Block 9 Completed

I have finished block 9 which started out with no particular theme and finished up being one of the main blocks in the quilt.  When I'd finished adding an elephant, a heart, a butterfly and a bouquet of Roses plus embroidery, the block was suffering an identity crisis but then my husband suggested that I turn the heart into a "cartouche".  A what?  "A Cartouche!" says he again.  He loves watching Antique Roadshow on TV and often in the jewellery section, Victorian watches, lockets, trinket boxes, serviette rings and cuff-links have a shape such as a heart, circle, oval etc in the gold or silver where people could get initials or names engraved.  So, I added my own initials VMG and the year 2011 in the blank section of the heart shape, in my own cartouche. I'm a bit disappointed that the heart edging has a "bulge" in it, it isn't straight. I tried to fix it but it's the way the motif was stitched originally and I can't do much about it. Suddenly though, the block felt complete, it looks happy again........I keep saying and it's true, these blocks develop a personality after awhile!!

Yesterday was actually a horrible day for doing anything, including stitching.  The temperature reached 40 degrees celsius which is 104 degrees farenheit and the humidity was revolting.  Everything felt hot and sticky until about 3.30pm when I decided that I really would have to brave the yucky weather and go shopping. The Heavens opened and heavy rain bucketed down accompanied by rolling thunder then just as suddenly, it stopped and it was still as hot and stickier than ever.  Today we were supposed to be hit by Cyclone Bianca but thankfully it has now been down-graded to just a heavy storm which hopefully will cool things down a bit. 

Autumn Postcard Swap

Last year the Southern Cross Crazies on-line crazy quilting group for Australians and New Zealanders hosted a postcard swap.  I chose "Autumn" as my subject and made six, one for me to keep and five to send away to my fellow-swappers.  The background for the postcards was a sandwich of Autumn/Fall coloured threads, glitter, copper coloured foil paper, copper coloured chopped Angel Fibre and powdered glue which was ironed flat between two pieces of black organdie.  At the local Op-Shop (the Salvos), I bought a bunch of artificial autumn leaves for $4 which were really ugly, came home and pulled all the leaves off the plastic stems which netted me a sizeable bag of brown, light orange and reddish orange leaves. I then pulled all the leaves off two stems of brown and beige velvet leaves and added them to the bag along with several autumn coloured leaf skeletons. The skeletal leaves and the velvet leaves were then sewn onto the background using Blanket Stitch and the artifical leaves were heat set with powdered glue and a hot iron.  Finally trims were added which included brown leaf trim from Flights of Fancy, cording, copper wire, wooden buttons and tiny gold charms.

Block 8 "Spinning" Block completed.

I call this a spinning block because I started off with spiders for Good Luck - I finished up with two.  However, that made me think of spiders spinning and I remembered the lace motif I had of a lady sitting at her spinning wheel, spinning.  I think she was a tourist souvenir from Belgium because I saw a lot of lace motifs framed in gold frames when we were in Bruges but they were so expensive that I didn't but any, I just admired them.  When we returned to UK I went to the charity shops in Anlaby near Hull and found the lady, squashed between a piece of dark green velvet and a piece of glass in the mandatory gold frame.  Unfortunately the green dye from the velvet had bled into the lady's dress but with gentle washes in Sard and Napisan stain removers and then a diluted bleach solution, I managed to get most of it out.  There was still a slight green tinge to the back of her dress so I covered it as best I could with cream leaves and flowers. I also found the length of lace braid which looked a bit like a row of spinning wheels. This was also a good opportunity to use some of my antique mother-of-pearl buttons. Now on to block 9!!

Spiders from Block 8

The January theme for the Victorian Symbolism Challenge with crazyquiltinternational on-line group is SPIDERS.  I made two spiders, one a pearl bead spider and the other a cream Stumpwork spider. Spiders in Crazy Quilting mean Good Luck, so hopefully there is a double dose on this block.

Block Seven completed

This was a difficult block for me to do as I didn't particularly like the naked block. The only starting point I had was the remnant of linen doily with the tatted edge and motif. By taking one seam at a time the block gradually took on a life of it's own and now that it is done, I like it. My favourite element of this block is the three antique ribbon flowers on the right hand side although the lace with the beaded edging at the lower left side is a piece from my Wedding dress so I guess that is a favourite too.

Block 6 Fan Block

Block 6 is called a Fan block for obvious reasons.......the lace motif at the bottom set the tone for the whole block with fan shaped stitches and other fan charms added.  The beige satin patch in the centre shone like a beacon, overshadowing everything else so I Kantha quilted it to give it more texture and less shine.  I didn't realise when I did this that February's Victorian Symbolism challenge with the on-line crazy quilt group is Fans so I'm out of sequence.  Not to worry, on to block 7.

Fan Block 6 Autocorrected

Fan Earring and Fans on the Fan Block

The fan charms on the Fan block came from an earring.  My friend Mary Lewis and I were on a joint cq charity shop crawl when we spotted these earrings.  We shared them, one each, as you do and I thought they'd be perfect for my block.  

Block 5 Cottage Garden block

I didn't realise just how pale this block was. It certainly doesn't look this pale in the flesh!! However, I made use of an antique bird motif which my husband says is on it's way to sh*t on the head of the lady busy in her garden......NOT TRUE! My antique bird would not do a thing like that. The lady is a lace motif which I bought when I was on holiday with my lovely friend Mary Lewis, I think I got her in a haberdashery shop in Milton or Ulladulla in NSW which has since closed down....shame that, it was a delightful old-fashioned habby shop. The flower beads are clear with a slight irridescent look, they are not all the pastel colours that show up in the photo. So block 5 finished, block 6 will get started in the train to work tomorrow.

