Crazy Quilt Hearts

The other day, I started stitching on a few Crazy Quilt Hearts.  This is the first one:

This one is done and ready to sew together.  And this is the next one:

I just started on this one earlier today.  There will be 4 all together.  But before I can get back to stitching, I have to change my hummingbird feeders, fold a load of laundry and wash up a few dishes.  Chores!!!  I'd rather be stitching!

Happy Memorial Day Weekend

I hope everyone is enjoying a happy and safe Memorial Day weekend.  I don't really see this day as one to celebrate but instead, I prefer to see it as a day to be thankful for our military.  To remember the many men and women who serve our country and those who have lost their lives in service to our country.  Forget the politicians and the government.  It's the Armed Forces who protect our country.  It's the Armed Forces who represent our country.  And it's the Armed Forces that we should give our gratitude and respect to.  And to the men and women of our Armed Forces, thank you!

I have a couple if things to share today.  First, I finished stitching up my blue clutch purse:

Notice the dragonfly that I made from a pair of vintage clip-on earrings!  I'll have to get in a sewing day soon to do the finishing.

I also started on a couple of crazy quilt hearts.  This is the first one:

I pieced 4 of these so I'll stitch them up before moving on to more purses.

Again everyone, have a safe Memorial Day and if you know a soldier in our military, please take a moment to say a little prayer of gratitude for him or her.  And even if you don't know a soldier personally, please take a moment to be grateful for all of them.

Submission Guidelines and Schedule

I thought for today, I would share the Submission Guidelines and Publication Schedule for my upcoming publications.  I'm working on my ideas and although I don't want to jump the gun, I'm still bouncing off the walls with excitement for when I take over Crazy Quilt Gatherings magazine.  I've made a new tab at the top of my blog calling for submissions for upcoming publications.  Along with CQ Gatherings magazine, there will be other publications.  The ideas are running rampant through my brain right now.  But I'm trying to stay focused on just a few things.  I want to give everyone the opportunity to submit their work and see it published.  As Pat always said, CQ Gatherings magazine is a needful thing.  And I thought a few other publications would be fun for everyone as well!  So please read through the following and keep your eye on the tab at the top of my blog for updates.


*Starting with the Spring 2015 issue of Crazy Quilt Gatherings magazine, I will be the new owner and publisher.  This is an exciting endeavor for me and I hope it will be for you as well.  My mission is to help spread the word about the wonderful world of crazy quilting, to share crazy quilt ideas, techniques, patterns and eye candy with crazy quilters around the world and to give crazy quilters the opportunity to see their work published.

There will be a 3 month lead time on each issue so my publishing schedule will be as follows:

Spring 2015 issue - Release date:   February 1, 2015 - Submissions due by November 1, 2014.

*Suggested submission ideas and themes:  Valentines Day, St. Patrick's Day, Easter, Mother's Day, butterflies, birds and nests, bunnies, pastel colors.

Summer 2015 issue - Release date:  May 1, 2015 - Submissions due by February 1, 2015.

*Suggested submission ideas and themes:  flowers, birds, butterflies, patriotic, swans, bright pastels, bugs, Summer themes

Autumn 2015 issue - Release date:  August 1, 2015 - Submissions due by May 1, 2015.

 *Suggested submission ideas and themes:  Halloween, Thanksgiving, Fall leaves, pumpkins, browns, orange, gold, yellow, reds

Winter 2015 issue - Release date:  November 1, 2015 - Submissions due by August 1, 2015.

*Suggested submission ideas and themes:  Christmas, Winter, Snowflakes, Snowmen, blues, whites, red and green

The suggestions for ideas and themes are only suggestions.  Please feel free to submit any of your work at anytime.   

I will add ideas and suggestions as they come to me. These are just ideas, not necessities to get published. It's important to me that you feel comfortable submitting your projects.  I know it can be a little intimidating to put our work our there as none of us want to feel as if our we are being judged.  That's not the case with these publications.  The mission here is to give everyone the opportunity to share.  Everyone brings something to the table.  That's my philosophy!  I hope it's yours too!

Along with publishing Crazy Quilt Gatherings magazine, I will also be publishing several supplemental Crazy Quilt booklets.  This is a list of upcoming publications:

2015 Crazy Quilt Calendar

Release date:  September 1, 2014

The calendar is already full so I cannot accept submissions for this publication.

100 Crazy Quilt Hearts

I do not have a release date for this publication at the moment however, I am asking everyone to start thinking about crazy quilt hearts!  I love them and everyone loves them!

Guidelines:  Hearts can be any heart shape, any color and any theme however, they must be crazy quilted, approx. 6 inches in size and they must be finished into an ornament.   You can submit as many hearts as you would like to.  If I get too many submissions for 1 publication, I will do a 2nd publication.

I will post more information on this publication soon so please check back often.

Basic submission information:  Please send unaltered, high resolution photos 300 dpi JPEG images.  If you plan to send a tutorial, please send a Word.doc or simply write out in an email message with photos as attachments.  Submission can be sent to my email address.  Also, include any links that you would like me to include with your work such as Blog address, Facebook, email address, Flickr and so on. 

Again, please be check the tab at the top of my blog often.  I will update it regularly.  If you have any questions, feel free to email me.

Small Crazy Quilt Blocks

What a nice day today!  Sunny and in the 50's I think.  My daffodils and tulips are starting to peek out of the ground and there are tons of buds on my Magnolia tree!  I sat on my beloved deck for a few minutes yesterday and again this morning for a short time.  DH is going to grill this evening.  The good weather is here! 

I have Cubs baseball on in the other room.  Okay, don't laugh but I love the Chicago Cubs.  They lost to the Phillies the last 2 games but last time I was in the living room, they were winning 4 - 1 in the 5th.  Oh Baseball - the sound of Summer!

I've been stitching on a couple of small Crazy Quilt blocks.  These are both ready to sew together:

Yes, the blue one is a heart.  I finished it up this morning.  If all goes as planned, I'd like to sew up some more purses pieces tomorrow.  I have another friend who need a hug so I'm going to stitch up a quick little cat doll next.  I hope she likes purple.

Crazy Quilt Hanging Heart Pillows

You may remember me stitching on these back at Thanksgiving.  I think I was stitching them at Thanksgiving!  Anyway, I finished up my Crazy Quilt Hanging Heart Pillows:

Tomorrow, I'll have my most recent pillows to share.  There are 3 of them and I just have to do the hand finishing on one of them.

I still have 2 purses to put together and a ton of door hanging pillows but I think I'll take a break from finishing tomorrow.  I need to straighten up some things around here.  When my nose is in my sewing machine, I don't get anything else done!  LOL!!!

Stitching Through The Snow

Well, it seems that we're in this weather pattern of snow every other day.  It was pretty at first.  It was novel at first.  But for me, it doesn't take long and it gets old.  I can go back to sunny and 75 any time now! 

I'm just about ready for Christmas.  How about you?  All I have left to do is to wrap my gifts and I plan to do that tomorrow.  Then I have a few days that I can take it easy.

I try to take my fancy new Fusion uptown on days that it doesn't snow.  Just to walk around a store a little bit.  And I have been stitching on some things.  I don't know if you saw my Kitties In The Teacup Pillow all stitched or not.  This is ready to sew together:

And here is another pillow that I stitched up.  It too is ready to assemble:

I love the little girl in that vintage photo.  She has the cutest little face!

I also stitched up a couple of Crazy Quilt Hearts:

I doubt I'll have time now to sew any of these together until after Christmas.  Maybe not even until after New Year's.  But at least I was smart enough to take the time before Thanksgiving to sew up a bunch of blocks so I had some things that I could stitch on.

In other news, my sweet Lucy hadn't been acting right for about 2 weeks.  So Scott and I took her to vet and, she is in the beginning stages of kidney disease.  I know it's not unusual for cats but geez!  What's up with this?  I just lost Nightmare to kidney failure back in May.

It's the early stages and she is 15 years old now, but I'll tell you, it's like getting another kick in the head.  And the heart!  Our vet has started her on the same special kidney diet that Nightmare was on.  Science Diet makes a version and Purina makes a version.  Lucy really isn't thrilled with either one of them but it seems she leans towards the Purina version a little better so I just ordered a case of that for her.  She also has a bit of arthritis in her spine down by her tail and I still kind of think she may have had a mild stroke a few weeks ago.  She's perking up now all of a sudden so she may be recovering from that.  She had a bad stroke 2 years ago and recovered fully.

