Nov FFT Sampler

The final month of the FFT Sampler Round Robin in the CQ International Group. This month the sampler stitch was the Buttonhole stitch with a optional Bead/button cluster. You could also fill in any areas that you thought might need it.

This month I still have Wendy's Block to work on. The Buttonhole stitch that I did in Green thread and added straight stitches in green and hot pink to make the seam look like it has flowers on it. The buttonhole stitch and flower design was done on both sides of the seam.
The button cluster that I made was done in pastel shades and stacked on top of each other to make a Corner cluster in the lower edge of the quilt.The picture doesn't do the work on the block must justice. I'm learning how to make the photos look better with my digital camera.

Chase and Who-ville blanket

My little Boy Chase is all bundled up in a fleece blanket that I made. I made this blanket for my niece for Christmas and we nicknamed it the Who-ville blanket because of the assortment of fleece dots that it has. The day he decided to wrap himself up in the blanket the high temperature for the day here in Council Bluffs was 0 -2 degrees above and the low temperature was 14 below. It seems that what ever room in the house I am at Chase is usually with me.
If I lock him out of of the spare bedroom when I am sewing, he will scratch at the door til I let him in. I don't know why he wants to be with me when I am in there but he is fascinated by the fabrics and the way the sewing machine works. You would think that he would stay away from the sewing things after he accidentally swallowed a sewing needle on day before Valentine's day. That was a expensive trip to the emergency vet clinic in Omaha.
I wonder what he and his brother Bryce are going be like this Christmas. This will be the first time either of them has had a decorated Christmas tree. Last year the boys were not even a year old and the tree was just put up with no decorations on it. This year we decided to purchase some shatterproof ornaments for the tree and place them on the lower section of the tree in case that they play with them. I didn't want them playing with the glass ornaments and breaking one because they might get hurt and cut themselves on a piece of glass.

Reneta Autumn block

Reneta is from Washington state. This is the second block that I got the privilege of working on for the Crazy 4 Quilting Autumn Round Robin.The vibrant colors of the block reminded of the colors that are in the field and lowland areas of where I grew up. At first it was hard to decide what to do to this block and then finally one day it came to me of what to do. The section of the block that I embellished with cattails and seam treatment cattails that have been bloomed out fro the season. I soon should be getting the next block in the group soon to work on.

Cathy's autumn block

In the Crazy 4 Quilting group I am in the Autumn Round Robin. The above block belongs to Cathy's of Illinois. The theme of her block is a Walk in the Autumn leaves. You can see it very well because of the sheen of fabric and ribbon. The ribbon that I used is a copper wire type that I found at work in the corsage ribbon section. The ribbon made a great type of path fro the leaves to follow. The red dots are red seed beads. I did a variation of the chevron stitch for the seam treatment. This is the first block that I embellished in this Round Robin. I have just 12 more to do over the next year. I will get to see different variations of the autumn color palette. This block is made of different styles and different shades of brown, green and shades and types of leaves. different shades of brown, green and shades and types of leaves. Looking forward to working on the rest of the blocks in the group.

Yellow Color Study Oct

I am in another color study group in the CQ for Newbies.The above block belong s to Marianne. I am the third person to work on the block. This color study you can only do the block in shades of yellow and all the embellishing has to be done in shades of yellow as well. Since I had the month of October, I thought that I would make a spider web and spider that I had during that month learned how to do. The spder web is done in a Metallic Gold DMC floss. The spider was made in a regular and different style of spider. On the seam I did a multi level blanket stitch with some extra embellising to make it look row of flowers. The top of the blanket stitch is done with French Knots and small straight stitches. I tried to make each section of the flowers with a diffrent look to give it some interest.

Romance Block - Rae's

The above quilt block is from the Crazy 4 quilting group at Yahoo. The block belongs to Rae in Sweden, with all the blocks that I embellish I try to use one of the romance quotes from the fabric of my block that is going around the group to be embellished. The quote is written in a red DMC floss. The quote reads as follows: Love Rules the court, the camp, the grove and the men below and the saints for love is heaven and heaven. I did a different type of seam that was to represent a flower stem. I was trying to add the sequin or button flowers that someone else had done already. I thought they needed a little extra to their look. The seam below the quote was done by someone else and I did not want to add anything to the simplicity of the overall block's look. This round robin has been going for about a year and is almost done. I think that I only have about 2-3 blocks left to embellish in this group.

Giant Bows

I made these bows for above our flower cooler at work. The bow to the left is as large as a standard size patio door or if you ever go to a walk in flower cooler it's two doors in length. The bow is made with stiff interfacing and elastic to make each section puff and look more bow like. On the back side I used the plastic ring holders to hang from the slat board wall and hooks. This bow takes 3 yards of fabric and twice that in interfacing. The second bow is a little smaller, it's about 1 cooler door in size or about the size of a 70 inch window. I only had to make two of this size for each side of the large one. This bow is about 1 1/2 yards in size. I didn't buy all of the interfacing, but I know that I bought 7 1/2 yards of 18" wide and it was used in the large bow and 1 of the small bows. That's a lot of interfacing and fabric. I used about 8 yards of fabric and 2 yards of elastic besides the regular notions that you use for sewing.

