Round Robin Album and another ATC

Today was a truely atrocious day here in the Scottish Borders. It rained non-stop all night and when I went to walk the dogs (dressed most fetchingly in blue plastic trousers and jacket for me, Troi in a blue coat and Rueben au naturel) the old railway path was just like a river, where I had to wade through taking care not to let the water get over the top of my wellies. Needless to say there was a white greyhound who thought I had taken leave of my senses (maybe she was right!!). Rueben however simply thought this new addition to our path had been provided solely for his entertainment and he made the most of it!

Spending the rest of the day in my studio seemed a very good idea. I worked on my spread in Bev's Round Robin Album. Her theme is Friendship and she did not specify any colours but the album so far has gorgeous examples of art, all quite subdued in colour so I did not want to supply too much of a contrast. I made the fabric collage for the album some days ago, using ephemera pictures of what looked like friends to me, old dictionary pages, pictures of pansies from a very old flower book and text from a Friendship sheet (given to me by Linda Kunsman, thanks Linda!!). I layered napkins with more pansy images on top as well as a napkin featuring eggs and flowers combined. I cut out the spreads (size 6 x 8.5", love this size, Bev!!) featuring the pictures exactly where I wanted to them.

I had been thinking about friendship quotes and found: A life without friends is like a garden without flowers, and this had been what inspired me to use the pansies, which look like lovely nodding, friendly flowers. I added this quote spread out over the 2 pages using a Dymo label writer.

The collages were stitched onto a felt background for stability and I sewed around the quotation by machine, added a lot of hand stitching (seed stitch) in a Stef Francis variegated thread and beaded around the quotation with a mix of yellow, green, blue and purple beads. Just hope Bev will like this.

I won't mail the album out till Monday. I'm getting quite obsessive now about only mailing out on that day but so far (knock on wood!!) this has served us well so I will continue with it.

I also finished some ATCs for a swap on the ATcards site listed as a No Theme Fabric Swap. You will recognize the background from my previous post for the Black/White Swap. I had so much background left that it seemed like a shame not to use it. I combined it with a fabric I had in my stash, with a lot of coffee related sayings and images in black, white and red. With a bit of red beading around the words they worked out well so that's another project out of the way.

I finished my Journal Quilt for Houston (hurrah!!), so now I can put that safely away till the instructions arrive for the sleeve and how to get it across the Atlantic in due course. Will show the pictures of this one once the Houston Quilt Festival opens towards the end of October. I'll just tease you by saying that I'm over the moon with how it worked out!!