Well, hopefully, since this is the early stages of KD, she should be alright for awhile if she doesn't fight me on the special diet.  Keep your fingers crossed.

Little Heart Ornaments

I'm a bit under the weather today.  Bubba had a cold last week and apparently, he gave it to me.  He can take it back!  I don't want it!  But I'm stuck with it until it passes.

I do have some finishes to share today.  I put these together yesterday and just finished photographing them.  These are my Little Heart Ornaments that I made over the weekend:

I hand dyed some cheesecloth to use around the outside instead of lace.  I thought that would give these a soft, cottage style look.  I used vintage crinkled seam binding for the hangers.  I think they came out pretty.  I might make some more.

And here's a new picture of my two little partners in crime:

These 2 little monkeys steal everything they can find!  They don't chew anything up.  But they take my pens, my pony tail holders, my Beanie Babies, crumpled up paper, ribbons, lace....you name it.  They're little thieves!  But they're too cute and so sweet!  Still, Lucy isn't exactly amused with either of them but she is getting more tolerant of Wrigley.

Well, I'm spent.  I'm going to make Bubba something for dinner, put his lunch together, take a shower and go lay on my bed with my cats and IPhone and look around on Etsy.

Have a good night everyone!

Heart Bowl Fillers Crazy Quilt Cottage Decor

Just a quick update for today ladies, it's just about time to get dinner together.  I finished up the 4 sets of Heart Bowl Fillers that I was working on last week:

These were a lot of fun to make and a perfect centerpiece for anyone with pets!  They're non breakable!

My next bowl fillers will be seascapes.  I always like to make some under the sea crazy quilt pieces for Summer!

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.

Valentines At Etsy

Most of you know, I'm not one to sit still for too long.  My Crazy Quilt Heart Valentines are done:

All are available now at Etsy.

Christmas Time

My presents are wrapped, my tree is up, my cookies are baked and I've been to the Post Office!  I can relax for a few days now:

Scott picked out a beautiful tree this year and it smells lovely!  I decorated it simply with handmade country style ornaments that mom and I made a few years back.  For garland, I just use red and gold beads.  I have to be careful with what I put on the tree because of my cats although this year, Nightmare and Lucy don't seem to have much interest in it.  Instead of my tree-skirt that mom made for me, I kept it simple.  Just an old quilted blanket from when I was little.  Mom gave it to me because I love mint green so much!  I must say, the tree makes me miss my Simba.  He used to love to lay under the tree.  He thought he was hiding but I knew better.

I've been stitching away the early morning hours on my Valentine hearts.  I've made 6 of these so far.  These are the last 3:

We've had a few flurries today and I have Christmas music playing on the radio although I think I'll turn it off again, make a cup of tea and see what they're selling on QVC.

Crazy Quilt Valentines

I finished up my mint green and purple crazy quilt heart last night:

The little purple iris is from a vintage hankie.

This morning, I started on this pink heart:

I'm sure I'll have this one finished later today.  I have 3 more to stitch after this.

I Know It's A Wee Bit Early

But when you make things to sell, you have to work a holiday in advance!

I mentioned yesterday that I'm going to take a break from finishing my book until after the holidays.  So I started on my Valentines.  This one is ready for sewing:

And this is my next one:

I think I sewed up 6 of these little hanging hearts so I'll be stitching on these for awhile.

Another Heart Shaped Door Pillow

After doing a bit more straightening up in my craft supply room, I started another St. Patrick's Day heart shaped door pillow:

I probably could have finished this yesterday but if you remember, my husband surprised me with a new 60 inch television for us for Christmas.  I've been having me a Harry Potter movie marathon this past week while I'm stitching but I'm so blown away by how beautiful these movies look on our new TV, I keep getting caught up in the movie!  It's like seeing these Harry Potter movies for the first time.  Anyway, I'm going to sit here and stitch for an hour before I do anything else.  And I'll save Goblet Of Fire for this afternoon!