A treasure trove from Down-Under

I'm so excited!  For those of you who dabble in genealogy, trying to add to your family tree, finding third, fourth or fifth cousins is an achievement that makes you happy!  This past week I have actually made contact with two FIRST cousins, that is we share the same Grandfather!   We would call each other's parents Aunty and Uncle.  It's a very close relationship and it's absolutely amazing that it has happened.  This big branch of my family tree are on the other side of world, but with this wonderful computer age, we are in close contact by e-mail.  It's marvellous, and the nice thing is, I feel that they feel the same way!

The perfect bead!

What do you think?  Is this not the perfect bead for a beetle?  Now, if you want to see beetles, I almost made myself ill this afternoon looking through this array of beetledom! 

 From beetles to bees, much friendlier creatures.  To get my bee fluffy, I used the turkey knot for his body.   

Bees, Butterflies and Beetles RR

I'm the first person working on Cathy L's BB&B block with the CQI group. Her nakid block is below.   On the right is my first beetle, it's purely out of my head. I made a few bullion knots in Edmar Lola thread and I think it looks pretty real! I checked the web and there are so many beetles to choose from whatever I invented would probably exist somewhere. There's another one on the block, but his beady eyes slipped. I'll fix him before he shows up here. 

Sidetracked into the Sane world

I took part in my first Bee Night at my quilting guild the other evening and in one and a half hours I actually completed this placemat!  It was fun and the pattern was quite simple, just a "nine patch" with oblongs added to the sides and then the corners trimmed.  After that, the backing and filling, and it was done.  It was realy nice to have something to bring home that was a done deal and not another UFO to add to the big pile of UFOs!  Mind you, since I mentioned to one of the ladies that the plain pink side piece looked a bit bare and boring, she suggested that I do some fancy stitches.  So I will check my sewing machine manual and make an effort to learn a fancy stitch and add it to the placemat.  There were lots of lovely colour combinations made at the Bee Night and the object is to donate a bunch of them to Meals on Wheels and give one out to each new MonW customer.  

Fast fingers

Just listen to this guy playing Pachelbal's Canon.  Over 68 million people have watched him on YouTube. Click on this link:    http://tinyurl.com/2x5o2z

Three Asian Blocks

Finally, here are the three Asian blocks.  The one on the left is my original one that I made a bit bolder.  The lighting isn't the best, but you can get the general idea.

Another Asian Block

I've been on a bit of a roll with block piecing with the round robins that are beginning soon and a block for the 2010 Challenges.  The Asian block that will be rr'ing is just one of three blocks in a wall hanging that I am planning to make.  The inspiration is from this book .  My hanging will be on a smaller scale, three diamonds wide.  So while I still had my Asian rr in the house, I thought I'd make the other two.  This is one that I have finished and I love it's brightness.  Only trouble is that the Asian rr one is now a bit too pale so I will have to jazz it up a bit before I send it off.  I remember at the Retreat that there was a mention of a finished cq quilt challenge due in 2011 - this will be my entry. 

Jack's block

This is my grandson Jack's birth announcement block.  Jack is six and when he was born I wasn't involved in CQ. 
At the Retreat in Colorado Kerry was doing a neat butterfly on waste canvas on her Making Memories block.  She very kindly provided me some 12 count canvas and the pattern for the angel.  I tried very hard to find the right hole to put the needle in, but even with my glasses, I found the 12 canvas too small.  So out came those stitches.  I tried with 10 canvas, but when I took photos of the angel, all the mistakes were so obvious I had to unpick that too.  Finally I used 8.5 canvas and with a magnifying glass I was more successful.  I still think my angel needs a little more hair and possibly some definition on her wings.  She's in a different location now as I unpicked so much that the original patch is in a bit of a mess.   I'll find a nice little lace motif for that.

