Michele's fan

Today I thought I would feature the fan, there is alot to see. I had fun doing the edge trim of the fan which is 1/4 inch wide organdy ribbon, I'd say it is encrusted. A picture is worth a 1,000 words so I will let you look around instead of talking. The threads are DMC cotton with 4mm silk ribbon too.

Enjoy.

Another detail in Michele's Wallhanging

I like to use my fabric designs as inspiration giving them a bit of 3D. This piece I have shown you before, but I only outlined it and embellished the center. This time, which was actually the first time doing this on this fabric, I did french knots...single french knots. How many are there, I stopped counting at about 300, LOL. The center is done with satin stitch in black DMC floss, with gold floss accents. All the threads are DMC floss (mainly because that is just about all I have).

The lace below the flower is an antique piece.
Seam to the right is stem stitch with lazy daisy flowers, on the other side is pink ribbon with french knots, above is a purchased trim. Click on the photo to enlarge.

Pauline's RR block

My additions to Pauline's beautiful heart block are the seam treatments on the brown/orange/green/pink fan blades,
(the rose motif was added by Rendi).
I also added the button hole stitch with french knots around the inside of the pink lace. Below is a picture of the whole block so you can she how she did this, it is my understanding that it will become a pillow.

Marya's Block - Part 2

Another addition to Marya block for me is the vine of roses in silk ribbon, both the leaves and flowers are done in 4mm ribbon. The roses are of hand dyed variegated ribbon. I also felt that the pretty black lace needed a little definition so the french knots were added with hand dyed variegated cotton treads.

Other treatments to this block were stitched by Rendi, Pauline, and Hideko.




Here is a full view of this beautiful block as it headed home to Marya.

Marya's Block

I am on an online Crazy Quiling list CrazyQuiltingInternational on yahoo, this is one of the RR that I partisapated in. This detail is for Marya's block, the theme was fans and this is her handle, my addition is the beads.

I will share other additions I made a bit later.

American Hero Quilts

American Hero Quilts are for wounded soldiers. American Hero Quilts - Our Story

This a wonderful organization and is made up of all volunteers, some do the quilting, some donate materials, some do the quilting and some the binding, yet other give money to buy materials and pay for postage. This is the 3rd quilt I have had the privilege of quilting and wanted to share it with you all.

Below is a close up. If you would like to be a part of this project of love go to the above link.

In this part of the block I took my inspiration from the fabric. This is a cotton with snowflakes all over it. So to enhance this, single threads were used along with beads to copy several different snowflake shapes. Silver, gold and white DMC flosses, along with a multi color floss that I received in a swap, make the shapes and seed beads give them dimension. I try to get clues from printed fabrics what I should do with them.

Michele's Wall Hanging

I began this wall hanging in Feb 2005. Michele saw a picture of a wall hanging she wanted, and asked for it for her birthay, good thing she did not spesify what year since it has now been a year and a half since she asked. This became a take along project when we traveled back and forth to Wyoming from Calif as we began looking for a place to live. We would spend a month at a time and sometimes I would have nothing to do but stay in the room and stitch as Kirk helped a friend. I will share details of the wall hanging over the next weeks, finially showing you the nearly completed 6 - 12 inch blocks.........thought we have to wait until March of next year before it can be finished as we now need to add another letter to one of the blocks for the new baby that is coming.

First up..... Iris from Ann Cox book, one of my favorite flowers, done in 4mm silk ribbon.

This is the last installment on Letha's block. With the shadowbox added (made by DH) I felt it need more lace around the edges. A cross to represent her faith. If you will go back to the original photo you will also see in the right corner a gold heart and two premade SR roses. The frame is a little deep so she can add small items along its edge if she wants to, a glass door covers it all from dust.

Next we will begin to look at the wall hanging that I have been working on for Michele, my daughter-in-law.

Fun with Threads and Scraps

This tag was created with scrap fabrics and threads. It was fun to do and freeing at the same time from the structured work normally seen in quilting.
I am saving threads and scraps to do another one, I enjoyed the process.

Blogger acting up.

Well I am not sure what is going on with Blogger this morning, but it won't let me edit my post, sorry about the huge letters, that was not my intent, perhaps I will beable to fix it later.

L........is for Letha. Created with DMC gold metallic thread, soft teal DMC - 3 strand, triple and double twist french knots. The silk rose is done with 4mm hand dyed ribbon. The lase trim below is also bedecked with the same ribbon, for the green flowers I made a loop and pulled it down in the center with a seed bead in dark blue/green, also added are more french knots with DMC floss. Here you can also get another look at the star fabric with added crystals.

