Be My Valentine RR

This is my work on Alice's block. It was a lot of fun working on this block. (-;

Snowball for Hideko

Here is the snowball I made for Hideko.

Third CQJP Block

 
This is my third Crazy Quilted Journal Program (CQJP) block.  The picture is of my Great Grandmother's sister, Amalia "Molly" Wangerin (1886-1952).  I think she is beautiful, but her story is tragic.  At about 17 years of age, Molly became very ill and got a very high fever.  When she recovered from her illness, she was never the same again.  She had violent bouts.  As her parent's aged they could no longer care for Amalia and she was institutionalized.  I think about the loss her parents must have felt, first when Amalia's fever changed her forever and second, when they had to institutionalize her.  I also think about all of the things that Amalia missed out on in life.  That's why I put the various charms on the block.  There is a key charm to open her life to her.  There is high heeled shoes for the growing up experiences she missed out on, a bird for her freedom from mental illness, a ring with "love" imprinted on it for the love she was denied, and a wedding ring since she never married.  My youngest daughter is seventeen and I have many dreams for her future.  I hope and pray her dreams will be fulfilled.  (-;

CQJP Block 2

This is my second block for the Crazy Quilting Journal Project.  This is my Grandma when she was just a baby.  She died when I was only three years old so I didn't get to know her.  My challenge was to put on the button cluster which I don't particularly like to do.  I spend a really long time selecting the buttons.  I have a large selection of lace so I use some of them on this block.  I also tried a beaded seam treatment around the curve and I like how it turned out.  I learned how to stitch the lettering from my friend Shari.  I started out using two strands of a pink variegated thread using the stem stitch.  It looked pretty, but was a bit too thick in places and because it was variegated you couldn't read her middle name as well where the lighter thread too closely matched the background.  In the picture I've used a dark brown single strand and made the lettering using the back stitch.  So thanks to Shari.  I have a lot of pink fabrics and trims because another friend, Jill, sold me all her crazy quilting supplies and she was a great fan of pink.  It has come in handy in this block and the wedding quilt I'm working on.  I took this picture over and over again and never could get the color quilte right.  The greys on the corner are really more of a brownish grey.

Be My Valentine RR

This is Cathy L.'s block, but the work is mine for her.

Be My Valentine RR

This is Ely's block and my stitching. (-; I added the corner of the hankie in the lower left-hand corner to balance off the red in the upper right. I made the little white flowers in the upper right-hand corner out of a narrow lace trim. I thought it toned down the red fabric a bit. The "Be Mine" motif was a motif on some fabric that I cut out and appliqued down. The rest is just a button, some trims, and some seam treatments. Hope you like it Ely.

Snowball for Thearica

This is my snowball for Thearica. She wanted a hexagon in the theme of "Pigs on the Farm" -- think Charlotte's Web. I took an embroidery design for a pig from http://www.french-knots.com/cute-pig-embroidery-transfer-pattern/ and made an applique pig of some thin light pink linen. Then I accented the little guy with some embroidery. The fence is from a decorator fabric. The tree is chikan embroidery that I am learning in a class. There is a spider's web which is difficult to see in the picture, but it is made from a sparkling gold thread. The spider is dangling near the pigs tale. I also put a bullion embellished vine on the fence. I think he is cuter than this in person. Maybe I will try to get a better picture in the light tomorrow. If you single click on it you can see it better.