Sunday, January 18, 2009

Schlep bag and SRE

I've made this schelp bag to give to Trystan's former employer who was so kind to her during the 6 months she was home. The lady owns a used book store, so I the fabrics on the inside of the bag include a book spine print.

Here are the individual blocks. I was shooting for an antique look and used embroidered seam treatments. Hadn't planned to use any beads, as I hope this will be a useful item, but then one of the blocks just demanded a few beads.

Two other silk ribbon embroidery practice pieces I made recently. I really need to find my book and get some inspiration for other things to do in SRE.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Odds and ends, this and that...

Didn't seem like I had much time to do needle work over the holidays, but I'm getting back in the swing of things now. I've been contemplating my 50th (gasp, choke, sigh) birthday, which is coming up later this year, and decided I should begin "celebrating" immediately. My plan is to make a golden crazy quilt and have it done for the fair in mid July this year. Here's the first block.

This (left) is a close-up of the center patch, done in silk ribbon embroidery, and another practice piece I did.

On Crazy Quilters International, a new RR is starting up with a theme of hearts. Gerry K, a lovely lady I met at the retreat in September, is doing her block with a Queen of Hearts theme, and made herself and several other people Queen of Hearts playing card silkies to use on their blocks. That got me to remembering my Queen of Clubs self portrait that I did in a college drawing class. Today I pulled it out of the closet, and sadly, it has not faired well over the years. There is a long tear down the left side, and smaller ones all around. But the saddest thing about it is that my hair style, aside from being much shorter, has not changed a lot in the 30 years since I drew this.

And lastly, a final photo of our Christmas tree, complete with a very talented and acrobatic cardinal bird on the top bough. He always starts out sitting upright, but as the season goes on, and the tree dries out a little, he begins to droop. Still, it was a beautiful tree and I sort of hated to take it down....

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Too much holiday fun, contemplating more celebration

Here's what happens when you have too much fun over the holidays. This is Paul.....

and here's Zack....

me and my split personality....

and yes, I ran right out and bought new bras after I saw this one.

This is the Victorian boot that I received in a swap on CQ4Newbies; it was made by Karen K. in Arizona and it contained some lovely swatches of fabric. The boot I made found a new home in England, with Susie W.

I haven't been doing a lot of CQing, but hope to get back at it soon. Since I'll be celebrating my big 5-0 this summer, I've decided to make a gold CQ. It will morph from palest golden cream in the center to more vibrant gold and then dark golden brown around the outer edge. At least that's the plan for now, but it is subject to change.