Collage Mania 2009 - preview

The preview of the pieces for sale in the auction are on-line.

Even if you do not plan on buying anything you should go check out the art work that has been submitted. Lots of fabulous pieces.

The goal this year is to raise $20,000 for The American Cancer Society.

The link is in my side bar.

Irish Chain quilt

Yesterday I had Juliet look at the IC quilt I have been making for her. She came to the same conclusion as myself - there is too much lavender and not enough contrast. 

We unpicked everything and will look at all her fabrics again. She also saw a star pattern in one of my magazines that she had instant love for so we will use that as part of the design :)

Since the IC was originally intended as a challenge piece for one of the quilt groups I'm with I've decide to do a miniature one instead. Guess who gets to shop in her fat quarter collection !!!! 

I've already used one of the lavender 9 patch blocks as the back for a door hanger. The front is the embroidered heart square I sewed up as an experiment a few weeks ago.  

The Thread Society - Self Portrait

Well it's done. I'm not loving it and prefer the original sketch version. My daughter and I both agree that it needs more oomph but we are not sure what.

I may revisit it in a few months once I am more proficient at thread painting and beading.

What I do know for sure is I used the wrong weight of stabiliser.

The good part was I used my New Home sewing machine for the first time in years which was fun. Turns out that one of the parts was in backwards and that was why it would not sew properly. Now it's doing great.

Moving

Please bear with me as I move certain aspects of this blog to some of my other ones. I am trying to clean things up a bit and give this particular blog a narrower focus. I am also in the process of creating a new site for my cross stitch and embroidery projects. Find them at http://stitchacrosstheborder.blogspot.com

Textile Corner - Spring Blooms Mini-Quilt Swap

Thought some of you might want to participate in this fun swap. Click on the link on my side-bar for more details. Registration closes May 4th.

Minimum size is 12"x12", maximum 24"x24".

Thanks to everyone who left comments here or at my personal e-mail during the On-line Quilt Festival. Your kind words were much appreciated. Thanks to Amy for taking the time to hold this event. Next one is in October :) I for one came away with lots of ideas to try out and the desire to move my own quilting efforts to a higher level.

This weekend is the Music City Marathon here in Nashville AND a Day of Service. I'm helping put together the quilting event. Should be interesting.

Cross stitch Corner - Exchange Heaven

Lorna's project to me showed up yesterday. The picture bleached out a bit because the fabric and stitching is a stronger variagated aqua/green/blue. Comes with it's own hanger. Now I just have to decide where to display it.

Thanks Lorna, your gift is lovely and much appreciated.

Exchange Heaven - Cross stitch snowflake

Lindsay received my exchange yesterday and likes it. We had to do something in the color of choice of the recipient. Since she also likes snowmen I chose to do a snowflake since we cannot have snowmen without them :)

The back is a quilted heart with her initial on it and when I work out why the pictures are loading sideways today I'll add it into the posting. 

(Well the back side is not going to happen. I reloaded my photographs, making sure I had them set right and the picture still did not upload right ways up from my original). 

Lindsay has blogged about the exchange at her site http://purplepds.blogspot.com/ You can also go to http://exchangeheaven.blogspot.com/

The design for the snowflake can be found in Vanessa-Ann's Holidays in Cross-Stitch 1995 and was originally a snowflake pillow. I used 14 count Aida, two shades of purple matt cotton floss from Designed for the Needle and DMC variegated Jewel Effects #E130. The back, two purple patterned fabrics is my own design and has her initial machine stitched into the middle of the heart.

Thread Society - Self portrait

This is the start to the self portrait that is due for submission next week. Next time you see it there will be embellishments :)

I took one of the few decent photographs of myself and made an "older version" sketch from it onto fabric.

If you are visiting from the Quilt Festival - welcome- scroll down a few posts and you will find my entry. If you have not visited the festival yet you are missing out on a real treat. The link is in my side bar.

Textile Corner - Lof SHE secret sister swap

Now I can show you the gift I received in the secret sister swap. It came all the way from Baghdad. Arwa is a very talented embroiderer. It's hanging in my sewing room.

My gift went to Lata in Saudi Arabia. She wants to learn ribbon embroidery so I sent her some things to make that possible.

