Red faces and blue quilts

Was my face was red yesterday, I was asked to stand up and say something about the new U3A craft class I'll be taking this year. The chairwoman asked me to include the men as well as the women. I rambled on for a few minutes then realised most of the crafts would be of interest to women rather than men. Suddenly I recalled a gentleman telling me he recaned chairs as a hobby and would be happy to demonstrate. Without thought I opened mouth and said I hoped both men and women would come along and I understand we have at least one gentleman who was interested in caning!! The hall errupted and later the man in question asked if he should bring his handcuffs along. Trust me to lower the tone!!

At last I've managed to get down to some sewing and the first of this year's challenges has now been completed. BQL are running a 'Perpetual Calendar Quilt' challenge whereby each month a small quilt is made and you hang the appropriate months calendar on the bottom.

This months was wonky circles, the piece is approximately 12" square. I don't really want a calendar that big so I'm going to print out a photo and put that on the calendar instead.

BQL - January perpetual calendar mini quilt.

Like many others I swapped a fabric postcard with Susan Lenz for her CyberFyber online exhibition. This exhibition is now open and can be found here. I couldn't find my card at first and must have run through the list at least twiceand was really disappointed. However it was there - its No. 2 - have a look see what you think. I'd like to say a big thank you to all those who have commented on it, they make up for the disappointment of thinking it hadn't made the list.

I've also received my first postcard swap on the year from Brigitte. It was Brigitte's turn to pick themes for the next 4 months. For January she chose "What if you were an artist" and her theme is Van Gogh's sunflowers and feature hand dyed silks. It's a beautiful card but then I expect nothing less from Brigitte these days she's a very skilled lady.

There's been quite a bit about light tents recently and as the lighting at the moment is horrendous Keith and I thought we'd have a go a making one. We found a light tent tutorial on this site using an old cardboard box. We used a fax box but it was a bit big and we used lining paper to line the box which was not a pure white. It worked okay as you can see by the photos of some of my Christmas presents below but if we made it again I think we'd use a smaller box and use either foam board or paint the inside with white emulsion.
A gripper handle for my quilting rulers, I've put it on the ruler I use the most which is my Creative Grids 24"x6.52 ruler.

I've been considering a Zutter "Bind it All" for a while and when I mentioned it to my family they decided they'd buy me it for Christmas. They also bought me the corner punch and a full set tools and binding rings - who was a lucky girl then.

Tool set

The Zutter itself - you can see the lining paper inside the box I spoke about before.

I've been reading quite a bit about on-line classes recently, what people like and don't like and there seems to be some controversy over video classes. Personally I like them and the pens, book etc in the above photo are for a video class I'm taking later this month with cre8it called "Love this Journal". I really want to do more journaling but I tend to make a start then stop as I run out of ideas. I'm hoping this course will get me into good habits and clear the creative block.

Keith's suffering from 'man-flu' and poor love is rather stuffed up lets hope he's okay tomorrow.