Emily's block

This Emily's block in progress.  Emily is 5 months and a bit.

These are Kiko's flowers.  Sharon B showed us how to do them.  Mine always turn out looking different from each other.  

I love these little lilies.  They're acrylic and I bought a bunch of them from an Etsy shop.  By themselves they sit awkwardly, but in threes I think they look super.

A patch with buttonhole rings, chevron that needs more decoration, and my favourite scallop seam. 

I'm working with bias silk ribbon here, and it's lovely to work with.  This is a patch in progress.

The lure of a new project.......

.......usually means that I will leave some other project unfinished.  And this happens a lot.  So for me, the only New Year's Resolution will be NOT TO BEGIN A NEW PROJECT without a lot of thought. 

Jack's block

Joshua's block

I love beginning something new, getting excited about planning it, then settling down to sew with all my threads and beads around me.  It's a big temptation.   So I've been putting aside thoughts of new ideas and dealing with several projects that were just needing a few hours of work to finish them off.   This applied to three of my grandson's baby blocks that I still had to bind and correct a couple of errors in the birth information.  So, I settled down to this and have completed these.  Above are Jack's and Josh's.  I have posted already about Elijah's.  While I was printing out the photos and birth information for the front, I made a label for the back too.

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



One block's seams

These are all the seams from the block mentioned in the last post.  I purposely used more fabric pieces so that I would have more seams to embroider. 

Chevron, chain with hearts, and fly stitch with pearls

Feather stitch

Coral stitch

Coral stitch

Chicken scratch

Chain stitch "pea pods" with 13/0 Charlottes

Chain stitch with beads

Buttonhole stitch

Double cretan, chevron, coral, buttonhole and chain stitch

Chain stitch scallops and chain stitch with bullions

Chain stitch

Embroidering text.....continued

Here's the silk printed piece now attached to the block.  I tacked it down and used a thin needle and one strand of DMC floss to embroider tiny chain stitches within the outlines of the printed letters.  The next post will be the finished block.

Embroidering text

Silk page with two sets of lettering

I'm working on a baby announcement block for the latest addition to our family.  Lucas is my niece's first baby so that makes me Lucas' great aunt.  Three of my five grandchildren have blocks and I'm in the process of finishing the other two.

There is a lot of lettering needed on the block:  name, date and time of birth, and weight and length.  Getting the writing neat and even is tricky, and for the first couple of blocks I transferred the letters by tacking through a printed paper copy.  When I started using the silk to print off my own pictures, I also tried printing the text information on the silk.  For the lettering I used the font Comic Sans, size 30.  I chose pale blue ink because I will be using a pale blue thread, and chose the "outline" effect.

Close up of lettering

To get the best use out of the silk, I cut a piece of 8 1/2" x 14" legal size silk from the roll and adjusted the text and printed several times on legal size paper before I printed onto the silk.  To get two to a page, the format for each set of lettering is the same on the page using the landscape format.  When you are printing the second set of lettering, feed the paper into the printer from the opposite end.  Be sure to practice first on legal size paper.

Lucas' unfinished block

Most of the embroidery is finished, and the space at the bottom is where the silk piece with the lettering will be attached.  The printed silk page is cut from corner to corner so that each lettering is on a large triangle. 

Jack's block finished

Jack's block is finished.  That is I've finished the embroidery but still have to bind it (I've cropped the raw edges out in the picture.)  The two close ups are my favourite bits on the block.  The first is a row of long bullions to make a small seam that doesn't intrude onto the photo of Jack.  I can see that they are not nearly perfect, but honestly they look better in reality than in the photo.  I used Edmar thread on most of the stitching, and it is more difficult to work with than perle, but It does give a nicer look, and is worth the trouble of ironing each length of thread!  The second favourite is the patch with the feather stitch filling up the centre with the double cretan on one side the buttonhole and chain on the other.    

Elijah's birth announcement block

In between the CQI Round Robins that I am working on, I have been trying to get caught up with these announcement blocks for my five grandchildren.  This is Elijah, my youngest at 4 months.  The two next in age, Brynn, one year and a bit, and Josh, 2 years and a bit I have completed.  The other two, Jack nearly 7 years old and Caleb 3, were born before I began crazy quilting, so I am playing catch up.  Jack's is almost finished and will be featured soon! 

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.

Birth announcement block

This was a joy to work on because I love pink and because it is for my first granddaughter Brynn, born just 6 weeks ago in Quebec. We were introduced to each other at Christmas and she is the sweetest little bundle.It's a 14" inch block. Most of the seams are part of the 100 details in 200 days which I participated in to the very end. The photo is on very fine cotton, which I provided to a copy shop, and they transferred the photocopy onto the fabric. I have tried to use the special liquid and do it myself, but I haven't had great success. I'm going to persevere because this is only the second of several that I will have to do.

The reveal

I didn't tell you there would be a reveal coming up because I didn't want to spoil the surprise for my daughter. As I've mentioned before, the 100Details challenge creates a great need for seams, and after a while there is also a need to create projects rather than just block upon block of crazy quilting. This is the special project I decided on. It's a 12" x 12" crazy quilted birth announcement for my grandson, Joshua, (pictured in the middle). I made it for his first birthday which we celebrated today. I thoroughly enjoyed this project and I've incorporated a beautiful piece of old lace and a delicate old piece of tatting. Look closely, the tatting circles his picture and the lace is directly above.