PTA February

PTA (Professional Textile Artists) met at the home of Dort Lee this past month...always an inspiring and fun time.

Dort brought us down to her studio where she shared her latest big piece dealing with blocks of dinosaurs and monsters of that sort.

Her embellishments were fun, lively and bright and added so much to the piece....

especially the bright green rick rack...AND Who doesn't love rick rack??

Barbara shared a work in progress which was beautiful and very colorful. She found the inspiration for this piece in the book series - Masters - Art Quilts. She was able to track down the artist and got permission to make it although the artist, very flattered said she didn't need permission... This doesn't look anything like the one in the book although the basic bones are there...(this is prettier IMHO)

Connie showed us a lovely piece mounted on a stretched canvas. I love to show the back finishing with the strip of fabric along the inside edge.....so clever.

Georgia who couldn't make the meeting sent some "tie" bags to show. I went a little coo-coo over them and decided I needed to make some for people I hold near and dear to my heart. I did bring one home to hopefully make a pattern only to find out Georgia has a pattern. This beautiful little bag uses 1 tie and you can see the front flap is the widest part of the tie.

So I'm on a mission...found some ties my son gave me and my hubby is going to clean out his ties. As you can see above, there is a decorative pin, button etc on front of bag....

Well I have lots of those also with my antique button collection and old pins that were my mothers....One button is a bake-o-lite with mother of pearl insert...one is a dragon...a couple are from a coat that belonged to my mother plus the crystal pins she loved to wear...What fun...hopefully we'll see a demo from Georgia at retreat which is quickly approaching....A fun day

Welcome to the World

My niece and her husband recently gave birth to twin girls....a lot of excitement. They are darling and a little over 1 month...how fast they grow.

I often do I Spy quilts for new members of the family but I decided to do a wall hanging for their room along with an I Spy quilt. Their colors are gray, pink and purple. I threw in the blue that Jen (the mom) likes also. The entire piece is stitched using a buttonhole stitch which I love to do and my BERNINA 710 does it really well. I find that some machines don't do it evenly...different amount of space between the stitch. I also used 2 strands of embroidery floss to embroidery some of the details.

I actually saw something like this on Pinterest...thought it was so cute and whimsical...and adapted it for this piece.

It's also small so will fit anywhere...But what a doofus I am...Notice the date...which I obviously didn't....According to this, the girls aren't even born yet....But we'll be going up in October and it's an easy fix...already have the floss, needle and scissors in the glove compartment so I won't forget. I added a flange on every side...2 are pink and 2 are blue. I also like to couch Candlelight thread or some kind of heavier metallic decorative thread in the ditch to add just a tad of sparkle.

It was great fun to do and as with any of these things a labor of love. Now the label on the back was correct...swear I'm losing it!

This I Spy is the one I often do...I found a darling backing (above) lots of wonderful animals and used lots of prints for the front.

They are very colorful and great fun for the little ones....At first I thought it was a bit redundant to make two I Spys as they would be so similar and have since re-thought it and am making another one...each of the girls should have their own....and they are great fun to make.

Here's the completed piece and another one in the works...a little different pattern and blocks...having fun and will keep you posted. Til next time....

In my Next Life....

I'm coming back as my cats who get to do whatever they want, whenever they want...

Lounging on fabric is their favorite...

They'll stake out their spot early on so the other 2 can't sit there. My 3 fluffers are made up of 2 girls, Molly and Zoey and Fraggle our boy cat who is double their weight, a Maine Coone (17 lbs.) and a gentle giant.

What is the appeal of this soft, sink into couch...Oh I guess I just said it...

Anyway, I love my cats, they make me laugh and give me unconditional love...When I was a little girl I wanted to be an Old Maid and have cats...lots of them...well the last part came true. And they always have to make an appearance on my blog...They and myself wish you a happy, lazy, lovely day.