Blocks - Crazy, Sane and Mental

Well, the mental block is nothing new. If I want to focus on something, I have to write it down. Yesterday, I made up a list of things I wanted to get done and by golly, I did get most of them done. But sometimes I am unrealistic. In addition to cleaning 2 bathrooms, changing the catbox, cleaning the kitchen and mopping its floor, preparing and mailing my Etsy orders, doing 4 loads of laundry, doing a blog post (that I forgot to send until today), and writing long overdue letters (emails), I thought I could quilt the in-process baby quilt, cut out another one, and dye the last of the seaweed lace. Yeah, only if I went without sleep. So, Monday’s goals will probably spread out over the entire week. And maybe I should go with the flow instead of writing daily goals?

So I said a post or two back that I would share the work that the ladies in our recent Lace & Pearls Round Robin (for Crazy Quilting International) did on my blocks. Previously, I shared the work I did on their blocks, but this is the lusciousness that I got back.

Barbara W. always does amazing flowers!

This is Gayle’s lovely work. Wish I’d given her a bigger piece of lace - my bad.

Connie K did this gorgeous work.

Andrea did the lower right area and Connie finished up this block for her.

Liz R used the lace to make a peacock! Isn’t it amazing?

And this is the block that awaits my stitching.  

A few of my female relatives and I have started a Sunday Sewing Session. My cousins Carrie and Kim (who went to Arizona with us and are really my hubby`s nieces even though they are roughly my age), along with Carrie`s grown daughter Jenny (who has two kids that stay at home with their daddy) get together in my studio from 10am-ish to 2 or 3-ish on Sunday to sew.  Having a regular few hours to stitch has enabled me to get a lot done. I`ve been helping Carrie with our local quilt shop`s Block of the Month (BOM) blocks (which are red and black and white and I have no pictures of because I give them back to her).  And she has been helping me organize my stash of quilting fabric.

It`s not finished yet, but it is sure looking better. Thanks, Carrie! I love you!  :-)

Last year in January I started an online BOM and only got the very first one done. That’s because February’s block was awful - paper pieced center block with 8 sections, and I could not get it. I finally got smart and made the center plain. I figure the quilt police won`t show up and arrest me or anything, LOL.  That block is on the left, below.  The right block is the same line of fabric (Notting Hill by Joel Dewberry) plus some birdie fabric. That pattern is the one we have for March for our local BOM. I don’t like how those 2 strips came together to make that big oval in the lower left, but I am still undecided about fixing it.  What do you think?

So now I have 3 blocks done for this quilt, which will eventually be for me. But it is a long-term project to work on here and there.

Finally, I have another CQ block to finish by the end of June for a friend. I can`t really talk about it, but this is it`s start:

I am still in the idea-gathering stage. I`ve been researching and reading and pinning pictures on a private Pinterest board, collecting online pix, sketching ideas in a sketchbook, etc.  I have given myself another week (until the end of the month) for this phase before I gather all my possible supplies and begin piecing the block.  And then everything will probably change, or at least morph as I go along. It’s always a fluid process, isn’t it?  

Now can you see why I finally cut yesterday’s post short and published the first half this morning?  This second half was way long, and together - sheesh. I need to blog more often.  

By the way, I will have one more post either today or tomorrow. Subject: Lace Seaweed. It is all dyed up and just needs to be packaged and listed in my Etsy shop. That’s what I am doing this afternoon.  Oh, and for those of you who commented (or wrote to me) saying that 11 yards of seaweed lace isn`t very much, I neglected to mention that it is 13” wide. It really IS a lot. I’ve been dreaming seaweed. . .

Hugs,

Just a Teaser (if you like Seaweed)

I have spent waaaaay too much time dyeing laces lately.  Awhile back one of my suppliers offered me a deal on some vintage lace that looked to me like seaweed. To a seamstress, that would not be particularly appealing, but to a crazy quilter, WHAT A FIND!   I purchased all of it (11 yards) and now have a lifetime supply of lace seaweed, LOL.

