Mystery Gifts Revealed (part 2)

It's been kind of a rough week. I've had several chemical exposures ~ a couple of them unexpected. (Since when do "perfume and dye free" dryer sheets have scent?!) My SIL sent me some gorgeous fabric from her recent trip to India. I should have known better than to open that package without my mask on but... you can guess what happened. It actually smelled good to me (most of the scents that make me ill are now offensive as well) but apparently wasn't good for me.

Now, for the rest of the mystery gifts I made at Christmastime.There are two more pillows and a wall hanging to show you:

The pillow above was given to my brother and his family who are into horses big-time. I thought the strap-and-buckle print on one of the ties was very appropriate for them.

You should be able to click on these photos to see them up close and personal.

The wall hanging started with the house block. It was a 12" block (kitties included) I made about a decade ago. The SIL who sent me the fabric from India saw the block shortly after I created it and loved it. She asked me to make a pillow out of it for her. Obviously I didn't jump right on her request. But when I was going through my orphan blocks I came across the block again and also found the little 9-Patch blocks made out of 1930's reproductions prints. They seemed to want to go together. (I want to make it clear that those blocks were perfectly straight when they went into the quilt. It's the rickrack that is wonky!)

I added the applique for the cloud, the bluebird sequin (for happiness), the lace curtain on the window, the doorknocker button, a ceramic mailbox button I'd purchased at the IQA quilt show in Houston one year (again, more than a decade ago), the little flower trim at the edge of the "yard," and the rickrack around the 9-Patch blocks. It was a challenge to find enough of the right pink to bind the quilt, small as it is.

I've had a request to show my Bead Round Robin block again. Rather than taking the time to load the photos once more, here's the link to the page where I first showed it when it came home. There were six ladies in our group; only one wasn't able to work on my block. I haven't done a thing to it since it came home. It's curently hanging on my design wall, patiently waiting for attention. It's going to be awhile before I do anything with it though. I have less than a week now to fulfill the tote bag challenge for my local artist group and then I have both the Take It Further and Bead Journal Project challenges for this month to work on!

The Final Bead Round Robin Block

I mentioned that I had received the last two blocks from the Bead Round Robin shortly before Christmas. The first one is back with its' owner now. I added some buttons and beads to it but neglected to get pictures before sending it off. I've done better with the second one! Here it is as I received it:



And this is how it looks now:



I have to admit that I had a lot of fun shopping for beads for this one. I bought pink coral pieces, blue glass diamonds that glow in the dark, some pink flower beads I didn't use and purple flowers I did use. There were two other tubes of purple beads I ended up not using but that's okay, I'll use them eventually. I wanted to put a mermaid on the block, maybe to fill the empty space right in the middle, but I was afraid to try a big motif. When I saw that mermaid charm I had to have it!


The mossing of the beads to create a grotto for the mermaid's swing to hang from didn't develop quite the way I had imagined it would but I'm happy with the results. A couple of pieces of the coral broke while I was working with it. Some of the holes were too small for the straw needle I was using.

I turned the blue gow-in-the-dark beads into the bodies of a pair of fish:


Give me the opportunity to be whimsical and I'm good to go! I could easily do more to this block but I'm going to send it on its' way so the owner can finish it up in a way that suits her.

A Quiet Day at Home

Another block, another quickie post. Thank goodness we are not snowed in like the homes in this block!

My sister was here for about 24 hours. We talked and shopped for all we were worth! I was pleasantly surprised at how well I held up during our shopping expedition. Even better, I hit the jackpot in terms of purchases. Two pairs of slippers, a new purse, two calendars, a postcard book of rainforest images (if you can buy or borrow the book the pictures were taken from do it!), and a tin heart from Mexico that I intend to use as a focal point on a wall or journal quilt. Seems like there might have been something else as well but it escapes me at the moment. Today I am tired but feeling well. Tomorrow I go to my daughter's to tend the babies while she runs errands.

We had a lovely Christmas. DD had to drag little Miss M out of bed to see what Santa had brought for her. The adults were more excited than she was! She quickly got into the swing of things though :- ) I didn't even turn the computer on for a couple of days so I don't have any pictures downloaded yet to share with you.

