Another Crazy Quilt Trinket Block

I finished stitching up another Crazy Quilt Trinket block yesterday:

The little snowman cross stitch piece was designed by Meridel Abrahms.  She did the design quite a few years ago but I always loved it so I stitched up last Summer for this crazy quilt project.

At the top right-hand corner of the snowman piece, you'll find a beautiful vintage rhinestone earring.

At the bottom in the center is a Czech Glass Button that I bought from Ebay a long time ago.

I've been working on this trinket quilt for awhile now.  I put it down when things were so chaotic with my husband's cancer treatment.  I decided to go back to it 2 weeks ago when I lost Lucy.

I still have a lot of great little things that I've collected over the years so I have no idea how many blocks there will be.  A lot of them!!!  I'm working on Block #26 now.

I plan to keep going until I use all my little things.  I'm keeping the backgrounds all pastel.  I may end up putting together several quilts depending on how many blocks I have when I'm done but that's a long way down the road.  For now, I'll just keep stitching.

And with flea market season just around the corner, there may be more trinkets!!!

Crazy Memento Quilt Block #12

Block #12

Back in the 1970's, my mom sold Avon.  Oh, I so much enjoyed that!  I always looked forward to the boxes arriving.  Mom and I would take everything out of the boxes and set it all up on the table and then I would help her put her orders together.  It always smelled so good!!!

The giraffe was an Avon necklace with an orange satin cord.  I thought it would be fun to use it on a "jungle themed" block.

The green dragonfly in the upper left corner is little pin that my cousin Kim gave me to use on this quilt.  The frog on the bottom left is charm that mom gave me specifically for this quilt.  They all seem to work together nicely.

I still have quite a few pieces of fun jewelry from Avon so you'll be seeing those on upcoming blocks!

Crazy Memento Quilt Block # 11

Since I have some free time today, I thought I would share a few more blocks from my Crazy Memento Quilt:

Block #11

The eye catcher on this piece is obviously the beautiful Bee Brooch in the center.  My husband bought this for me a flea market a few years ago.

All of the blue buttons are vintage as is the tatted lace near the bottom.

The floral fabric on the top right-hand corner is from the 1960's.  It was given to me by Scott's grandmother before she passed away.  I still have a little bit left and I'm planning on using the rest on another block.

Updates On Crazy Quilt Blocks

Stitching away here!  This block is finished and ready to sew together:

And this morning, I started on this block:

I'm off to stitch!

Calendar Blocks

I thought for today, I would share all of the beautiful blocks from the 2015 Crazy Quilt Calendar.  Since the blocks had to be cropped to fit the space, these are the complete blocks.

January by Mary Anne Richardson

February - Nicki Lee Seavey

March - Maria Mulder
(Maria does not have a blog)

April - Kathy Shaw

May - Pat Winter

June - Cathy Kizerian

July - Brenda Sandusky (Facebook)

August - Gerry Krueger

September - Terri Lee Takacs

October - Betty Pillsbury

November - Connie Eyberg

December - Allison Aller

Cover - Pamela Kellogg

Please take a moment to visit the blogs of these gifted ladies and congratulate them on their beautiful work!  The 2015 Crazy Quilt Calendar would not have been possible without them!

Marathon Sewing Day

I spent all day yesterday piecing new projects to stitch on.  I must have put a good couple of miles on my Treadle Machine because I ran it from 9 am to 7:30 pm.  I pieced everything from purses, to hearts, dolls and pillows.  I like to have a pile of things to choose from and I like a few extra things in my stash drawer, all ready to stitch on in case I don't have time to pull everything out and sew.  I don't have a sewing room (at this moment, I hope to change that) so when I pull things out, I have to put everything away when I'm done.

Before I share a few of my pieced blocks, I finished up this little cat doll for a friend:

I just packaged this up and will mail it tomorrow.

I've also been working on my Happy Birthday Hanging Pillow:

I'll be stitching on this some more later today.

Okay, now for my pieced blocks.  Well, some of them:

This is just a small sampling of pieced blocks from my marathon sewing day yesterday.  I may take another day next week and sew up some more things.  I love running that antique Singer machine!