Silk Ribbon is so much fun to work with, when I got my book of SRE Beginner's guide to Silk Ribbon Embroidery by Ann Cox. This book is full of flower designs. One that intrigued me was the Pussy Willow (page 24) so I had to add it to this block. The stem is DMC, the buds
4mm silk ribbon.

As a note, the foot is better and life is nearly back to normal, whatever that is.

Good morning all, it is a beautiful day here in Wyoming. I will be able to spend more time at the computer today, since I injured my right ankle yesterday thanks to a large rock that fell on it. Not broken, but the muscle reacted by swelling nicely and letting me know it was not happy. Today the swelling is way down, but the foot is still tender, I can walk but do not have full range of motion. I guess our 3's are taken care of DS crashed on his dirt bike last weekend, DGS crashed on his bike and now this.....Sigh.

Lets have a look at some more things on
this block. Isn't this a great print, I can not remember where I got it, only that it was on a site of free pictures. To this were added french knots for the flowers in her hat and for her dress detail, and her earring.

Fresh water pearls and glass beads encircle her, vintage lace with french knots complete the frame.

You will notice the button flowers are completed in the above picture. These buttons were given to me by my MIL, the glass bead center were purchased at a store in Barstow, Ca. The stems and leaves are simply straight stitch. You'll also note the crystals in the center of the stars on the blue fabric, I will give you a better picture of that in a day or two.



I want to thank Sharon sharon b's In a minute ago ... for mentioning my blog
among all of the other wonderful blog on her site.
My friend Susan says 'your famous' now. LOL.
You can enjoy Susan's beautiful work here
http://cq4fun.blogspot.com/

Guess I had better go put the foot up, it is beginning to swell, have a wonderfully blessed Sunday, God Bless.

.A close up of the flower details, french knots being
added in two green tones.

Now with the glass bead addition for the center of the flower. The
outline gives the flower a 3D effect.

Susan mentioned using the same fabric twice in the making of the block, I do this quit often, it gives the block flow, besides I do not believe the are any rules otherwise, even if there were, I am not a real good at following "rules". I am sure that our fore mothers did this quite often as they did not have as many wonderful fabrics to choose from. Not to mention that one might not even notice if the seam treatments are different as well as the block embellishments.

The flower print has been highlighted with perle cotton which is hand dyed in variegated shades of pink, leaves in DMC. I will be adding dimension to the center with threads and a glass bead. Antiques buttons are going to become flower heads and 2 more seam treatments have been added.

Today we have more seam treatments and the addition of some antique lace. I like the buttonhole stitch and use it quite often. Triple french knots are layered onto the lazy daisy stitch to create tiny roses. The fan stitch and feather stitch add more dimension. Sometimes it takes time spent in my books to get ideas for the seams.
At this point I didn't know who this would be going to.
In upcoming days we will take a closer look at additions of beads, crystals, antique buttons, SR and other wonderful embellishments.

I am finding it hard to not post several pictures, LOL. Tomorrow more seam treatments.

This block is all cottons, here we have a buttonhole stitch, lazy daisy and star stitches. Don't you just love the star fabric? Additions will be made to these basic stitches. I think I will add definition to that flower.

I am self taught, preferring to get books and read on how to do things.
The books I got and have learned from are
The Magic of Crazy Quilting by J. Marsha Michier
Elegant Stitches by Judith Baker Montano
Crazy Quilting Stitches by Dorothy Bond
Beginner's guide to Silk Ribbon Embroidery by Ann Cox

I first learned embroidery in homemaking class in high school and never figured to do CQ until Michele (DDIL) ask for a wall hanging, which I will be showing you in the coming days.

Have a quilty day.

What this blog is about

Welcome, I am beginning this blog to share my quilting, crazy quilting and long arm quilting, at times I will also add other crafts I may be working on just to mix it up.

This first piece was made for my MIL, Letha. It is mounted in a shadow box with a glass door so she can hang it on her wall. I will feature elements of it in up coming days.

I began this piece for a class I was preparing to teach. I hope you will gain ideas for your own works.

I began quilting 3.5 years ago, took up CQ 1.5 years ago and became a long arm quilter 6 months ago. I have loved fabric from an early age, began sewing garments at age 13. Now I find it necessary to have some contact with fabric, thread and embelishments on a daily basis.

I hope you enjoy your visit. Until later.