First Crazy Quilt Block Started

Well here is a look at the first block I made at yesterday's crazy quilt workshop held at the Crones' Cradle Conserve. I had a wonderful day, the other 10 women attending the group created some beautiful blocks and I am only sorry I forgot to pack my camera (and lunch) because it would have been nice to show off their blocks too.

Our instructor Celeste Viale was great, encouraging and shared her knowledge with the group, as well as her love of quilt making.  As the day wore on and stitching got under way I could feel the stress and tension of December melt away, this in part to the crazy quilt making and the idyllic setting at the Crones' Cradle.

The short walk through a wooded path to the building where the workshop was held had me smiling with each step, I was in my element surrounded by nature and the soft sounds of birdsong, and meowed greetings from a few cats helped ease the tension of driving through a early morning fog at times so dense my fingers aches from gripping the steering wheel so tight.

Fabrics, trims, buttons, threads and floss were plentiful and shared among the group, tips, ideas and many questions along with some laughter soon gave way to the silence of nearly a dozen women heads bent reverently stitching their crazy quilt block.  I'm not sure if I mentioned in an earlier post but the blocks were all pieced by hand.

During the course of the day the group gathered mentioned we were all looking forward to another crazy quilt workshop, our host Jeri, was ahead of the gang and had her calender at the ready and after awhile she and Celeste our instructor had set the date for May 23rd, which is great because there were two women on a waiting list for the next class.

Well this workshop was the first foray into my plan of making 2015 my year for creativity, if the rest of my year goes as well as this first class all I can say is it's going to be a great year. Now if I can just remember to grab my camera.

Here is a closer look at the block, the blue piece above the butterflies is my attempt at embroidering a spiderweb without drawing it on, its not completed yet, while stitching it I realized I would rather wait until all the block is completely pieced before I embroider.  I used solid fabrics to frame the butterfly piece and turned under the edges for an idea I had yesterday which will be reveal as I continue to work this first block, which is 16 x 16 inches, which is a nice size if you don't plan to make a quilt and just want to make a pillow or wall hanging.

Off to Crazy Quilt

Here are some of the fabrics I am bringing along to the workshop today

The fabrics above are all from 1996

more silks to make things shine

Some cotton embroidery threads I forgot to snap photos of the silk floss

and some of the beads.

Happy New Year, Let the Creativity Begin

   Today I am once again enjoying the quiet after the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, the long stretch of time between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year seemed endless with 2014 ended I feel every thing seems to have gone by in a flash.

   Since the Winter Solstice began to lengthen our days and a New Year just beginning, I have been asking myself where does the time go? Is it just me or have you noticed the more years behind us the faster the days seem to pass into the next? This year I plan to make each of those days count just a little more.

    When I celebrated my 59^th birthday last July I decided I would make my year to 60 for me healthier, adding more physical activity to my day, not with my daily fitness routine, but more physical activity for pleasure, like yoga for relaxing, walking through botanical gardens and nature hiking to sketch or collect ideas for some creative endeavor, since I have been quite successful adding more physical activity to my days, this year I plan to add more creativity to my days

    To start my creative journey I have enrolled in a Crazy Quilt workshop held at Crones' Cradle Conserve, its a day long workshop held on January 3^rd.  After the long holiday season I am really looking forward to attending this class and hope to find a few other classes to attend throughout the next few months. 

   The quilt shop, Tomorrow's Treasures, where I attended the hand embroidery class will be holding a beginning quilting class and a beginning sewing class, while I do both well I had mentioned back in the autumn I'd like to take one of the beginning classes to better grasp the use of the rotary cutter and other modern methods of quilt making and sewing, if I do you know I will be posting about here.

    Between Thanksgiving and December 22 I was working nearly non-stop getting out the orders for the online shops only stopping for a bite to eat, a quick bathroom break and a few hours sleep only to start again the next day, even my daily walks were put on hold I was just too busy to take the time.