Sept FFT

This is Wendy's block for the FFT round robin in the Crazy Quilting International Group.
The stitches for the month of Sept were the fly stitch, spider web, and beaded motif.
I chose the corner of her block that had a black fabric with a gold metallic motif to it. I used the Gold Metallic thread from DMC to make the spider web, the spider was made out of three different shades of Yellow and Gold beads. I did not make my motif, purchased the Black flowers instead and added shading of pinks to the Center of the flower to make it sit up and have a two or three tone effect.

Sept Yellow Color Study

Sorry for being so far behind on my posting.

This is a picture of the embellishing that I did on Pam's quilt block in the Yellow Color study. Our group is called the Yellow Bananas. The only colors that we can use in the block are shades of yellow.Some times you need to get real creative and think outside the box for shades of yellow besides the standard shades. The pattern that I chose to do was a stem of yellow hydrangea blooms or yellow stock. with a yellow blow and shades of yellow butterflies. Pam's block is very much shades of yellow with a hint to the style of being more of a spring design.

Festival of Trees

This Weekend the Local Arts Council in Council Bluffs had their annual Festival Of Trees Show and Craft Sale. Area Businesses and people donated the ornaments and decorations for the Trees. The trees were donated by a Area Business. The First tree on the top of page is called They called Him Jack Frost and won a award for the best use of materials. The value of that tree was $1200.00 and the tree was 10 foot tall with pre-lit lights. The tree in the middle is hard to see but it was called Your favorite Childhood memories. That tree was valued at $300.00 and about 7 foot tall. The tree on the bottom was called Christmas in the Garden. This tree won a award for the Wildlife award. This tree was worth about $300.00. HyVee Foods, where I work also made a Tree or Vingette. The tree was called Who's That in Who-Ville. I tried to get the picture to post up since it was taken at a Vertical view it posts sideways. That is the same with the other 5 pictures that I have, I need to figure out how to post the pictures and rotate to view properly. I guess I can ask and maybe someone can tell me how to do that. I know that every year that all of the trees sell and there are unusually at least 50-75 trees. The economy the way that it was and still is all but 15 of the trees sold. You can have the tree delivered to where you want for about $50 -$100.00 a tree or just pick it up. I think that I might personally decorate a tree for the 2009 Festival of Trees. The festival is the Weekend before Thanksgiving every year. I just need to think about what type of theme to do my tree. I have began to think about what type of tree because I may want to do a Crazy Quilt Ornaments Tree with a Crazy quilt Ornaments with the help of all my crazy quilt friends from the Online Quilt Groups that I am in.

Autumn Quilt block

In the Crazy 4 Quilting Group, we have started a Round Robin of Autumn Quilt Block. The top picture is of my naked block. The group has 12 - 14 people participating in the group. It should take about a year to complete this round robin. I think fall is one of the most beautiful times of the year. The colors of the leaves of the trees and bushes are so vibrant with different colors. The air is starting to get a little cool at night but not enough that you need the heat or air on in the house. The breeze from the wind is cool and crisp.

The fabrics that I picked bring out the bold and bright colors of the fall. I have a gold metallic variegated fabric, fall leaf variegated fabric, Scarecrow and pumpkin fabric, chocolate brown green& orange gold fleck fabric, red & green plaid fabrics. I needed to make at least 13 patches and twice as many seams that was a had thing to do for me. The same fabric was used to make a journal to go with the block that everyone could write a little message or doodle what they are going to do on the block

When I have a chance to this Weekend I am finally going to be able to pick up the book Treasury of Crazy Quilting Stitches at the Barnes & Noble bookstore. They had to specailly order the book in for me because they didn't have any on the shelf. I was just glad that the book was back out on the shelves again because I have been trying to find it for the last 5 months and all the bookstores said it was out of print and the only pakce to buy it was on the internet and the price was at least $ 40.00 for a book but instead I will get it for about $25.00. I'm sure that the book will me to gain a better knowledge of the stitches that can be combined and look good together.

Yellow Color Study

This is the Naked Block for the Yellow Color Study in the Crazy Quilting for Newbies Group. I belong to the Group called the Yellow Bananas. I found it hard to find fabrics that were mostly yellow in color that I liked that would go good together and make a good block to go with the block that I started for the Purple Color Study. I also made a fabric journal to match the quilt block to go with the block to everyone in the group to write and leave messages or notes in. I made enough patches and seams for every one in the group to use up to 2 or3 patches and 3 or 4 seams. I hope that I gave everyone in the group enough room to work in and help build a beautiful block.

