Flower fairies and a purse

I have signed up for a RR with the flower fairies theme, and then realized that the fabric I have is too big of a print to use in the 6" square blocks.

This is a purse that belongs to Judy S. She and I agreed to trade purse pieces and embellish each others a bit before sending them back. I just finished hers and have sent it back. Aren't the colors great? She did some of the embellishing before she sent it to me, but I did the pansy button cluster, the orange rose seam under it, the black "fan", the yellow flower spray on the rectangular piece, and several seams. The purse I sent to her was a bit bigger, so I don't expect she's done yet.

Painting a door

My niece, Caitie, hostessed a girls' night out at her new-to-her home during hunting season, and allowed us to paint on the walls of one of the extra bedrooms. Rachel and I teamed up to make a door to another world. Here it is in progress:

The fairy who lives there, but apparently flits through the door into our world on occasion:

That's me (my good side) putting some foliage on the pine tree forest:

A close-up of the naked fairy (I think she's about 5" tall, sitting down):

And the finished painting. I think it could use some more detail in the green hills, but this is about 6 hours total work over two evenings.

Some CQ work....and a blast from the past....

Here is Ing's fall swap block. I did the pine bough down the center (mainly because I wanted to try cast-on stitch pine cones), the SRE bouquet, the leafy vine, two seams, and added some beads.

This is Wendy's block from the Fantasy Landscape round robin. Her theme is "Undersea Dragon's Lair", and she asked that all creatures added be fantasy creatures, so I made her a sea unicorn daddy and his babies (click on the pic for a larger view to see the babies; they are glorified, modified lazy daisy stitches!). I also did the kelp seam above his head and the seam that goes to the left of him and behind his head.

I'm not entirely sure when this picture was taken. Probably about 1972 or '73. That's me on the left, my sister Barbara kneeling, and sister Gayle on the right. The dog is Gayle's St. Bernard, Shannon. She was a lovely dog, very well trained. She had actually been trained not to drool, though she could still slime you pretty well after a drink of water.

Thinking of Halloween

I got this cute image from a sample sent by Dover Publishing. It's got all my favorite Halloween elements; witches, bats, owls, jack-o-lanterns, black cats....


While shopping at Target today, we found this card (I scanned it front and back, to give credit to the company that made it):

Inside:

It's a sad story, but one that happens all too often this time of year.

Cute boy alert!

While I was at the retreat, my favorite cowboys were at a local fall festival. They got to buy red hats and ride ponies.


Here is a pin I made from a kit. It is silk ribbon embroidery; took about 20 minutes to stitch it and put it together! I like instant gratification.

We have a new baby in the family! Hannah was born to Travis and Bridget (and big sister MacKenzie) on September 30th. Her nursery is done in pink and brown John Deere fabric, so I found this brown onesie for her and stitched some pink roses on it. Working on it made me hungry for chocolate cake with pink frosting roses....but then I could always be hungry for chocolate cake....with or without roses of any color....

And this is my second block for the Making Memories Breast Cancer fundraiser. At the retreat, Leslie had two blocks that someone had offered to do, then didn't, so I took one of them. The butterfly is 3D, like my previous block. What I really like about this block though is the SRE bouquet. Click on the pic for a larger view.

One last post from the retreat

Here's what happens when crazy quilters get to drinking and try to stitch:

They accidentally make a "sane" quilt! So remember, "Friends don't let friends stitch drunk!"

Left to right: Ingrid, Janet (me!), Theresa, Caroline, Leslie, Claudina, Debbie, Cathy, Gerry K, Gerry H, Diane, Kerry, and Connnie. Lauri hates to have her picture taken, so she graciously (and gratefully, I think) offered to take the pictures with everyone's cameras.

Retreat: Show and tell, part 2

This is the lovely Ingrid from California (on the right, left is Diane from Ontario). She happens to live near the Piecemaker's store there and is a frequent student in their classes. They know her so well that they allowed her to bring one of the Piecemaker Quilts, titled "Out of the Darkness" to our retreat. This quilt is the star of the 2009 calendar, one of 3 that were made (one was sold to a private collection) and it is just breath-taking. I thought so when I saw the picture of it on the calendar, but in person you can see the details and the subtle colors that were used so sparingly and so effectively on the black and white blocks. I took a picture of each block, so prepare to be amazed (click on the pics for a larger view).


In the block below, the butterfly on the upper right is all done in silk ribbon embroidery. You may not even realize it's a butterfly at first, as it looks like a grouping of flowers.










And the center block: