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.