Glimpsing heaven through the clouds

I pieced these three blocks after I did that one for a friend. I just enjoy this color combination. I used it for my For the Birds round robin blocks, too.

I'm challenging myself to use only white, cream, or beige embellishments on the white and cream parts of the blocks, with the only color to be "leaking" out of the colorful center patch. To that end, I've now added lace motifs and some gimp trim.

This one has a corner of a vintage linen piece. I've found some lovely vintage hankies and linens lately and I'm determined to use them, not just take them out and fondle them occasionally.

I've actually done quite a bit of work on these since these photos were taken, so I'll try to do an update on their progress soon. I'm terrible about remembering to take "before" photos, so "yeah me" for remembering this time.
I'm not sure what they'll be when I'm finished, but the phrase "glimpsing heaven through the clouds" keeps rolling through my head, hence the title for this post. Perhaps a wall hanging? It's just like me to name something before it's even begun!
I had names picked out for my kids before they were conceived! I've had the name Io picked out for our next pet, and I don't have any idea whether it might be a dog, a frog, or a hairless rat.

Growing (oddly) in my yard

Now, I've never claimed to have a green thumb. The things that grow best in my yard are the ones that planted themselves, or that someone else planted for me, and that simply need the occasional watering by me.
The red hot pokers are of the first variety. They were growing here when we moved in, though I didn't realize it until months later, in the spring. They usually look like this:

Although they are usually farther along by this time of year. We've had a prolonged cool spring that has slowed them a bit, but they almost always bloom for my birthday, which is nice of them.
However, this year, I'm seeing some....oddness. A couple of the flowers have forked like this:

And one has a 3-way going on like this:

Maybe I used too much of the Dr. Strangelove's Atomic Fertilizer?

These purplish feathery flowers have planted themselves and spread far and wide. Does anybody know what they are?

a block for a friend

I have a friend who has had to endure some bad news in recent weeks, and in an effort to cheer her and let her know how much I care, I made this block for her. Every stitch holds a prayer that things will be better for her and her family in the very near future. That fabric in the center patch always makes me think of sky, or heaven.

I am a-palled!

I have a friend named Alice in California who is making her own casket pall. What, you may ask, is a casket pall? It's the cloth that gets draped over one's casket for one's funeral. She's piecing the blocks in diamond shapes in shades of black, grey, and cream, and then embellishing them in any colors. I asked her if I could embellish a block for her, and she agreed to let me.

Now I should explain about Alice. Some consider Alice "Looney"...including her family, evidently, as they have called her Betty the Loon. On the Newbies list, she is known affectionately as "Looney Sis" by Crazy Judyth. Alice has a crafting "shed" in her backyard that is known as "The Looney Bin". Yes, Alice is delightfully Looney in the finest sense of the word.

Here is the naked block as she sent it to me.

I knew what I wanted to add to her block, but had to think about it for several weeks to figure out how to do it. As the Wicked Witch of the West says, "These things must be done delicately."
I finally settled on painting the image on cotton fabric. It's the end of the old Looney Tunes cartoons, minus Porky Pig stuttering (I didn't think he'd be formal enough, despite his bow tie).

And here's how it looks appliqued to the block. I'm hoping Alice won't think it's TOO irreverent, and that her family will not hate it. I want to go on record here by saying that I don't personally believe that death is the end for any of us. It may be "that's all folks" for the physical body, but it is my belief that the spirit that is really "us" will go on to bigger and better things; that a better saying might be "this is just the beginning folks!", but that wouldn't fit into the little circle.

I've got more stitching and embellishing to do, and Alice has said there's no rush. I'm glad to hear that. I hope it's many years before she is ready to use her pall.

Moderated comments and a bird block

First off, I just discovered 9 comments from some time ago waiting to be "moderated" (approved for posting) by me. I didn't think my account was set for moderated comments, so I'm a bit surprised. If you posted a comment in the past and didn't get a response, this probably explains why. I'll try to catch up with them, but if you posted a question to me and would still like an answer, please ask again. Occasionally Yahoo and I don't see eye to eye, and this seems to be one of those times.

Here is the last bird block for this round robin. It belongs to Nicki Lee. The lucite flower and leaves are some I bought recently online from Delphine's Flower Bead Shop. They have some fun little beads, they give a 15% discount to new customers, and the shipping was free.

Mike the Headless Chicken, part two

I finished the stitching around the chicken figure with some buttonhole stitch around the neck and wings, and tried out a new-to-me cable chain stitch around the body. Having thought that I had made this block quite a bit larger than it would need to be so that I could trim it down when finished, I was a bit surprised to find that it was actually about 1/2" too small. After a few unpleasant words, I opted to add a border, which it turns out I like. So let's pretend I did it on purpose, shall we?

I wanted my Mike to be walking in a field of spring flowers. The blue ribbon is some that I dyed for myself.

One thing that I find very helpful sometimes in designing a block is to take a photo of it and post it on the computer. Something about taking a block that I've been looking at for so long and putting it in a different form will often help me see something that needs my attention. For instance, that weird blue bud on the left. It had to go. I think I originally intended for it to have its own stem coming up from the main full flower, but that's not what happened.

So here's the finished product, ready to go to Fruita!

Mike the Headless Chicken!

Fruita, Colorado, the next town to the west of GJ, has been celebrating a long-gone local celebrity for many years now. Mike the Headless Chicken (read his story here)Days include a 5k run, car show, chicken dance, and other goodies. This year they are including a quilt block contest; the blocks will be matted for display this year, and made into a quilt to be raffled off next year.
I've known about this contest for more than a month, but just wasn't getting any inspiration. I thought about how to do something in CQ, but no idea was "popping". Finally, I thought about appliqueing a headless chicken, with different brightly colored feathers in his tail. Then I checked the website, and suddenly remembered; Mike was a white chicken. No problem, I pulled out my favorite white on white and white on cream cotton fabric collection.
I drew out a simple rooster pattern, and cut each body part out of a different fabric. Then appliqued them to a chicken wire patterned fabric.



I added some chain-stitched feet....


...and now I'm working on feather stitching around the tail feathers.


I'll add some other embellishment stitching, and probably some SRE grass and flowers at his feet. The hardest part, the head, is blissfully unneeded...