August FFT Sampler BLock

I still have Amy's block for the Month of August in the CQ International FFT Sampler Round Robin because a person has dropped out of our group. We decided to stay on track and I did an extra month to get the block back to it's normal place in line. The stitches that we needed to work with is month were the Feather stich and the Fargo Rose. I did a half feather stitch on one seam and a double feather stitch on a diferent seam. I did a row of yellow long stem Fargo Roses. Unlike the fresh version of this flower these have no thorns or bad petals to remove. On the 10th of September I mailed this block to Sandra to have her work on it for the Month of September. After the month of August we will only have 2 months left of this wonderful learning experience with embellishing and being part of a Round robin.

July FFT Sampler Block

It's been a while since I updated my blog I will try and do it more often. The above block is from my CQ International Sampler Round Robin. The stitches that were to be worked on for the month of July was the Chevron Stitch and the French Knot. You could add any extras to make the patches or square look better. I did two different styles of the chevron stitchon each side of the square. One of the chevron stitch I used was the half stitch combined to make a diamond looking stitch, straight stitches were put on each edge of the stitch. The other edge I did the full chevron stitch with a red square bead in the center of each space. The french knots were made into a type of hydrangea or allium flower with a few red seed beads. I also made a few spider roses and added green leaves and vines for the flowers.I hope that I made patches of the block are up to the standards of the rest of the group. I forgot to say that this quilt block belongs to Amy.

GIna's Romance Block

It's been a long time since I have written about a block from the Crazy 4 Quilting Group Romance Round Robin. The group had some down time during the summer months we are now trying to get back on track and get the blocks home soon. The block pictured belongs to Gina. I have written a quote on the other blocks that I have done and I was still able to do that with is block. The block has a trim of beaded red lazy daisy stitch and a half circle design. The lower picture shows the detail of the cherry blossom branch with bow that I added to the patch to help fill the space better. I f the quote is hard to read this is what it says. Drink to me only with thine eyes, And I will pledge with mine; or leave a kiss but in the cup And I'll not look for wine. I hope that everyone in the round robin likes that I added a quote from my romance to their romance block if I have room to do so.

Purple Color Study Home

My Purple Color Study Block came home at the middle of August to me. I want to thank all of the ladies who worked on the block . I to tell everyone who did what area of the block and what they did. The top picture is of the entire block with my booklet that I sent with. I made a booklet out of the same type of fabrics and used my new sewing machine to do all the embellishing and monagramming. The block to the top right, Pat S. did the Purple Shade of Flower Motif and the knotted Chain stitch. The second section of the block in the picture, Pat S. did with a Fan motif and beaded Feather Stitch .

The above picture was stitched by either Connie S. or Cynthia L. The section of the blocks that had the purple swirls was embellished with a silver running stitch to follow the pattern of the swirls. The seams of the section have a variegated length of the Blanket stitch and 2 different types of ribbon woven with 2 different shades of metallic purple tread.

The Bottom Left Photo contains a section that either Connie S or Cynthia L did. The section has a vine and flowers stitched in the middle. A Chain stitch was used on the seam. In the same Photo is a Section that I did with a Flower that looks similar to Lavender Color Hydrangea. The Butterfly in the same photo was made by Rose for my two little Boys in mind. The Bottom Right Photo has a section that was made by Tasha. The section has Yo-Yo shaped flowers either as a heart or a Regular YoYo shape. The YoYo are stemmed stitched with a silk or sheer Purple ribbon. Either Tasha or Rose made the spider Rose and the flower seam. Rose made a second section that was dedicated to the Boys also. The section has a row of Birdhouses. The boys spend a lot of time watching the birds. I hope that I gave the proper credit to the right people in the Extravagant Eggplant Group I was involved in.

July 2008 FFT block

The Sampler Round Robin that I belong to in the CQ International Group has a new group of stitches to do a different person block each month. The month of July was the Chevron and French Knot Stitches. I made made a seam stitch of Two Half Chevron Stitches with a Starred Center. On one end of the Chevron Stitch has 2 different lengths of a Detached Chain with a Lavender Bead on top. The other end has 3 straight stitches with a French Knot on the Top of each. The patch that I chose I made a Bouquet of Lavender Spider Roses with stems and a Lavender Bow. I also made a heart to go with the block. I thought that it accented the roses nicely.
This Block belongs to Carol. The Booklet that was with the block didn't make it to my house from the previous person, so I made a new book for her and added a photo of the block from what I had done on it and some of what the others before me had done.

