Scrapbook

A while back, I was asked to decorate a cover for a scrapbook being made for the secretary at church. She is retiring this week after 19 years as our church's secretary. We had a celebration luncheon this past Sunday. The scrapbook is a compilation of cards, letters, stories, and memories contributed by members of the congregation. I used a white on white printed fabric for the background and embroidered over the design. The cross was crocheted with a size 10 hook. The motifs are tatting cotton and the border is size 12 perle cotton. The tiny hook is not my favorite to work with, but I love the tiny lacy things it makes. For the name, I enlarged a font that I liked and printed the outline of it.

Ocean Crazy WIP, Proud Mommy

Here's a composite photo of the ocean quilt so far.

On another note, my littlest angel rolled over for the first time yesterday. :) They grow so fast.

Ocean Crazy WIP

I started an ocean theme crazy quilt a couple years ago. It was inspired by one made by another Kate. You can find photos of her work on her here: http://www.fairykate.eboard.com. I haven't worked on this in a while, but I like to pull it out and look at it when I need inspiration/motivation. There's still a good amount of work left to do on it, but I'm happy with it so far. It's a playground of sorts where I've tried out different stitching techniques.

This is one of the few crazy quilt pieces I sketched out a plan for before I started. The 12" mermaid block is the center. The other blocks are 6" and go on either side with the lighter blocks above the darker ones. The plan is to make four 6" blocks in dark browns/black/navy to go along the bottom and four 6" blocks in sky shades to go along the top. I plan to use 1" sashing strips in brown so it looks like the view from a window.


There will be a treasure chest on a sand block with jewels spilling out. The sky blocks will have clouds, birds, a sun, a ship, and a sea serpent. I don't know if working with a plan gets things finished any sooner than a creative frenzy, but it is nice to have a plan sketched out.

For today, I'm working on a thread crochet cross to go on a scrapbook cover. The secretary at my church is retiring after 19 years and we're have a celebration for her this Sunday. A friend of mine is putting together a scrapbook
with cards and stories from members of the congregation. She knows I do crafty stuff and asked me to do the cover.I'm making great progress. I now have the theme picked, an idea in my head, and the cross almost done.

Round Robin Stitching

I've been catching up on some round robin stitching this week. The first photo is Annette's block. I did the floral silk ribon motif and a seam with a combination of stitches: herringbone, chevron, detatched chain, oyster, and French knots.

The next photo is a seam I did on Toni's block with French knots, detatched chains and pistil stitches added to overlapping chains. The last photo is also stitching I did on Toni's block: a chevron seam with gold straight stitches going around a corner and a paisley motif done with beads, knots, detatched chains and a couched braid.

Finding Motivation

I started a class on encrusted crazy quilting by Sharon Boggon of inaminuteago. This is the first week and I'm enjoying learning new things. I'm finding the motivation to pull out old projects and look at them with a fresh perspective. I haven't decided whether to piece a new block just for this class or use one of many that I have pieced and tucked into the WIP basket. The deciding factor will probably be whether I have pieced a new one before the next lesson or not. Here's a web page with several blocks that are still awaiting embellishment and might be good candidates.