Happy New Year Everyone!

Well, here it is the last day of 2010 and what I wish for everyone most of all is Good Health in 2011. 

I feel like I have been sick with one thing or another since October!  I had the remains of a head cold when I left for my vacation in Florida.  During the descent my ears really popped and I had an awful earache and ended up visiting a clinic for that and an eye infection.  Nevertheless I had a very restful vacation and had wonderful weather.  Since returning home I've have one cold after another and a never-ending hacking cough that needed antibiotics and I still have unpopped ears!  I want to wake up tomorrow and feel my old well self!  Good health is really the wish to make, and I wish it for all of us!

There have been no RR's to work on for a couple of weeks, so I've been busy with a quilt that I promised to do for my Seniors Club.  It's the star quilt that I helped with last year, at St. Margaret's in the Pines.  It's paper pieced, and I was able to print off the sheets from a web site. 

Printed paper pattern pinned to two pieces of fabric with their right sides together.  Sew along dotted lines, cut on solid lines.

After sewing and cutting you have triangles.  When the paper is removed and the fabric opened up you have a a neat square of two different fabrics.

These are the combinations I am using:  on the left two mediums, in the middle two lights, and on the right a dark with a light.

Here the squares a pinned to a scrap piece of fabric.  The four middle squares are medium tones, the corners are light tones, and the other eight are a dark with a light.  This gives the star pattern.

Here are nine blocks completed.  Each block has 32 different fabrics and finished are 8" x 8".  The background here is my carpet.  I'm not sure just what colour the ladies at our Seniors group will choose.

Nicki Lee's CQI Tea Time II RR heading home

This is Nicki Lee's Tea Time block as I received it with Carolyn, Cathy and Thearica's work. 

Carolyn, Cathy and Thearica really worked hard and filled Nicki Lee's block with loads of neat stuff.  Just look at the detail, there's lots to see and admire. 

My challenge was the top right hand corner, a triangle of white satin.  My first thought was:  This block is missing some goodies, sweet stuff to go with a cup of tea!

And this is what I added.  They are cut-out cakes from a piece of fabric that I embroidered and beaded.  

After that I added some silk ribbon embroidery to the cup and saucer in the middle of the block.  And worked on the pink, green and gold beaded seam to the right of the cup and saucer.

And finished off with a little embellishing on the items on the second shelf.  And below the block is finished and ready to head home.

   

2012 Challenge Crazy Quilt

 

 In between my various Round Robin commitments, I have been working on another piece for the 2012 Challenge.  There will be three, four or five of these blocks in reds and oranges, mounted on point onto a black fabric rectangle.  Below are some of the seams and decorated patches. I have been using mostly red, orange and gold threads and beads, so it's looking very rich. 

Master Sand Castle Sculpting Competition



 


Circle of Life - First Place Judges' Choice & First Place People's Choice

  This past weekend the Inaugural Master Sand sculpting Competition took place on Siesta Key, Sarasota, Florida. The Sand on Siesta Key beach is considered to have the World's Finest Whitest Sand.  It's one of only two quartz sand grain beaches in the world, the other is in Italy. Here is a link to information on the competition and competitors.

Dragon Sleeping - Second Place People's Choice

Close up of  Dragon Sleeping 

 

Grinch Stole Thanksgiving First - Third Place Judges' Choice



One of my favourites, unfortunately I didn't get a photo of it finished. 



Another amazing sculpture

Tea Time II RR

  This is Thearica's Tea Time CQI Round Robin block that I have been working on for the past few days in sunny Florida, just resting up for a couple of weeks before the holiday rush.  The block arrived with Carolyn's gorgeous work already completed under the tea pot - an embroidered tablecloth with the two sweetest napkins.  Cathy made the steam drifting out of the tea cup, the hanging tea-bag and a candy sitting in the crinkly wrapper.  She also added the crocheted party hat with all the trimmings.  Cathy also added a pretty rambling SR rose vine.  Above is the block with Carolyn's Cathy's and my work.

