Dragonfly Pouch & Gift

I spent several hours yesterday organizing my lace stash. I have a chest of 4 drawers in here and it's filled with all sorts of lace, from crocheted pieces to venice lace appliques, flat lace in a variety of colors, new things and vintage things and even some very old antique pieces. These are my treasures but after working on several projects, the drawers get a little messy. So every now and then, I like to sit on the floor, take everything out, refold it and reorganize it. This also gives me a chance to see what I all have again and to really appreciate my abundance.

Once I completed that task, I worked on my Dragonfly Cellphone Pouch and I completed it:



Isn't this pretty? It's quite different than many of my past designs!

As soon as I get a sewing day in, I'll assemble this one. I want to sew up some more cellphone pouch blocks too but in the meantime, I'll have to pull another project from my stack of already sewn ones.

I'd also like to share with you some new stash that I received. Several weeks ago, Sharon B. posted an example on her blog of stitching done with Chenille thread. This was right after I accepted the job of repairing and further embellishing Maxine's quilt. Her quilt has a lot of motifs on it worked with Chenille thread.

I emailed Sharon and asked her if she had a source for these threads and she said she would check into that for me.

Yesterday, I went to my mailbox and there was a package from Sharon:



Aren't these absolutely yummy?!!! I just can't wait to stitch with these. Can you see these couched on to make flowers? That's what I see.

Sharon, thank you so very much for sending me these gorgeous threads! I am so looking forward to playing with them!

On a final note for today, you must hop over to Allison's blog and see what she's doing with vintage floral hankies. Allison does the most amazing things with flowers so you absolutely have to see this!

Dragonfly Cellphone Pouch

After agonizing over the trim for my Mozart purse, and working on repairing the 2 antique crazy quilts that I have here, I decided it was time for some really fun stitching! I was feeling the need for some instant gratification! I pulled out this block:



I like the colors but I wasn't sure what to do with it. I went through my little box of vintage jewelry pieces and found a pretty little green dragonfly pin. I think I bought that one at the flea market that we went to on Easter morning.

Anyway, I thought it looked really nice so once I had the focal point chosen, I started stitching:



When I think of dragonflies, I often think of cattails. That's something I've never added to a CQ before and I thought it would be kind of cool looking and it is! I plan to add a few more to the other side of the solid red piece in the center but first I need to figure out where to put my cat.

It's a dreary, rainy day here, the perfect day for stitching! I want to neaten up my lace drawers a little bit and then I'll sit and stitch. If I complete this today, I'll work a bit more on Maxine's quilt afterwards. I think I only have 2 more patches to replace and then I can start embellishing that one more.

Mozart Complete! Finally!!!

Well, I finally decided on a trim for the bottom of this purse and I'm happy to say, that it is now complete and I've already used it! So without further delay, here is the finished Mozart purse:



If you would like to see a larger photo, click on the image to go to my Flickr site.

I'll keep this short today. I still have some chores to do, laundry mostly - the "always & forever task"! and then I plan to stitch.

Mozart & More!

I spent most of the day yesterday working on Maxine's quilt. I think I only have 3 more patches to replace but I got a bit bored with doing that so I started reworking the seam stitches on some of the ones that I've already replaced.

I also noticed this velvet piece with a hand-painted flower:



This needs more embellishing! So I started by stem-stitching around the flower:



I'll be adding some beads to this and then perhaps some more embroidery.

I realized that I'm obsessing about this quilt and what to do with it. My peacock idea isn't going to work out the way I had planned. That beaded area, that I spent 5 hours repairing last week is in the center! Argggg.........

Scott suggested that I start working with what's already here and once I get into that, the rest will work it's way through on it's own.

I'm overwhelmed because of the size of this quilt. The largest whole cloth quilt I've ever done is my Lucky quilt which is 29 inches square. First I'll focus on the rest of the repairs.

My other project, that I'm obsessing over is my Mozart purse. Again, thank you to everyone who took the time to give me your opinions on the 2nd trim. Taking your comments into consideration, I decided to look through my stash and find something else.

I had 3 different trims that worked. One was a salmon colored trim with a velvet ribbon running through it. It worked, but my eye went straight to the trim rather than the design.

The 2nd trim was a light blue with silver threads in it. Again, it worked but it just wasn't right.

Finally, I pulled out this ruffled trim with the metallic gold threads in it and I like but it I'm still not sure this is what I will use.



Stop by tomorrow and see what I decide on.

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?