Merry Christmas!

I want to wish every one out there in bloggerland a very merry Christmas and a Happy new year,Wish me luck,
this Holiday season I am flying into Chicago tomorrow, christmas day, to see my kiddies and Just to remind everyone it could be worse! this is Niagara falls in 1911, frozen completely over!

I hope the new year brings you every joy.

Mundane quilt rescue

well here is the new project, my DS childhood quilt,
he has had it since he was 6 or 7, I took it away from him, when I discovered him walking around with it serape style and gave him another quilt until I could fix it.
that is now just as dead, deader even.






I have had it in the to-do pile for far to long and finally decided it would be a fitting christmas surprise to get it back to him this year.
Especially since he keeps bugging me to have it back.
the problem is how to fix the great honkin' hole in the quilt top,







so first I closed the hole in the front, It being the smaller of the two,


replacing the three inch squares was as easy as they come!


why I did not do this sooner is anyone's guess.

probably a misguided attempt to teach him to take better care of the things he loves.

I should have taken a closer look at his childhood stuffed cat, carelessly tossed strategically close to his pillow every morning.



the front was not as damaged as i originally thought, here is the top, hole-less.










now for the back,





made just a little more difficult due to the lack of batting as well
but with a little help from the cotton batting extras I have in a box and a little straightening of the edges

  that was relatively painless too!






Now I am extremely embarrassed at not doing this sooner, as easy as it has been so far,


of course just saying that grantees me trouble in the future.


the basting is all done now all I need to do is sew the big patches down


 fix the small patches on the front and quilt the darned thing all over again!







Not bad for a weekend project! I hope to have it done before new years!)

My new space

I have a new work space, in my new home, in my new town of Bothell Washington!

I know some people out there get a little "hinky" about showing their workspace to the world. I have no such compunctions, I am a mess, get used to it!) It's not so bad really I know where most everything is (unless someone messes with my piles) and I have a place for almost everything.
Now If I could only get it there!

I have a lovely picture window looking out on the backyard and the lovely draping tree, whose name
I know not, and southern exposure!



this picture doesn't do it justice but it's raining (again) and Foggy (again) and the window really needs a good wash!



you see in the big northwest, southern
exposure doesn't necessarily mean lots of sun light. It does, however, mean lots of good bright light.

I also, still have a lot of tidying up to do and it doesn't help that I keep getting lost in the small stuff. ie, open a box of fabric, lace, beads,etc. and organize it, instead of actually putting away the mess.


and as my space is right out in the open, I have to do more in the way of reining in the usual insanity that is my work space.

so far I have gotten the pile management down fairly well and it helps that my Dear BF does pile management too;) as long as our piles don't get too mixed up we should be fine!




I like being out where i can be a part of everything going on in the house rather than shut away upstairs in the attic!










I also caught sight of a visitor today. so far as I can tell "Grey kitty" is a boy, very shy and a mouser extraordinaire. We have been encouraging him to stick around by leaving offerings, as you can see he has accepted our latest, by licking the plate clean!

playing with my organ

I thought that might get your attention, naughty girls!)
I have finished my BF's christmas stocking!

Gold ribbon went a long way to making the organs keyboard pop, what the picture doesn't show is that the bugle beads are a shimmery purple over black.

I made little christms trees of green glass leaf red stars, to brighten up that piece of lace at the top of the piece.


I also added black and purple beads to the corner seam treatment, a silver bugle charm to the wreath, my BF's name and gold beads to the poinsettia round out the upper half of the stocking.

the final bit of beading was to the green lace motif where i used lots of white and MOP beads of birds stars and hearts.

everything on the stocking represents something he loves or is dear to him. i want to point out the robin patch his mothers name is robin and the little face at the corner represents a sun, to mean Son of Robin. a little play on symbolism there.

I also want to thank you all for your kind words of encouragement and praise it was a lovely surprise to see how many of you look into my humble bog. Thank you:)

Happy Halloween!

As promised, Me in all mt witchy goodness!

The Organ concert was wonderful the studants played a tag team on the obligatory Toccata and Fugue, they also played the march of the marionettes, better known as the theme music for Alfred Hitchcock presents" and so many others. lots of fun!

witchi-poo hat done!

I thought putting "member in good standing of the black hat society" in a circle was more incantation worthy than wandering across the hat somewhere.



I used a lot of iron-on rhinestone's for flash, and the dragon holds two mirrors.

the rest of the details are wiccan symbols and buttons.

this side asks " are you a good witch or a bad witch?"


he spider did indeed get his legs!

