Projects and Christmas Cracker

There are just a few things I wanted to share before year end.  In my next post, I will have some vintage New Years images for you, but first…

This was the Christmas Cracker I got from Molly P. in the Crazy Quilting International annual Christmas Cracker Swap.  Thank you, dear Molly! The pieced block that covered the cracker is awesome, and I will definitely use that - I think it’s time for a new Christmas pillow.  I love the beads and sequins, finger cots and beading thread - all sorts of good things I can use.  And I especially love the lavender lace lamb!! This was such a fun giftie!

As I was finishing up the piecing of my CQ Journal Project yesterday (finished photo in the next day or two). I realized that the center needlepoint I plan to use only has a salvageable area of 15x15”, not 16 x 16 as I had originally planned.  That just means that the finished block area will have to be 7.5 x 7.5 inches each, but I need to re-mark each block (at least on the back), or I will end up having to chop off things I don’t want to. I know. I’ve done THAT before.

My daughter Megan has two dogs, Chester and Charlie.  She asked me if I would make “the granddogs” some winter coats. She bought the fleece, I bought the pattern and have cut them out according to their measurements. The plan is to get these done over the New Years weekend. We keep waiting to get snow this winter, but even so, it’s very cold and they need some protection. *Sigh*  Yep, I’m a sucker!  ;-)

My step-daughter Emily is having fun with her Cricut machine, and this is the sign she made me for Christmas.  Isn’t it cute?  She made one for Bruce that says “Laboratory”.  Hehehe, she knows us too well.

With that, I am off to fill orders and get them mailed today, last mailing of the year.  It’s been a great year for Cathy’s Crazy by Design.  Thank you all for your friendship and support.

Hugs,

Holidays and other Preparations

My goodness - this message has been sitting in my draft box for a week! Life just keeps hitting me up one side and down the other, LOL. What a crazy time of year!   

As I mentioned before, I'll be participating in the Crazy Quilt Journal Project for 2012.  You may remember that last summer I found the needlepoint picture below at an estate sale.  It has lovely bright flowers with a black background. And I asked you, my readers, how you would frame it. In the emails I received, the majority of the responses agreed with my gut feeling, which was to piece black or mostly-black blocks to surround the needlepoint. Then, stitch the seams with the bright colors of the flowers to tie them all together, to complement the center without overwhelming it.

So, there will be 12 blocks pieced, each will finish to 8” square, although they are pieced about a half inch larger on each side now. The center piece will be trimmed to 16” x 16”, the length and width of two blocks.

As you can see, I am including some dark greens and reds in with the black, although the pictures make them look lighter than they are. In real life, they read very dark and will blend in nicely when stitched on. 

In Crazy Quilting International, we are also doing our annual Christmas Cracker Swap. These are the crackers I sent to my recipient. There is always such talk of anticipation, and ladies who don`t know if they can wait until December 24 or 25. So, I included a little “cheater cracker” - the white one - that my recipient could open immediately (which she did, LOL).

Christmas fabrics and trims were inside that one. The larger, main cracker, holds other goodies that are not seasonal, but will hopefully bring some smiles to her!

I have been meaning to post a picture FOREVER (well, at least two months) of this cute little vintage bicycle pin I bought on Etsy. It reminds me of the bicycle I stitched on my I Love Paris purse last year. Isn’t it just a simple, charming design? I am going to use it as inspiration for a stitched bicycle in the future.

“I Love Paris” Purse 2010

I had to laugh when my friend Connie Eyberg had a bicycle pin pictured on her blog. See her bicycle pin in her gorgeous Boho bag here. Great minds think alike!

And finally, I have snapped a few shots of our simple Christmas decorating this year, but they turned out awful. Yep, that’s what happens when you do it in the evening. Maybe I will remember sometime during the day when there is light enough to SEE!  What a concept!

Take care, and take time for yourself this season.

Christmas Crackers and Steampunk Block

Did you all have a nice Christmas? (Or a nice Whateveryoucelebrate?) Ours was an almost textbook perfect day, with the exception of one daughter who lives with her family in another state and could not make it to Utah. Personally, now that Christmas is past, I am grateful for a few days to relax and take a few deep breaths. Now I just have to psyche up to begin taking down the decorations and tree.

In the meantime, I’d like to share the Christmas Crackers I received from our Crazy Quilting International swap, as well as some other personal gifties.

Ely sent me a Christmas Cracker wrapped in this lovely crazy-pieced block! The fabrics she used are all very beautiful, and she really put a lot of effort into making a divine gift!

And here are the goodies that dear Ely included INSIDE the cracker. More beautiful fabrics (and I mean BEAUTIFUL), buttons, lace, trims ... WOW.  Thank you so much, Ely!

My second cracker was from Lorrie R in Canada, and her cracker, too was wrapped up in a lovely block she had pieced. She also included a wonderful (and thoughtful) note.  Lorrie is masterful with details - the cracker was tied up with red glitzy rick-rack and had little purple jingle bells on the bows!

Her gorgeous fabrics were all beautiful fancy solids and incredible Christmas sheers to coordinate and overlay. I love Christmas sheers and have used them quite a bit in my Christmas stitching in the past.  But it’s been hard to find any lately, and these just made me weak in the knees!! Thank you, Lorrie!  You can also see how generous Lorrie was with threads, beads, buttons and more!

And Stacie B., who is a new CQ’er with whom I’ve become friends, was so sweet to surprise me with these lovely tatted flowers. Or snowflakes. I can use them as either, and definitely WILL be using them.  Aren’t they darling? I love tatting, but can’t do it myself. However, I know the effort that goes into making tatted motifs. By the way, Stacie, any time you want to come over and teach me to tat, mi casa es su casa, OK?? Thanks you for your generosity, my friend! And what a cute envelope, too!

