Craft It Forward

Several months ago I commented on a "Craft It Forward" post by Fiona at Celtic Stitches. I had forgotten all about it - which is part of the fun - when I received a squishy parcel in the mail a few days ago!

Wondering what fabric I had ordered and forgotten about, I opened it, only to find some wonderful surprise goodies in it!!

From a gorgeous pouch, handmade jewellery pin, and some extra fabric (which goes perfectly with others from the same line I got recently), to a bar of chocolate I was much in "need" of... just perfect. And I received it on a day that I could do with some spoiling, so the timing was perfect, too!

Thank you again so much, Fiona!

Now, as part of the deal, I am going to offer a handmade Pay-It-Forward gift to three (random) commenters on this post (of course)! If you dare to chance receiving a stitched gift from me in the mail in the coming months (I'm not promising when, but within the next year), do leave a comment and I will pick my "victims" after my return from my travels in a few weeks time.
The only condition is that you have to be prepared to return the favour to three others after you have received your gift.

Looking forward to your comments, let's see how many/few people actually read this :-)

Hope you are all enjoying the summer, wherever you are!

Sandra

Tulips from....Delft maybe?!

After I entered the Bloggers Quilt Festival with my last two posts (here in the Art Quilt category and here in the Scrap Quilt category - have you voted yet?! voting is open for one more day, and you have 3 votes in each category), I have actually been sewing!

I had been considering making some blocks from the Cloud9 pattern "Amsterdam Quilt", but I could not find the intended red and pink fabrics for the tulips! In my impatience I grabbed some other fabrics, and made a block anyway:

The block went together so well, that I HAD to make some more, and before I knew it, the kitchen table (which is where I usually sew) was full of them:

Very quickly they were transformed into this:

 A last cream border will be added the next time my sewing machine gets an outing, the strips are cut ready to be sewn on.

According to the song, tulips are from Amsterdam, though the blue colours remind me of Delft blue, so there is some debate about the naming of this one... since it isn't quite finished yet (a quilt isn't a quilt until it's quilted), I may ponder for a while yet...!!

Sandra

Bloggers Quilt Festival - second entry

Now I got over the first hurdle and entered "Vestibule" into the Bloggers Quilt Festival with my previous post, I had less trouble to be convinced to enter a second one. This is such fun, and there are already such wonderful entries to browse through!

This one I made a long while back, but I don't think I ever showed it here. It is made with scraps and pieces from my "leftovers" box on a black background. While you often see very brightly coloured scraps in combination with a black background, I went for a more muted colour palette with this one, and I LOVE the result! 
So here it is, my "Black Jewel Box":

To get a good Jewel Box effect, the scraps were sorted in slightly lighter (bottom left to top right) and slightly darker scraps (bottom right to top left).

The quilt has been hand quilted (rather tacked) with black perle in a Turkey Track stitch in each patch, with several rows of large stitch hand quilting in the black border.

Finished off with a scrappy binding of course (I love scrappy bindings)!

For the backing I found a black-on-black print I love (I may have to use it in a quilt top next time!), I never knew they existed until I found this one...

Not easy to photograph black fabric... notice the single stitches from the Turkey Track tacking.

So there you have it...

posing...

STATS:
"Black Jewel Box"
Finished July 2009
Size 42" x 63" - we often use it as a bed topper
Scrap cotton fabrics, black cotton perle thread
Machine pieced, hand quilted

Entered in the the scrappy quilt category of the Bloggers Quilt Festival (thanks again, Amy!):

Nominations for the Viewers Choice can be entered now, and voting starts on May 22...

Sandra