "taking down" and "putting away" to do and we have one more Santa trip to make up north (and a few more presents to buy for that trip!)  We affectionately refer to this get-together as "Janumas".  But the pace is slowly returning to normal.

Son #3 spent a full two weeks with us and since he is girlfriend-less this year I had the chance to spend lots of time with him.  I know opportunities like this are fleeting and this may be my last year for such a luxury so I was sure to take full advantage of our mutually waking moments (anyone with teenagers/young adults knows what that means - the time between noon and whenever I go to bed).  I will admit that I had forgotten how much these men eat!  I was able to dust off my cooking skills and put a few old favorites on the table but my skills in "appropriate food quantity" were not so good.  More than once there wasn't a crumb left on the table (and my sister will tell you that in an Italian family that means that you didn't make enough).

So, Celtic Solstice, Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt for 2013....I was not only able to complete step 5 but I also was able to do the cutting for my missing step 1!  I used the easy angle ruler for the first time and I think I like it!  I will admit that occasionally I got a bit lost with all the measurements on the ruler but the blocks seem to be fairly consistent and even actually square.  I found that on my machine it was important to change to the single hole plate when sewing on these teeny triangles to prevent the fabric from getting mashed down into the machine.

I've been back to sewing for several years now and finally have begun to develop some opinions on brands and items that I like or dislike.  So, let me just say that I've come to LOVE Superior Top Stitch Needles and their Masterpiece thread.  I met their representative at a quilt show last year.  He patiently taught me the basics of the differences in threads.  I bought a sample assortment and was impressed.  The thread even feels smoother to your fingers and it sews like a dream.  Then I decided to try these needles.  I won't bore you with the details on the specifics (the web site has all that info) except to say that they are titanium coated and work great.  I get their newsletter and it is always entertaining.  Let's face it, it takes some creativity to make thread and needles entertaining, but these guys manage to do it.  There shipping is very reasonable and the orders come quickly.  If you live in Hawaii Dr. Bob (he's a self proclaimed doctor of threadology) will personally deliver your order for an additional $700, to give you an example of their humor, or you can just pay the regular shipping of $3.95 and let the post office deliver it.  They also run a lot of specials on their web site from time to time.   

Perhaps I need to say that this particular blog has no paid ads or testimonials.  That's just my opinion.

So, I'm joining the linky party on Bonnie's site.  See you there!

Celtic Solstice Step 4

I've thought a lot about blogging this week, and I have several posts just waiting to be written.  But my days have been cram packed with shopping, wrapping, decorating and spending time with son #3.  I did manage to get step 4 of Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt done though.  I just spent a bit of time here and there.  Fortunately it was an easy enough step that I could do it in the fragments of time available.  All of the blocks aren't trimmed and checked for problems, but I'm calling this one done.  I still haven't even started on step 1....maybe later this week?

We're having grey rainy days.  I had to take that picture right in front of a window with the blind raised high and still my camera wanted to use the flash.

I'm linking up with Bonnie.   If I don't get back here before Christmas.....Best wishes to all of you for a wonderful holiday.