Sampler pattern give away

http://stitchingbyacornishseashore.blogspot.com.es/ is offering the Blue Ribbon Sampler book above in a give-away.  (-;

Victorian Ladies Round Robin

This is my work on Rengin's block.

Helen Gibb Ribbon Flower Class

On Saturday I went to two Helen Gibb classes where she taught these lovely flowers and others.  I bought kits of her gorgeous ribbons to make these -- a pansy from wired French ribbon, flat velvet rose with a gorgeous Hannah silk-satin ruffle, and a rose made from wired French ribbon. We also learned the two leaves and a couple of other tidbits.  Needless to say, I spent too much on ribbons before I was able to get out the door, but left feeling I needed more.  lol!  I can't wait to try some more, but my plate is pretty full right now.

CQ Pillow

A couple of years ago I bought what was left of Jill P.'s crazy quilting stash.  She sold me everything -- all of her supplies and even CQ blocks that she had never made anything out of.  This block was one of the blocks she gave me and today I finished it into a pillow.  This was a block that Jill stitched on her own and she put some really lovely embellishments.  It isn't evident on the picture so much, but there are little crystals and lovely old rhinestones.  I love the little hat.

Victorian Ladies DYB

This is my work on Lisa Alff's Victorian Ladies block.  I started out with the mirror (the center is a tiny silky) and it led to all sorts of Victorian pieces that could be used for the hair.  I am especially happy with the two Victorian hairpins.  On the smaller one I cut a piece of wire out of some chicken fence, bent it the way I wanted, and then used a product I recently bought called Inka Gold to color it.  Very cool stuff.  It is like a wax that buffs up to a nice sheen and comes in all sorts of colors.  You can color charms with it too.  I think the color I used was called antique gold.  I learned about it on Joggles where they have a tutorial on ways to use it. The floral top is a gorgeous vintage jewelry part of which I had several.  I chose one that was missing a stone so I could replace it with a purple crystal that went better with the block.  The other hair pin came from two jewelry parts.  The pins came off a hair pin that had a huge gold butterfly on it.  The decorative jeweled piece came off a bracelet.  It had several of these jeweled pieces on it and I picked the one I liked best.  For the heart around Lisa's silky I copied a design off of a Victorian card.  I hope Lisa will like my work -- I certainly had fun doing it.

Horn Book

This is a horn book project I finished this week.  I started it last year as part of an Embroiderer's Guild project.  It was sitting in a project pile for months with most of the stitching done.  I guess the finishing intimidated me a bit, but once I got started, it was pretty easy.  It is based on horn books that were used in centuries past.  They were used as a children's primer and usually contained the alphabet and possibly the Lord's Prayer.  I found the site here where the designer offers this project to groups:  http://www.withmyneedle.com/WMNHornbooks.pdf  If you google horn books and look at the images, you will see all sorts of interesting horn books.  Mine is used to hold skeins of floss for a project.

Water Color Pencils

This is my first attempt at a drawing with my watercolor pencils.  I may try to use it as a silky in one of my memory quilts.  The drawing is of a ring box my Grandmother owned that is sitting in the center of a lace tablecloth edging my great grandmother made.  My great grandmother, Bertha, is pictured in the center of the photo below and her mother, Helena, is on the right.  Two of the other ladies are her sisters.  The photo was taken in 1885 when they made lace in Winterthur, Switzerland.  Wouldn't I like to have some of it now?  I think they must also have made tapestries since there is a tapestry hanging in the background.  Take a looks at the hanks of thread -- silk?