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