Tatted Wheelbarrow filled with flowers

 The tatted wheelbarrow is filled with silk ribbon flowers. The flowers on the right are daises worked in  Brazilian Dimensional Embroidery using  pistol stitch and french knots. The bunny on the left is satin stitch. The pattern for the daises and bunny are by Rosalie Wakefield. She has a neat way of making the Turkey Stitch and easy so it will not pull out. It is in her book, "An Artist's Garden". The butterfly is by Helen Stevens using one strand in a long and short stitch. I could not find orange rayon floss and white rayon will not dye. See photo below. The silk ribbon always dyes beautifully. So I used DMC cotton floss. I have 2 books and a DVD on Helen's patterns. These are beautiful and easy to work up. Everyone should have at least one of her books. I dream someday to do a large work of her patterns. This is added to my bucket list!!!

Melons, melons everywhere!! They have produced well and have been on a melon diet for the past month. That is humans, dogs, goat and chickens. Cat won't eat them!! LOL 

These went into a fruit cocktail. It is melons, strawberries and pineapple with a syrup of sugar, orange juice and pink lemonade. Froze up 20 quarts and will be delicious during the winter.

 

Scratch board, Tatting and Silk Ribbon

 We were given a scratch board at Art League for our project of the month. I decided to do a peacock using a sharp knife to sketch out the design.  I just laid out the peacock feathers and need to finish off the matt board. Might print out an all over design of peacock feathers on cotton or silk. Then glue it to the matt board.

Nancy Tracy has begun part 1 of a doily.  It will be an oblong doily and looking forward to part 2. The pattern can be found at www.be-stitched.com

One of my favorite motifs on a crazy quilt is Jane Eborall's wheel barrow (www.janeeborall.freeservers.com) . It is ready to be filled with silk ribbon flowers. 

 Here is some silk ribbon I dyed. It has all the wrinkles pressed out and some of it has been rolled on a TP holder. The holder is wrapped with acid free paper.  The fun is about to begin stitching silk ribbon flowers and bugs...

Works in Progress

The compass center is finished and sewen to the background fabric. The triangles are ready to sew.  This will be a good 2 year project for me. The block of the month is a 1790 Marriage coverlet titled, "Love Entwined".  It is beautifully designed out by Esther Aliu. For more information please visit Esther Aliu's blog, http://www.estheraliu.blogspot.com

 

I was not happy with the points on the first compass. The more I fiddled with it the points started to go missing. It makes a nice design for a bag.

 

Easy Street was started in January and finally started to put it together. However I have one glitch...The 15 inch blocks were a might too big for the other blocks. So I have to rip them apart and resew the seams 1/8 inch smaller. These 3 rows fit beautifully.

 

 

This is my noon time hand quilting project. My dogie, Tazzie, takes her nap and I quilt. One side is completed and the top I am working on is almost finished. Goal to have to done by Christmas. Hard to see but the center section is all quilted and ready to move to the next section.

 

One of my flower beds. The yellow coreopsis are going to seed. I have been collecting the seeds for next year. They do brighten up the garden!

The fruits of our labor. We had 5 muskmelons all ripe at the same time. This one is a 6 ponder! Lots of zukes and cukes. Picked all the big heads of cabbage and now eating the little ones (side shoots). Tomatoes are slowly getting ripe.

It has been almost 4 years since we have had RAIN, beautiful rain. Tonight I filled up two big rain barrels and 6 - 5 gal buckets. Water everywhere.  Hopefully the drought in the Southwest is over.

 

Piggies, Peacock and Crazy Quilt Top

The top of the Crazy Quilt with the tatted peacock.

Tatted piggies and a peacock. The pink piggies were tatted with size 40 and the black piggy in size 80. The pattern is from "Tatting Treats" by Pam Palmer. Lots of easy patterns for beginners. I worked some split rings for the center so they are all one piece.  The peacock is a pattern by Dianna Stevens in her book "Animal Bookmarks A Tatted Zoo".

A block with silk ribbon roses.

 Below is the whole crazy quilt. Still working on the bottom border and it will be finished. The last step will be tying the layers together.

 

1790 Coverlet Compass

I have completed the compass for the first phase of  Esther Aliu's 1790 Coverlet Bom.
The size is 7 1/2 inches.

I used the paper piecing method. Certainly did a lot of ripping to get the points. The center white is the last spike. One needs to stop sewing at the line and use a y-seam or sew it by hand. I opted to sew it by hand and it looks pretty good.

On the pattern it has 4 small colors of fabrics for the center. I opted to use one fabric and fussy cut a rose using silk thread to applique down.

 

There are 32 very small circles sewn on the outside of the compass. Many people are having problems making them. And what a wealth of information on so many tutorials making and improvising!!!! From beads to machine embroidery, Oh My!!!  I found this template of the right size on  www.presentationmagazine.com/tag/circles . Printed them off on card stock and cut them out. Baste on the outside with the circle card stock in center, pull the threads to make a round circle. Then set them in a dish with starch till wet and iron. Let dry for 20 minutes, take tweezers and pull out the card stock.  Below is what you have to sew all the way around. Because of the excess fabric on the back you do no need to add a dab of cotton to puff up the inside.

Santa Rosa Hail Storm

  Photo courtesy: Santa Rosa Fire Department
SANTA ROSA, N.M. -- A massive thunderstorm turned a summer day into a winter wonderland in Santa Rosa, New Mexico on Wednesday . This sedan was stranded on a bridge in Santa Rosa on Wednesday evening after a storm dumped as much as 2 feet of golf- and paintball-sized hail on the town, causing widespread property damage.

 

Sunday we had rain and hail for 3 hours and 3 inches of rain. It was like a lake all around the house, swimming pool had water running over the top and rivers of water running through from the homes above us. On Wed at 5pm it was black to the West and thankfully we missed the big Hail Storm that hit Santa Rosa. Santa Rosa is about 60 miles West of us on I40. Sure need the rain but not all at once. Tore the garden up pretty bad. Melons and squash are looking better today.

Happy Fourth of July

Hand appliqued Eagle with American Flag.  Someday it will be in a Baltimore Album Quilt....