A new fairy tail

I have started a new fairy tail block to go with the two that are more or less finished, i have two or three that i started about two years ago on the trip to Boston, but they are in Chicago with the rest of my belongings.

I know when the Ideas start coming, they come in groups and you never know how long a quilting toot will last so it's a good idea to get them started, even if you don't finish them right away.




this other block is the start to an SRE class I'm taking at Gathering Fabrics quilt store.
I wanted lots of big open spots for the ribbon work.

I was trying for colorways I don't normally use but who am I kidding, I am Mrs. every color all the time!

if anyone in the woodinville /bothell area is interested, the class meets every 2nd tuesday of the month and is $25.00 a class.

here's the web site for the store,

http://www.gatheringfabric.com/

Witchi-poo hat

I have decided to join the throngs at UWb's annual Halloween, spooky organ music recital.
I am going as a Witch (go figure)so this will cap my maribu witches hat.
I got the idea for it from a pattern I saw in gathering fabric, a quilt store in woodenville.


As you can see I don't follow patterns very well, which is why I love CQ,

NO RULES, ROCKS!

I could leave it like it is and be the bell of the ball(so to speak) but that just wouldn't be me!
I have so much more planned for this you will not recognize it!
I will post more later ladies, I am on a roll !)

Christmas stocking

As most of my things are still in Chi town, I have been working on things that I brought with me but that only lasts for so long!

A new friend Kathy has been kidnapping me and taking me sight seeing around washington to various quilting stores and the inspiration has been rife with possibilities!

A piece of fabric here and a piece of lace there and my new stash is piling up!

My DBF isn't helping either, he keeps taking me to places where i must have this or that, fueling my addiction, naughty boy! this is why I love him;)

I started a Christmas stocking for him since he doesn't have one!


I made the wreath of some wonderful variegated fuzzy floss I received in a Christmas jumble bag, the roses are made of gold laddered ribbon



this corner is going to be an organ once I can figure out how to make it look like one!as you can see, the pipes are already down I just need to figure out the keyboard part.






the robin turned out quite well i think. I took two different colors of floss to get the mottled effect.
I used the same laddered ribbon for the gold leaves he is sitting on.

the swirly was made from gold cord and couched down.

I loved the bullion tree in NZ joe's Christmas block so much I made one of my own. the trunk is brown organdy ribbon spot tacked.

the spider will eventually get his legs and the web is made from gold DMC thread.

one minute to midnight

I have more progress!

I added the ribbon because the circles were not working for me and it brings the moon into the picture instead of being a main focal point. I addaed the mice along the side because who else is going to pull the coach?

I filled in the horse and coach and added a glass slipper for the purists out there who will insist that cindarella have one. the rooster was just a fun find. we have a wonderfull bead shop in bothell called "garden of beadin" at the country village not only is it fun to walk around but there is also a sane quilt shop there.

I added several clock faces all chiming midnight and finished the last seam in the fan and filled in a few other spots that were bugging me. I'm still not sure I'm done.

when I put the two blocks together so far It makes me want to do more work on the kateschi block

That Girl in seattle

something I alluded to last post and will update yall more in the coming months.
my life has been busy for the last month or so and I have made many changes to my life and the lives of my family. one of those changes is to divorce my DH of almost 20 years. the other was to move 2000 miles cross country to the Seattle area of Washington. change is never viewed favorably by everyone and sudden change even less. needless to say at the moment no one is happy with me but myself and as selfish as this sounds (and is) I am happy for the first time in years! that all being said I have also gotten back to work sewing!
woo-hoo! I has started to make inroads on one of the fairy-tail blocks, and since I moved without taking any of my stuff with me, this and the Blue Hawaii RR blocks are what I will be working on, until I can get back to Chicago, to get the rest of my stuff!

Oh my goodness folksies!

what a summer its been so far and its not over yet!

I will tell you all in dribbs and drabbs I suppose, I haven't quite processed life-as-I-now-know-it as of yet so please bear with me!)

I have done a little to improve the pineapples and palms CQ but lack of creativity CQ

wise seems to be the order of the summer.



I just can't seem to get motervated!

and I'm not sure I like my solution to the storybook CQ block problem, which was upside down panels that just didn't look right. that one is still a work in progress.

anywhoo,
life-as-i-know-it will eventually calm down enough so I can detail things again. till then you will have to be satisfied with slow Cq progress!
sorry!
I will explain some other time, I am just overwhelmed at the moment.

Mommabear