Odds and Sods

Didn't know what else to call this posting as I have a miscellany of things to post about.

First off, I won one of the prizes on Lis' giveaway, which is a delightful little sashiko teacup mat, which I am looking forward to receiving soon.  Benta, who commented on this blog has also won a prize too, so well done Benta!

I've made progress on my Dresden plate block which I'll take for showing and telling at Bourne Quilters on Thursday.  First block done and I'm quite happy with it.  Hope to to one with the rounded tops to the blades next.

On Sunday I dug out my needlefelting machine and had a busy time embellishing fabrics and roving onto some velvet fabric which works pretty well.  I saw a project in Stitch magazine for making corsages from embellished fabrics so see how that goes.  I've not used the machine since going to a workshop back in the summer, as I'd managed to lose the tool kit including the tool that detaches the needle unit from the machine so up until Sunday I'd not been able to use it.  Anyway here are the pieces that I've made

 The piece above is a velvet base with blue dyed cotton fabric and wool roving

 This has a multi coloured silky polyester fabric and wool roving

This is some white panne velvet with natural cotton scrim, silver painted bondaweb and white organza.

I've free machined over the pieces with metallic thread that complemented the pieces.  I've yet to cut up into the flower shapes so this is as far as I have got.  Nice to have a play.

I'm taking part in a postcard swap where I don't make any postcards as they are already made!  This one is called "Here's One I Made Earlier" and the cards I'm going to send have either been extras from previous swaps or some extra I made because I liked the theme and wanted to make more.

From the top then.  A card from selvedges (as I have a large bag of them) and used the wording on them, next is a postcard which was from a Fastenings swap - March 08 (popper, button and ribbon with a bow on the front, a brad on the back).  In the middle is Rainy Days - Nov 06, and a sample postcard to show fabric weaving which I made in 2008.  The bottom row has Folded Wonders from April 09  and another selvedge postcard from 2007.  These cards will be going in the post tomorrow.

And finally, here's a new resident at our house - Herman the German Friendship Cake.  This is a sourdough mix which gets topped up with flour, sugar and milk after the fourth and then the eighth day before being split into four and a quarter is made into a cake.  Karen at work tried this out and I had a quarter of the mix from her.  You can read more about it here.

Here is my Herman

Bubbling up nicely but will need feeding tomorrow.  See how it goes.