Finishing Mozart

I apologize for not posting yesterday. I didn't really have anything to share with you. I have been working on Maxine's quilt, replacing damaged patches. At this point, it's just not all that exciting.

The real excitement will begin soon. I was thinking about it yesterday and decided to give a focal point. This quilt is really big and I feel that it needs something in the center to draw the eye in. So, what's my favorite crazy quilt theme? If you guessed a peacock, you're right!

I'm going to do a big peacock in the center. The body will be appliqued, probably with a blue lame fabric. I haven't a clue as to what to do for the tail yet but I'll figure that out when I get that far. Once I get that done, I think further embellishments will be easy. I still plan on adding some sunflowers and some velvet pansies to it. Stay tuned on that one as it will get more interesting very soon!

I've also found that I'm missing my original creations. I'm starting to need a bit of "instant gratification" so later today I'll put out one of my small pieced blocks and get that ready to stitch on. I'm going to have to alternate projects for a bit. I've never been one to have too many projects going at once. I guess it makes me feel overwhelmed, like I have too many loose ends and not completing anything. I'm thinking now, that it might be fun to have several "works in progress" like normal stitchers! Ha, ha, ha!!!

Anyway, my goal for tomorrow is get my Mozart purse assembled. Thank you to everyone who took the time to give me your opinions on the fringe. I think what I liked about the fringe was the color but it did seem a bit too heavy to me after seeing it on the computer.

When I was in WalMart yesterday, I found a different trim in the same old gold color and I bought a yard of that. I like Allison's suggestion of some beads (I love beads!) so now I'm going to ask your opinion one more more time. What do you think of this:



Does this look a little more balanced to you? Normally, I have no trouble with the finishing but what to put on the bottom has thrown me a bit on this one. Remember, I wanted this to be absolutely classic & elegant. So does this work?

New Meaning To The Word "Crazy"!

Yeah, that would be me! Can one of you, my dear readers, explain to me what the BLEEP I was thinking when I bought this quilt and decided to restore it? Ha, ha, ha!

My intention yesterday afternoon, was to replace 2 damaged patches on my quilt and then move on to working on Maxine's quilt. It didn't quite work out that way:



I was going to replace the red stripe and then the patch with the little victorian boot on it. I did my usual thing of snapping a photo with the digi, tracing the outline of the 2 patches onto tracing paper and then I tore out those 2 bad areas. While looking at it, I realized that the navy blue patch with the work boot on it needed to be replaced as well. Yikes! It was a little scary to have 3 pieces off at the same time! Since they all ran together, I didn't have a choice.



The boot repairs were the same as the first one that I did over the weekend. I had to cut into the foundation. Unfortunately, I found (in this area) that the muslin foundation is deteriorating. I also found that this quilt suffered some serious water damage before the backing and binding were put on. After reading this article titled, "Crazy Quilts In America Then & Now" by Patricia Cummings, I may have the reason for the deteriorating muslin.

I'm sure you're now thinking "why"? Well, fabric in the old days was not measured by the yard like it is today. Instead, it was measured by weight. To make fabric "weigh more", merchants soaked it in salt of one type or another. We all know what salt does to things! And in cheating the customer of the day, these merchants also cheated many future generations from having these beautiful heirloom works of art in good condition.

Back to my rotting muslin issue, I suspect that since the quilt got wet at one time, any residue salt on the fancy fabrics, soaked into the cotton foundation and therefore has rotted that as well. So far, most of the foundation fabric is fine. But this area is an exception.

I spoke with my mom about this and she told me that it's a good thing there so much that needs to be replaced. Since I'm stitching through everything that's here, the front, the flannel layer and the back, it should hold everything together just fine. Whew!

Ok, so onto my repairs:



I was a little freaked out over having 3 patches off at one time and as you can see, I didn't quite get them back on right. I really need to not stress over this so much! In some areas, there are 5 and 6 pieces all in a section that will need to be replaced and I know that I just have to do the best I can.

I'm sure you noticed that my stitching is a bit different than what was there. The red herringbone stitch to the right of the ladies victorian boot was intentional. I wanted more stitching on that area to make sure it was all held together well.

My stitches under the work boot are a bit different because I couldn't quite see what was there in my photo on the tiny little screen on my camera and I was just too lazy to get up off my butt, come in here to the computer and transfer the image!

Anyway, this area does look much better now and I still feel good that I have the ability to save Evelyn's quilt even if I don't get it exactly the way she had it.

I'm wondering now too if the 3 boots on this quilt represent something. Perhaps 3 family members? Mom, Dad and child? I may never know for sure but it's a gut feeling that I have. Do take a moment and read the article by Patricia Cummings. It's facinating!

Ok, now I would like to ask your opinion on something. I'm going to stop at Michael's Craft Store tomorrow to pick up the gold toned handles for my Mozart purse so I can get that assembled and use it! I was wondering what ya'll think of this trim:



I like it but wonder if it's too heavy? Or does it work? Please let me know you're opinion. I have gobs and gobs of this but if you think It's too much, I'll go with something else.