The problem was that this (rayon per the supplier) lace is acting more like a rayon/poly blend and has been quite difficult to dye.  I have been playing with it for a couple weeks and finally found what works and what doesn`t.

There are a few more colors I want to get made up, like brighter oranges, some pinks, plus some greens that are more emerald.  Then I have to decide how to package them (by color? in assortments? with other lace sea growth? some undyed? all of the above?) and then price accordingly.  So, it will be another week before they are listed in my shop. And then we can all go crazy with our Under the Sea themed blocks!!

In the meantime, though, I do have a new Spring Woodland inspiration assortment of fabrics, trims, laces (and beads, buttons, a silkie print) available in my Etsy shop.

I am very close to having not one, but TWO baby quilts done to show off, so I will be back with that next week.  In the meantime, I will photograph and show you my Lace & Pearls blocks that I got back from the other ladies in our recent RR. You will recall that I’ve been showing my work on their blocks, one by one. Now it is time to show you the lovely work they did for me on my blocks.  Later this week.  :-)

Hugs,

Lace, Pearls and a Magazine

For all you Crazy Quilters or embroiderers or art quilters out there, the new issue of Crazy Quilt Gatherings from Pat Winter is now available at Mag Cloud here.   I’ve ordered mine and  am excited to get it because my friend Susie Wolfe is featured. Her lovely Christmas Tree skirt, which she started almost two years ago (and I mentioned in the post about our visit to her home here) is on the cover.  It looks like the feature is a few pages long and has lots of pictures.  Believe me, Susie’s stitching is beyond beautiful.  It is meticulous and creative and a real inspiration. An eye candy overload, I promise!!  This issue is worth the cover price for Susie’s stitching alone!!

And I have been doing some stitching myself.  This time it was for Elizabeth, my friend in Kansas. We are participating in the Lace & Pearls round robin at Crazy Quilting International.   For some reason, her blocks really spoke to me, blue notwithstanding!

There were two stitchers previous to me who had each completed their own 6” block for Elizabeth.  One of them, Gayle, had used a piece of vintage beaded lace that she had purchased from me at the CQI Retreat in September.  To coordinate with her block, and since I had more of that lace, I also used it. It is the lace in the upper right corner. Barbara, who had done the other block for Liz, had made blue flowers out of Mokuba ribbon, so I did the same (although I reversed the light and dark) to further coordinate the blocks with one another.  Finally, Liz had given us the Irish crocheted lace to each include on the blocks, and I used that in the upper left.

The light brown gathered ribbon in the upper left was raided from a thrift store find and given to me by my friend Bev. The other laces are all vintage. This was so much fun for me to do. I am just loving the Lace and Pearls theme!!

My Weight Watchers weigh-in was this morning, and I maintained my current weight - no loss or gain. But that is just fine, as I have lost 16 pounds even to date.  I had my Thanksgiving day all planned out nutritionally, and now we have been invited to Cousin Carrie`s.  Some of the family is Jewish, so we will be celebrating not only Thanksgiving, but Hanukkah, which some are calling Thanksgivukkah.  (Does that mean that Adam Sandler needs to write another Thanksgiving song?)

Hugs,

Snowball and Brussels Lace and London

Hello dear friends. This is a catch-up, catch-all post.

First, let me share with you the lovely Snowball that Connie made for me.  We traded, and you may remember my cream, gold and bronze Snowball for her from previous posts.  I had asked for a Snowball in bright colors. “Think Kaffe Fasset”,  I said. Well, Connie did an awesome job, don’t you think?  I LOVE LOVE LOVE it!!  Thank you so much, Connie! It is perfect.

I plan to mount it in a hoop and hang it on my white studio walls around my thread storage pictured here.

* * * * * * * * * *

We are in the process of constructing blocks at Crazy Quilting International in colors and themes that represent the flags and countries of our members. Those blocks, in turn, will be assembled into a traveling international wall hanging.  Pam in Seattle is working on the Belguim block, and it has been a gorgeous work-in-process that has just come together amazingly.  Go see it on her blog and read how she chose the various symbols. When she first added all the lace, it sparked quite a discussion on CQI. And that very same day I happened to see the following framed lace on Etsy, and bought it on the spot.

