Update On Marie Antoinette Crazy Quilt - Block #7

I'm really having a hard time putting this crazy quilt project down now.  I'm eager to get these last few blocks done.  I've really enjoyed stitching on it and am so looking forward to having it hang on my wall.  But one block at a time!

Here is what it looked like with the seams embroidered and beaded:

And now for some flowers:

Obviously, since it's me stitching this, it needs much more in the way of embellishing!  I'll be getting back to stitching on this shortly.

In other news, I'm feeling a bit better now that more of the Zoloft is out of my system.  What a slow process to cut down on this!  And having ADD/ADHD, patience is not one of my virtues!  It's been almost 2 weeks since the last decrease and the full withdrawals don't hit me until week 4 but for now, I'm enjoying a little less back pain, a little less pressure in my head and a little less racing of my mind.  Oh, and those extra 10 pounds that the Zoloft put on my butt can start falling off anytime!  I mean really!  Every time my Dr. drops the dosage, I hope a few pounds drop off too but no luck yet.  Maybe tomorrow.  According to my calender, Spring starts tomorrow.  And ya'll know, the only thing that gets me through Winter is knowing that Spring is the next season!

I know, laugh if you will, but I use the weather man's calender.  I always refer to March 1st as Spring 1st!!!

Anyway, one of these days, I'm going to tell you all about living with ADD/ADHD.  Both my husband and I have it so life can be quite challenging at times.  And at other times, it can be rather amusing!  But I'll save that for another day.

Be sure to stop by tomorrow!  I'll be posting a tutorial for dying silk ribbon using Rit dye.  Prepare to make a mess and have a ball!  Dying silk ribbon is so much fun!  Until then:

Marie Antoinette Crazy Quilt Block #7

I wanted to share a photo of Block #7 before I start on the beading:

I use a combination of techniques to stitch my seams including my own charted Seam Treatments and Carol Samples Dream A Seam templates.

I like to do a lot of beading and embellishing so I think it's fun for my readers to see what the seams look like before I go crazy with the beads!

Scott is going to take me to the antique mall today and when we get back, I'm thinking of dying some ribbons.  I was asked to do a tutorial on how I dye my ribbons.  So I'll take photos and write as I do it.  As soon as I have that tutorial ready, I'll post it here.

And The Winnter Is.........

My husband just drew the name of the winner for my little Crazy Quilt Cat Doll:

The winner is..........It's My Bag Designs!  Please email me with your address so I can send you your prize!

Thank you to everyone who entered!

Crazy Quilt Teddy Bear Dolls

Just a little Sneak Peek on my Crazy Quilt Teddy Bears!

Arent' they sweet?  I think I still like making my little cat dolls more but it was fun to do something different.
I just picked up that little wicker doll chair at the last Flea Market we went to.  I thought it would be perfect for photographing my little crazy quilt dolls.

I'll add these to the Boutique as soon as I have time.  I have some new Mixed Media Gift Tags that mom made to add as well.

For now, please consider signing up for our newsletter!  You can find the sign up box in my sidebar.  We'll be offering news about our boutique, specials & discounts, occasional recipes, a freebie or 2 along with some how-to's that you won't find here.

I certainly don't intend to bombard anyone's inbox with tons of newsletters.  At the most, a newsletter will go out once a week.  More likely, every other week.

Crazy Quilting - Marie Antoinette Crazy Quilt Block #7

I've really been out of sorts lately.  I have a terrible time focusing on anything.  I know it's withdrawals and side effects.  As if the road up from depression wasn't bad enough, now it's the long hard road getting to the bare minimum of the anti depressants.  I'll get there, just not in my time I guess.

I did manage to finish up the stitching on my little Crazy Quilt Teddy Bear Dolls:

They really don't look like much now but once sewn together and stuffed, they'll be precious!  I'm hoping to feel up to sewing them together tomorrow when I get back from WalMart.  As soon as they're ready, I'll post photos of them finished.

In the meantime, I pulled out Block #7 of my Marie Antoinette quilt.  I choose some vintage tatting, some appliques and other trims so it's ready to start stitching on:

I'm definitely ready for Winter to be over so I thought I'd better get a move on and work some more on this project.  Stay tuned for updates.

Free Digital Art Postcards

I've been playing with my Photopaint software a little bit today.  I'm amazed at all the great digital art I see online and thought I'd try some.  I've been playing with fractals for years but never really got into layering images and playing with some of the other filters.

I was in part, trying to keep myself busy while Nascar was on.  Sorry, Football season finally ended and now it's Nascar season!  And since Bubba seems to be deaf most of the time, I decided to get myself away from the noise of the TV, and spend some time in my little craft supply room playing on my big computer.

