4th of Eight

My Good Fortune

I just bought a bunch of charms and rhinetones that will go very nicely on a CQ quilt. This gal had been collecting them for years and just decided to sell them. There are some really nice metal charms of Christmas ornaments, stars and Egyptian design. There are also tons of rhinestones and crystal stone settings. Most of these are either beads or have some other way they can be attached to the fabric.

Third of Eight

Valentine Inchy Swap Block three

Second of Eight

Valentine's Inchy Swap Block 2

First of Eight

I am doing a swap with my neighbor, Laurie, from "Indulge your Shelf" blogging fame. She is involved with a group that is doing a Valentine's inchie swap and she invited me to participate. The swap involves making 3-inch fabric embellished blocks in a Valentine theme. Since there are 8 swappers, I have to make 7 blocks for trade and one that I'll make for myself to keep the block numbers such that I'll be able to make a finished project more easily. The blocks I receive won't necessarily be crazy quilted, but since that's what I do...

On these blocks I tried a new technique of printing on ribbons that I learned from a book called Fabric Embellishing, The Basics and Beyond by Ruth Chandler, Lis Kettle, Heather Thomas, and Lauren Vlcek. The book is rich with ideas for embellishing with great instructions, and practically, it is spiral bound. This ribbon may not be the best example of the technique because there is not enough contrast between the ribbon and the words. You will see better examples in the remaining seven blocks. I can see a tremendous application of these ribbons for my memory quilt.

English Garden Round Robin Blocks

These are my blocks for the CQI English Garden Round Robin. We are still waiting for one more person to sign up, but I am a little paranoid about all the commitments I've made for this year already and am not letting any grass grow under my feet!

Decoupaged buttons and tiles

When I was at the CQI retreat, Kerry taught us how to do decoupaged buttons. Recently I found Annie Howe's Keepsake's (a blog) that teaches you how to do nearly the same thing with scrabble tiles. (http://anniehoweskeepsakes.blogspot.com/2008/03/how-to-make-gorgeous-scrabble-tile.html)

I decided to try using the scrabble tiles since I knew just where to find some at my local antique store, and had also found some old flat wooden beads that I also wanted to experiment with (aren't these the coolest!). All I needed was the tiles/beads, some images printed on paper, Mod Podge, and some diamond glaze. I decided to burn the edges of some of my pictures so I also had a candle and a wet rag handy. Let me tell you that I needed the wet rag. It was easy for these little images to burst into flame, so be careful if you try it!

First, I placed the image on the tile/bead and held it up to the light so I could find the right placement. Holding it in place I cut around the image with a scissors. Then I brushed some mod podge (like a glue) on the tile/bead and placed the image on the mod podge pressing it so it would lay flat. Then I took an exacto knife to further trim the image; well I really used a scissors, but an exacto knife would have been better. lol! Brush with the mod podge and let dry 15 minutes. Then brush the crystal glaze over the mod podge and let dry 24 hours. You can put another coat on after about 5 minutes and then let it dry for the 24 hours if you want. The crystal glaze makes a really thick shiny (like glass) coating on the tile/bead.

These tiles/beads are so cute and you can sew them onto fabric by glueing felt on the bottom and then sewing the felt to your fabric (thanks to Gerry K. which is where I first got this idea) and/or you can bead them on using the peyote stitch.

I am making a memory quilt so I also tried to print some family photos in miniature and put them on the tiles/beads and they turning out really well! Just make sure your image is not too small.