Textile Corner - Thread Society swap

Look what showed up in my mailbox on Saturday !!!!! I absolutely love it, made me grin from ear to ear :) Thanks Ann H.

At the moment it's hanging in my sewing room till I retrieve my tool kit from the basement and give it a more permanant location.

Hope y'all have been enjoying the Online Festival of Quilts. Be aware that a couple of the later entries link back to my blog (not my doing and Amy already knows about it).

Textile Corner - One of my favorite small wall-hangings

Greetings from #143 (now #139) on "the list"of ever growing participants for Bloggers Quilt Festival :)

"Really Retro....... not" based on a design called "Really Retro" (when I find the magazine I'll add it into the post.) measures about 12"x15". It was made as a 2008 christmas gift for my oldest daughter. One of her favorite colors is purple so I raided my fat quarter collection to see what I had and also added in a few contrasts.

Why did I give it a slightly different title? Well I used fabrics that were not really retro looking, added an inner navy border and did yoyo's instead of buttons. I also carried the embroidered vine pattern all the way round the border.

I hope you take the time to visit some of the other participants in this fun week of Bloggers Quilt Festival. There's some fabulous quilts out there. Some of them will positively take your breath away :) The link is on my side bar under my welcome.

Glad you visited. Now much as I would love you to stay for a good while and maybe share in some cyberspace hot chocolate and cookies I need to encourage you to move along and enjoy the show, it might take you all week to view the exhibits at the rate "the list" is growing !!!!!!!

*addendum - The original wall hanging that I based my design upon can be found in Quilt Presents #52 Quick Quilts. Designed by Katy Sweigert with the assistance of her daughters. She used 1930's reproduction fabrics. My blog for January 4th 2009 shows a photograph.

Some recent additions to my postcard collection

top left  

primary color swap - Chris S. and Claire C.

secondary color swap - Liz G. and Barbara L.

middle

spring swaps - Jeanette P. Sue S. Miriam and Barbara D.

top right

Easter swap - Becky N. and Kathy P.

Bottom - Earth Day swap - Mary F. Ildika C. and Diana H.

Bloggers Quilt Festival 17-24 April 2009

Follow the link in my side bar and find out what's happening. Should be fun :)

Learning FA - "A Visit to the Lake"

So the basic landscape is now finished. I added some sand, a path (to get to the beach) and a few bushes. I was sorely tempted to make it more "Scottish" by adding "Nessie" but the actual loch is a lot more rugged and "broody" than mine.

I'm contemplating taking the landscape further at some point by adding leaves to the trees and maybe a boat in the lake but for the intended purpose I'm calling it "done" :)

Textile Corner - Learning FA - simple landscape - an update

I was planning on getting the top section completely finished today but my sewing machine is not co-operating. I'm currently working on the trees and should finish the foreground "bushy bits" tomorrow.

I was a bit concerned because I have used up all my stiffer backing and am not sure I will get to a store till later this week. Shirley suggested using interfacing and I found a large piece of medium weight in one of my drawers. Works quite well. I think I need to switch to a narrower needle.

How does "A Visit to The Lake" sound as a title? I've got some thoughts running through my head regarding additions AFTER the basic piece has been done :)

Some of the other members of the class have already submitted their pieces. I've been enjoying looking at the different interpretations of the same subject.

Tornado Alley - an update

We live in what is known as "tornado alley". Yesterday was fairly active for an extended period of time with the origination point being Arkansas. While we ourselves are safe and no damage incurred there was touch downs just south of us that caused death, injury and varying degrees of damage to property.

This type of weather always makes me feel a wee bit anxious (got caught outside in some years ago) so once everything settled down a bit I got a good chunk of the simple landscape piece put together for the Learning FA on-line class :)

Enjoy your Easter week-end everyone and any other celebrations you may be participating in.

Textile Corner - Postcard Pizzazz - Secondary Colors

Some of us are working our way through the color wheel for the rest of this year and this is the card I made for secondary colors. I titled it "Cats are Second to None" :)

I really enjoyed making the cards and Nik helped me assemble them.

Next week I'll post pictures of all the cards I have received recently.

Textile Corner - Earth Day swap at Postcard Pizzazz

If you click on the picture hopefully you will see better what is on the cards. They look much darker in reality.

