A few years back I purchased Richard Box's book "Flowers for embroidery" He had a little lesson in it which is the poppies sample that I have posted here. I had forgotten all about it and found it stuck away in a folder, so I decided to get it out and frame it so that I could use it. It is something that I always liked but as it was a sample I never thought to finish it up, now I am pleased that I did. It was my first foray into machine embroidery. Not that I have done much more since then. It is done on painted hessian with tiny cut up pieces of fabric to make up a collage. I don' think it is something that I would do again, at least not on a large scale like Richard Box does. His work if fabulous as is the book.


and a close up

6 INCH BLOCKS

As mentioned in the last post, I have been so inspired and have totally fallen in love with Pamela Kellogg' s 6 inch button blocks. So I just had to make some up. Acting on Pam's advise they are actually 8 inch blocks to allow for stitch shrinking and trimming up etc. Such a good idea and I am so pleased to get her advise.
Not sure at this stage how many I will make but this is a good start. Now I have to mark out my 6 inch square.I always find it better to mark them as I have a tendency to stitch too close to the edge thus having an awful time trying to stitch them together.
My DH has just slipped "Pride and Prejudice" in the DVD player, I have my needle and thread and a 6 inch square template and I am off to do the boring part.

Camera has died and sources of inspiration

I have really been inspired by Pam of
http://kittyandmedesigns.blogspot.com/
She is making 6inch button blocks, she was in turn inspired by Sharon's of http://sharonb.wordpress.com/
Sharon made a huge or what looks like a huge 6inch button block, she has photoes on her website.
I have been asking Pamela questions, she makes the blocks 8 inches giving her lots of room for trimming etc. If your stop by her blog you can see why I am so inspired. Of course her stitching is to die for.
So I have decided to make up some and spent a couple of hours last night making up 8 inch blocks. Have about 10 so far and would love to show a photo but as the camera is not working, so I can't. I have a drawer full of small pieces of fabric, it was once in colourways but alas is just a mess at the moment. So, I am grabbing bits of similar colours and making the blocks that way. Then, once I have a pile I want to mark them up with the six inch size to keep me on track. Once we get an other camera I will post photoes but I am not too sure when that is going to be.

Our weekend.

This is what we did this weekend, had a flying visit to Wellington to watch our son in the Barista competitions.
He manages one of the 10 or so Mojo's cafes. All the competitors had to make 12 coffees, 4 short blacks, 4 cappuchino's and 4 of their own signature coffees. Cameron presented his in old fashioned cocktails glasses, infact his whole theme was the 1920's. He had vanilla infused cream a chocolate tea and a marmalade syrup that he made himself. It was delicious. He came in the top 10, while the other three Mojo's staff took out the 1st, 3rd and4th places.Way to go Cameron and Mojo's

Last one.

With this one, decided that I didn't want to sew on the overlay. As I was gluing the leaves for a little added security, I thought I would glue the black stuff on as well. (can't for the life of me find the word that it is called, sometimes menopause is a nuisance, I know what it is called, just cannot access my brain or my my brain won't let the word come forth, keep thinking nylon scarf but that is not right)
Anyway, back to glue, it was a fabric glue and it SAID dries clear. Not true as you can clearly see two white splodges of glue, duh!!!!! Oh well, will have to cover them with something.
These little quilts all had leaves that were collected three autumns ago. Time to collect some more. I pressed all but the ginkgo leaves and of course that is the one that is brittle.The pressed ones also retained some of their autumnal colours. Can you tell I like the word "autumnal" It always reminds me of Mr Tumnus of the Lion the witch and the wardrobe, of the Narnia series. Bit of a stretch of the imagination, just a similiar pronunciation I guess.

Autumnal quiltlets.


I purchased Jane Davila & Elin Waterston's "Art quilt workbook" late last year. It is a wonderful book if you want to get started on the art quilt journey.
I had no idea where to start so thought I would give the insert strip piecing a go. Knew I wanted to use my dried leaves and the only way I could think to use them was under tuille as they are very brittle.
Also wanted to use some of the moulds I blogged about last weekend..
Used my favourite Loni Rossi fabrics, stamping a couple with leaf stamps, do you think I have a thing for leaves per chance???
Tried a little machine stitching and overall I am pleased with the finished products. These and an other one have taken me all day so once I have had dinner I need to get something done around here as it is back to work tomorrow.