My picture-taking skills do not do it justice, but it is just gorgeous. It, too, will hang in my studio.  Thank you, Pam, for inspiring me and sparking me to go on a quest to learn more about the beautiful laces produced in Belguim.  By the way, here is a great resource that I have bookmarked and would like to share with you.  It is The Lace Fairy’s Lace Identification website.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

I got to play with London again on Wednesday afternoon, which was a warm and sunny day here in the Salt Lake Valley.  Once I resigned myself to the fact that a nap was NOT going to happen, we went outside and played.  First, she rode (and I taught her how to steer) a little motorized pink car.  It is a good thing she has 14 more year to practice driving before getting a license! And then we discovered all the joys of the Back Yard. The first thing she asked me, and I have no idea how she remembered this, is “where are the grapes?” referring to our barren grape arbor. I had to explain that as it gets warmer and the vines start growing, it will go from this (picture from last year)

to this:

2009 or so

So, we played with her shovel and pail out in the garden, explored the rock pile and wood pile, climbed the hill of garden mulch waiting to be added, and generally got very dirty.  It was a blast!

Grammy, you need to paint the rails this year!

Until next time!

TAST 5, Studio Reshuffle, and an Enjoyable Day

Someone needs to come over to my house and force me to sit down and stitch until I get caught up. That person is NOT my granddaughter London.  London is one of those “Grammy, look at me!” girls who wants to wow me with every new concept she learns (and yes, sucker doting Grammy here is always wow’ed).  Are 2 year olds (2 ½ at the end of this month) supposed to be dexterous enough to write with a pencil, then use the pencil eraser to erase it?  So grown up. And then a few minutes later when we are adding raisins to the cookie dough, she eats the raisins saying “I love raisins!" But then she asks if they are “chokkit chips”, and THEN asks if they are bugs.   Bruce announced last night after London went home that he now knows how grandkids get their energy; they suck it out of their grandparents.  And we plopped ourselves down and watched TV for two blissful, mind-numbing hours.

But I need to stitch. Thank goodness the weekend is here!!

So, let me show you that I have done a few seams.  After all, London does recharge nap. These seams are on my journal cover.  The basic herringbone was accented with a plain stitch in a varigated red, white and green cotton.  I used that same stitch to do a buttonhole stitch (bottom left corner) along one edge of the trim, too.  It adds just the right amount of random white into the intense red, green and black mix.

Below is another herringbone, this time laced with a contrasting thread. 

This weekend I will finish up my chevron seams (week 6) and get those posted on Monday.

But I had such an ENJOYable day today, that I want to share it with you.  Enjoy is my word for the year, so the other day I ordered a wall sign for my office area (from a great Etsy shop). I am at the computer a lot, blogging for me or for CQI, reading and writing emails, playing Jigzone, listing things in my Etsy shoppe, reading blogs, etc., so I thought what better place to put it?

That is all that I will let you see of my mess of an office.  I have piles everywhere, and this time of year (taxes) makes it doubly messy. But I know where everything is!!!!!!!   yeah, right...

And then I also got these in the mail today, also an Etsy purchase.

Aren’t those pink nautilus shell beads the bomb???  I am going to add them to my seascape valance whenever I get back to stitching on it.    And those vintage … thingys… um, navettes (what is a navette?).  Aren’t they cool, too??  Good mail day!!

This morning I went to an estate sale.  The ad said the deceased was a crafter and sew-er.  Yes, she certainly was.  My big score was not crafty stuff, though (although I did get silk ribbon and some linens), it was storage. This woman had a bazillion plastic storage cabinets, and I needed more.  So, I found the perfect one for my cut fabrics (for fabric packs), and moved them into it.  That resulted in me shuffling around all sorts of other things for hours, getting lost in my stash.  You know how that goes.  So, my silk ribbon got new storage.

Pay no attention to that pile of red velvet above - it needs to be cut up and filed away. Below, the new  drawer unit I moved the cut fabrics into fit perfectly right next to my shelves along one wall of the studio.