Postcards

Always game for a challenge I jumped right in on the New Year Postcard swap at CQI.  Postcards seem like they would be a breeze to do, simple, quick, easy.  Well, not for me.  First of all how many layers?  I tried one with a velvet top with felt inside and muslin as the back and bonded together with iron-on stiffener.  It was too solid to finish off the edges.  The second try showed that sequins cannot be ironed, even from the back, as they flatten out. I hand buttonhole stitched the edge, and it's passable.  The third try is this at the right.  The sequins are flattened again as i had to iron on the stiffener.  I made myself learn how to do this edging on my machine with some metallic gold thread which worked OK.   

Here are my practice pieces.  None are good enough to swap.  I'm going to try once more........

Happy New Year Everyone!

How nice to start the year off with this!   My eldest grandson Jack's Christmas gift to me each year is a calendar that slips into a wooden frame.   Because they know I like this style of paintings, they choose the Lang Folk Art calender with paintings by Mary Singleton.  This picture is very appropriate to begin the New Year.  I have lots of CQ projects starting this month, and lots of good intentions to get some of the unfinished ones, completed.    (Does anyone know where the Spell Check went?)

Naked Stumpwork Block

I think that this will be the final block I need to make for the CQI RRs beginning in the new year.  This one is for the Stumpwork RR which I'm looking forward to participating in.  Stumpwork is 3-dimensional and you will see all kinds of things popping up from this block and the others that are also in this round robin.  I've been practicing some of the techniques on an earlier trial block  here.   So I'm all ready to go with the Bees, Butterflies and Beetles, the Asian theme block, and the Stumpwork block.  Still waiting for two more CQers to join in the Brazillian Embroidery  rr.!    I used a piece of material from my Christmas cracker from Alice as my centre for this block. 

Christmas Cracker Swap

Just take a look at all this lovely stuff!  All these ribbons, threads, fabric, lace and silkies were stuffed into just a piece of paper towel roll and covered with a very pretty piece of crazy quilting, from Alice.  It was so much fun to open up.  And it'll be more fun to use! 

Just the bestest present!

Thank you to my children Neil & Lee-Ann, Suzie & John, Heather & Jason for this wonderful gift.  Installed and programmed by Jason for my trip home from their house on Boxing day, I even got to use it.  Gerry K brought a similar GPS with her and used in the rental car at the Retreat in Colorado.  It got us out of a few pickles and always put us back on the right road.   

More Crazy Blocks

My goodness I've been working hard on my naked RR blocks! This one is for the Bees, Bugs and Butterflies RR at CQI. I think this is my most favourite block that I have pieced together, ever! The centre fabric is just one motif from a FQ that I bought recently. There are also lovely pieces of heavy maroon lace and thick maroon silk. These are definitely my colours. I also tried to follow Gerry K's guidelines about eye movement and repetition of colour. I'm not sure if I succeeded here, but I did work on the left hand side to get the gold silk piece in, where originally I had the top and bottom maroon pieces meeting. Just that change made a difference to my eye movement.

This one is very plain by comparison. It's for the CQI 2010 monthly challenge which will need some space for additional fabric and techniques. I made the fan by the paper piecing technique and appliqued it on. but there must be a much easier way as this took me hours to do. I also didn't know how to finish it off at the bottom. I'm going to look for a small piece of metal jewellery to put over it.

Busy, busy, busy....

How can it be 3 weeks since I blogged last! Time just slips away. I haven't done a lot of stitching, but I have managed to work on piecing some of the RR blocks that I have signed up for in the New Year. This is my naked block for the Asian #2 RR. The design is similar to part of a wall hanging that I liked and mentioned in a previous posting. The fan fabric only came in those vibrant (fluorescent!) colours, but I'm going to encourage my RR friends to bead/embroider/embellish over them to tone them down a bit!

This could either be for the Brazillian embroidery RR or the Stumpwork RR. I haven't decided yet.

And this is the design, on paper, for the CQI 2010 Challenge. The first few monthly challenges include curved piecing, fans, working with velvet, birds and 5-layer stitching. Stumpwork and Silk Ribbon embroidery are two more that I have signed up for and need to make blocks, but so far they are one or two short of being filled.