I have done a little stitching during the course of the week. First I put some beads and buttons on a Bead Round Robin block that is now on its' way home. Then I started embellishing my December journal quilt. I have beads picked out for my October/November journal quilt and a second Round Robin block that I get to work on. I'm a little worried that I won't be able to get a good picture of the Round Robin block. There's some gorgeous embroidery on it but I'm afraid it won't show up well. We'll see.

Over the course of the next few days I hope to spend some time thinking about my goals for the coming year. Mostly in the area of my creative endeavors. I have to find a way to "just say no" to all of the enticing opportunities I find on the web! I think I'm already over-committed as it is. At the same time, however, those rainforest images are calling to me. I want to use them as a jumping off point for new work. How do you cope with all the ideas you have vs. the time/energy you have available?

Score!

DS#2 and I ventured into one of our larger thrift shops yesterday. I'm paying for it now but it was worth it. I bought a bag of neckties for $2.50, which is 50% off the regular price for a bag of ties. In the past when I've purchased bags like this I would end up keeping maybe half of the ties in the bag and throwing away or re-donating the leftovers. I've even been stuck with weird things like suspenders. Consequently I'm very reluctant to pay full price for such pot luck. Yesterday, however, I hit the motherlode:

There were 21 ties in the bag. Nineteen of them were silk! I'm tempted to keep the two polyester ties and try to use them because they have such unique prints on them. There are a couple of ties that are so beautiful I'm a little surprised that they didn't sell out on the floor. Maybe they're just be too wide for current taste. Okay by me! I'm delighted to have the opportunity to turn them into something else. Normally I pay anywhere from a dollar t0 $3.00 for one tie so you can see why I'm so excited by this find. :- )

I have also photographed my Bead Round Robin block. I left if full size so you should be able to click on the picture and see it really close up. I also tried a couple of detail shots. (They've been rescaled so clicking on the picture won't do you any good.)

I have a bunch of wet ties to press dry so I'm not going to take the time to check my notes to see exactly who did what on my block but check out this tree! The trunk and ground are embroidered in what looks to me like a perle cotton. The treetop is all seed beads. Awesome!

On the left there's an embroidered blackberry vine with little beaded blackberries. Very cool and very appropriate as blackberries are indigenous to this area. I love the little embroidered "flight line" for the butterfly button! The area to the right of the sunflower is all beaded too.

My detail shot didn't do the upper right corner of the block justice. There's a great sisha mirror that was applied with a varigated thread and embellished with beads. And a ribbon that was appliqued and then beaded. My original idea was to make this the side panel of a tote bag but now I'm thinking I may have to turn it into a wall hanging or something!

The Bag is Full

My brother gave me a replica of a Boston Public Library delivery bag for Christmas last year.

(I think it might be time for a new ironing board cover...)

Back in the day they used these bags to transfer books from one branch of the library to another - one in each hand, to balance the load. This bag is 22" deep. I can't imagine hefting two of these suckers full of books and carrying them anywhere! It is, however, kind of fun for corraling toddlers:

It's also useful for stashing mysterious Christmas gifts in until they are ready to be shipped to far-flung relatives. There are four of those mysterious gifts in the bag, all done and ready for gift wrapping. They have turned out so well; I couldn't be more pleased with them. (Well, maybe just a tiny bit. But not enough to mention.) Now I'm working on gift #5, which will be something completely different.

During the course of making the mysterious gifts I had to run out twice for thread because I didn't have the right color in my stash. Who'd a thunk it? Granted, I have more fabric than thread, but still!

This seems a good time to introduce you to my Thread Keeper. My cotton and poly-cotton blend threads are kept in a rolling cart with drawers. They are generally well behaved and require no special pampering. To keep my rayon and metallic threads happy and cooperative I have enlisted the aid of an Official Thread Keeper. He sits on top of the tins wherein the specialty threads are kept:

Actually, the Cadbury tin holds all the little labels I've taken off silk ties over the years. Say it with me now: "Someday I'm going to do something with them." The Thread Keeper is just one of the little helpers that keep me company as I sew. I also have a herd of dogs nearby, overseen by a little red bird pincushion on a candlestick. Someday I'll take the time to clean up their area a bit and take their picture for you.

