Wichi-poo doll

 I don't know why I hadn't thought of this before

a bit thick I guess.


Isn't she sassy?

Her slippers are bats (of course)

her skirt and hat are both CQed

shes got an under skirt and her body is made from green dot cotton and barber pole stripes


So much fun this was!

I made up the pattern for her skirt and hat

as there really wasn't one in the Tilda pattern book I was using

and now I can't remember which one I used but I think it was the christmas one from last year.


 The one side I used a small lace motif and beaded it on and gave it a little fringe and some extra flowers




The other side has ribbon roses and a ghost bead though in the picture you can't quite see it

I had a hard time not getting blurry pics for this so excuse if they aren't up to snuff

there are skull beads all over the place and fringe and lace and ribbon and did I tell you how much fun I was having here?







I tried to keep it down to two colors besides the black silks and velvet's I used for the skirt









 Do you know how hard that is?

especially when the purples and browns were yelling at me from their boxes!






but I managed it, whew!

there is a lovely green spiderweb and a sparkly spider

a dangling skeleton

the ribbon roses all have a skull in their middles as a surprise guest!

Another elderberry faerie

I think this is one of my favorite of Cicely Mary barkers faeries.


The berries just lend themselves to be embellished deeply with beads.

as you can see I've been here before.

She was the first faerie I did when I started this project in 2013(!)

It's fitting she should be one of the last.

I will be interested to see how I have improved since I last saw her.

The last faerie and other stuff

 It seems I am not done with the faeries yet

I found 3 more panels digging around for something else,

I'm sure some of you can relate

I've been a berry busy bunny this summer

lots to sew and do and wow It's August already?

How'd thAt happen?

Anyhoo

there were birthdays in all of that mess too

the Peacocks were made for my dd#1


Good long arm practice they were too!

Then there's the help/nothelp

Napping on the job as usual








I'm kinda proud of the quilting on this one

Its a panel so again so I'm cheating but It was to much fun to pass up!











I'm getting better!

I can see it in my swirls

















This is the back to another one

you can see the front when I give it to it's intended





Then there is this quilt, I was given 3 donor flimsies by Susan the owner of Gathering Fabrics

It seems these poor babies were the last made by one of her ladies before she died and donated by her husband as "I don't know what to do with these ones, please find a home for them." Quilts

My working theory, now that I have done this one is that it was an early quilt made with 30's fabrics and originally made into a tied quilt with synthetics taken apart that she meant to "Do something" with and never got around to.

I loved working with this one even though I had to pick out the old bits of synthetic yarn that was used to tie it, yech.
I also had to do some spot repairs because many of the seams were splitting due to uneven seams and the age of the fabric.

I used what was left of the extra yellow and green and added some pink from my own stash to finish the backing.

I'm following Angela Walters Swirl-a-long on youtube and am getting much better as I go.

I love the different looks that I got from the different style of swirl

The top 2 differentiation's let the fabric lie flat
they are the swirl echo and swirl in swirl

whereas the feather swirl all over is "lumpier"

And the obligatory Vegi garden for this year

I'm going to have hella cucumbers!

I paired the zucchini down to 2 plants this year and they have started to produce as well as the tomatoes but those I can preserve if I need to.

What do I do with cucumbers?

I obviously did not think it through well enough this spring as they have never gotten big enough to produce more than 3-4 misshapen cuecs in previous years, eep!

The last faerie

 The last in a long line of faerie blocks,
20 in total, Is done!

Wheee!               Awwe!

Wee, because I love these fairies

 I grew up with a whole set of little flower farie books illustrated, beautifully, by Cicely Mary Barker

Abc faeries, summer faeries, tree faeries etc. 10 little books in all all lovingly kept a little dinged on the corners or lovingly rubbed but mostly still pristine.

Then I gave them to my children

and most of them went missing

Many of my, lovingly kept, childhood friends met their demise in this manner *sigh*

I had a whole collection of Asterix and Obilex and Tintin Illustrated novels ( don't you dare call them comix!) that died a horrible death at the loving hands of my children when the glue that kept them together gave way. my son still has them or whats left of them in a box to keep the pages from flying away and dispersing further.


As a former Librarian this both horrifies and warms the heart.

Thank goodness I saved my first edition set of OZ and Bookhouse books safe.

Though my "Friend Flika" got passed around every friend they ever had, until it was so bent, dogeared and missing pages you couldn't read it anymore.

You see they loved them enough to share them and that is friendship

Sane update

 So now that I have a longarm
 all that strum and drang
 of crawling across the kitchen floor on my knees basting
                       is OVER!

just pin it to the leaders and off I go!

                           WHEE!

The top quilt is one I made for a friend who is pregnant for the firs time



I think I got the animal prints because they were 70% off
 You never know right?

The rest is stash busting

I quilted it using a straight loop line that is staggered over the whole thing and an outline for the faces so they stood out from the rest.

 The other is a quilt I made from wine fabric I have been hoarding, ahem, saving up for about
10 years to "do something" with


all the green fabric and the brown back is stash busting, as I am in that mode too.

I quilted it with an allover meandering swirl

I even felt confident enough to try my hand a phrases in the wine labels
One says "In vino veritas" and the other says "It's wine o'clock"
It's not great but its getting there.

Then to use up a load more fabric because I didnt have enough of the brown for the whole thing

I pieced the back too.

 I finished both quilts in 2 days.

I would never have been able to do that before

It would have taken me 1/2 a day to baste the crib quilt alone!

My back and knees would have refused to go any further!
so whoopee for the longarm and big table if you can swing it I highly recommend getting one. So much better on my back and knees!   and I can get a whole quilt out in a week. Instead of the three it used to take so more incentive to use up all those scrappy bits I have lying around.

and back to CQ

 I decided to finish the faerie blocks as wall hangings in groups of 4














 I used batting to pad the panels and sewed ribbon between the blocks to frame each one.