I embellished the top right tea cup with beaded bunches of grapes, gold vine embroidery and silk ribbon leaves.

I also chose to do the teapot with various stitches, and beads.

I echoed Carolyn's wavy rose vine with a scalloped chain stitch in silk ribbon with clusters of  flowers and leaf beads at each point

Since writing this post, I've embroidered another of the teacup and saucers.



Paper pieced quilt ...... finished

This is the finished paper pieced quilt that the craft group at St. Margaret's in the Pines Church worked on for the upcoming Fall Bazaar in a couple of weeks.  I did a lot of the actual paper piecing and there are more photos in a previous post.  Susan, who is one of our leaders organized and motivated us, and when it was finished it was machine quilted.  It's bright and beautiful and some lucky person will have the winning ticket.

Peggy's Basically Beaded CQI RR

This is Peggy's Basically Beaded Block after Arlene and I have done our bits

The navy blue small centre patch was perfect for these sequin flowers..  The seam on the left is beaded cross stitch.

This is a beaded fly stitch with added gold flowers

A row of randomly chosen beads. 

A mother of pearl button and bead patch.

Visit to Morin Heights



Caleb's birth announcement block



This is the centre portion of the block.  The photo and letters for the birth information was printed on silk.



My son Neil and his family live in Quebec, about an hour north of Montreal in the foothills of the Laurentians.  I have two adorable French/Canadian grandchildren, who at 2 and 4 can speak both English and French.  I visited this past weekend for their birthdays.  I also delivered Caleb's crazy quilted block.  I've been making these birth announcement blocks for each of my five grand children.  This is Caleb's and he's just about four years old now.  I've only been crazy quilting for less than 3 years, so I was able to add extra information to his block because he's a little older.  For starters, he's crazy for cars (just like his daddy), so I found some neat car fabric to include in the block.  When Caleb began to talk it was in two word sentences, and I included a sampling using alphabet blocks.  Here are a few more close ups:

A button patch



Feather stitch, chevron, buttonhole and fly stitches



Rose vine, chain scallops and some of Caleb's first words 



Button cluster



Carolyn's Tea Time II Round Robin

One side of Carolyn's tea cosy

The second side



Carolyn's tea cosy is made from old fashioned prints and was fun to work on.  I chose the chicken scratch on the first side (above).  I love doing chicken scratch and I was glad that she had one on each side, and one was left still to do.  I also embroidered some blue bullion daisies on both sides of the cosy.    On the first side there was a small rectangle that looked just like a table, so I filled it with beaded goodies.  And on the second side I added a simple cross stitch seam treatment in red, white, yellow and royal blue.

Bullion daisies

Chicken Scratch

Cakes and Cookies!  Chocolate eclairs, Empire Biscuits and a chocolate cake

Cross stitch, straight stitch, French knots and lazy daisies

Arlene's Basically Beaded RR and some fun in the mountains!






I arrived home in the wee hours of Tuesday morning after a wonderful time in Salt Lake City with Cathy K.  Then we set out on  a scenic drive through Wyoming, and arrived in Estes Park, Colorado to spend from Thursday to Monday morning with the CQI September Shenanigans Group.  What fun we had!  Some of the ladies I knew from the 2009 Retreat, but we had grown in number and I enjoyed putting names to Internet faces for the new ones.  There were 18, and on Saturday, 19 of us teaching, learning, sewing, beading, etc. etc. in a spacious 6-bedroom cabin, 7,000 odd feet elevation in the Rocky Mountains. The four guys in charge of CQI did a wonderful job of organizing the Retreat - thank you to Kerry, Lesley, Cathie and Hideko. 

Above is Arlene's basically beaded RR block that spent some time up in the mountains while I worked on it.  Below are close ups. 

  



This is a bouquet of lavender.

Feather stitch  with a few added fantasy flowers!

A seam of sequin flowers and beaded leaves

Glass flower

Beaded herringbone