One final note: my block from the beading round robin has come back to me at long last. There's some spectacular work on it! I intend to try to photograph it and post it here but it's a dark block with lots of dark embellishments that may not show up well. We'll do the best we can. The real question is whether it will become the tote bag I originally thought I'd make or whether I turn it into something else altogether... Stay tuned!

Stitchin' and Rippin'

While I've been waiting for my goodies to arrive from Shipwreck Beads for my journal quilt I have been working on Colleen's Bead Round Robin block. I'm the third person to embellish it; there are two more participants before Colleen gets it back. I didn't think to establish a theme for the block I sent out. Colleen did, and I was delighted by it: things that would be found in a lady's boudoir or dressing room! I thought that was original and fun. Someone before me had put on a hand mirror charm and charms for sunglasses and a comb. I found a purse charm in my stash and put that on. While I was going through the S. Beads catalog the other day I discovered that there were tons of charms that would be appropriate for this block! It was hard not to buy a bunch of them! (Hopefully Colleen will read this and go check it out for herself if she wants more on her block.)

I did not think to take a 'before' picture of the block before I started beading on it. That's okay though, because today I took out everything I did on it yesterday. This was after writing in my journal this morning, "I am determined not to take it all out to do over again. There's doing quality work and then there's tyrannical perfectionism. Taking it out and doing it over would be bowing to Perfectionism." Well, guess who kowtowed. I just couldn't bear the color imbalance I had created. So I took off what I'd done and moved it over to the other side of that section of the block. (I'm going to maintain some illusion of secrecy by not being specific about the beads I'm talking about. It's unusual for me to reveal as much as I have. I'm sure there are those out there who will figure out exactly what I did!) At least the beading went more quickly the second time around!

So here's the before picture.

And here it is after I did my bit. I knew almost immediately that I wanted to do something with that dark patch with the lace on it at the bottom of the picture (the patch is actually a lavender in real life). I bought beads specifically for that seam. Did I end up using them? No. Oh well; they weren't that expensive and I'll undoubtedly use them somewhere else someday. As I finished up that seam treatment I realized I had unwittingly copied an element I'd seen on someone else's block I had worked on. That's good; I'm learning! One of the benefits of round robin projects like this is the opportunity to see how other artists think and work and maybe pick up pointers from them. (If you click on the picture you should get a larger image.)

My treasures arrived from Shipwreck Beads today while I was stitching on the last seam treatment on Colleen's block. The pictures of the beads and charms in the catalog are probably as close to life size as they can be expected to be but, in person, a couple of the things I'd bought on spec look too big for my journal quilt. I haven't played with it a lot yet so we'll see what happens in a day or two. Tomorrow is the day DH and I have set aside to celebrate our birthdays - which are a mere 5 days (and 5 years) apart. We're not sure yet what we'll do to celebrate but it's unlikely I'll get much stitching done. Typically our celebrations are pretty tame. A movie, maybe, and lunch out somewhere. Except that tomorrow is Saturday and the whole world will be out and about. That's dangerous for me anymore. So we'll see whether one of us can come up with some other, more creative, option! (Maybe he'll give me lessons in digital photography so I can get better, clearer pix and good detail shots!)

The Cream of the Crop!

Last night I was so jazzed by Apolo Anton Ohno and Julianne Hough winning "Dancing With the Stars" - as so rightly they should have! - that I couldn't go to sleep even though my body had been crying out for some shut-eye for hours. Instead I came up with a brilliant idea for a donation to the Hospice auction: "Hugs & Kisses for Hospice." I would make some more X's and O's, arrange them in a four-patch, build them up Log Cabin style if necessary, and make one or two pillows out of them. I could see it in bright happy colors, a la Sassenach's quilt for her daughter. It would be quick and fun and easily machine quilted (which, for some reason, I was now willing to do). Got out of bed to jot down these ideas and make a note to buy more fiberfill and then was able to go to sleep finally.

