New selvage blocks

Time to lighten the load in the green and blue selvage boxes.

This will be the simple block for greens and blues. don't you love my wrinkly selvages...hahahaha  i am NOT ironing them.

Then i thought i would do some blue and yellow rail fence blocks.

That should take care of the majority of the greens and blues. i have a whole lot of white/cream/beige selvages, too. what to do with those? by theirselves will be BORING. thinking...thinking

Later

Do you know your nursery rhymes?

OK...i need help. i appliqued 24 pictures on my embroidery machine of nursery rhymes for a baby quilt....or 2.  most all of them made sense.

For instance... here is Hey Diddle Diddle

Jack and Jill

Jack Be Nimble

Mistress Mary Quite Contrary....love her dress..looks like she belongs in the 60s. LOL actually the purple dress and the green shoes and leaves are from the same piece of fabric. my stash is wild!

What the hell is the nursery rhyme about a crying pig? all i can think of is The 3 Pigs  and that is not a rhyme but a story. do you know?

And what is with the duck with the hat and bow? my sis says there is something about a counting rhyme with her ducklings....anyone know it? what rhyme does she belong to.

I don't know of any new nursery rhymes. why did we have these back in the old days anyway? and aren't they weird? i wonder what kids think of them.

If you know the names of these 2 rhymes please clue me in or i will be wondering about them from now till ...

Later

Channeling Picasso

July's Color Palette Challenge was a picture by Picasso. no pressure....hahahahaha


I started several times and couldn't get an idea to gel. i kept thinking of duplicating the photo. yeah, right!  LOL


So, here i am...down to the wire and it's time to do SOMETHING....even if it is wrong.


Here is our photo....thanks, Vicki .... 

Here's my take on it....just look from far away and squint....it'll pass. LOL

I'll give you a closer look if you don't look too close.

A couple hours work and i made the deadline.

I cut my colors into itsy bitty pieces and put some steam a seam II on the background fabric....dropped the colored bits onto it....put more steam a seam and a black net over all and ironed it all down. i've always wanted to try this method and granted this time was not my finest moment....but i'll live with it. may have to try this again one day.

Here's hoping i get a good idea quickly for next month's challenge.  thanks to Judy Laquidara at www.patchworktimes.com  for organizing these challenges.

Later

 

Groovy Kind of Love

My husband has a connection with a local band....so we sometimes go to where they are playing and give them moral support.  he takes videos and puts them on their facebook page.


They were playing old 60s songs. And we got silly


http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=486403378054926




I swear....we were only drinking iced tea.


Really!

Ladies of the World quilt

In my ton of Aunt Sophie inheritance fabrics i found some painted ladies. 24 of them. remember paint in a tube? somewhere in the 60s or 70s. they had home parties like Avon or Tupperware and you could buy paints and all the supplies to go with them...and things to paint, too. Aunt Sophie got me interested in this back then. .... hahaha....she got me into a lot of craft things. either she or her daughter, Pat, painted these ladies. here are a few of them.

I decided they needed to be a quilt. the fabric the ladies are painted on is a stiff sort of pellon fabric but it quilted up without a problem. the needle just sounded a bit clunky going through it.

It got to be 75 x 90".

I love all the colorful costumes.

And the painting is done really well.

The ladies have 'shading' in the fabrics. so when you painted over it....it automatically shaded the things you were painting.

The paints in a tube were fun but could get messy if they decided to leak. you had a little pair of pliers that you could unscrew the tip and put in a new one. the tip was like a ball tip on a pen.

I had a little bucket with dozens of paints in it. the lid of the bucket was your painting 'board'. and there was an embroidery hoop that went over it to hold the fabric taut.

Do you recognize the border map fabric? i used it in my Tokoyo Subway Map Quilt.

The back was pieced....the last bit of map fabric, surrounded by a gold print and dark brown on top and bottom. i managed to get it pretty centered when quilting it.

I'm gonna miss this map fabric...it was pretty cool.

I used my Quiltazoid large clamshell boards to quilt this up....only took a couple hours. Gold Glide thread on the top and brown So Fine in the bobbin. Warm and natural batting.

I'm going to throw this in the washing machine and then dry it and see how the ladies survive. perhaps i should have done that to the top before i quilted it...but you know i don't plan well. we'll see what happens and i'll let you know...

Later

Chinese Lantern Festival part 3

I hope you are enjoying the tour of the Chinese Lantern Festival. to learn more about this event and read the stories of the displays visit  www.missouribotanicalgarden.org and click on the Chinese Lantern Festival link. if you are in the St Louis area i highly recommend checking out this exhibit. it is only here for a few more weeks.

This is the 4 faced Buddha statue. although Buddha originated in India...the Chinese applied it to their culture, too. their ways are similar.

Check out those ear lobes. LOL

There is something about the little fat buddha that makes me chuckle.

This is the wishing tree. there were large gold 'coins' hung by red ribbons. the idea is to make a wish and toss the coin into the tree. i pity the groundsperson who has to clean up this tree when this exhibit is over.

This is the 9 Dragon Mural. it is one of China's most precise pieces of architectural work. there are 3 sets of these in China. each dragon is a different color, expression and emotion.

Kind of scary.

This depicts the Butterfly Lovers. it is the love story of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai....a Romeo and Juliet tale passed down in China for over 1000 years.

They wanted to marry and it was forbidden. they both died and came back as butterflies...to fly away together.

Remarkable scenery

Love this bird

As we were walking along....we came upon these sheep. too cute. there are displays like this throughout the gardens. there is a plaque that tells who donated it to the gardens. when we came by the sheep later, some tourists were taking pictures of their children on the sheep. LOL

I love showing you these pictures....it's like i am there all over again and enjoying it a second time. i have enough pictures probably for 2 more postings. so, there will be more...

Later

Pink and Brown Selvage quilt

I finished quilting the pink and brown selvage quilt. along with the all brown selvage quilt....this put a serious dent in the brown selvage box. probably can still do another brown quilt, though. those selvages go a loooong way. LOL

This one is pretty big...queen size.

I didn't have as many pink selvages as brown so i was scrambling for those. but i made it work.

I found all fabrics that had any pink in them to use.

Didn't have a problem finding browns...the box was overflowing. my brown box also has some golds.

I pieced the back with a solid light brown at the top, a pink floral in the middle, and a dark brown print on the bottom.

Closer look at the middle and bottom.

The pattern is a maze board from Quiltazoid. it goes quickly but has pretty close quilting...about an inch apart. will hold those selvages all down well.

I still have to quilt the all brown selvage quilt....it's marinating. but right now i am enamored with my embroidery machine and new embroidery cds. making baby and kid quilts. will show some ...

Later

Chinese Lantern Festival - part II

This is a continuation of the tour of the Chinese Lantern Festival. you can visit http://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/ and click on Lantern Festival and read all the stories about the pictures.

The dragon is a traditional symbol for the Chinese people....it symbolizes luck, nobility, bravery, strength and knowledge. 2012 is the year of the dragon.

This exhibit is called Dragon Embracing the Pillars

They actually colored the water blue...it appeared magical.

There were lotus blossoms in many of the ponds in the garden.

This exhibit is called Lotus Ponds. i loved this arbor...looks like the sun. i want this in my garden at home.

Some very tall...albeit strange...lotus flowers

And this incredible vase sitting in the middle.

The fish on the vase remind me of Deb Levy's art work on her quilts....she does fish sometimes. when you look at the pic you can see that this is sort of 3D...the design if actually set off of the vase....you can see the little pins holding it up.

Here's another huge lotus flower in a pond.

This was called Sail Boat and is really cool. it is made of thousands of recycled plastic bottles. the city of St. Louis saved them for the Chinese artists to use.

All these exhibits are so amazing. the craft ideas....the amazing workmanship....the hours of labor. just so we can visit and enjoy. i want to go see it all again.

Here is the front of the sail boat.

Hope you are enjoying my tour of the Chinese Lantern Festival. there is much more to come. stay tuned....

Later