Finish Friday and CQJP2022...................

I belong to a Facebook group called Crazy Quilt Divas and they have started a new thread called Finish Friday. The thread is designed to get you back stitching on an abandoned CQ project. I really don't have a lot of those (itty bitty fib) but I will join in when I can.

This is a before and after of a block I did last year. I'm really not sure what I was thinking of when I did it?? I never finished it because I couldn't decide what to put in the middle. 

The first pic was taken inside last December and the second taken today outside on a cloudy day. I can't believe how washed out the first one looks. The second is pretty close to the actual colours. 

Basically all I did was take out the beige seams and using the three main colours in the embroidery redid them. Then I used those colours for the small flowers in the middle. I'm calling it done. 

Next............

The second finished block for the Crazy Quilt Journal Project 2022.  Yes I know it's July 1st and I'm a wee bit behind but whatever 😀

I have even started my third block.......I'm on a roll.

Take care :) 

April Block for the 2021 Crazy Quilt Journal Project.........

 Here is my fourth block. I'm way ahead of schedule but I figure that's a good thing.

And tada..... the project completed.  

Take care and keep safe :)

March Block for the 2021 Crazy Quilt Journal Project.....

I may have lost the plot with this block....that's if there ever was one....but I did learn a few things in the process. One more corner block to go and then I'll put them together.

This is the three I've done so far.

 Take care and keep safe :)

February Block For 2021 Crazy Quilt Journal Project.......

Here is my fan block for February. I added a heart for Valentines though originally I didn't intend to do one but ya know. It's been a great exercise in doing seam treatments. On to the next block.

Take care and keep safe :)

January Block for the 2021 Crazy Quilt Journal Project......

Here is my January block. I have only done one fan block before in a class I took with Kathy Shaw. I wasn't a fan then (of fan blocks not Kathy) and I'm still not. It's all about seams and trying to harmonize them I guess. I found this really hard to do. So I just did my own thing.

 Take care:)

 

 

Crazy Quilting.........

I was given a gift card at Christmas for Indigo-Chapters which was burning a hole in my pocket...as the saying goes. Unfortunately the stores are closed here as we are in lock down again so I looked at their online store.

I bought Kathy Shaw's book "Stunning Stitches for Crazy Quilts". Perfect as I had bought her templates a few years ago and this book shows you how to create seams using templates. Here are the templates I mean.

I love CQ but I haven't really done a lot. I took Kathy Shaw's free beginners class in 2015 and messed about a bit but then my efforts fizzled out.

So I decided to join in the 2021 Crazy Quilt Journal challenge. You are permitted to work on small projects instead of one large project. That seemed doable. I made up three groups of four blocks. Four fans, four hexagons and four with "silkies". So a variety to work on. The challenge began right away with trying to find fabric in my very limited stash. I managed though the colours I used for the fans are a bit unconventional for CQ...to me anyway... and in a different circumstance (sans Covid) I would never have used them.

The bits of embroidery in the centre of each fan are from an older project that I recycled. They are Buttonhole Stitch Leaves. You can find the tutorial here. The templates I used for my hexagons came from the 2020 Crazy Quilt challenge on Pintangle.

Take care and keep safe:)

Crazy Quilting Tutorials..........

I thought you'd be interested to know that Jennifer Clouston will be posting tutorials on her blog "Sew So Crazy".

Here's the link..............Sew So Crazy.

Take care :)

Winter is not here yet....

But with the cold weather we had the first week of September you'd wonder. Brrrr. There was even mention....not by me I might add....of turning on the heat...no kidding. But then our weather is unpredictable.

Here are some visitors to our garden this week on their way south. My son took these pics when he noticed that there were a lot of Monarch butterflies around our stonecrop plants.

On the creative front I've been working on an EPP square that I altered awhile back. I took out the middle and inserted an embroidered nest from another project.

The seams on this square were a bit iffy so I though rather than junk it I'd do a bit of embroidery. Here is how it ended up.

  I think it needs something else in the nest area but I'll leave it for now.

 Take care :)

Ribbon Madness.......

.......well not quite. But ribbon fun...yes!

I was a given a gift card for Indigo-Chapters at Christmas time. I finally got around to using it and bought myself "How To Make 100 Ribbon Embellishments". Someone mentioned it on another blog and I thought it looked interesting.

Amazon has pics of the inside of the book if your're interested.