The painting was done by my son Shane (London’s dad) when he was in high school. He won lots of awards for it.  But I digress.  So, while I was snapping pictures, I thought I would show you this area of my studio that I haven’t shown before.  Mostly everything in my studio is functional, but a few of these shelves display some sweet gifts, sentimental items, or just cool stuff.

This dish on the top shelf holds some vintage shell pins.

Vintage millinery fruit (?) and vintage ribbonwork

Some pincushions made by Gerry K (gold), Lisa B (pink), Jo N (tall blue) and  Laurie B (cup and saucer).  Bracelets by me.

Vintage hat, gloves, purse circa 1940s.  Peacock feather fan circa 1900.

Back: cups for future pin cushions. Front:  decorated tin from Simona.
Right: vintage pincushion chair to redo.

Lace to be sorted. Ballerina hankie holder was a gift from Freda B.

Tan tin used to hold my mom’s sewing miscellany. Other I’ve just collected

Bottom shelf holds home dec trims, belts, purse handles, etc. for purse-making

And continuing right along with this mish-mash post, I had this great idea that my potassium permanganate way of dyeing rayon venice lace would look nice on other colors of lace that are mixed with white. Now, black and white venice lace (or any color and white) are really difficult to find. I didn’t find one store in the Los Angeles fabric district that carried it. But I did find an online source. It’s very expensive, but I bought a yard of 10.5” wide black and white lace to play with.
 



The result?  Glorious!! Black and golden lace that is not metallic!  So classy!  So lovely!  So …. so what am I going to do with it? I don’t know yet.  Make a black and gold purse? (been there, done that. I don’t need another). Sell it online? Maybe - but I would have to figure out how to cut it up. In pieces? Sell it by the quarter yard? For now, I am not going to worry about it; too much else going on. And I have to see if other styles are available. But isn’t it lovely?

The average person would have made this into three or four separate posts, I know.  :-)  Or at the very least warned you at the beginning, LOL.  So, now I am caught up on blogging!  hehehehe   And I will see you back here in a couple days with more stitching samples and who knows what else!

ENJOY!

Fabric Postcards

Over at Crazy Quilting International, we are having our first swap of the year, and the subject is postcards. The only time I have ever done a postcard was in a Helen Gibb class back in 2009 at the CQ retreat in Omaha.   Here is that card from almost 3 years ago.

While the thought of experimenting with other methods of constructing a postcard (like crazy quilting) did occur to me, I thought I would stick to a tried-and-true formula for me.  I love the feminine look with a printed silk image  as a focal point, with lots of lace, ribbon and flowers.

So these are the two that I came up with, below.

I really tried not to foof up this one (above) too much, but that was the best I could do, LOL.  There are some vintage elements in it, like the meandering pink and blue trim (purchased at Piecemakers in So. Cal. years ago), the two little flowers above it, and the center leaf thingy above that.  The rose and trim above the silkie print is my own golden dyed lace of course, and that is layered over some vintage lace.  The leaf that you can barely see in the lower right was actually cut from a 7” piece of a three-figure-per-yard fabric I bought several years ago in Denver. Yep, I only bought 7” - they would only cut it along complete motifs, and I could not afford 14”, LOL. 

This one is my favorite!

All the laces on this one are vintage.  So are the vintage millinery flowers along the silkie print left upper side and the millinery leaf “fan” she is holding in her hand.

I will put these in sleeves and mail them in envelopes instead of as postcards.  Actually, I only signed up to swap one postcard, but I want to give Debbie the hostess (I doubt if she reads my blog, LOL) her choice of one first as a giftie.  :-)  Anyway, I forgot to take a picture of the backs, but they are covered in a coordinating cotton.  In the center layer is a piece Tyvek that I bonded to the front and back, then zig-zagged over the edges.

Now, back to the sewing machine!  I have been making fleece jackets for my two grand-dogs. They are coming over for a fitting tomorrow courtesy of my DD Megan and DSIL Ron; the dogs Chip and Charlie have yet to learn how to drive.

