Well, to my surprise I have been tagged with a Thinking Blogger Award by LinMoon . I must say that I'm honored to be included in such good company as the other blogs I have seen nominated. Thanks, LinMoon!!
Now, I'm supposed to nominate 5 blogs that make me think and that I read regularly. My choices are (in no particular order):
Julie Zickefoose, because she makes me think twice about my impact on the environment (and because she has a dream job!).
The Farmer's Wife who chronicals in gorgeous photographs the vanishing farmland around her home in rural Illinois.
Sharon Boggon's In a Minute Ago blog was my first real brush with crazy quilting and it opened my eyes to all that lovely craft entailed. She continues to inspire me.
Fibermania's Melody Johnson, for opening my eyes to the wonderful world of art quilts.
Allies in Stitches where Alison Aller continues to blur the line between crazy quilts and art quilts with great success.
Also, ummm, it's been a long awhile since I finished that fairy block (that I use for the background of my blog) that LinMoon mentioned... I think maybe I should get back to that thing called crazy quilting that I love so much. Back with stitching soon!
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Monday, April 23, 2007
Colorado trip highlights
I was sick all weekend with either a bad cold or flu (still am) so I didn't post. Believe it or not, though, I have several posts lined up so thought I better get the first one up here.
We had a good time in Colorado. We snuggled with Aiden:
Made a birthday cake for Sophia:
Dad was so nervous about writing Sophia's name on the cake that he forgot the "i" in her name and had to add it later in blue frosting! Hee!
We opened birthday presents and played with balloons:
We had dinner at midnight, cooked by my youngest son, Josh and his wife, in their tee-tiny kitchen:
Sauteed chicken tenders, mushroom risotto and glazed asparagus. Yummers!
Here are our three boys... Nat, Josh and Randy. They are rather rough around the edges but then, so are we. We love 'em dearly!
We had a good time... too short but we packed in what we could! On the way back we stopped for the night in Taos, New Mexico. I have quite a few pictures I'd like to share so I'll leave those for another day.
I think it's time for another nap!
We had a good time in Colorado. We snuggled with Aiden:
Made a birthday cake for Sophia:
Dad was so nervous about writing Sophia's name on the cake that he forgot the "i" in her name and had to add it later in blue frosting! Hee!
We opened birthday presents and played with balloons:
We had dinner at midnight, cooked by my youngest son, Josh and his wife, in their tee-tiny kitchen:
Sauteed chicken tenders, mushroom risotto and glazed asparagus. Yummers!
Here are our three boys... Nat, Josh and Randy. They are rather rough around the edges but then, so are we. We love 'em dearly!
We had a good time... too short but we packed in what we could! On the way back we stopped for the night in Taos, New Mexico. I have quite a few pictures I'd like to share so I'll leave those for another day.
I think it's time for another nap!
Friday, April 20, 2007
Introducing...
Aiden Gage in his daddy's arms, born April 10, 2007. He's quite a chunk... 8 lbs 14 oz and 21" long (4kg and 53cm long)! Aiden is our second grandchild and first grandson.
Innt he cute??? We made a whirlwind trip to Colorado to see him last weekend, returning on Wednesday. I'll share more about the trip (and the Quilt of Valor progress) this weekend, but wanted to get this up for you to see.
Innt he cute??? We made a whirlwind trip to Colorado to see him last weekend, returning on Wednesday. I'll share more about the trip (and the Quilt of Valor progress) this weekend, but wanted to get this up for you to see.
Monday, April 09, 2007
Quilt of Valor
I've been working on my Quilt of Valor I started with a panel from Laurel Burch's Mythical Horses line.
The woman in the center with the horse
just seemed so "Warrior" to me that I thought it would be appropriate. Also, I like bright colors... ;0)
Here's a couple of closeups of the figures in the panel so you can see where my inspiration for the design came from:
I had to increase the width to make it work within the 50" x 60" lap quilt size. I played around with some different combinations of side panels and finally went with these. It took a bit of playing with leftovers but I got it done!
I think this worked pretty well. It might have been better if I had taken the outside bits of black and yellow banding off, but I think it will be fine this way.
I wanted an inner border using two colors (to stay with the wonkiness of the whole concept)and then an outer border of the dark blue to pull the eye from the center with the woman out to the border, and vice versa. Here's the inner border of pink and green just laid out on the design wall...
The pink and green are the same value so (to my eye at least) they work well together.
Here is the outer border added on. The striped corners reflect the stripes painted on several of the horses in the panel and were the starting point for my design. I didn't quite have enough blue fabric left that was long enough so I had to add some pink and green rectangular pieces on either side of the striped corner block.
I do like it better with the extra rectangular pieces added, though!
In fact, I like it alot; however, I'm really a novice at this and am just feeling my way along. I know it is bright but to my mind it needs to match the panel intensity.
So, I'm asking your opinion if I may... does this design work or do I need to try something else? Maybe different colors? Not so many stripes?? Any suggestions welcome... well, I won't start completely over!