 
So I tried out an embellishment called "Rosebud Trim". Here it is placed on a CQ square I'm starting. I don't know yet if I'll use it on this block.

My attempt actually looks like the picture in the book....LOL Honest. Maybe not as neat but for a first attempt I'm pretty chuffed. There are some really lovely embellishments. I can see a lot of ribbons in my future.

Take care :)

WIP Wednesday.....

I haven't been doing much crafting recently. Mostly sorting stuff to give away or throw away in my attempts to downsize for our eventual house move. It really is shocking what you can accumulate in 40 years. The things I have found that I didn't even know we owned...LOL Oh well:) Also isn't it amazing that when you put something at the bottom of the driveway it disappears. Magic. I'm so happy when that happens. Someone has found a use for what I have to let go.

The reason we are moving is to be closer to these two......Megan and her new brother Benjamin. A sweet little boy born in February. 

Despite all this I have done a wee bit of sewing.....

I had originally made a little bird nest of fibers on a CQ block. Then I decided I didn't like the fabrics that I had used so it went in to my "maybe later" pile.

I was sorting out stuff the other day and found the block again and I thought what a shame. So a wee bit of recycling was done and the nest was incorporated into the middle of an EPP block I had made some time ago.

It was an EPP block I made when I was learning how to do the technique. I wasn't too adept in joining the pieces and you can see my stitches. Now I can cover them up with some CQ seam treatments. Bonus!!

So it'll be EPP meets CQ :)

Take care.

Making a nest part 2..............

Here is my nest after I added the fiber and tacked down the stray ends. My husband drilled some holes in the plastic eggs so that I could sew them on rather than gluing them. Much more secure.

I Googled to see what type of bird lays beige speckled eggs and I found that sparrows do and we get them in abundance in our backyard. They seem to nest mostly in the hedge we have along one side of our garden. It's quite a substantial hedge well over 8 feet high and very thick. We once had a cardinal nest in there that was washed out by a heavy rainfall. We rescued it and put it back as both mum and dad cardinal were freaking out very loudly. Luckily they weren't bothered by our intervention. After that peace reigned.

Here's a nice image of a field sparrow's nest.

Source Unknown

So a beginning. I'm not sure what I will do next with this block.

Take care:)

Making a nest.......

.........or attempting to anyway....LOL

So this is what I'm trying to do....

Find the directions to make this here .....link.

I was super lucky in that I had most of the suggested embroidery colours.....642, 840, 3781, 3782... with the exception of 611. I substituted  611 with 640...and then I added some green....370. I added the green because against the fabric I was using the above combination looked a bit too beige.

I followed the instructions but I wasn't all that happy with my results...sorry I forgot to take a picture. I didn't like the satin stitch in the middle. I thought my attempt looked messy.

So I decided to omit the satin stitch and started building the nest from the center outwards rather than just around the edge.

I merrily went allong and made my center bit and then built up the sides. It was too small.....RATS!!!!!!!

 Second attempt.......

Getting there but I'm still not all that in love with it. Too perfect. I thought about adding a bit of fluffy knitting wool fibre. It looks more like a nest in a way. 

Maybe if I tidy up some of those loose bits....hmmm.

I will  return. Take care:)

TUSAL for March!.......

It's that time again. My TUSAL jar. I've decided to start a new one for 2018 as the old one was a bit full.

What is TUSAL?

You can read all about it at Daffycat's blog....here.

TUSAL is scheduled based on the new moons. I was curious so I went on line to inquire about new moons and discovered that....."The Full Moon in March is the Worm Moon. It is also called Lenten Moon, Crow Moon, Crust Moon, Chaste Moon, Sugar Moon, and Sap Moon. It's the last Full Moon before the vernal equinox." You can go here and read more about why it's named after worms:) Who knew?

So where do some of those TUSAL threads come from? Well.....

I have been very good at keeping up with my TAST stitches. The latest stitch we had to do was the couching stitch. I just realized that it looks sorta wormy right? LOL

I tried to use the stitch on my doodle embroidery project. I took some cord and some chenille fiber and used them for the center of a flower. A bit boring but it worked.

I like to use the couching stitch when I do crazy quilting as it's a simple way of attaching fibers, trims and laces. Here is a sample of a piece of chunky chenille fiber that I used when I took a CQ online class with Kathy Shaw.

In this case it was a bit fiddly following the curves of the letter but I can see all kinds of lovely uses for this type of stitching.

