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!

Victorian Strawberry Ornaments Crazy Quilts

As promised, my strawberry ornaments have ripened and are ready for picking!

If you're new to my blog, these are Victorian style Crazy Quilt Strawberry Ornaments.  Small pieces of fabric are randomly pieced to a foundation fabric and then hand embroidered with fancy stitches and beadwork along with other pretty embellishments.  I hand painted vintage crocheted doilies for the strawberry tops and added new and vintage flowers along with a ribbon for hanging.

Picking Strawberries can be done here.

If anyone would prefer to make their own, I have an instructional booklet for making your own Crazy Quilt Strawberry Ornaments at Magcloud.

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!