This is just one of the cool images I came up with. Your welcome to download this image and use it as a printable postcard or ECard.  And please see my other Digital Art Postcards.  I confess, even I'm amazed at what I came up with!  I am really liking any type of collage art these days!

In other news, I'm almost done with my Crazy Quilt Teddy Bears.  I pieced 3 of them and just have to finish up stitching on the 3rd one and then I can sew them together.  I'm kind of eager to see how they look sewed up and stuffed since I've never made them before.  I'll post a pic as soon as I have them ready.

Drawing! Win A Pam Kellogg Crazy Quilt Cat Doll!

It's time for another drawing here at Kitty & Me Designs!  I thought it would be fun to have a drawing for one of my Crazy Quilt Cat Dolls:

The winner will receive this 6 inch Crazy Quilt Cat handmade by me!

Here's the catch, sorry but there's always a catch!  LOL!!!!

You can get 2 entries in this drawing.  

****To be entered once, post my Boutique Button in the sidebar on your blog.  You can find the code on the top of my sidebar on the right hand side of this post.  Simply add the code to your sidebar and you'll get one entry.

****To be entered a 2nd time, write a blog post about our Handmade Cottage Boutique.  Include the link to our website:  http://www.kittyandmedesigns.com/   Make sure the you put the link on the words "Pam Kelloggs Handmade Cottage Boutique".  Not on Kitty & Me Designs.  Sorry, it's a Google thing.

Then, leave a comment on this post with a link to your blog!

The drawing will take place on Saturday, February 26th.  All entries will be put in a basket and my husband will draw the winner that morning.  I will announce it here on my blog by 12 noon Central Time.

Am I blatantly asking you to promote my Boutique?  Yes!  But you must admit, this a rather creative way of doing it!!  And because you're posting a link to your blog here, we might all end up meeting some great new people and getting some more followers.  And of course, some lucky person will win my Cat Doll!!!!

Good Luck everyone!

Handmade Boutique - St Patricks Day Tussy Mussys and Easter Village Houses

I've added a few new things to our Cottage Boutique!  First, my mom's beautiful little mini St. Patrick's Day Tussy Mussy's:

These Tussy Mussies are little ones! They're so cute!

Next, I made a few little Easter Village Glitterhouses:

Each house comes with a little Spring bottlebrush tree!  Pastel and glittered, like old fashioned Putz Houses.

Art Quilt Adventure Complete

I promised a photo of my little finished Art Quilt Experiment the other day but never got back online.  At least I don't think I got back online.  Can't remember for sure.  If I did forget, then it's an ADD moment and I have tons of those so forgive me!

Anyway, here is a photo of my finished Art Quilt:

I kept the finishing simple on this one.  I wanted it to be very "woodsy" so a simple little twig from outside is all it needed.

For the back, I cut a piece of pink felt and glued that on with my glue gun:

Despite the fact that my experiment didn't work (and thank you to my readers who emailed me and told me why), I'm very pleased with the results.  I may even work up a tutorial for my technique next time I do one.

In the meantime, I have another finish to share with you.  I had a custom order for one of my little crazy quilt cat dolls:

I just love making these little cat dolls!  But I thought I'd try another little doll shape so I worked up a Teddy Bear pattern and pieced a few of them so I'll share those when I get them stitched up.

In the meantime, if you like to own one of my Crazy Quilt Cat Dolls, you might want to stop by tomorrow as I will be announcing a drawing for one!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Wishing all of my sweet friends in Blogland a very Happy Valentine's Day!

I'll be back a little later with a photo of my finished Art Quilt!

Crazy Quilt Gatherings Magazine is now Available!

Pat Winter's Crazy Quilt Gatherings Magazine is now available to purchase!

Order your copy today!

Adventures In Art Quilting

Yesterday, I wrote about my attempt to shrink Wool Roving for a cool foundation to stitch on.  I did not succeed at shrinking anything!  But I did come up with a cool background for stitching. 

I finished adding beads and sequins to my little "Guarding The Nest" Art Quilt:

I'll put this on a little branch either later today or over the weekend and post another photo when it's complete.

I did try another little wool background.  This time I boiled it but again, nothing happened.  It's ok though, because I have another interesting, textured foundation to stitch on.  Will post that soon.  First, I have a custom order for a Crazy Quilt cat doll so I want to get that stitched up and ready for my customer.

In the meantime, I also made 2 Pink Heart Brooches:

These are little hearts that I needle felted and then embellished with Silk Ribbon Embroidery, old lace, beads & sequins.  The hearts are exactly the same but by using different embellishments, they are each unique!  These are available to purchase in our Handmade Boutique!

Wool Roving - An Experiment

Did you ever get a bee in your bonnet about trying something and it just bugs you until you do it?  And then, if it doesn't turn out the way you expected, that bee starts buzzing louder until you try again, and again, until you get it right?