STS Summer Block

I was giving the opportunity to work with Susan on the Season to Season Block exchange for the summer season. You can't see it very well but in the corner in the burgundy section I made a tree with assorted red beads for the leaves and blooms. I also added a hand designed butterfly in the gold section with blue flowers to try and represent cornflowers or similar flower. I also wrote the word summer on the block. I added clear or blue beads to the center of the green tatted ribbon underneath the butterfly. I didn't look quite finished so I added some butterflies in orange to the block. The block started to bring back memories of going to the Butterfly House at the Zoo in June. I hope that Sue likes the block when it gets back to her in England.

June FFT Sampler Block

The sampler series that I belong to in the CQ International Group is a teaching various stitches online class and get use to being part of a Quilting group. The block I had this month belonged to Kathy W. , at the right is the block that she sent to me with the Butterfly motif and the herringbone stitch with beads.
The month of June we were to add a cretan stitch, but the directions I had said chevron stitch. So I did a chevron stitch with detached chain to look similar to a flower with a cantaloupe bead in the center. The other motif was to be a spider rose but wasn't able to find the ribbon for this block, so I made a few beaded flowers with shades of brown and golds for the stems. The next person to work on this block was to be Sandra but Kathy decided not to stay with the group so her block was sent back home to her. The month of July, I get to work on Carol's block so maybe I can get to practice the spider rose on her block.

July Purple study block

This is the final month of the Purple color study round robin in the Cq for Newbies. My final block to work on belonged to Connie S. of North Dakota. I made a tree in shades of purple threads for the trunk. The leaves of the tree are made out of assorted purple and clear beads. I was reading a article on Cqmagonline.com about how to stitch the trunks of different types of trees. It also tells you how to make style the different types of leaves for the trees.
Some of the others in our little group added some fun stitching to this block as well. One person added a Ornately detail fan with beads, a spiderweb with a spider made out of button, a pretty cat button, and different types of motifs and stitches all done in purple. The next color study that we are doing is in shades of yellow.
When I started doing this color study I never knew how much people liked the different shades of purple. I have done this wedding season so far 3 weddings in shades of purple and have at least 3 more to go.

June Purple block

The theme of Tasha's block seemed to be about butterflies, buttons, & bows. I'm not sure what the reasoning is for but it's her block. We just add what we think that it needs.
This is Tasha's Block in my purple color study group the Extravagant Eggplants. I designed butterfly in shades of purple and stitched in the entire butterfly with satin stitches. The beaded item next to the butterfly was my first attempt at making a tree. I have now found the some helpful directions on how to make the tree more dimensional. I think it was a good try for my first time at a tree. I sewed all the beads on my self and didn't use any glue at all. I"m also very proud of my two kittens because when I started at crazy quilting I didn't think that I could ever use any beads on things that I did because they would play with them. I can say that so far they haven't but the beads haven't been play toy size yet. I'm hoping that they will never start to play with so I can use them on a quilt for my own home.

Henry Dooley Zoo

My sister and her family came to visit for a few days to come and see us and Grandma Great. We went to see Grandma Great at her new home her in a Nursing Home in Valley Ne. We had planned to go to the Henry Dooley Zoo in Omaha for a Day. We went to the Zoo during the Final 2 days of Games for the College World Series. The Zoo has grown a lot since the last time I was at the Zoo when I was either in Jr. High School. I can't believe that we spent a entire 8 hour day at the Zoo and still didn't see it all. I can't imagine what the Zoo will be like when it gets to take over the Baseball Stadium when it gets moved in the next 3-5 years. It will probably take at least 2 days to see the entire thing.

My niece is riding one of the animals on the merry-go round in the Petting Zoo area.
The Henry Dooley Zoo have perfected the gene process for making White Tigers. This is one way that the Zoo gets money for new exhibits. The Zoo has a Exhibit Hall for every animal by section. The next picture is of a Sun bear sunning himself, when we were in the bear exhibit you could see the bears from the outside and inside areas. The monkey swinging on the fence was really cute. The Gorilla & monkey houses were really fun because the way that the windows were made you could move in and see monkeys closer.
Sorry that I don't have pictures of the Butterfly house and the Desert Doom. The butterfly house was really fun and we had a chance to see all the different types of butterflies that are out in the world today. The Desert Doom has all the things that you would find in all of the deserts of the world. Hope that when my sister comes back this fall we can see the parts of the Zoo we missed this summer.

Romance Block Sue's

The above photo is what I started with when I received the block.

The quote that I used for Sue's block is from the quotes that are all over my Romance Block and the fabric I have from that block. The quote reads as follows, One word frees us of all the weight and pain in life, that word is love. The flowers that I made for this block are red beaded and I tried to make them look like a spring flower that would be romantic.Can't wait for the next block to come.

STS Spring block home

My spring block had finally made it's way home at the end of May or early part of June. I like the additions that she added to my block and it should be a good start to a girly girl quilt that I might start for on of my nieces. This was the spring block for the season to season swap in CQ for Newbies.