Final Project Reveal: Pillow Shams

Back to blogging after a wonderful Christmas Eve and Christmas with our son Dave and DIL Emily. Then, we arrived back in town Sunday afternoon after a nice trip to visit the McBrayer clan in western North Carolina. And my wonderful DSH (Dear Sweet Husband) agreed to stop at Mary Jo's Cloth Store in Gastonia, NC for some whirlwind shopping on the way. The shopping mall where it is located is being renovated, and the entrance to the store has changed, but they are still there...and busy as always. I picked up some FQ's, some packages of wool roving in every color for my new embellishing machine, and a few fabrics that I hope will work for my niece Melinda's baby nursery.

Now that all my Christmas surprises have been given away, I can show what else I finished recently.

Here is the wedding quilt that I made for son Dave and wife Emily as a wedding present a couple years ago. I heard a little bird say that they would love to have some quilted shams to match...











Luckily, I still had many of the white fabric squares, some of them already pieced together. I used one of my pillow shams as a guide to the size. After quilting the top to the same wool batting and a muslin backing, I sewed them to the back fabric and top-stitched about one and a half inches inside the edge. The quilted feathers are mostly from the book Floribunda Quilting by Nichole Webb.

Isn't it fun to be able to show all the secret surprises we have all been working on?

New Project

Here is a peek at a new patchwork project that is underway. This is all I can show until after Christmas...yes, I am actually starting some Christmas gifts before the second week in December. I love the bright colors popping against the black prints.

When I was making my second journal for my online class, I had lots of narrow pieces of watercolor paper left over from trimming the papers to size. These are perfect for bookmarks and experimenting with different types of embellishment.

The top one has a strip of hand-dyed fabric fused to the watercolor paper, and then I doodled on the fabric with gel pens. The center one also has fused fabric and some fiber and ribbon embellishments. I printed some words on a transparency master in different fonts. The word "laughter" is just stitched on to this bookmark. I like the effect. The bottom one had a light lavender wash of paint, and I just doodled over it with the gel pens.

In fact, I doodled my way to the mountains on Friday while DH was driving. The scenery was not too good in the gray fog and rain, so it was fun to work with bright colors. Here are a couple of new pages in my art journal.

The spiral feather is similar to the floribunda feathers I learned from machine quilter Nichole Webb. I used them on the white wedding quilt I made for Dave and Emily. Now I am working on another project to go with the quilt, so I need a little practice on these.

I have an interview lined up on Thursday for a teaching job at an elementary school in North Raleigh. The job begins January 2. I started making appointments for doctor visits in the event that I get the job. Today I am off for my annual mammogram. I also made an appointment with the ophthalmologist who performed my Lasik surgery back in the 90's. My last eye check was in 2001! That is awful. I have been squinting at my crossword puzzles, so I know my near vision has gotten worse as I have gotten closer to the big 6-0.

Bet You Can't Make Just One

Fabric postcard, that is. Once I have all my stuff out, I end up making another, and another, and another...

Autumn Splendor- this one is shiny and features Angelina fibers, laundry sheet flowers painted with Lumiere paint, metallic thread stitching, ribbons, fused commercial print with fruits, autumn leaves from a purchased spray, and of course a few Swarovski crystals.

Last night I received great news from daughter-in-law Emily. If you have been reading my blog, you may remember that their apartment building burned down in September, and all of their belongings suffered water, smoke, or soot damage. Yesterday, the dry cleaners returned all their cleaning that was salvageable...and the white wedding quilt I made for them is now fresh, shiny, and beautiful again! When I saw it after the fire, it was rather brown and not too promising. I was starting to gather my white fabrics to make them a new one, but I am glad that this one survived. It has Floribunda quilting a la Nichole Webb, a sateen back and some white satin squares mixed with the cottons on the front.

Emily gets her quilt, and two more postcards

After the quilt enjoyed an outing at the Capital Quilters Guild show, I finished up the label for Dave and Emily's wedding quilt. Ever since I took the embellishment workshop with Melody Crust, I have been spending a little more time making special labels. I used a crazy-quilt format with a wedding picture of the couple in the center. I also used the photo transfer fabric in my computer printer to add a poem from their wedding program and the text of the label. I also found a picture of a full-blown rose, made it smaller, and changed the color to match the roses in their wedding flowers. A little embroidery, some beads, lace, and crystals, and it was done. We were heading south to visit our other son and his family, so stopped off in Cary at Emily's office to deliver the finished product. I have to admit it is gratifying to hear oohs and aahs when people see my work!

In my previous post, I mentioned having to make more fabric postcards for the guild since they sold two of mine twice...so while I had all that stuff out in my studio, I made two St. Patrick's Day cards. I sent one to my dad, and the other to my uncle, Jerry Donovan, who celebrates our Irish heritage and is currently recovering from cardiac bypass surgery.

Silk shamrock, Angelina fibers, Tsukineko inks, Swarovski crystals, metallic silver and green threads

Capital Quilters Guild Show March 9-11

I have been busy getting my quilts ready to turn in today for the Capital Quilters Guild show at Peace College in Raleigh the weekend of March 9-11. I am entering Dave and Emily's wedding quilt, the basket quilt I finished for my sister-in-law Debbie, and a wall-hanging quilt that I trapuntoed, painted, and embellished with crystals and iridescent Angelina fibers for sparkle. I almost pulled the wall quilt out of the show because I have had so many problems with it. I will devote a post to it when I get back next week after the wedding. For a preview, visit my Webshots album 2007 Longarm Quilting , pages two and three. Here is one picture of the finished quilt. I will turn my quilts in at Quilts Like Crazy shop in Wake Forest, and then we are heading to Boone tonight for my niece Rachel's wedding. Hope we don't get snowed in!