July and August

I made up a pincushion pattern and submitted it to a quilt magazine. I haven't heard from them yet. A local woman, who has been published, said that is a good thing, as they tell you right away if they don't like a submission. They may still turn it down, but since they haven't told me no thanks, someone still likes it.

I saw a picture of an owl necklace on the web somewhere. It was sort of cute, but I dont wear jewelry. The owls were flat. One day, I got the inspiration to make round, stuffed owls that were simular. I made up a pattern, and after some false starts I came up with these owl pincushions. I took the first 3 pairs to my quilt guild meeting. I was asked to make and donate 12 pairs to a fundraiser in September. The guild is trying to setup a quilt museum. So I made up a lot of owls.




On July 28th I was on my way to a job interview, and worrying about what to say, etc. and got into an accident. It totaled my car, broke my ankle, various bumps, scrapes, sprains, and cuts. I hit my head and my forehead swelled up like a Klingon (without the bumps) and my eyes turned the most horrible shade of black. Over the next two weeks, the bruse sort of melted down my face. I had red eyes for a few days. I just have a little reminder in a few places now, but I still have a swollen area above my eyes, look like a neandertal. And I have to wear this stupid black boot thing for another 3 to six weeks. The doctor said the xray yesterday doesn't show a lot of healing.

It's my right ankle and I haven't been able to sew or drive for 3 weeks now. It's a good thing I got the owls done. In fact, they were in a box on the seat of my car, when I had the accident. I was going to deliver them after the interview. I still haven't gotten them delivered. There is a guild meeting tonight, and Nyda, my sister, will drive me over so I can deliver the owls. I need a job, but even if I got another interview, I can't get my dress slacks over the boot, and I can't drive. Sorry for the pity rant. I'm feeling like crap about this.

I have been working on hand embroidery. I saw a metal dragon wall ornement in a gardening catalog a while back that I liked. I put the picture in my files, and after the accident, I enlarged it up to about 18x24 inches and transferred it to a piece of black linen. I used gold colored pearl threads couched down with a gold colored sewing thread and outlined the whole thing. I haven't decided if its done or if I want to do a fill stitch or couch it all in the gold pearl. I only used it because I had a lot of it left over from a store I had about 10 years ago. The store lasted less than a year, but the inventory will outlast me. I have a big tote full of DMC floss and another full of linens. I always check there before buying any floss. Nyda kitted up a new cross stitch pattern the other day and only had to buy 3 skeins of floss.


While I'm pondering on the fate of the dragon, I got out my Nemisis, Teresa Wentzler's Peacock tapestry. I have been working on this for about 12 years now, off and on, mostly off. I think it is beautiful, but I can't seem to make any progress with it. I work from the bottom up and I am almost 2/3 finished.




I recently moved my room around so I have my sewing desk in front of the window. I think I like it better here. I also was able to get rid of one desk chair, and it leaves me a larger space to move in. I just have to turn around and I'm at the computer. I don't have to walk around the sewing desk to get to the computer.

Nine embroidered blocks.

Hi.
I'm interested in crazy quilting. I have been collecting "stuff" for a while now. I also have all the fabric from the last 40 - 50 years of collecting.

In the late 1960's to the 1970's (I'm not sure just when) I made 9 blocks out of "silky" fabrics that Mom had collected. I didn't really know what to do with them, so they got packed away. I kept finding them and then storing them away again. About a year ago, I joined some Yahoo crazy quilting groups. I decided to embelish the blocks with embroidery in the manner of the crazy quilts. I am going to set them together soon and make a quilt. I was frustrated with how flimsy the blocks were. When I posted my concerns, it was suggested that I use a light weight fusable interfacing to strengthen the blocks. It worked very well.

This is the first block.



This is the next block I tried. Each quarter has different flowers but all in red.



Here is the third one. Each quarter has a different trellis pattern.




The next block. I didnt know what to do with the small triangles. I get clipart from Dover every week. I was browsing through the items I had saved and found some patterns that I kind of liked. I just used part of several patterns. I used a varigated pink floss for all the embroidery.



This block is simple, but I think the pattern is effective.




I'm not real happy with this block. The picture doesn't show the detail very well. The Chinese butterflies don't show up very well and the vines in the center cross are not showing up well either.



I like the way the grape vines worked out on this block. I used a different varigated color for each quarter. Lots of french knots!



It took me a while to decide what to do on this block. The red and green plaid was overwhelming. Then I decided to do a Scotish Thistle. There are two small ones and one large one in each quarter. Click on the picture to see the larger photo. Each of the thistle flowers has a base woven in two colors of green.



This is the last block. The center is a flower garden. I tried a lot of different flowers and techniques on this one. When I set the blocks together, I think this will be the center one.