Thursday, March 11, 2010

Falling through the cracks

Yes, there are things that are falling through the cracks. I have been finishing projects this month. Not as many as I should. In fact I came up with only these two that I could actually show.
This first one is a sock that I finished from yarn that was purchased in Ludington when my friend Pam from Australia was up to visit. She bought the same yarn (I was copying her not vice versa) and now I'm finally getting to finishing them 6 months later. I'm never without a sock to work on these days.
This one finally got finished and off my design wall! I call it,
"Deconstructed Star". It was a piecing nightmar . . . er I mean challenge! I managed to do only about six partial seams to put the top together. When I get finished with the big sale this weekend I plan to explore some more embellishments. Oh and the Border Babes are swapping Batik charm squares for a new project that some of them are interested in doing. I'm not necessarily doing the project, but I'm always interested in getting my hands on new Batiks!

Cindy K-K
Getting back on the finishing wagon.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Sookie Stackhouse is to blame!

If any of you have been a fan of the HBO series "True Blood" then you know Sookie. Sookie Stackhouse is the heroine of a series of books about Vampires in rural Louisiana. They are very original (despite the whole Anne Rice phenom) and ultimately intriguing. If you enjoy a good mystery/romance/scary vampire story then you will love Sookie and her cohorts!

That's my excuse for not posting for the whole month of February. I read my way through all 9 books and most of the way through another collection of short stories staring Sookie. Yes, I'm on a first name basis with her for a reason.

Anyway, so today I am starting fresh on my goal of finishing one thing per day. Here is what I managed to get done during Feb.

I got this bear finally once and for all finished and it's now hanging up at Interquilten. It was a very fun project to do and I hope this will inspire some of you to delve into the possibilities of trying some of these techniques.

This is one Paper Pieced block of a wall hanging called "Majestic Fir" which I did for a class. The class was very successful and I can't wait to finish the rest of the wallhanging. It too will hang in Interquilten and we will have more classes based on this pattern.

This is the latest of the Applique BOM's, also for Interquilten. (Are you beginning to sense a theme here? Yes, I finished all the projects I should have for the shop but none of my own?)

Oops, how did I manage this? I finished this block which is going to be a page for my embellishment book. Eventually I will have a whole booklet of these wonderful idea pages. Yes, even at my age I have hope for the future!

Oh look! A project that I didn't need to do for the shop! This is the center to my latest Round Robin. It's going to be slightly different than most RR's. This one I'm asking for textures rather than colors and shapes. I found this little project at Goodwill in a kit that I paid $.53 for. I finished it in one day. It was for a little sachet type pillow with a lace edging. I put that lace on and then added another border. It's about 6 inches square at the moment and I'm hoping it will only get to be less than 18 inches total. But we shall see. Round Robins are like children, you put them out into the world and trust that they will come back to you as fully realized individuals!

Now I'm caught up to yesterday! Yesterday was March 1. I managed to finish something else in time for the guild meeting. I showed this project at the meeting so I present it here.
This is how it starts, as a yellow bead and button "Stew". The recipe for this Stew is in the book pictured here, Quilting Arts Book, based on the magazine of the same name. My take on the stew was to add certain charms, lapel buttons, and costume jewelry.
Here's what I made out of it. I began with a circle of a beautiful yellow and orange batik. I fused it to a piece of Peltex and then put another backing of fusible onto it. I then place a small layer of yellow and gold Angelina fibers onto the front with misty fuse and once that was attached I trimmed the entire piece the shape of batik. I peeled off the paper backing of the fusible and began to sew. I sewed the beads on in circular lengths that stood up from the backing. I also did kind of a bead fringe technique where you string on a row of beads and then skip the last one and go back through all the others. I tried to fill as much space as possible on the surface of the moon. I wanted to leave the outside edges free so that I could do a satin stitch around it to attach it to the finished project. This is just one design element in a larger piece. Also, the watch on this project is a dead watch that I had, I set the time to a significant time the time of my birth and that of my son's. I was born at 10:30 am, and he was born at 10:30 pm. My idea to finish this project is to commemorate the island of Kynthia where Apollo and Athena were born. Athena is the goddess of the moon. Kynthia is the derivation of my name Cynthia.
Side view showing the 3-D effects of the bead fringe technique.

More later!
Cindy K-K
Finished with Harris' novels; now on to more of my own projects.