Cottage Garden Block 5 Autocorrected

Today the temperature was over 100 degrees farenheit or 38 degrees celsius AGAIN....day after day of shocking heat. It's too hot to do anything other than sit in the studio or in the familyroom, under air-conditioner and stitch. This block has taken me all of yesterday and today to do but it's finished and I can start a new block tomorrow on the train.

Right! The stars come off!!

Having seen the photos of block 4 on the blog, those stars are definitely coming off. They are horrible to the max!!

Cream Crazy Quilt Block Four finished....

New Year's Day and I've spent two wonderfully relaxing hours working on block four of my cream on cream crazy quilt. This block contains two of my favourite pieces of lace. The large motif on the right hand side was bought for me by my lovely friend Jill Taylor in an antique textiles shop in Somerset, UK and has very fine organdie leaves which are over-embroidered with veins and in the centre is a 3-dimensional rose which is just over 1 inch across. I also love the very fine netting lace at the top left hand corner with the sprays of circles on stems.

While I am not a fan of sequin stars, the centre needed "lifting" and because there were already stars woven into the brocade, I added some more. I'm not sure about them though so they may come off at some stage in the future. The Angel button was given to me on an international crazy quilt block exchange and I loved it so much, I poached it for my quilt.

Cream on Cream crazy quilt block 3

This block contains some double frilled really antique lace which I hope doesn't disintegrate in a hurry plus a small circle of linen which came as part of a sheet of twenty circles, all hem-stitched around ready for crocheting an edge . I stitched an edging of vintage tatting and added the ribbon roses to cover the join in the tatting. This is the block which gave my husband and me such a puzzle when we came into the bedroom at night to see a row of tiny bright lights glowing on the bed. We turned on the lights and all that was on the bed was this unfinished block and some threads where I had been sewing earlier in the day. Turned out the lights again and there were the little shining lights again. I put my hand on the lights and discovered that I had embroidered a row of stitching on the block in GLOW-in-the-DARK Kreinik thread. What a laugh!! We cracked up laughing because it was so funny to think we had actually wondered what on earth the lights were....duh!! The Glow-in-the-DARK stitches are the Pistil stitches and French knots between the Chain stitched scallops above the two rows of frilled lace.

Cream on Cream block 3 auto-corrected

Funny how these blocks develop a mind of their own sometimes. I dithered about where to put a gold fan charm, the bottom left corner or the top right corner??? The block told me to scrap the fan, it was too heavy, too gold........so I finished up putting an organdie flower and old gold fern leaves at the bottom and God forbid - sea horses and seaweed at the top. I had no intention of putting seaweed and sea horses anywhere at all on the block and yet, I'm happy with the result.

Lola's Quillow finished on Christmas Eve

Thank God for Carols by Candlelight from the Myer Music Bowl as it is one of my favourite programs and also it kept me awake long enough to finish Lola's quillow in time for Christmas today. Lola is nearly five so I made her quilt from my scrap bag, using animal prints and colourful matching fabrics. Only one more to go now but Taylia is eleven and will understand that I am not Wonderwoman and hers will come in due course - besides she ordered an iPad Touch which Santa got - that girl knows her Nanna is a soft touch!!!

Close-Up of the quilt

Lola's quillow didn't really have a theme like the Dinasaurs and Construction Vehicles, it was more a fun quilt using up all my various animal patches and scraps of colourful fabrics that sort of co-ordinated with the animals.

Lola's Quillow

This is the pillow part of Lola's quillow. It is done in crazy quilting with colourful plastic buttons instead of the usual charms and beads.

Block 2 in Natural Colours

These are the true colours for block two, the floral block. The buttons on the antique collar are about as old as the collar, all mother-of-pearl and all unpicked from ancient shirts. The two crocheted flowers have three layers of petals plus two padded "buds" which are covered in rows of single crochet. The broderie anglaise piece at the bottom right is also very old as is the fawn lace in the centre of the block. This lace fascinates me as it is made in rows of different patterns so that it looks as if someone has painstakingly joined single rows of lace to make a fabric.......this was given to me by a neighbour of my parents - Mrs Tobin. She died about 28 years ago now but I will always remember her when I see this piece of machine made lace. The piece of lace fabric at the top left hand corner of the block with the matching lace edging is from my wedding dress from when I married DH........this quilt is turning into a memory quilt without me meaning to do it.

Second Cream on Cream Block Finished

This block is mainly flowers, seemed to want to be that way. Not all blocks need to have a theme but this one lent itself to be a "garden" block. It is more 3D than the previous one but that won't matter in the overall scheme of things, some will be flatter while others while others will have more texture - DH just commented that "boy, this quilt will be heavy when it's finished!!" It will, but all it will do is lie on a bed - not to be SAT on or LAID upon or SCRUNCHED up. He's got the message, I think.

First Finished block for Cream on Cream Crazy Quilt

This is the first block for the cream on cream crazy quilt which I am making to use up my collection of antique laces, threads, buttons and beads. It seemed a shame to keep all these wonderful pieces from the past hidden away in boxes, bags and plastic containers when they could be used to create a lovely quilt with no rhyme nor reason to the design except to use up these old bits and bobs. Altogether I will need 96 blocks so I will join them in pairs, then in fours and then eights, embroidering the joining seams as I go. Seeing as a lot of the embroidery will be done on the train going to and coming home from work (1/2 hour journey each way) plus in my half hour lunch break, the smaller the piece of background fabric, the better. I will blog two versions of the photo, one in the natural cream and ivory colours and one with the photo "auto-corrected" which throws shadows on the work and makes it easier to see properly.