The woman in the center with the horse
just seemed so "Warrior" to me that I thought it would be appropriate. Also, I like bright colors... ;0)
Here's a couple of closeups of the figures in the panel so you can see where my inspiration for the design came from:
I had to increase the width to make it work within the 50" x 60" lap quilt size. I played around with some different combinations of side panels and finally went with these. It took a bit of playing with leftovers but I got it done!
I think this worked pretty well. It might have been better if I had taken the outside bits of black and yellow banding off, but I think it will be fine this way.
I wanted an inner border using two colors (to stay with the wonkiness of the whole concept)and then an outer border of the dark blue to pull the eye from the center with the woman out to the border, and vice versa. Here's the inner border of pink and green just laid out on the design wall...
The pink and green are the same value so (to my eye at least) they work well together.
Here is the outer border added on. The striped corners reflect the stripes painted on several of the horses in the panel and were the starting point for my design. I didn't quite have enough blue fabric left that was long enough so I had to add some pink and green rectangular pieces on either side of the striped corner block.
I do like it better with the extra rectangular pieces added, though!
In fact, I like it alot; however, I'm really a novice at this and am just feeling my way along. I know it is bright but to my mind it needs to match the panel intensity.
So, I'm asking your opinion if I may... does this design work or do I need to try something else? Maybe different colors? Not so many stripes?? Any suggestions welcome... well, I won't start completely over!
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Color
One of the many blogs I read is Knitting on Impulse. Although her medium is yarn and ours is cloth and thread, I thought you might be interested in a series she is running about Playing with Colour (she's in Canada).
She takes a photograph, pulls the colors out of it and then uses the colors in a knitting design. It's really fascinating stuff! She calls it Patterns in Nature and it is simply scrump-dilly-icious!
Enjoy!
She takes a photograph, pulls the colors out of it and then uses the colors in a knitting design. It's really fascinating stuff! She calls it Patterns in Nature and it is simply scrump-dilly-icious!
Enjoy!
Monday, April 02, 2007
Estate sale goodies
Morning ladies!!
How are things in your world this morning?? My world is beginning to look up... the van is back and I get my permanent crown put on this afternoon on that pesky broken tooth. WooHoo! A return to normalcy.
Edited to add... thanks for all the great comments, everyone! I appreciate the support and suggestions. I was going to try and do the quilting myself... I've never done any machine quilting and it is high time I learned. We'll see how the summer goes... I still think it would be a great big blank slate to practice on!! Thanks for the suggestions on adding applique, Victoria, but I don't think I'm up to that right now!!
There hasn't been much quilting or embroidering going on. I've attempted to get some done but it didn't work. I was able to stop at an estate sale on the way to work last Thursday, and I picked up these goodies.
This is a lovely crocheted collar. The neck opening is only 3 1/4" (8.25cm) across so I assume it was made for a doll. Maybe it isn't even a collar... although I'm not sure what else it could be. I'll probably use it as the centerpiece for a crazy quilt.
Then I got a few more bits of rick rack... lots of silver:
I have plans for a black and white crazy quilt with silver and pearls as accents so I've been keeping my eye out for goodies to add to it.
And here are some of those goodies:
Left is a marcasite and jet (I believe) necklace and bracelet and on the right is a Laguna aurora borealis necklace. I just love these crystal necklaces... the beads really make a crazy quilt glisten and shine, don't you think? The copper pieces are a bracelet that I'll probably gift to my red-haired daughter-in-law. It should be smashing with her hair.
That's all for now. I need to resurrect my work room and find the top of my quilting and cutting tables before I start on the Quilt of Valor. Back soon... everyone have a great week!
How are things in your world this morning?? My world is beginning to look up... the van is back and I get my permanent crown put on this afternoon on that pesky broken tooth. WooHoo! A return to normalcy.
Edited to add... thanks for all the great comments, everyone! I appreciate the support and suggestions. I was going to try and do the quilting myself... I've never done any machine quilting and it is high time I learned. We'll see how the summer goes... I still think it would be a great big blank slate to practice on!! Thanks for the suggestions on adding applique, Victoria, but I don't think I'm up to that right now!!
There hasn't been much quilting or embroidering going on. I've attempted to get some done but it didn't work. I was able to stop at an estate sale on the way to work last Thursday, and I picked up these goodies.
This is a lovely crocheted collar. The neck opening is only 3 1/4" (8.25cm) across so I assume it was made for a doll. Maybe it isn't even a collar... although I'm not sure what else it could be. I'll probably use it as the centerpiece for a crazy quilt.
Then I got a few more bits of rick rack... lots of silver:
I have plans for a black and white crazy quilt with silver and pearls as accents so I've been keeping my eye out for goodies to add to it.
And here are some of those goodies:
Left is a marcasite and jet (I believe) necklace and bracelet and on the right is a Laguna aurora borealis necklace. I just love these crystal necklaces... the beads really make a crazy quilt glisten and shine, don't you think? The copper pieces are a bracelet that I'll probably gift to my red-haired daughter-in-law. It should be smashing with her hair.
That's all for now. I need to resurrect my work room and find the top of my quilting and cutting tables before I start on the Quilt of Valor. Back soon... everyone have a great week!
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