Fair results!

I got a blue ribbon on my color wheel quilt, and also one for my counted cross stitch picture! The only negatives that the judge saw on the quilt was that my corners weren't square enough. The judge for the CCS piece liked the CQ down the side.
My friend Lauri got a blue ribbon for her color study, and a Judges' Choice ribbon! Ours were the only two CQs in the fair, and both got blue ribbons! A pretty good showing for the CQers of the world.

A round robin block

I've joined a RR on Crazy Quilting International (a yahoo group) that has an anything goes theme. There are 5 of us, and would you believe that three of the 5 of us chose a Christmas theme for their block? In July? We should be done in November, so I guess it makes more sense than you'd think at first.
Here is the first block that I've been priviledged to work on:

It belongs to Sherry K. in Washington. She used some of my favorite fabrics, mixing cotton prints with satins and black velvet, and did the piecing by hand. I could embellish the whole block, but being the first to get it, I'm going to try to hold myself back and leave room for the others.
I did the silk ribbon embroidery poinsettia bouquet along the green seamline, and the long gold thread and bead seam to the right, and the spider and web. The spider is a gold metallic bead. I hope Sherry knows the legend of the Christmas spider....

Where are you?

This block is for a swap being held on CQ4N by Carole in Arizona. We were to complete a block that represents our town, state, or area, to be swapped out with someone as far away as possible.

So here's a little CQ tour of western Colorado for you. The tannish mountain to the left is Mount Garfield. The large green one on the right is Grand Mesa (just a bit of it). The blue patch represents the Colorado River, which is, in real life, never that color (that's called artistic license). Beginning on the right with the embroidered aspen trees, the button trail includes a deer, a golden rose (for the gold rush), a snowflake, a rainbow trout, a stegosaurus (our state fossil), cowboy boots, and an owl face. There's a bunny hiding in the yucca plants, which are growing over some Native American pictographs. The waterfall fabric is typical of any number of places in the mountains which might be home to some playful river otters. The sky would be looking to the east, so that might be a sunrise. With the recent wildfires, we've been having some very intensely colored sunrises and sunsets.

My Complements; the color wheel is finished!

Finally, I finished my color wheel! It is 31" square, with the circle being 25" across. The circle of wedges was completed, then appliqued onto the square of black velvet. Then the center circle, the black, white, and grey block, was laid under the larger circle and reverse appliqued. Black braid was hand stitched to the outer edge of the wheel, then around the inner circle. I did embroider a line of black chain stitch along the edge of each wedge, but it doesn't show except in close-up.

I used Warm and White batting, and a beautiful oriental print that echoes the wheel shape for the backing. I sewed ties to the back around the inner and outer circles, and within the wedges to help hold the weight of the embellishments. Then I applied a 1/2" black satin binding.

As always, you can click on a photo to get a close-up image.

On Friday of this week, Lauri and I will be taking our color study quilts to enter them into our county fair. If you haven't already done so, please visit Lauri's blog and check out her color study, too!

Lace dyeing

I dyed a few lace motifs today using food coloring. I'm happy with the way the colors came out, but not sure how color-fast they'll be over time. I also did some variegated perle cotton threads. I specifically needed yellowish greens to do aspen tree leaves.



This is how the trees turned out. They're about 4" tall.

Norma's summer block

This is the block Norma made that I got to work on. She pieced it and embellished about half, then it was sent to me to finish. I think it is finished, but I won't mail it out till later this month, so I can still do more if the inspiration strikes.

Norma has my block and is finishing it for me. I've seen a pic of it finished, but I can't wait to see it in the flesh, or in the fibers, I guess that should be.

Framed!

Here's how I framed the "Aunt Verdi's Porch" piece. By changing the design, I mananged to make the piece into an odd size, one for which I couldn't buy a ready- made frame that would fit. So I got the idea to make a strip of CQing to add to the side. Choosing colors from the quilt in the picture, I pieced and embroidered, then added a tea-dyed strip of lace. This will be entered in the fair later this month.

One last UFO finished

This is the last of the UFOS that I will attempt to finish for now. It was so close to being done that it took less than a week to finish it. Now I'm on to finish up the color wheel for the county fair.
If you notice that little symbol on the tip of the "e" in Home, that is the signature that I use in all my counted cross stitch work. Usually I try to tuck it in where it's not conspicuous, but that seemed like a good place for it.