Tidbits

Lately i have been so disjointed. i am still experiencing pain in my knee...almost constantly...and that sort of rules you. hard to concentrate on something that needs brain power. so i've been flitting between things.

The last few days i have worked on my neutral crazy quilt some more. here is a block i finished last night.

This side has silk ribbon flowers, another attempt at the fly stitch with the brown silk ribbon, some Xs with a gray crewel yarn, and a knot stitch with gold crewel yarn. i also put some french knots in the circles with the gold crewel yarn. you might be able to notice from the photo above that i did the french knots in decreasing knots. first row is 4 turns, next row 3 turns, etc.  

Here i made up a seam decoration with the gray silk ribbon .... i made 3 leaves and then went back with a pale yellow silk ribbon and put another smaller leave over the middle gray one and put a 3 turn french knot also.   and you can see the circles with french knots better here, too.

Here i stitched down a piece of lace with some white embroidery thread and put french knots in the middle of the lace flowers. it didn't show up much so i added the yellow crewel yarn onto the lace flowers. and did another seam in brown crewel yard. it's just a mish-mash of stitches i made up. LOL

Don't know how much more time i will spend on this....i am feeling bored with it. will probably stick with it for a couple more weeks....as long as our class is doing silk embroidery....then it will go back in the box to rest for a bit.

I did pull out another UFO that has been in a box for several years. all the pieces were cut out so i decided to start to piece some of it together. it's a good sit down job. the pattern is called Father's Fancy and is found in Judy Martin's book Scraps. i am doing it in several reds and whites.

So far i have pieced all the long strips and am working on the short ones. usually i work on this when i am taking a break from standing at the longarm or waiting for the embroidery machine to finish up with something. i am making this a queen size....so it will take a while....there are LOTS of pieces.

And speaking of the embroidery machine...i am embroidering polar bears for my sister. they are from the Anita Goodesign CD called Polar Brigade. there are 9 of them. So far i have bear #1...

And bear #2...

Here is a close up.....these are cross stitch....with the embroidery machine. awesome....

My sister gave me denim to stitch them on and they are looking good. i am making the largest bears...they are approximately 7x9".

And yet another UFO is being worked on at the house. i started this several years ago,  got bored, and put it in a box.  (what else is new..LOL)

The blocks are quite large...25" square. i cut out the triangles with the AccuQuilt....using up some dark reds, purples, blues and browns. the star in the middle is selvages.

The pattern is in Karen Griska's book Quilts from the Selvage Edge.  her original pattern has the actual star being 'around' the little star that i have here. it takes up the whole space. so far, i have 7 blocks made....some of them with her original large star....a couple with this little star....with is actually the inside of the large star. i have 2 blocks to go. i felt the quilt needed 9 blocks. i won't tell you about the last blocks yet....i'll show you when i finish it all.

I have to finish up all my selvage quilts and get them quilted up. i have a trunk show and class in February and have to get my act together. this is the second guild i have done a selvage show for....it's lots of fun.

So, i have been sort of busy. i'm going to try and get some quilting done today. the owner of the quilt on my frame is coming over on Tuesday to discuss her NEXT quilt and i would like to have this one finished to give to her. i have a good 2 days worth of quilting to go...so i need to get after it.

Later

October Monochromatic Challenge

I had such high hopes for the October monochromatic challenge and i disappointed myself. i had a pile of red and white fabrics and designed a cool quilt in EQ. 

I made this block and liked it a lot

Then i made this block and liked it a lot. i made 2 of these.....the pattern called for 2.

And then i made this block......and hated it.

I didn't think there was enough contrast in the block in the little 9 patches in the corners of the star.  so then i scrapped the whole project. i didn't have enough fabrics that were different. seems most of them had hearts.

So i just put these 4 blocks together and called it a table topper. LOL   it was going to be a queen size quilt in Plan A   LOL

But, you know what.....once i see the picture of it....i like it a lot better. go figure!    so, i guess the lesson learned is to step back and take photos and make more blocks before i decide i don't like it.

Anyway, at least it got quilted up. and since this is a very busy month for me, i met the monochromatic challenge once again.

The quilting in the red border was done with my Quiltazoid.

The only thing i could find in the stash for the back was this red stripe.

A very bright, wild stripe. but that's ok. more fabric out of the stash.

I have a customer quilt on the frame now and i am afraid it is going to take most of the month to finish it. i sure hope i get time to get my UFO challenge done for the month. i planned on a custom job for it....so we will see how that goes.