Christmas Crazy Quilt Block

Been on the go these past few days so this is the first chance I've had to update my blog.  I do have some stitching to share.  First is the Lady In the Hat block that I started the other day.  It's done now and ready to sew into something:

Next, I started on this block yesterday and finished it this morning:

I still haven't decided what I'll sew these into but my day is free tomorrow so hopefully, I'll figure it out by then!  LOL!!!

I'll leave you with a new photo of Cotton and Wrigley:

They were curled up together in my computer chair.  I almost thought I'd have to pull the laptop out!  Heaven knows I won't disturb the kitties when they're sleeping!

Student Crazy Quilt Block Lesson 5

I have another beautiful block to share with you today from my Crazy Quilt Color and Composition Class:

This is Jane's block.  I'm seeing such an incredible amount of creativity from my students now!  Jane did something a little different with her bird.  She has him sitting on a tree stump.  Awesome!  Also, noticed how Jane worked with the fabric at the top right and embellished it further with flowers!

The elements are all here, the button spray, the beaded leaves, the bird and an exceptional amount of creativity.  That's what I want to see.  My students are taking the elements that I give them and then taking creative license with those elements!  Excellent job Jane!

Student Blocks - Lesson 5

I have a couple of completed student blocks to share with you today.  These are from Lesson 5.  First is Maria's block:

This block is titled "The Bluebird Of Happiness".  I included a charted bluebird with this lesson.  Maria didn't have any waste canvas so she improvised and did her own beautiful bluebird!  Gorgeous!  All the elements are here including lovely mother of pearl buttons.  And look closely at Maria's lady bug!  From an issue of Pat Winter's Gathering magazine.

Next is the block that Cris did:

Absolutely stunning work!  You can see the charted bluebird that Cris used in the white patch.  Also, I see mother of pearl buttons and the beaded leaves as well as the detached chain flower.  All necessary elements are beautifully included in this beautiful block!

I'll post more photos as they come in.  In the meantime, I've started on Lesson 6 and expect to have everything ready to send to Jason by the end of the weekend.  As soon as it's ready, we'll get it uploaded.  I apologize for the delay but I'm still a bit out of sorts due to losing my Nightmare 2 weeks ago.  Has it been that long already?

I ran to Petsmart this morning to get Wrigley a little kitten collar.  I was so afraid of stepping on him since he's so little and usually under my feet.  Anyway, they had 3 black cats there up for adoption.  I told myself I wasn't going to look.  I was only going in for a collar.  But, the collar where by the kitty's.  One of those beauty's looked very much like Nightmare and I couldn't help myself.  I started crying.  Then I couldn't stop crying.  I gained enough composure to pay for my little collar and then sat in my car and cried for 10 minutes.

Anyway, Wrigley has a pretty little yellow collar now.  He hates it!  And the breakaway part works just fine.  He's pulled it off about 20 times now.

I took this photo of him the other day:

He blends right in with the Beanies, doesn't he?

PS - If you've never had a cat, we use Break away collars on them.  Since cats can jump and get into everything, if the collar gets caught on something, it pulls apart so they don't get hurt.

Crazy Quilt Blocks for Christmas Ornaments

I finished up the 3 crazy blocks I was working for Christmas ornaments.  Well, I finished the stitching but I still have to sew them together:

This one took me a little bit longer than the others because I did the tatted Christmas tree myself and then sewed it on and beaded it.

 I also did the tatted lace myself on the blue block.  I have a ton of vintage tatting but I like to do my own now and then so I don't forget how to do it!

And then here's the one you saw the other day:

I have these pretty little ornaments to hang from the point at the bottom of these pieces.  I found them at Michael's before Christmas last year:

I had planned on sewing these together today but I don't think I can squeeze one more thing in.  Maybe I can sew them up in the morning.

Crazy Quilt Hearts Future Bowl Fillers

First, I'd like to wish a warm welcome to all of the new ladies who are following my blog!  All of a sudden, I see some new faces!  Thank you and please leave me comments!

