Slow progress

I have finished two of the four practice pieces.  The little black quilt was done entirely by "stitch-in-the-ditch", some free hand and some by regular machine stitching.  Boy, did I ever need practice with that!  There is really nothing that would show in a picture.  The other one was fairly traditional feathers around a center oval, done with white thread on a pink and white fabric.  I have to figure out how to photograph that to best advantage.

In the meantime, I came to realize that I have to have about 9 ATC's ready for an exchange next Sunday.  The theme is "landscapes", so my challenge was to make them as close to realism as I could.  Not easy, especially when working with fibre, the main problem being the very small scale of the pieces. 

I got out all of the fabric scraps I have, with fusible web already applied.  Then I tried to sort them in terms of things like sky, mountains, grass etc.  I ended up with quite a mess on my worktable, and, believe it or not, this is organized!

Since I'm showing pictures, here is the new Ott lite for the studio.  The very first Ott Lite I bought, many years ago was a floor model that I  have had beside my recliner in the living room.  Recently we noticed that it was interfering with the tv.  So when we found this one on sale last weekend we grabbed it.  With this on my work table, I was able to move the other floor model out of the studio and into the living room, and the old one back down to the basement.  This new one has a built in magnifier, and a base with spaces to hold small tools and supplies.  I love it!

Anyway, further to the ATC's.  I have put together 7 of them.  They have been trimmed to size but have yet to be attached to card stock.  They are fused, and each one has some sort of machine stitching on it.  Two are thread painted, three have trees FMQ'g, and for the other two, I used a built in stitch on my machine which is a row of blooming flowers.  I found exactly the right variegated thread for these little flowers--green, turquoise, pink,red, purple and yellow--Superior Thread's Fantastico # 5003.  So far this has taken the best part of two days, and I still have two more cards to make