You've seen them all before but now they are all cleaned up nice














A simple hankie hem for the backing




so it won't show on the front, much.






 I've finished 3 so far and have 5 panels left







but they are not all matchy-matchy enough to pull together in one piece
                              

   and one isn't done yet





 so I don't know what I'll do with them.



A two piece wall hanging and three singles? 


Fit them to box tops?

A book?                                                     I dOn't knOw!

Happy memorial day

Today I honor all those who served, from my family and the thousands of others who gave of their time and some their lives to this country.

 Two pictures of my son of whom I am and always have been very proud.

When he was 3 he told me he wanted to drive a tank, his favorite movies have always been military/service oriented, even the sci/fi ones.


He wads in the ROCT program during H.S. and entered the Army and was sent to Afghanistan.

He has always tried to be the best person he can be, followed the rules (mostly) and does his best, every time.

despite his becoming a 27 year old grown ass man, I still see this little punk.

Every. Single. Time.

It makes me smile and my eyes leak at the same time.

I certainly am

I do try to keep my politics and atheism off my blog but every now and then you must at least make the attempt to speak out.
I only apologize for disturbing your Zen if this is where you find it.

What is happening in America today is Bullshit.
Promulgated by cowards.
Promoting the worst impulses humanity has to offer.
Spearheaded by a moronic puppet king.

If this offends some of you, too bad.
You should check your moral compass and fix it because its broken.
And no I don't care what the pet theory is out there for the continuance of this farce.
Go pedal your sick twisted ideas elsewhere, they will get no purchase here.

It's going to take decades to undo all the damage this administration has let unfold out into the world.
Black and brown people are not ruining America.
Old white entitled people who are so out of touch with Humanity, they are seriously threatening the world, are.

This may not be something that you all are interested in so fair warning
This video contains awesome vocal abilities by Sophia Urista
the music of Rage Against the Machine arraigned by Andrew Gatsukas
and is just as powerful if not more so than the original because this shit keeps happening....

https://www.facebook.com/brassagainst/videos/403790526761756/?t=362

Again, my opinion, back to sewing beauty.

Hawaii Shop-Hop part 2

 Still loving this mode of stain glass window quilting!

The ladies who chaired this committee should get a solid round of applause and a hearty handshake for picking some really beautiful fabrics!

Though I will warn you, the fabrics for the Strings shop are , In my never-to-be-humble opinion, kinda lousy. 
None of the greens or blues match any of the other colors within the set so keep your scraps!

the Strings" panel

The Sand colors did OK blending

as would the grey rock colors have but I wanted a more cohesive look to my blocks so I used the rest of what was already in the "lava" kit


 and with all of these I did supplement what we were given in the kit because, me!

The Panels get trickier and more fussy if you follow the course I took to put them together.
Which I heartily recommend because if you start with the beautiful bottom left one with the bromilliads and hibiscus you will be very sad, as it is the fussiest cut of them all!

I did have to fiddle and trim on each block it became more and more needful as each one got more and more complicated.

If you started with the flower block you may just give it all up as too dificult because this one is.

But it is so choice when its all done!

fussy cuts trimming and even had to replace and add a few pieces that that weren't there.

I'll need to drag out my old war horse from pasture to finish this up into a flimsy.

I hope she doesn't hold her retirement against me and decide to stop working all together! 

that's all I need anOther machine in the shop!

Oh, another thing about piecing these together, be sure to Iron the foundation to the WRONG side of the fabric! I oopsied that one in a few places. Shh! Don't tell!

So, Heres the thing....

I broke my machine.
                                 I am very sad.
                                                       i dropped on the floor and cracked its little head.
the repair guy says he can fix it, believe me hae's seen worse.
                                                                       goodness only knows what this is going to cost my purse.

Star Adventure #6 finishing up

 At least of one top, anyhow.

I thought of using all the blocks on one quilt but it was such a cacophony of color that I had to break it up into two

This works much better and isn't such a blast

Still a swirl of color but the black in between gives your eyes a rest

I suppose I could have composed this one better but you know how it is at the end of a long project.

The desire to get it done and off your table is sometimes more important than design

I was also running out of the original 'Grunge' black i was sing and at this stage I couldn't find more for love or money.

Well Poo!

so the next best thing will have to do and eqilter had just enough to finish but not much more!

Well heck!

This is why the back has that batch of pieced leftovers from the quilt I made my husband for his birthday a few years ago.

I need a volunteer to get a better picture of the finished quilt. I tried to get on by standing on a chair outside but no happy.

So I should have better pictures after I finish quilting the other top. I've got the back mostly pieced, funny story but I'll save that for next time

Stainglass quilt

 I diiid iit Myyyy waaaay!

This is so simple it should be illegal!

Trace pattern onto  steam-a-seam, cut pieces

Iron steam-a-seam to fabric, cut-out fabric pieces

Iron pieces onto background and

Voila!

                                   Done!

These are so easy I've done 3 in 4 days




Isn't the pattern divine?

Its from the hawaii shop-hop on big island.
they do it the whole month of february

This year was a coordinated pattern that fit together to make a whole top.

Instead of individual blocks with coordinated fabric so if you miss a few shops no big, Like in washington's version.

It makes more sense to do it that way here
but on big I, there are only 6 shops,
easier to do it this way.

You have to hit all the shops so everyone gets shopped

And you get a nice tour of the whole Island

so far so much fun!

I'm thinking of running a class at Gathering fabrics on the technique.

I'd need a simpler pattern though, this one does take a learning curve.

using the blank side of the steam-a-seam for a starter, ironing on the wrong side of the fabric,
making sure you iron a sharp seam the size of the piece so you have a guideline to follow...