That's it from me for TUSAL until the next new moon.

Take care:) 

February 15th and a New Moon and.....

...time once again for A Totally Useless Stitch A Long  hosted by Sharon at It"s Daffycat. Use this link or click on this pic on my right hand sidebar to find out what's it's all about.

Here is my ORTS jar not quite as full as last time. I did a bit of housecleaning and threw away...yes...threw away some of the orts. It was a very traumatic thing to do but it was for the best.

What is an ORT you ask?

It's an Old Ragged Thread. They are all the end bits of embroidery thread that I keep just in case.

I've decided to use some of them on a piece of fabric to try out stitches. I was toying with idea of doing the One Year of Stitches thingy but decided to do my own thing. Actually it's quite nice just to randomly stitch something that's not structured. Just wandering about on a bit of cloth stitching until you run out of thread and then pick out another bit and keep going.

I've been trying my hand again at Crazy Quilting which of course means more orts. So it goes.

The ORT jar is very handy for propping stuff when you need to take a picture:)

The fabric is a very thin Japanese cotton in shades of tan, brown, grey with black here and there. It's lovely fine cotton fabric that I bought years ago at a quilt/craft show. Each piece is 10 inches by 23 inches so not a fat quarter. I have no idea what it would be called in quilting terminology.

I'm also redoing the first panel in the Pamela Kellogg's "Never Ending Sampler Stitch Along".  Here's the link if you're interested. I had done the first panel but decided I wanted to do all of them using the same fabric.

I discovered another sampler stitch along just by accident when Googling for something or other. It's hosted by Linen & Things. Here is the link for the 2017 sampler.....here and the beginning of the 2018 sampler here. 

It's been the coldest winter ever and maybe the snowiest in quite a few years. Perfect weather though for staying warm indoors and doing a bit of stitching. Well that's it from me. I hope you are all keeping well.

Take care:) 

2020 Crazy Quilt Challenge on Pintangle.....

A new chalenge that Sharon Boggon has just announced on Facebook.

http://pintangle.com/2020-crazy-quilt-guidelines/

Take care:)

Crazy Quilt Quarterly Magazine 2018 Contest ........

Just wanted to remind you that the Crazy Quilt Quarterly Magazine is calling for submissions for their 2018 Calendar.

This time the theme is musicals. Wow the possibilities are amazing.

Here is the link but I also copied the guidelines as well.

Morris Hexathon....Blocks 6, 7 and 8

I'm at the half way mark as the 16th block template was posted on Saturday.

6. South Kensington

7. Avebury Stones

8. Greenwood

I'm also back on TAST...Take A Stitch Tuesday. I've gotten way behind on that but it won't take me long to get caught up.

Here is stitch #29...the Barb Stitch. I did the beaded barb stitch version. It would make a lovely and very easy to do seam treatment for Crazy Quilting.

Take care:)

Crochet a String of Hearts...........

A friend sent me this link to crochet a string of hearts. She thought it might be used for a crazy quilting seam treatment. The video is in Russian but I think it's easy enough to follow.

There is supposedly an English version on their website but I wasn't able to find it but did find some other interesting things:)

She-Ru Knitting and Crochet

Crazy Quilting Challenge.....

I was wandering around Blogland at 5:00 a.m. I couldn't sleep which is nothing unusual...LOL

I discovered this post about a crazy quilting challenge over at Kitty & Me Designs that you might be interested in.

Here are the details.

A Finish and a WIP......

For those of you who do not follow my doll making blog or my Facebook page I thought I'd show you my latest effort. This is the first doll I've made since last August 2014. When I looked back and saw that I was a bit shocked.

I made this doll for an online challenge with a Facebook doll club I belong to called Cloth Doll Artistry. The challenge was called "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend".

We were to make a cloth rabbit at least 20 inches tall and dressed for a charity event.

I used a pattern by Teresa Pietras called "Lilly: A Fantasy Rabbit". She turned out much better than I expected as I was a bit rusty in the doll making department.

A tiny bit of bling:)

I've also started another CQ block for CQJP2015. A tad behind schedule but I hope to get caught up and finish all 12 eventually.

This one is in shades of brown and peach/orange primarily.

Today I thought I'd participate in The Needle & Thread Network WIP Wednesday link up. I haven't done that in ages.

Come on over and visit.  Take care:)