Ginkgo quiltlet


I had a bit of fun today making this.
I love leaves and collect them and dry them in the autumn, also love the colours of this season. They are so real and, well, beautiful. The fabrics are Loni Rossi and I tutued a little on the strips with paintstiks and rubbings. I tried to capture the dried ginko leaf under fine tulle, that was ok until I had to turn the quilt after attaching the binding duh! Dried brittle leaves don't like to be manipulated. Ah well, lesson learned.

A wee bit more on the Melanie rose

Still playing and experimenting with this most beautiful rose, I yanked the first one out, just wasn't right. Wanted to use my hand dyed ribbon to see what the effect would be like. The variegated ribbon does make a difference but I still need more practise on the rose its self.
Talking of roses, pop on over to Barbara's blog, the address is on the sidebar as she has posted some photoes of the most beautiful antique crazy quilt, along with some close ups of the centre motif, which, you guessed it, is the most lovely ribbon/fabric rose composition.

Excellent blogger award

I received the nicest of surprises the other day, Doreen of Creative Manderings gave me the above award, needless to say I was overwhelmed. I cannot get the logo on my blog as it is too technical savvy for me but you can read what she said (if you want to) on her blog.
http://doreeng.blogspot.com/2008/04/excellent-blogger-award.html
I am humbled by her lovely sentiment and it has encouraged me so much.


Kathy of http://kathyscrazymoments.blogspot.com/
asked me about the moulds I had used in the previous post, here is a picture, you can click on the photo to make it bigger.
I do not know how to get the text and pictures to line up, can anyone help me there? The three same sized moulds in the middle are rigid, these I have had for 10 years or so and are a little more difficult to get the sculpy out of. The others are all flexible moulds and so much easier to use.
I have been trying to have a go at the Melanie Rose designed y Marie Alton of SRE Deluxe. I can't quite get it right but it is a favourite of mine. Marie does roses to die for.

Play day.

had a fun day today making moulds with sculpy, baking and painting. Some of these moulds have been stuck in the drawer for.... well several hundred years. When trying to paint them in the past the paint seperated. When things don't go as planned for me I tend to get discouraged and pack them away. So this time I sealed them first with Golden soft gel, east peasey. Then the fun began, painting and highlighting with golden interference paint and jacquard pearl-ex mixed with water. As you can see, I was somewhat restricted by the colours I had of each, but fun none the less.
What actually got me started was the need for some leaves for a little autumn quiltlet I want to do. Also had some mould maker so had a go with that to make some other slightly larger leaves. Oops ,just noticed the shadow on the photoes duh!!

Credit card purse.

Had to have a go at making something with the bags hence this little purse from the Fibre and stitch website free projects. Doreen suggested to back the paper with cotton so I had a go at doing that. Thanks Doreen. In hindsight the fastening would have been easier if they were stitched before assembly!!! Life is about learning from your mistakes, I am really good at that, the mistakes I mean or rather the learning experiences lol. It was going to be a little gift but think I will keep it myself and get the closure sorted out next time

I Have been playing with brown paper bags ala Sue Bleiwiss. They have been painted, crumpled and touched all over with treasure gold. Fun fun fun, next to fuse some double sided web to the back and make some things.

Thank you.

Thank you all so much for stopping by and commiserating with me. I have wimped out yet again and not phoned the dentist as the pain was not as bad yesterday. Bad girl!!!! It is sore this morning so I need to pluck up the courage and call.... Who are you going to call - not ghost busters but dentist busters! The ideal for me, drugs drugs and more drugs. Time was I could go to the dentist quite happily, something has happened along the way, or rather the wimp factor has taken me over. My dentist is a very nice and caring person who makes it all very easy for me, but I have such a mind set - dentist - open mouth = pain!!!!!! Yucketty yuck. Just wish it was the weekend then it would be all over and my tooth would be fixed. You know my son had three fillings and didn't even have an injection, can you believe that? Give me injections, give me sedatives, hit me on the head anything to get it over with. Enough already...