Finished - the Holiday Block

          The inspiration for this piece came from my three part vacation last Fall.   It measures 22" wide by 12" high.   
          In September I flew to Denver, Colorado, met up a couple of days early with Gerry K, Leslie, Kerry and Debbie Q to get the shopping in for the September Shenanigans CQ Quilting Retreat in Breckenridge.  It was wonderful fun (and I'm signed up for this year too).   The left part represents the snowcapped mountains, the forests with the bright little patches of aspen, and the lakes.  The band that is running from top to bottom has a few small samples of what we learned.  There's velvet pansies, button painting, ribbon flowers and leaves, dying lace, using angelina fibres. At the top is a pin that Leslie made for me and all of us attending the Retreat.
          The next section is New Orleans.  From the bottom up, there's the wrought iron, above that the music, Carnival with the mask and beads, and the fancy lace on the side is a little touch of the saucier night life that is also present in the French Quarter.  What isn't very clear in the picture is a sparkling crystal, a piece from a chandellier that I found in a charity shop in the Quarter that was very damaged during Katrina.  The lady in the store said that the water had risen 8 feet up the wall.  
          On the right is Florida where I spent the last two weeks of my month's vacation.  I used needlelace for the bird's bodies and wings, collected most of the shells on Nokomis beach, and the piece of orange crab shell was once on my dinner plate!
          It's finished, but not framed.  The framing will happen in the summer when my handy friend visits.