Hugs,

California Dreamin'

Last week, Susie Wolfe invited Gerry K and I to spend the week with her at her home in Southern California.  We had been planning this for awhile, and we all agreed that it was better than Christmas!! To add to my excitement, SoCal is where I was born and raised, so it was doubly delightful to see some of my old “haunts”.

As Gerry K related in her post we had ABSOLUTELY the best time. Susie was the most gracious hostess, providing us yummy soups for dinner, all the breakfast fixins, chauffeur service (LOL), and her lovely, generous self. Oh, and she had the cutest dog named Smoky, who kindly put up with us, too.

Susie and Smoky

Susie kept her pink Christmas tree up so that we could see it. She is making a pink, cream and mint green tree skirt (with silver accents) for her CQJournal Project for 2012, so the hunt for those colors were her Shopping Mission.

Gerry’s Shopping Mission was Anything Gold, and she was also on the lookout for velvet ribbons and any special treasure, of course.  :-)

Our first full day, Saturday, was spent in the Los Angeles Fabric District. In six hours, we barely scratched the surface of the shops and their offerings, yet were able to find fantastic deals on beautiful things. We spent some serious coin.  :-)

Susie and Gerry loved Berger Beads (as do many other people I know), but not being a major bead person myself, I found their dusty boxes and lackluster displays boring.  Blasphemy!  I know, I know. But I am the lace person. And fabrics. And linens. But I digress...

Gerry generously shared her pushcart with us, and we managed to fill it up every day with our purchases. (Imagine that!)

At the Rose Bowl Flea Market on Sunday, Susie knew all THE places we would love, and guided us there. The first stop was the linens lady. The pile on the tarp in front of me was $1 per piece.  Other prices were more (and some less). It was a blast digging through it.

But by far my favorite place was the Lace Lady, where we were all so busy that we didn’t get a picture. It was delightful to meet Dawn, and I am thrilled to have a wonderful new contact and supplier. And I am sure she was thrilled to exchange her lace for all the green stuff ($$) I left behind, LOL.

It was 80 degrees that day, and we stopped for some liquid refreshment. Here is Susie with some lovely gardens in the background.

And here the red flowers in the background accent Gerry’s red outfit.  We were all smiles!

On Monday Susie took us to M&L Fabrics.  Gerry showed some pictures of the main room on her blog. There were rows and rows of “regular” fabrics. But I wanted to show you one of the nearly dozen walls (or aisles) of fancy fabrics. A Crazy Quilter’s dream!

And the trim shop nearby yielded both Susie and Gerry lots of gold. And silver, too.

Again, it was another bright, clear, warm and sunny day in Southern California. I had forgotten how much I love (and miss) palm trees.

Tuesday was our day for the San Fernando Flea Market.  Again, Susie knew all the right vendors. This fabulous fabric and trim booth was one of our very favorites.  Between this shop, M&L fabrics, and all my lace acquisitions, I had to mail two large boxes of goodies home (in addition to stuffing my suitcase and carry-on).  You will eventually be seeing some of these lovely fabrics in my Etsy shop.

This booth (below) was a highlight. We dug through tables full of appliques.  Gerry mentioned on her blog that they were $1 each, but that is incorrect.  They were 50c each (2/$1).  When I was done there, my arms were overflowing, and I paid $15.00.  Talk about gold in California . . .

Below, Susie is wearing a hat that she found at this fantastic booth at the Rose Bowl.  The owner of the booth made mostly girls dresses, with little hats, purses and headbands to coordinate. But she also had some delightful women’s hats, and while I was buying spring outfits for my granddaughters, Susie was being practical and bought this darling hat!

We spent Wednesday visiting Thrift shops and scoring some great deals on half-price silk garments, other fancy fabrics and trims.  Susie also found a cute cup and saucer to make a pincushion in.  Here we are, below, butting up and sharing our thrifting finds.

The most hilarious find was this belt buckle that Susie found and bestowed upon Gerry:

It was such a great week, and the three of us had a marvelous time.  It meant so much to spend such a perfect week with dear friends.  I love you, Susie and Gerry!!

Hugs,