I took some of my batik that looked a bit treeish, turned it sideways and cut off what I needed. Then I thread sketched a tree on each piece in black and did a single leaf hanging from a branch. I titled them "The First Leaf".

The recipients all like their versions.

Textile Corner - The Thread Society

This is the 6" quiltie I sent out for the Easter/Spring exchange. I did some basic hand embroidery on, and round the heart and round the edge. About a week or two ago there had been a discussion about how to hang our quilties (if at all). I rummaged around in my sewing box and found a container of hooks and eyes. The eye was just what I needed and for a small "on point" project should work well.

Coming up next with the group is a self portrait and a series of color exchanges. First I have to finish 2 landscapes for LearningFA.

I'm off to take a nap. I've been sick since early yesterday morning. I was not too happy about missing all my activities yesterday. One of my friends swung by this morning with some G2 so I can get my electrolytes back up again. Thanks Christy, your a sweetheart :) I hope I feel better by tomorrow night because John splurged on some tickets for the Nashville Symphony and I would hate to miss that.

My absolute favorite garden blog

I just introduced Kris to my favorite garden blog. 

It is gorgeous and if we ever get our yard to look anything like it I will feel like I have died and gone to heaven :) Kris loved the birds and flowers then said "Oh look we have some of those." Indeed we do but not anywhere near the same artistic layout or exuberance. 

And..... Celine Dion and Enya are playing away while you read and drool. Sigh :)

 http://warrengrovegarden.blogspot.com 

It's on my sidebar in the Interior Design & Graphics section (waaaaay down near the very bottom.) A very small but, personally, much visited section of my blog :) Mmmmmm with our main computer about to head out the door to that technology pile in the "junk yard" maybe I can do some updating in our family room.

Cross Stitch Corner - "The Lord is my Shepherd"

My son gave me this stamped kit for Christmas and I started it on Sunday. The tree foliage is now almost done. I don't think I have done a stamped design before. It's on a fairly good quality of cloth and stitches up nicely. I tend to bounce around a bit when I do colors but this time I am going to work from the top left and fill in everything as I go. I am also trying out a square "hoop" since my round ones are not the right size. I am contemplating hanging it in my son's room when it is completed.

Some other cross-stitch news. I am participating in a couple of exchanges. My secret sister gift from the embroidery group arrived yesterday and it is lovely. I finished the main design for another exchange at the week-end and have to decide how I want to finish it off. I'll post pictures for both when the exchanges are complete.

I am now fully kitted out for my other Christmas gift - Ink Circles project "Cirque des Carreaux" and will start it when "The Lord is my Shepherd" is completed. I'll be using 28 ct cream evenweave and DMC 3712. I love what is written on the back of the booklet - "The chart has been split into multiple pages so you won't go blind."

There's is some family news to share but you will have to visit our family blog to read about that :)

EEE -well now there's a surprise :)

I'm not posting any pictures today because I want to try and upload pictures to the photographs section of the new "toy" John gave me on Saturday. Our main computer and my laptop have been giving me grief for a while now and I mentioned to my DH a while ago that if we got me something new I wanted it small, lightweight and a MAC.

It's about 6"x7" and weighs in at a hefty 2 lbs. AND it has a sparkly lid :) It's called an Eee PC and it can be converted to a MAC system once the memory is upgraded. The eee's stand for easy, excellent and exciting. So I'm easy pleased, enjoying this excellent gift and looking forward to some exciting learning experiences with it. You all now have permission to groan, he he he :)

So my surprise gift, talking with my sister-in-law and a weekend of General Conference at church pulled me out of the mood I was in most of last week.  

Fiberart for a Cause - Collage Mania 2009

This is the 8"x10" piece I have submitted to the Collage Mania 2009 fundraiser. The goal is to try and raise $20,000 for the American Cancer Society. This is the final year that Virginia Spiegel will be running this event.

My piece is dedicated to my younger brother David who died on 4th April 2006. (This is the mystery piece I've mentioned in some previous postings!) He lit up the lives of those who knew him and displayed great courage and humor to the end. He was a star in his own right and watches over each one of us in memory and reality.

Please go to http://www.virginiaspiegel.com/ to find out more about this event and to visit with the artists that are contributing pieces.