More postcards and foundation piecing

Following my last post (seems quite a while ago now) I've received my black and white cards. From left to right from Rita in Alberta, Canada, Norma from California and Nancy from Oakdale, CT (is that Conneticut?). I like black and white as a theme because its so striking a contrast and these cards are really gorgeous.

It isn't often that I miss deadlines or have forgotten to have signed up for a swap but I was taken aback by receiving a foundation pieced card then another the next day until I looked at the database on the Yahoo group and sure enough my name was there. The two below are from 2 in the BQL Postcard group - one the left from Janet and on the right from Jacquie. This is a British group so both are from the UK. Pretty summery colours aren't they?

Now I will have to make 5 foundation pieced postcards before the end of the month, but that is just over a week away and I have apologised in advance that my cards will probably be late.

I found a cat foundation pattern on the internet and it wasn't quite the size I wanted so have adapted it - I found the pattern here - Erika's Craft & Sewing website.

I had one go at it and it hasn't quite turned out how I expected so a fair bit of unpicking and resewing was involved so I gave up while I was losing yesterday evening, but managed one postcard sized marmalade coloured kitty (which will need some stitched embellishment). So its a start.

Postcards made and received

This weekend I posted off 3 postcards, 2 to the US and 1 to Canada. This was a Black and White swap, for which I used Bargello again, but not thinking that I would need as many strips as the 12" quilt that I'd made shown in the last post I managed enough fabric to get 2 cards and a wide strip. I then edged the sides of the top right hand one with a couple of strips of white/black dash fabric. They were all finished with some narrow black lace around the edges.

I received some postcards week before last from another swap, this time the BQL postcard group in the theme of Printing on Fabric. My cards were shown on an earlier post here. They had some pretty good photos and were lovely to receive. I ought to do more photo printing on fabric sometime, it's very effective.

From that same post I'd shown a pic of a field near our house with oil seed rape and poppies. This was the scene just over a week ago when the rape flowers died down and the poppies were coming into their own. It was an amazing sight coming home from work seeing this bright red field. This week the poppies are dying back and the field is now looking quite green again.

Quilt in a Morning, Quiche in an Afternoon

This is a sewing blog so I ought to have some sewing to show and I was rather productive on Sunday, following receiving instructions for the BQL Calender Quilt Challenge for this month. This months challenge is Bargello where strips of fabric are sewn, cut in various widths and rejoined , giving a wave like effect. I chose greens for this as it's a colour that I don't use that often (I don't think so anyway). Above is the right side and below the wrong side which looks more interesting.
And this pic below shows the quilt trimmed and layered ready to quilt. I used a walking foot with a slightly larger stitch and used the contours of the wave as a rough guide.
Here it is all finished. I've trimmed with a narrow ribbon type yarn which I zigzigged onto the edge. I started this first thing on Sunday morning and it was all finished by the lunchtime. Not a bad morning's work.
So I had time to make this (I know it's not sewing!)
And I thought that quiche and rock buns were not bad for an afternoon's work! It's not like me to get all domestic and do baking, I have to be in the mood to do this, but it was quite enjoyable to do something different.