That was the case with my latest creative endeavor.  Out of blue, it occurred to me that wool shrinks when heated.  I have tons of wool roving for needle felting but I thought to myself, I could do some layering with it and then shrink it for a really cool textured background to stitch on.  Yes, it's all about new things to stitch on!

I started with a layer of pink tulle.  On top of that, I added some wool roving in a variety of different pastel colors.  Then I added some sparkly Angelina fiber and then another layer of pink tulle.  I took it over to my beloved Singer Treadle Machine and top stitched it.

Now for the fun part.  I wet it and then took the heat gun to it!  Guess what happened?  NOTHING!!!  It didn't really shrink.  Oh, it melted the tulle and gave me a few burned areas which looked pretty cool but I did not accomplish my goal of shrinking the wool.

My philosophy is "Waste Not, Want Not" so I of course, worked with what I had and stitched on it anyway.  Here's the progress:

There's no doubt that what I came up IS very pretty!  Since I still had my heat gun out, I added a little bit of gold embossing powder and heat set that.

I choose an image of a little Cherub and sewed that on.  Then, I had some some recycled silk that I bought at a yarn store last Fall so I couched some of that on around the image:

Couching that silk on was quite a challenge!  It's so fine and gets caught on everything!  But I got it couched on because as you all know, I need pink!

Once I got that done, I added a variety of fancy yarns for more texture.  Then came some Silk Ribbon Embroidery, some vintage and new flowers and a tiny bird's nest.  Yes, the little Cherub is guarding the nest full of eggs!  I can't help it, all I can think of now is Spring!

This is where I'm at with it at the moment:

All that's left to do on it is to add some beads and sequins for sparkle.  Then I'll attach it to a little branch and call it an Art Quilt!  I'll post another update photo when it's completed.

So what about the buzzing bee in my bonnet?  Oh, I'll be trying this again!  We'll see what boiling water does to wool!!!

Crazy Quilt Gatherings - A Magazine By Pat Winter

The premier issue of Crazy Quilt Gatherings by my dear friend Pat Winter will be available on March 1st.

Please visit Pat's Gatherings Blog for more details.

Boutique Additions

Well, it's snowing here again in Northern Illinois!  I have never seen this much snow in one Winter season!  But I'm counting the days until March 1st (3 weeks).  I usually start to breathe easier around the beginning of March.

I'd like to say thanks to everyone who commented on my Marie Antoinette quilt blocks.  I can't tell you all how much I'm enjoying that project!  I'll start on Block #7 in a few days.  I have some other things I'd like to do first.

In the meantime, I thought I'd share the newest additions to our Shabby Chic Boutique!  First, my Crazy Quilt Edwardian Lady Purse:

Check out that gorgeous trim that I found in my stash!  I don't know where I got that but it worked perfectly to finish off this handbag!

Next, mom made a few St. Patrick's Day Ornaments:

 These are so sweet!  Just a little something cheery for Saint Patrick's Day!



We have loads of beautiful Cottage Style Products in our Boutique!  Please visit us and be sure to check our Special's For Today!   We have some Valentine's on sale!

Marie Antoinette Crazy Quilt Block #6

I apologize for not photographing the block before I stitched it.  I usually like to post my works in progress updates as I work on them.  I haven't been feeling too great for the past few days so I just stitched.  Marie Antoinette Crazy Quilt Block #6 is complete:

The little watch was a pendant watch that belonged to my grandmother.  I've been trying to use her jewelry pieces on this quilt so I can see and enjoy them rather than store them in my cedar chest.

So this block is done and that leaves me 3 more blocks to go.

If you're visiting my blog for the first time, I'm working on a Crazy Quilt with Marie Antoinette as the theme.  There will be 9 blocks all together, each of them are 9 inches square.

Here are the previous blocks:

 Block #5

Block #4

 Block # 3

 Block #2

 Block #1

McHenry, Illinois Blizzard 2011

Well, we had our Blizzard.  What a mess!  This is what we woke up to at 4 am this morning:

This is our mudroom.  It's probably a good thing we haven't remodeled it yet!  And it's a good thing we don't have a screen door on it yet.  We wouldn't have been able to get out of the house.  Would have had to wait for a neighbor to come and help!

You can't see them, but there are steps under all that snow!

This is the front of my house.  It was about 8:00 this morning.

My Towncar and Scott's Mustang.

Three and Four foot drifts.

Our truck was buried too!

Scott has most of it cleaned up yet.  It's 2:45 in the afternoon and we still haven't seen a snow plow yet.

I'd like to say thanks to everyone who left me kind comments and wishes yesterday.  The low barometric pressure wears on me as does these kind of storms.  I'm sure I'll feel better in a few days.

Life In My Studio

Not feeling well today ladies so I'm going to send you over to my friend Debi's Life In My Studio blog to see her gorgeous artwork!