I've been stitching and sewing and am working away on all sorts of new things here.  This is a set of future Crazy Quilt Hearts for Bowl Fillers.  I just finished stitching the last one this morning:

 

Each Crazy Quilt Heart will have 2 coordinating fabric hearts with it so there will be 4 sets available.  The next step is to sew these up along with their little companions.  My mom's bowl fillers have flown out the door so I thought I'd get on the band wagon with a few too!

In other news, Jason, my assistant and editor is about 1/2 way done with my upcoming book, "Elegant Cross Stitch Sentiments For Crazy Quilting".  Jason does an amazing job with my books and so far, it looks like this one will be phenomenal!  I finished putting all the models together over the weekend so I'll be photographing them tomorrow and getting the JPEG's to Jason.  At that point, he'll get the cover ready so I can share it here!

My next stitching project, which I'll be starting this evening, is Lesson 5 for my Online Crazy Quilt Course.  The release date for that is April 30th!

For now, I have a few new things from mom to list so I'll hope over to Etsy and do that.

Student Crazy Quilt Blocks Lesson 4

I'm thrilled with the improvements and creativity that I 'm seeing in my students work.  They're finishing up on Lesson 4 so I thought I'd share the photos that they've sent to me.  This is my example block:

I'm starting to give everyone more freedom now that they have the hang of my teaching style.  And the girls are starting to have a better understanding of working with color to compose a well balanced block.

The only requirements for this block is that it had to be worked in yellow, white and green and the bee had to be used.  As you can see, I'm starting to focus on more techiniques now and letting the girls learn how to work with color through those techniques.  Yes, there is always a method to my madness!

This is Cris' block:

Cris struggled a bit with the first 3 lessons but judging by lesson 4, she's starting to see how colors compliment each other and how to use them to balance a block.  Cris used a nice variety of stitches and embellishments and although I would add more sequins (that's just me.  I love sequins!), that's really just a matter of personal preference.

Next we have Karin's block:

Karin's block is beautiful!  Heavily embellished and well balanced.  I'm not sure what Karin did for the wings on the bee but Karin, if you're reading this, please leave us a message in the comments so we know what you did.  Again, there's a nice variety of stitches and embellishments on Karin's block.  Lovely work Karin!  Job well done!

Finally for today, we have Joyce's block:

Joyce came up with a very unique way to display her bee.  Check out that sunflower!  Excellent!!!!!!!!!  Amazingly creative!  Joyce doesn't feel like her block is done yet so I made a few suggestions for her:

If you're ever stuck on a crazy quilt block, photograph it or scan it into your computer and play with it a little bit using whatever graphic software you have.  I use Corel Photopaint but Paint Shop Pro would work, Photoshop would work and Microsoft Paint would probably work.  Simply "draw" on the image of your block to try different things before actually stitching on them.

It always helps to look at your block from a distance.  I keep my stitched piece propped up on a chair in my living room when I'm not working on it.  That way, I can glance at it as I walk around and see where things need to be balanced.

Joyce, I hope my suggestions help you!

Lesson 4 Janes Block

My students are working on Lesson 4 of my Crazy Quilt Color and Composition Classes.  Jane R. has completed her block:

The theme for lesson 4 is Flight Of The Bumblebee.  Jane did an excellent job conveying that theme.  Notice Jane's beehive worked in beads.  And the beautiful garden in the required "curved piece"!

I'm very pleased with the work I'm seeing from my students.  I can see that all of the girls are working with their own creativity and although they find some of the techniques challenging, their skills are improving.  They're eye for color and balance is starting to come through their work!  I'm very pleased with everyone's progress!

Strawberry Ornaments Almost Ready For Picking!

My crazy quilt strawberry ornaments are almost ready for picking!  I just have to put them together:

These, like my cat dolls, never look like much until I get them sewn together!  But these will be pretty crazy quilt strawberry ornaments!

The Chicago Cubs (yes, I love baseball) play their first game at 12:30 pm so I'll be working on these during the ballgame and I'll have them ready "to pick" by tomorrow!

And next, I'm working on some Crazy Hearts for Bowl Fillers!  Mom's bowl filler fly out the etsy shop door so I thought I'd make some too!