This morning I had the good sense to call Hospice to find out whether there was still time to make a donation to this year's auction. What do you think the answer was? Yup, I missed it by one day. They sent the program to the printer yesterday. Chalk up another one for Procrastination! Unless I use this as an opportunity to get a headstart on next year's donation... Any bets as to whether I'll follow through on this opportunity? ;- )

So the silk heart block can be put aside for the time being. I found a black paisley tone-on-tone cotton print in my stash that I like with the silks. I could use it to frame or border the block. I have also been thinking I might make three more blocks out of ties, use the cotton to sash (and stabilize) them, and make a wall hanging. We'll see. There's no hurry now. It also occurred to me to use this block as a learning experience and keep the next silk tie effort smaller. Maybe even piece onto a foundation. (I wasn't thinking clearly when I started sewing yesterday or I probably would have pieced onto a foundation. I was just working to distract myself from my physical discomfort.)

I have added a leaf to the vine on Vivian's round robin block. There was an empty spot I just couldn't live with. I had originally left it empty in an attempt to leave room for someone else to bead the nearby seams. I must not have been thinking straight then either. (This is a distressing pattern I see developing!)

DS#2 is frantically working to finish the details on a Star Wars costume replica for his brother who is flying up from Arizona tonight. To that end we made a trip to our local thrift shops yesterday afternoon to look for potential "tools" or whatever goes on the belt that Han Solo wears in the original trilogy of movies. He didn't find anything, but I did! It's the darling little cream pitcher you see in the picture at the top of the page. They had five teacups, without their saucers, and this pitcher. The teacups are what caught my eye. They were such a pretty shape. But I gave away nearly all of my teacups a couple of years ago and these didn't have saucers. That's when I noticed the creamer. Not the prettiest shape, relative to some others I own, but the print won me over. So much so that I paid more for it than I thought was reasonable. (Couldn't have been too unreasonable as I did pay for it afterall!) I went home a happy camper. And then Apolo and Julianne won. It was a great night!

Vivian's Round Robin Block

Okay. I'm done now. I counted up the seams and patches still available on this block yesterday and decided there would still be plenty of room left for others to play if I decorated another seam. It just looked too empty to send on the way it was. Like I hadn't done enough. I can see someone else adding to the heart motif - working around it as it were - to fill up that patch but I didn't feel up to it myself. So I picked another seamline and some more beads and did some more stitching today. Now I'm happier. I like the block better, and stitching put me in a better mood. ;- )


The first thing I did was to create that garland of white flower buttons and green leaf beads in the upper right corner of the block. You'll notice that there are two sizes of flower buttons. (Or maybe you won't. It's a little hard to see in this photo.) Remember I said the store didn't have the size I wanted? I think this actually turned out better that what I would have done had I had more buttons in the original size.

Next I stitched on the little crocheted heart and embellished it. Those leaves were fun (on either side of the flower bead on top of the heart) so I decided to do some more on a vine/tree going up the right side of the block. I tried to be mindful of leaving room for others to put beads in around the center patch. There's one leaf that could be problematic. If necessary it could be cut out fairly easily I think.

It's hard to keep in mind that our blocks will all go through a gangly, adolescent stage during which they may not look their best. Based on past experience with round robin projects, however, they all come out beautifully in the end!

Minimal Progress

The sun has gone away and we're back to gray rainy weather. Wish I could send some of this to the southeastern US where it would be put to good use!


I embellished one seam of Vivian's bead RR block last night. Physically I felt pretty well yesterday morning but I sure had a hard time getting moving on anything. Finally I figured out - sort of - what I wanted to do on Vivian's block and decided that I needed to go to the bead shop to see if I could find what I wanted there. I found plenty, of course! Used up about half of the gift certificate I'd received for Mother's Day (but not all on things for V's block!). Then when I got home and started working on it plans changed naturally. I ended up going back out to get more of a certain button I wanted to use but didn't have enough of. Do you think the store had that size of the button I wanted in stock? Of course not! Bought two packages of the next larger size (and some other buttons that were on sale - do you see a pattern here?) to see if I could put them to use somehow. I'm actually quite pleased with the results... which I will show you later. I have decided to also add a motif to a patch. We'll see how that goes... ;- )


