Crafting and doing alterations

Haven't posted for a few days--my alterations work keeps getting in the way of my fun. But I can always free up bits of time to do my favorite thing- create in fabric.



Can't seem to go long without doing some crazy quilting. Joined a cq swap in one of my postcard groups. These guys are small, but it's enough to feed my habit. I'm looking forward to receiving mine and admiring the work of others. Ok, ok, I like picking up new ideas. But I do admire the talents of others greatly!!

I have become interested in landscape quilts. I got Valerie Hearder's books Beyond the Horizon and Point of View. Excellent books, very instructive. I decided this was something I wanted to try.



I have been thinking of doing a Bob Ross painting, and thought- why not do it in fabric?



I am quite pleased with the results. I started with a yellow background fabric which I painted with watercolor pencils. Then I started piecing the foreground. I used a mixture of thread painting and the pencils to embellish . Then I framed the scene with this beautiful Native American patterned fabic and finished with a silver concho of a spinning lizard below the cactus. I like it very much, and I look forward to doing more.

A week of work

Have been doing my thing on Lindy's block in the VicCQ fall rr. I found some cute leaf buttons in fall colors at Joann Fabrics, so I chose a bronze colored block and used the buttons in the corners to surround a lace fan. I hand dyed the fan with soft greens, yellows and gold. The fan is accented with fargo roses and yellow and bronze colored seed beads. I used an olive green organza ribbon and pearls as a seam embellishment to the left.

This swap has been interesting in that I have worked with colors that I don't normally choose. I prefer the soft colors usually associated with spring. But working with the rich, deep colors of fall has been very satisfiying.

Aaaahhh, summertime!!!! Our season to season swap is summer-the time of fun in the sun and vacations. For the CQ4N swap I chose bright colors that I don't often use. Since the block will be mine when finished, I departed from the traditional handwork and used a cute machine embroidery design of that old summer standard--Sunglasses. The reflective lenses show palm trees, sailboats, fish, and seabirds. Summer just isn't summer without the appropriate footware-so a piece of timtex, a scrap of fabric, and some beads became a stylish pair of flipflops



For lounging on the beach I added a hand embroidered sling chair and a colorful beach ball created with crayons. A meandering vine with yellow flowers finishes off the seams. Now what can I do with the songbird????

My FAT group is celebrating its 3rd birthday this month. We settled on a party hat swap filled with goodies. I chose a confetti print and embellished with a bear and birthday cake machine embroidery design. I timmed the top and brim with a multicolored eyelash yarn and added a red ribbon chin tie. Now I'm off to find some goodies to fill it with.

Anything Goes block

In between alterations, I have been working on my Anything Goes block. I framed a landscape view with a lovely flowering tree. I overworked the blossoms with french knots and the branches with stem stitch. I worked a meandering stem stitch around the frame and did a scroll in the block above. I accented the scroll with a pewter art deco face button and a heart charm. It has been mailed, and I waiting to see what the other stitchers have in mind for the block. Excuse the not so good photo: my camera has not been repaired yet, and I'm still relying on my scanner.