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Saturday, November 28, 2009
Thank you for the music......
This was so much fun to do! My daughter's two friends were celebrating their 40th birthdays. Suzie designed and I executed. It's a 12" x 18" vanilla. Isn't it amazing how many music systems we've gone through in just 40 years!
Friday, November 27, 2009
Textile Museum, Toronto
Lynn, Sandy and I, all members of crazyquilters.ca met this morning at the Textile Museum in downtown Toronto. Mr. & Mrs. Tannenbaum are the owners of a wonderful quilt collection which is on view at the Museum. Many of the quilts are crazy and are absolutely beautiful. We read that Mrs. Tannenbaum collected the quilts because they were art pieces. The crazy quilts on show were mostly made around 1880 and there were many that were made from tiny plain and patterned silk pieces which absolutely glowed. Much of the stitching was of shiny thread which added another glow! As you will see from the photos, there are some traditional quilting patterns, one in particular the log cabin, which almost became a crazy quilt with the rich fabric and some embroidery, here and there.
I appreciate more so the work done by Miss Carole Samples in documenting hundreds of seams and motifs from old quilts in her book "Treasury of Crazy Quilt Stitches".
The three of us decided that we would meet again in the New Year to share our talents, and of course if there any other crazyquilters.ca in the GTA, Lynn said she could seat 10 comfortably!
By the way, there was not a bead to be seen on any of the quilts!
Lynn and Sandy standing beside a Kashmir shawl.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Christmas Cracker Swap
This is the Christmas Cracker I made for the CQI swap. It was a great project and I used green, maroon and gold with only embroidery and embellishment on the seams, I had to restrain myself from filling in the empty spaces! Then a piece of a cardboard paper roll was pushed inside to give it shape and hold all the goodies that could be shoved in. When my cracker arrives from my swap buddy I am NOT to allowed to peek. It has to be saved until Christmas!
Monday, November 23, 2009
Backyardigans
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Monday Challenge - fourth week
I'm moving on well with my holiday block. Above is the Colorado section. I added more snow to the mountains and have put some snow covered trees on the section right below it. In Colorado the small patches of aspens in amongst the firs were brilliant and I've tried to duplicate the look of that here. Below is a closeup of the mountains.
I also worked on the wrought iron railings in the New Orleans section. This was tricky stitching!
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Monday Challenge - third week
I don't have much to show for the third week of this Challenge. I'm still trying to get the cross stitch angel on the waste canvas good enough to leave on the block. I've unpicked twice already. I'm making some wrought iron railings on the New Orleans part of my holiday block. I've also been shopping for snow tires and trying to use up 20lbs each of carrots, beets, onions and potatoes that I bought for $2 for 10 pounds! So even though I don't have stitching photos, I could take a picture of ten big jars of pickled beets, and lots of containers of carrot ginger soup, and Lesley's baked potato soup that are now in the freezer!
Sunday, November 15, 2009
ATC for my birthday
Interesting stuff
I came across some little gems this week. This small piece of smocking is just pretty, I'm not sure what I will do with it!This is trim on the hem of a long tunic. There's also bands of it on the sleeves and around the neck. Masses of square mirrors that are kept in place by seed beads. It's quite heavy and very colourful. Part of a large embroidered section on a dress of pale blue cotton.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
More fiddly beading...
I added this little daisy chain after I had already posted the piece below. The colours are not true, it's the most delicate pink and pale green. It would make a very pretty seam treatment.
It takes a lot of practice, a good magnifying glass and my Ott-lite. I did try a more complicated one and didn't have much luck with it, so I'm going to keep making the simplest shape until I know what I am doing! The multi-coloured star is pretty, but even more important, I could learn the pattern and check for errors easily by using the different coloured beads.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Monday Challenge - second week
This past week I finished the tea cosy. I even managed to get the piping braid in neatly too!
I added a little face to the angel. She is ready to be mailed. Her wings are three layers of sparkly white organza ribbon. I drew the pattern on the ribbon, sewed small running stitches on the pattern line, then embroidered blanket stitched over the running stitches very close together and I trimmed very close to the stitching. The Florida part of my holiday wall hanging is finished. I redid the sunset reflection in the water and added a few grasses around the feet of the upper bird just so he doesn't look as if he is floating, but has his feet on the sand. I took out the cross stitch mesh, because my stitching on the cross stitch angel was very uneven and some of the crosses went the wrong way. So this needs to be taken out and redone. I might use a bigger mesh the next time.
Beading.....
Monday, November 2, 2009
Crazyquilters-ca Monday Challenge
This challenge suggested by our Canadian group of Crazy Quilters may spur me on to finish some projects that have been on the back burner for ages. I have several that I need to complete before the end of the year. Two projects are well on their way - a cream tea cosy and a baby birth announcement block, and shouldn't take too long to finish. I also have a Christmas Cracker swap to prepare and a special Christmas tree decoration to make, both of which are due to be mailed out by the middle of November. The tea cosy embroidery is done, it needs batting and lining.
The baby block needs the photo in the middle and the birth details for the baby. Right now there is a patch of paper in place of a photo. When I prepared the block I set my machine to the largest stitch so that the paper would be easy to remove later. On the Retreat I bought a roll of silk for printing photos from the computer so I'll be trying that out soon.