My recent crafty achievements (pics!)...

I realised yesterday that I hadn't put up any photos of some of the things I've been up to, craft-wise, so I am going to attempt to quickly show them now.  Beware, photo-heavy post ahead...
Also, better grab a cuppa - I'm going through a lot!

First off, I have a couple of block swaps received ...

The first from Julie, my June partner for QBSA.  A lovely couple of bright pinwheel blocks with a beautiful floral card...

What a lucky girl was I ... two gorgeous blocks!!

My block for her was the lovely Lady of the Lake 2 in blue and yellow...

My very late blocks for Monica (from the USA, no blog), my 6inBSA partner will be receiving two of these blocks in the mail shortly.  They are the Interlocked Squares blocks in civil war fabrics.  It primarily took so long for me to get these done as I was waiting for the fabrics from America.  I haven't received my blocks from her yet, though since they are coming from so far away I am not all that concerned yet...

I also received in the mail two blocks from Sue, my June 6inBSA partner.  A gorgeous version of pinwheels I haven't seen before now, plus an extra (smaller) traditional pinwheel to boot!

Gorgeous colours!! What a lucky, lucky girl am I!

Your blocks will (hopefully) be in the mail early next week Sue.

Another block I have made - though not sent yet as after I took the photo I realised that it was 1/4 in too small and some of the corners weren't quite right so I had to unpick and re-sew the outer 'borders' around the central 9 square.  I will only put up a sneak peek as it hasn't gotten to her yet.  A block for my June (yes, I am sorry it is so late!) Christmas block for my partner Leena (no blog).

If you are reading this Leena, I am getting onto the last three seams (had to re-do these a second time) as soon as I finish writing this post.

Okay, I think that is all the block swaps I can post on atm, lol.  A few more coming in the next week or so, also with a mug rug swap too.

I have mentioned a few times that I am a recent recruit of the crochet-loving crafters, lol.  I originally learnt (well, taught myself along with some confirmation from my mother) this craft when I found a pattern for a cushion cover that I thought was perfect to give my grandmother for Christmas last year.  Mind you, this was in mid-November ... and I had never done any crochet before!  I ended up getting it done, and it looks lovely - though when mum went down there to visit last week she reported that this cushion had been put on a bed to reside, rather than used on the lounge to replace one of the dead (!) old ones as intended, lol.

Anyway, I have since been working on another cover, this time for myself, though in the last couple of months I have expanded my 'repertoire', so to speak, and tried out some different patterns.  The first one was the doily below.  This pattern I unfortunately had to adapt (the second-to-last row had to be 'pushed over' about 3 stitches), but this was easy enough to work out when I had a play around with it.  I have a third almost finished that I was working on Sunday in the service (sermon ... I need something to do with my hands so I can concentrate on the message - otherwise my mind goes off on all manner of tangents and I finally realise it has finished when the last song begins) which will be finished soon.

The flowers are from a pattern I sourced through Lisa @ Cubby House Crafts.  She has a gorgeous blog - check it out if you haven't already ... her flowers are shown in her header and are just gorgeous!  I prefer the pink ones over the purply-pinky-white flowers, though I do think they'll look even better if I can find some plain coloured thread.  The smaller one was an adaptation to the bigger flower.  I was wondering if it would work, had a fiddle, and I think it looks very cute.

Since working on these was relatively easy I decided I would throw myself in the deep end *chuckle* and try a finer pattern.  This is my progress so far, with the pattern in the top left ...

Very pretty, delicate ... and tough on my fingers!

Finally, an update on my Hands2Help quilt progress.  The other night I finally began cutting out the fabrics.  I say 'finally' as this needs to be in America in a months' time - thus I have, at the most, two weeks to get it done and in the post.  I am hoping to have the quilt top done by the end of this weekend, though am beginning to put the blocks together today after I have finished Leena's block (above).  I decided on a Sudoku-style quilt, with 1in strips of black between the purple squares to separate them, and a 2.5in strip between the blocks of nine.

I just need to decide whether to border these with a 2.5, 3 or 3.5in strip of black outside the squares as the final border.  I will be heading to the fabric store either later today or early tomorrow for some purple floral or stripy backing fabric and some batting so I can get it ready for quilting next week.  I am still thinking about how I am going to quilt it.  Been looking at The Free Motion Quilting Project and am thinking stippling over the blocks and either trailing tears or nothing through the sashings.  I will look at it more closely once the flimsy is done though.  Either way, I will have to find myself a practice block - never in my life have I done any quilting past straight in-the-ditch lines!

Phew!  What a long post!!!  What are you up to this weekend?