Monday, March 16, 2009

REGARDING MY BOM FOR MARCH

Just a note aside for those who have been printing off my embroidery Block of the Month. There will be a delay in the March block. It will be posted in April along with the April block. I am going to be away from my computer until the end of the month and I've just been too busy to get the March design ready. I feel guilty but it couldn't be helped.

so sorry; you all keep stitching while I'm gone!

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Easter Pillowcases


Easter Pillowcases
Originally uploaded by lasassone
These are for our 3 grands in Atlanta. Yesterday I mailed off the ones for the 2 in TX. Pink for girls, blue for the boys. Figured I best get them mailed out so that they can use them for awhile. I've been told by one of my daughters that they loved the Halloween ones I made in 2007, so I decided to make Easter ones this time. Perhaps next I'll make Christmas ones for this Holiday season. I surely have enough Christmas fabric to do many many! Might have to buy yardage though for the body of the pillowcases. Have loads of prints for hem & trim though.

Stitch On!

Block 1-Ruby McKim Farm Quilt

For some time I have been trying to get to this design set. So with a trip ahead of me, I thought it might be a perfect time for a new Redwork project. I traced off the first 3 blocks and then finished this one this morning. So, I have two to take on my trip to work on in my spare moments.
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I am using DMC color #355 which is a copper-red hue. The reason for the color is that I was spurred to do these blocks when I found the perfect fabric to use as alternate blocks in a quilt or wallhanging. I matched the thread to the major colors of the print which is an all over print that looks like Fall scenes of a farm and rolling hills. I plan to fussy cut scenes for the alternate blocks.
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The embroidered blocks are approximately 7" square and I am using regular outline stitch for the major parts of the designs and backstitching for the small details such as the window panes. In the case of the attic window in this design, I even went down to just one strand of floss.
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The next block I'm doing is the farmer on the old fashioned tractor.
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Stay tuned & Stitch On!

Saturday, March 14, 2009

2008 Take It Further Challenge - August Block

I have finally gotten back to stitching on my Take it Further Color challenge blocks from last year. Because of many things I had gotten stalled on the August block but I finished it today!. I actually have all the rest of the months' blocks pieced and just need to do the embellishing on the last 4 months. The 12 blocks will then be put into a wall hanging which will hang somewhere in our home.
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August was the month of the Olympics in China, so I have applied a copy of the olympic flag on the upper left patch.
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On the lower left is a depiction of the Chinese character for "Harmony" which was the theme of the 2008 Olympics.
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In the upper right, again because August is a summer month with much warmth here in Northern California, I applied a bright gold sun with a rhinestone center.
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In the lower right corner, in addition to the badly embroidered name of the month, is a silver ring which I found at Michael's in the bead department. On it is incised the work "harmony" twice.
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In the center I have again done a web and spider on the pansy print. This time I used a small round piece of jet for it's body.
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All the stitches I used on this block are copies from my workbook of stitches I have observed on antique crazyquilts.
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If you scroll down and click on the link to my flickr photos on the right of this blog, it will take you to my photostream and you can see 4 closeups I have posted there.
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Now it's on to my September block!

Stitch On!

Sunday, March 08, 2009

Stash Enhancement Road Trip




Yesterday 3 friends and I went on a journey into the Bay Area of No.California in search of Crazy Quilt Goodies. We made up our own little Shop Hop, but in the end only made it to 3 places. Place #4 in Berkeley was a bit of a dud because of a function in the nearby park. We circled a 2 square block area three times and were unable to find a parking place. So, we reluctantly gave up, headed towards home and stopped for dessert at Marie Callenders aka Marie Calories.......I had cheesecake!!!!
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Our first stop was a quilt shop called Quilt Fans in Alameda, California which was a new place to all of us. It's a wonderfully friendly quilt shop with a high ceiling, tons of natural light and even has it's own resident cat called Bella. The first above is of a Fall-themed panel I purchased. Also you can see a peacock feather print and a coordinate for the panel. The panel has 4 small images which I plan to set at each corner of the larger panel and then in the center of the sides and middle I plan on doing a rectangle of crazyquilting. I plan this to be my next crazyquilt project after I finish up my Take It Further blocks from last year.
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The other pictures shows the beads & spool of gold Nymo beading thread I got at our 2nd stop in Alameda called Bead Inspirations. It's a great little shop with a very VERY unique inventory that was also new to all of us. A tad pricey compared to other bead shops across the country that I've visited, but I saw things there that I have NEVER seen before. The beads I bought, 2 flowers, a starfish and 2 lady bugs, are all cloissone. The rings, squares and rectangle are hammered shiny brass and copper and I will be using them as bases for ring motifs. I'm actually glad we included the shop on our jaunt because we never made it to another beads shop we'd heard about in Berkeley. When we couldn't find a parking place at Lacis, I was majorly bummed and the general consensus was that we were getting tired, so we just packed it in and headed west over & through (tunnel) the hills towards home.
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I purchased all the threads shown in that same picture (and also the 4 cards in the fabric picture) from Needle in a Haystack aka (for me) Thread Heaven! It's a hard shop to visit if you are unfamiliar with different threads or on a budget. For some reason they never mark prices on anything and I know for a fact that they lost some business on the 4 of us because of that. 2 of the group had never been there before and said at lunch afterwards that they would have bought more probably if things had been marked. Me? Well, you can see that I just go in there every time with my thread inventory and get a little of everything.
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Yesterday I decided I would treat myself to 6 each of Rainbow Gallery's Elegance silk pearl, Rainbow Gallery's Splendor 12 ply silk floss and Caron's Wildflower cotton pearl. The 4 cards laying on the fabric are Kanagawa silk and were the last 4 in their $1 sale bin. They have decided to not carry the Kanagawa anymore and they have also discontinued the J. L. Walsh silk threads which are so wonderful and which have been my main & favorite embroidery threads for years. They won't even do special orders, but they have been kind enough to tell me of another place where I might get them.
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The 2 skinny spools are Trebizond silk pearl. The color names on the spool are Cinnamon & Brown, but they look like gold to me. It's a thicker thread - more like a size 5 pearl. There's also 2 spools of black Anchor pearl cotton in size 8. I needed this because I have a UFO project tucked away because I ran out of that black pearl cotton. I can't find it locally at all.
I also got 3 hanks of Gloriana hand dyed 13 mm silk ribbon which is very nice. I have known the owner/dyer of Gloriana threads & ribbon since high school. Her stuff is very high quality. She used to work at Needle in a Haystack before she became "big time!"
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We left at 9 a.m., put 107 miles on my van and got back about 5 p.m. stuffed with goodies from Marie Calories and each carrying our little bags of wonderfulness.
Off to pre-wash my fabrics and "file" my other goodies!

Monday, March 02, 2009

Finished Block for Dee's Memorial Quilt

I have finally finished my block for Dee's Memorial Quilt Project that Kate is coordinating. The block will be winging it's way to Illinois this afternoon. I you click on the picture, not only will it get larger, you will also be able to see the detail pictures I took of each of the 4 corners and the middle.

I wish I was going to be able to be in Omaha to see the project or projects that Kate will make from the donated blocks. I bet they will be great!

Now I must get busy and finish up my Take It Further blocks from last year. August is almost done and September through December's blocks are pieced and waiting for embellishment.

Stitch On!