My friends work on QC blocks

I had a couple of ladies come and visit me on Tuesdays and I showed them how to make CQ blocks. So over several weeks,we worked on a different element each week, seams, motifs, lace and ribbon, buttons and spiders. Here is their work, they did a fantastic job I thought, I thought I did a great job on showing them how to do this wonderful craft....

Firstly here is some of Desley's work, sorry but I didn't get the whole block, will get a finished photo when I see her again next month. Desley actually made three blocks, a pinkie one and a green one. They were going to be for a child's play hangup, but Desley got so involved in this one and made it more elegant, not suitable for a child's hanging..... Desley is going to frame this one.... Well done Desley.

Here's some more of her block....

And the part I just love the most about this block is the centre and bottom right......

Centre first.....

Just stunning don't you think, perfect way to show off that gorgeous flower in the centre.... and the ribbon work at the bottom

This is just so lovely...

Now for Robyn's block..

I got the full block this time........

And closeups of some of the elements, firstly the button trail at the top right..... and those lovely Cretan stitch half wheels, the flower sequins set the trail of nicely.

And ....... adding braids, little motifs and lace...

And of course no block is complete without a spider and her web, so as I did Florence's needle case I showed them how one way was done...

Next month (after the school holidays), were going to work on making a needle case each.  We're going to swap each around so all three of us get to work on it.

TTFN

Arlene

Rosey's making herself right at home

A few weeks ago we took ownership of a lovely beagle named Rosey. Well she has now had time to settle into her new home, and nows rules the castle.  Here is her new kennel that Michael made for her, yes he is coming round to loving this wonderfully sweet puppy, she'll be 5 in August. And yes it's made of cardboard, but it's warm and she loves it.

Here she is on one of her twice daily walks, half hour in the morning and between and half hour to an hour in the afternoons.

The last few Tuesdays Echo (her sister from previous owner) comes to visit, they get so excited when they see each other, but then within half an hour it's rest time, this was taken just the other day....

Also when we give her bones, if she's alone (no friends over) she burys them straight away, but if she has friends over it's all eaten up and not saved for later.

Also when she is sleeping she has some favourite sleeping styles, this is one of them....  very lady like.....  and she snoores very loudly......

Well that's Roseys post for this time round, she has Ally visiting now, my son's 7 month old Labrador, very full of life and just wants to play with Rosey constantly, so we put Rosey in the Laundry at night so she gets some sleep. Thankfully Ally lets us sleep until dawn too.....

This is Ally......

Well that's all for now on our new addition to the White Family.

TTFN

Arlene

Southern Cross Crazies - Florence's needlecase

This is another round robin that is now finished. I just loved the colours of this block, in fact I really love all of it, would love to have this for my own.  Well here's all the eye candy for you, first the whole block....

And now the eye candy closeups.... first the button trail, I have wanted to use this big button for sometime, but never had the right place for it, until now.......

and it would be complete without a spider and her web

And to top it off I chose to add a ribbon rose for Florence...

Florence it will be home to you in the coming week.

TTFN

Arlene

Hearts Round Robin, coming to a close

Well this is another round robin I have now finished, I'm actually posting on two here, as they both are now finished. Firstly is the Hearts round robin with Crazy quilting international, I was the last to work on Darlene's quilt block, so it will be now winging it's way back to the USA early next week.  Here's the eye candy for you. Firstly the full block now finished.

and my work, which is the pansies in the centre, the row of little purple roses and the rose motif at the bottom right.

And here are your close ups.

The rose first....

and the pansies....

And one of the roses and the buttonhole wheel seam.

TTFN

Arlene

Another UFO finished - Goldwork

Back in February 2009 I attended a Gold work workshop tutored by Tracy Franklin in Cambridge UK.  It was a weekend workshop and we had the choice of two designs.  My choice was the one with spirals, I was lucky enough to have a copy of both designs as I am going to make the other one eventually and have them together on my buffet.  Here is some of the work from the original workshop.

First of all my piece in progress. We dusted the design on first then drew the design over the top with gold pen.  The first part was the or nue' (gold with coloured thread), then the kid leather squares and then finally the pearl at the bottom.

This next picture is the other design.

This one below is Tracy and I back in February 2009 at the workshop.

And now my finished piece finally, incentive was I am entering it in the Townsville show next month and needed it finished.

The photo of course does not do it justice, the design is 6" high and 2 1/2" wide. I will put it eventually in a bigger frame, as I still have all the material at the back, didn't cut any off as I had always intended to frame in a much larger frame.

So now here are the closeups.

This is the bottom section first

The next section up from that

yes I know just a little wonky there in the middle, tried a few times to fix it, but must be the kid leather in that section.

And finally the top section where the or nue' is.

I then bordered 3/4 of it with a large twist with the medium twist for the diagonals in the centre part.

Everyone who has seen it so far likes it, especially hubby's mother (secretly I think she's hoping I'll give it to her).

TTFN

Arlene

Finally finished

I started this piece about 12 months ago while I was still in the UK, I have now finally finished. It was a piece from Sharon Boggons Silk Ribbon Embroidery class, and this was week 6. I had to finish it as I want to enter it into the Show next month.
This photo hows the whole piece still in the hoop, not sure how I want to mount it yet, I have until next weekend to do this.

This is close up of the looped flowers, and tulips.

Some closeups of the roses, gathered flowes, colonial knows, and beading.

more closeups

TTFN

Arlene

Stumpwork Round Robin - Cobi's block

Cobi's block for the Stumpwork Round Robin was fairly straight forward once I got going.  Seeing Gerry's work up close was wonderful, she is such a wonderful stitcher.  Her birdy in the nest is a work of art, Cobi you are so lucky.  Gerry suggested putting in a bee's skep as she was going to do it herself, but I got the chance to. I have actually got here some of the steps that I went through to get the desired effect.

First of all you need to pad it. This was done using plain ole' padding, one smaller then the other with the smaller one on the bottom.

Tacked down on the compass points. 

Then I covered it with tan coloured felt as seen in this photograph, and as my next step was to needle lace over the top of it. I used a lovely varigated cotton that a swap friend sent me.

I then proceeded to needle lace the entire padded area.  This photo is the completed area.

This next picture is of me working on Cobi's block, taken by a friend who I stitch with on Mondays.

I'm actually doing the needle lace on the bee's skep here.

Had to make my bee's first, then their wings.

Making the bee's wings, this is just perle 8 cotton, and buttonhole stitched on chiffon over the top and then cut out.

I only added 3 bees, but they seemed to be the element that took the longest time, the wings along took an hour each to make.

Next was the beetle and the vein holding the bee skep. The vein was wrapped wire using that furry wool that you see around.

My beetle wasn't ment to look like a real one, he did look a bit odd though, he has two weird beady eyes, and his wings are bullion stitched and buttonhole surrounds. His body was just wrapped thread, and chain stitch legs.

TTFN

Arlene