Five and Six of Eight

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!