And last, but certainly not least, were these glamourous goodies that my friend Diane M from Canada sent to me. You may remember that Diane stayed with me for a few days here in Utah before we drove together to our CQI retreat in Colorado last September/October. The fabrics are lovely embroidered fabrics. The two charms, which are both sea-themed, will go onto my Seashore Valance, which is on a back burner for now (but is on my New Year’s list of projects to be completed the first half of 2011).

Look at those lovely white things! Are they shade pulls? I guess I should ask if they WERE shade pulls, because I can definitely see them as treetops, peacock tails, partial snowflakes, fans, etc. Oh my! I am planning to have a contest or drawing sometime in early 2011, and ONE of those will be in there. I reserve the right to be greedy and keep the rest for myself, LOL!!  :-) Thank you, dear Diane!!

Below is the CQ-ed heart ornament that I made for my friend Leslie.  The picture is of Sheba, her sweet furchild who lost her battle with cancer this past fall.   Sheba was a great pooch, and had been a part of our CQI Retreats in 2008 and 2009.  Just a great companion!  I have felt so badly for Leslie, knowing what a close bond they had.

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This is the block I pieced for our Steampunk Round Robin at Crazy Quilting International.  It’s a 12” block and will be worked on by four other ladies before it returns home to me.

If you aren’t familiar with the steampunk style, it is basically described as Victorian (or romantic Victorian) meets technology and science fiction. Think of steam-powered computers with heavy brass keys, black lace Goth-inspired Victorian clothing, monocle-wearing men with pocket watches.  Gears and ornamentation and clocks and time machines ...  If this confuses more than clarifies, just Google the term “steampunk”.

And so, five us of crazy ladies will attempt to translate the look and feel of Steampunk into crazy quilting.  Now that ought to be fun!

Christmas Crackers Finished

Every year at Crazy Quilting International, we have a Christmas Cracker exchange.  These are fashioned after the English Christmas Crackers; however, ours contain CQ goodies like fabrics, beads, laces, etc.  We sign up to prepare and mail from 1-3 crackers (which are cardboard tubes filled with the goodies then wrapped and tied) to different members as assigned.  In turn, we receive as many as we send from others.  This year I signed up for two.  These are the finished crackers:

The cover fabric is a pre-done patchwork Christmas fabric that I purchased at JoAnn Fabrics about three years ago.  But inside......... well, I can’t say.   The recipients will receive them soon (if they haven’t already) and will just have to wait for Christmas to open them!

In the meantime, I’m waiting for the postman to deliver mine!  Isn’t it wonderful exchanging gifts with like-minded people who know and understand what you love?

Christmas Crackers and Rick-rack

On the Crazy Quilting International List, we do an annual Christmas Cracker swap.  Christmas Crackers, as you probably know, are an English custom.  At CQI we sign up for one, two, or three crackers to swap, and the swap hostess gives us the names and addresses of our recipients.  We then take a cardboard tube (like from a roll of paper towels), cut it to 7" in length, and stuff it with goodies relating to crazy quilting.   The outside is decorated with a nice piece of fabric or a pieced block (whatever you want), and then sent off to your person(s).  In return, you get crackers from two different people.  It's so much fun, and is a really good way of making friends around the world.

This is the Christmas Cracker that I got from Karrin.  It was covered with the gold-starred green satin and filled with everything else.  I really love the sheers she sent; I've always bought them whenever I could find them at JoAnn's, but this years our local stores didn't have any.  They're so gorgeous when scrunched up on Christmas stockings or blocks.  And look at all those threads!!  She even included some John James needles.  How thoughtful! Thank you Karrin for putting together such a  SUPER cracker!

This next cracker was from Maria in Portugal.

Maria went all-out as you can see.  I loved the postcards she sent of the area in which she lives, plus one that told of a popular Portugese legend.  She even sent a darling cock to match the story!  And the CD of Portugese music particularly touched me; it is so beautiful.  I'm accustomed to listening to hours of music in foreign languages (thanks to my love of the great tenor, Andrea Bocelli), and this CD had lots of lovely melodies, great voices, and music.

And then there were all the goodies: ribbons, ornaments, a cherub candle, a cute stitched folksy heart (I *really* love that), and the beautiful block that Maria pieced that included tatting and other embellishments.  Maria, you were sooooo generous!  Thank you from the bottom of my heart!

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DH & I went to the thrift store yesterday; he wanted to buy a leather belt.  He uses them to make straps for his guitars and banjos, and since he got a new banjo (or should I say ANOTHER new banjo, LOL) for Christmas, this trip was actually his idea.   Of course I had to go along to shop keep him company!  I resisted the urge to buy a lot (you have no idea!).  But I did pick up a little bit of lace (no picture), and a bag of "stuff".  You know how they jumble things together in a bag and sell it for a buck or two.  Well, this bag was stuffed with rick-rack and vintage trim for $1.99. 

 I still need to separate the purples.  These pieces were all used, so as I separate them, I'm pulling off the threads.  This will come in very handy to use in all my sewing (aprons, tea towels, pillows) where I like to combine modern and vintage fabric and trims.  Plus, once it's ironed and neatly stashed, I can use some of it in the squishies I put together for the monthly giveaways at CQI.

Now I've got to begin sorting Christmas pictures.  Ninety-nine percent of the pictures were of the grandkids who visited, LOL. 

Hugs,