A New Counted Cross Stitch Design!

I spent yesterday afternoon working on Maxine's quilt. There isn't anything all that exciting about the process on that one at the moment. All I'm doing is cutting away the deteriorated patches and appliquéing new patches on in their place. I'm not even worried about replacing the stitches at the moment since I will be doing some insane embellishing on it.

So for today, I thought you would enjoy seeing one my newest counted cross stitch designs just released in the June 2007 issue of The Cross Stitcher magazine:



The Christmas Cat appears on page 40:



This design is based on a gorgeous kitty named, "Miss Lily" who belongs to Vicki, one of my fellow bloggers. Vicki's blog is Turkey Feathers and what a great blog it is! Do check it out if you have time.

Vicki had posted a photo of Miss Lily on her blog about a year ago and I absolutely fell in love with her. I emailed Vicki and asked for her permission to use Miss Lily as a model for a cross design. The Christmas Cat is that design!

I have an extra copy of this issue of The Cross Stitcher. If anyone wants it, I'll gladly send it out to the first person who emails me with a request for it.

Making It Up As I Go Along.....

Repairing this antique quilt isn't all that different from embellishing a new piece. Each repair requires a different approach.

I started yesterday by replacing these damaged fabrics on the corner:



Here's the "after" photo:



Ok, so my herringbone stitch is a bit smaller! Ya'll know that the herringbone is not one of my favorite stitches! At least I was able to match the color!

The next repair was a bit of a challenge:



I love this little boot but I needed to replace the background fabric. The boot was appliquéd onto the quilt so it was attached to the muslin foundation. I only had one choice here, cut into the foundation fabric. Because this quilt has a backing and I'm stitching through that, cutting into the foundation was not a big deal. I did find that this quilt has a middle layer of gray flannel!

Anyway, I cut the boot off, removed the rest of the damaged fabric and replaced it with a new piece. I then cut the excess fabric away from the boot, as close to the stitching as I could and then appliqued it back onto the new patch. Here's what it looks like now:



My next repair was to deal with this spiderweb:



I'm trying to keep as much of "Evelyn's" work here as possible. Several of the threads on the web were damaged but overall, it was in pretty good shape. Rather than re-stitch the entire web, I decided to simply couch all the threads to the quilt using one strand of sewing thread in a matching color.

Here's what it looks like now:



After that repair, I replaced the stitches on several seams.

So that's what I have to share with you today! A very interesting process isn't it? There's still a long way to go on my quilt but for today, I'll be putting it to the side and focusing on repairing Maxine's quilt which doesn't have nearly as much damage as mine.

Stash!

I didn't get in any stitching time yesterday. When my husband came home from work, he asked me if I would like to go see Johnny Depp in the new Pirates movie. No need to twist my arm there! I have a thing for Johnny Depp!

I had a lovely time but I must say, now that I've seen the 3rd one, the first is definitely my favorite. I don't want to spoil it for anyone so all I'll say is that I thought the ending was totally stupid. I'll leave it at that.

On to stitching, I received some wonderful stash yesterday! My mom, was at Hobby Lobby the other day and bought me some fabrics that she thought might work on my antique Crazy Quilt:



There are several areas on my quilt where the fabric is totally gone leaving me with nothing to clue me in on what was there. In those cases, I'll just have to pick something that I like and that works and use that. These should work nicely.

Several patches are a blue & cream silk stripe fabric and several others are a red & cream stripe silk. Those are in pretty bad shape so I'll be replacing them. You can see in the photo what I'll be using to replace them. I'll most likely "age" the blue stripe with some fabric dye. It's not an exact match, but it's close enough.

More stash arrived in the mail yesterday from Lynne. In the past, I've always felt a bit embarrassed when fellow stitcher's blogged about stash that I've sent to them so I've never really shared photos of gifts here on my blog that I've received. And there have been many wonderful gifts and I truly treasure them.

After thinking about it, I realized that it was my problem and I decided that anyone who takes the time to think of me and to send me gifts deserves a public "thank you" so from now on, I will make a point to share photos of the beautiful things that I receive.

This is what arrived from Lynne in yesterday's mail:



Aren't these beautiful?!!! Lovely fabrics, lace and a very beautiful & delicate dragonfly pin! Thank you so very much Lynne for your kind and very generous gift!

Today, I would like to work some more on my quilt and I really need to get going on Maxine's quilt. I have some ideas for that one that I think will combine what she wants me to do with it along with my need to at least keep it antique looking.

I plan to do a lot of appliqué on it. Lot's of velvet yo-yo's, velvet pansies, meandering vines with couched stems and I have this really cool idea for sunflowers! I want to head over to Cartwrights Sequins & Beads and order some sequins in vintage colors. Browns, golds, dark reds and such. The ones that have the pearly finish on them rather than the bright metallic colors. This should add the sparkle that Maxine asked me for without it being gaudy. Oh, it needs butterflies too!

More tomorrow.....