To Everything There is a Season

An Autumn wreath for Margreet. Margreet included a button and some trim that she wanted each person in the RR to add to her block which was a fun exercise.  This was a RR over on CQI Yahoo Group.

Summer DYB RR for Ritva - another RR at CQI.

And this is my Season to Season wallhanging. I am trying to decide whether to keep it for myself or to put it into the Family "Dirty Santa" drawing. Each of these blocks were from a swap on CQ for Newbies Yahoo Group. In this RR we made a block and embellished half of it and swapped with a partner who embellished the other half and then it was returned to owner. Gina embellished Spring, Violet did Summer, Gerry did Fall and Lauri embellished half of Winter. I added binding like a quilt and added a rod pocket on back for hanging. For purposes of this picture I added a yardstick to the rod pocket just to see how it would hang.

Cats

My sister, the youngest of 5, at age 51, is still trying to find herself.  She has never forgiven our parents for being alcoholics. She has never forgiven mom for leaving us. She has tried several different religions. She has tried several different forms of therapy. She has tried several different marriages. She has tried several different hiking/bicycling/mountain climbing trips to several different countries. I really can't understand her since I've never lost myself and had to find myself again but I do try to put myself in her shoes but I just can't get that nutty.

A few months ago she told me she quit working on her doctorate in psychology and was instead going to study to be a shaman. She was going to climb some sacred mountain in Peru as part of her training. And she told me she had a CAT as a spirit guide- "two of them actually". Yes, a CAT now gives her spiritual guidance. I'm not a cat person. We have lots of barn cats we feed and they always seem to stare at me when I pass by. They actually give me the creeps. They follow me when I'm gardening and poop where I dig. So, I'm not really understanding how to get advice from a cat. They just don't speak to me (nor I to them.)

At any rate...I made my sis a CQ cat for Christmas. She can have the spirit of me with her now.  The tag, which I haven't made yet, will say "Although I can't support your belief in a cat as a spirit guide, this is to remind you I will always support you. Love, Cat" (Cat is what my DH calls me...short for Cathy which is short for Catherine.)

I won't bother to tell her that about 30+ years ago I woke up in the night (probably because I talk in my sleep and wake myself with the chatter) and thought I saw a ghost cat at the end of my bed that looked a little like a white Cheshire Cat. It smiled and spoke not a word. And I haven't spoken of it...until now.

CQ by 2012 ???

I LOVE Fairies. I know they live in my gardens. I have a little fairy garden where I know they live. This is my first block for My Midnight Fairies (or Faeries?). All black backgrounds (ok, some have flowers), set on point and filled with lots of flowers, butterflies, fairies, mushrooms, etc. I bought some bright, flourescent and glow in the dark threads.  I am hoping for 16 (4x4) blocks.

Here's a close up of the first fairy riding a dragonfly. I stitched her dress with one strand of silk thread and embellished it with gold sulky. I'm not sure I will be using one strand of anything after this. My eyes don't see well enough. And, I am not good with facial features so that will need a little work. Plus...I should have embroidered her face in a little thinner thread instead of perle 8 so it would fit better with her dress. But...it's a learn as you go project. The dragonfly has sparkly ribbon wings. I am going to embroider the center fairies for the blocks first and then piece the blocks around them. The only plan that exists is in my head.   I hope to have this done sometime in 2012. There is a CQ by 2012 challenge and hopefully I will meet that challenge.

This is the other crazy quilt (well, I call it a bedrunner that I hope to lay over my Valentine Hanky Quilt) I hope to finish by 2012. A year doesn't seem like a very long time.

Winter and Seams Only

This is my work on Ritva's Winter block. She requested I use the color scheme of her blocks and added that she liked lace and beads. I made a Winter wreath for her.

This is Jeanne's block that I stitched on for the Seams Only RR. The orange in the middle bothered me  because I didn't think it belonged but I managed to stitch around it in some other bright colors.

And now...back to some Christmas projects before the grandkids get here to wreak havoc.

More Craziness

This is my work on Margreet's Spring block. I wanted to do a lot of miniature silk ribbon flowers that are found blooming in my garden in the spring. They were so miniature that by the time I finished that giant tulip in Margreet's fabric just didn't seem to fit. I tatted a butterfly to stick on top of it so hopefully it broke up the obvious "bigness". And when I was done I figured the bergamot in the upper left corner was a little out of proportion with the rest of the flowers but that's the way it is.

This is Marianne's block after Angie and I have stitched on it. This is for the white/cream/silver RR over on CQ4 Newbies.

Marianne asked for snowflakes so here I added one. You can't really tell from the photo but it is a sparkly silver. I added the silver spider web, cream feather stitch with white irridescent beads.

Marianne also requested a swan if anyone felt ambitious. I'm not sure I am too ambitious but here's a swan for her. I added it on top of the silver rickrack because the rickrack looked like sparkly, ripply water to me.

And finally, my blocks for another Tea Time RR to start Dec 1. I know...they are busy. I think I am doomed to be busy. It's my sane quilting leaking into the crazy quilting. But if I only get seam treatments I'm fine. A couple of these may be added to my "Ode to the Kitchen" quilt that exists only in my mind at this time.