   It was with a great sigh of relief when I shut down the shops on the 23^rd for a few days to rest, lucky for me the few days before Christmas had slowed to about 50 items to ship so I was able to get in a little reading or stitching before I crawled into bed. Next year I have to plan better or hire a part time staff to get out the orders, it amazes me the amount of shopping people do year round but during the holidays all I can say in wow.

   New Years Eve was spent quietly sipping hot tea and reading a book and stitching the green Celtic knot embroidery piece. 

I was surprised with the four Crab Apple Hill patterns of garden angels for hand embroidery. I suspect someone stumbled upon my wish list.

   My morning walk was finally back on track earlier in the week and today to start the New Year off on a positive note I added an extra half mile to my walk.

   Here is a peek at some of the fabrics I bought yesterday at Joann's while buying muslin to use for my block at the Crazy Quilt workshop. I won't use all of these fabrics on one block but I see other crazy quilt blocks to follow. The solid fabrics are navy and burgundy velvet and the rose printed fabric is cotton.

I love this butterfly fabric my photo does not capture how the butterflies stand out or how colorful they are. I may just cut out a few of the motifs or fussy cut a square to use on the crazy quilt.

This purple paisley makes me swoon, I have a big weakness for paisley prints, I can envision beading around the gold border

This blue floral print just grabbed my eye and wouldn't let go, I have so many ideas floating around my head I can't wait to see what I finally do with it.

These bottom dragonfly fabric is green with gold dragonflies the top piece is gold on gold.

I need to sort through my stash for other fabrics to bring along. I did pick up some charms to add 

and later today I'll raid my beads, bits of lace and embroidery floss so I can check them off the To Bring list.

I completed the stitching on the blue Celtic knot piece on Christmas day.

I am still not sure what I will do with these practice pieces but I enjoyed the things I learned while stitching them, using the same color micron pen as the thread helps to hide the trace lines.  I still need to sharpen my embroidery skills which will happen over time.

Other things I'm planning for 2015 will unfold as the weeks pass and I write my blog. I do have plans to participate in a reading challenge or two and I would love to join a stitch along (SAL) some time. As I said earlier I want this to me a year of creativity for me.  What are some of your plans for the New Year?

Happy New Year to all!

Merry Christmas to one and all.

Time to breathe and stitch

Things here are finally beginning to quiet down so I have some time deck the halls with greenery and shiny objects and even get a few stitches in on one project or another.

I may even take a little time to browse the internet to find a reading challenge or two for the upcoming year.

Update a Few Hours later:
Over the past week I have squeezed out some time to get a small hand embroidery piece ready for stitching, I managed to prepare it for the light box so I could trace the pattern onto the fabric.

waiting on the light box

Believe me when I say I have been quite busy to get much of anything else done it would be another two days until I had time to sit and trace the pattern.

traced and ready for stitching

I used a blue micro pen for the tracing since I'll be stitching in blue thread (DMC 3844) as I look at the photo I just posted I can see my hand wasn't too steady, good thing this is a practice piece.

As I  mentioned at the start of this post things have quieted down I made my drop off at the post office and orders are trickling in for tomorrow's shipping so I have time to get in some 'Me' time so I
put in a few stitches, I am loving the blue thread and if you enlarge the photo you can see the fabric

has a white on white design, I wanted to experiment with my ability to trace on a printed fabric as well as stitch on the fabric too.  I mentioned this is a practice piece I didn't use a hoop while stitching, I opted not to use crayon tinting as I had first planned because frankly I didn't have enough time I really wanted to get in the stitching because it relaxes me.

I can work another piece with crayon tinting in the near future, I wanted to see if there was much difference coloring on the white on white fabric. I love Celtic Knot motifs and have used them often in other needlework projects.

This pattern is a free pattern from one of my favorite websites Mary Corbet's Needle and Thread

http://www.needlenthread.com/2010/03/free-hand-embroidery-pattern-celtic.html

I love this site and return often when I am stuck and need a refresher on a stitch, a technique or just to admire her lovely work.  This is the site that has inspired me to once again pick up my needle and get back to hand embroidery.

Christmas is coming