My DH and our sons are planning to drive to Idaho over Memorial Day weekend to visit with DH's parents and sibling and family. Much as I might like to I will not be going, for health reasons. What this means is that any shopping that is done in stores I can no longer frequent will have to be done before they leave. Any pictures I may want for my blog will have to be taken and downloaded into the computer before they leave as well. I discovered yesterday that I cannot take pictures of the bed quilts we own in a way that satisfies me. So you may get a few pix of quilts with my DS standing behind it, holding it up! Or you may only see the wall hangings I've done. Or maybe I'll learn how to import pictures from off the web. Who knows?

Today's quilt is a wall hanging I designed last year for a retreat class I taught. I didn't get it quilted until this year (don't tell me you're surprised) as I wasn't sure how I wanted to quilt it. Finally I just gave up and stitched in the ditch to get it done and it's fine. There are some anomalies in the binding application I'm not happy with but I'm not taking it off to try to correct them! Galloping horse at 10 yards and all that. Even with it hanging on the living room wall for the last few months I have to say I really haven't noticed them. (Of course I don't spend a whole lot of time in the living room, and when I do I usually have my back to the wall 'cause I'm watching TV. Details!) It will be coming down soon as I see this as a Spring quilt and I sense Summer right around the corner - in spite of the rain {grump}.

Bead RR, Reilly, and the Chiropractor

Can you even see what I've done to Joann's block? First I stitched on the taupe floral applique which has some beads on it. Then I beaded the seam coming off the large salmon-y patch on the left. I alternated green and pink beads until I got to the upholstery print where I switched to blue beads instead of pink. The blue looked much better on that fabric. I desperately wanted to do more of the green and pink against that lovely white but it took me a while to figure out which of the remaining two seams to do so that it would look cohesive. When I found the green celluloid button in my stash I had my answer. I didn't want to bead that whole long seam along the top edge of the upholstery print and the button gave me a stopping point. But then I wanted to make some fringe coming out of the holes of the button. Even went to the bead shop to look for the right color. When I got home and tried it it just didn't work. (That's one of the things I love about sewing: you can undo your work without harming the project... usually!) So after a couple of false starts I ended up using two beads out of the tube I bought (!) and another pink bead to fancy up the button a bit. Now that block goes on to Ellen and I get to work on Vivian's next. I think I will wait a few days before tackling it though.

I have also been working on "Hugs & Kisses for Reilly." I have completed beading around the bottom O, have added an eyelash-type wired trim for his tail, and then accented areas around the dog image with more beading. I think I'm ready to back and bind it. I originally thought I'd be putting more of the trim on the ears but now I think that might be too much.

It just occurred to me that you have not yet seen a picture of the dog himself! Let's see if I can get that on here as well...

Isn't he handsome! You can get a sense of what his tail is like from this photo. I tried and tried to get him to pose with his tail up, over his back, but of course that didn't happen. This seemed the best of the lot. I'm sure you'll be seeing more of him in the future...

Went to the chiropractor yesterday afternoon. She had recently attended a seminar for cranial adjustments and learned that she may be able to help me with my MCS. The first time she did cranial adjustments on me it was a busy day in the clinic and I'd been exposed to multiple toxins before she even got to me so we couldn't tell whether the adjustments had had any effect. I know for a fact that what she did yesterday had an effect! It was quite interesting actually. It wasn't pleasant, by any means, because the rest of the day (and still today to some extent) I felt like I was dealing with a severe reaction. If I understand correctly the manipulations released toxins that are stored in the head. So I did have a reaction. It just started from the top of my head and worked its' way down my neck rather than beginning in my nasal cavaties and working its' way up. I may go in once a month for additional treatments. She said I could come in twice a month but I'm not sure I want to go through that more often! (Can you say zombie? I napped shortly after coming home, zoned out in front of the TV for a few hours, and then went to bed and slept for another 11 hours!)

By the way, thanks for the comments. And thanks to Tonya (LazyGalQuilting) for helping me get that set up so you could comment! Now I have to figure out how to do links...