CQJP - Some New Details

I haven't been posting much because my camera is broken. I'm saving my money for a trip in October, and debating whether I want to get it repaired or buy a smaller camera for the trip. Thus, no decent camera right now.

Lately, since I'm pretty much caught up with the CQJP blocks, I've been evaluating and enhancing what I've done.  Here are just a couple of details:

Here I've filled in some blank spots on the original linens, and added lots of beads to the buttonhole stitch curves above. I used green and lavender to echo the colors in the linens.

More leaves.

I'll be so happy to get a decent camera. 

TAST & CQJP

Camera (the good one) is still on the fritz so I've posted my TAST stitches over on Tuesday Stitchers. I won't reload them here.

Last night (actually early this morning) I watched Margin Call. You can read about it at IMDB.com. It was a completely engrossing film about a particular investment firm which is staring into a financial abyss. Would anyone do the right thing? Makes you wonder how often this kind of stuff goes on. Is that a naive observation? Probably. Great acting - great line by Jeremy Irons, telling a young genius to explain the situation to him: "talk to me as you would a small child, or a ...golden retriever"

Two months until I go to Israel!

Catching Up with the CQ Blocks

Below are my July and August blocks for the CQ project:

And here are all the blocks together, not quite finished with the right and left blocks in the center. 

I cut some cabbage roses from the fabric Debra sent me. I really have in mind to surround that center photo with flowers somehow but I don't want to overwhelm it. I've also got more linens, and some beautiful hand crochet trim I would like to use, since it was made by one of the ladies in the quilt.

Just keep playing around & see what develops.

The last month has been crazy, with planning for my trip in October and then right on its heels, the Houston trip. Also, it's the end of our fiscal year at work and it's always a stressful time.  I'm doing an awful lot of garment sewing on the weekends and trying to keep up with the TAST (I'm 2 stitches behind) and CQJP (pretty much current).

I think things will calm down after August.

But, I did get a promotion at work. That's the good news! And, there isn't any bad news, knock on wood.

July block

July CQ, still in progress but nearly done (I think). This is the Aunt Peggy block, Mom's youngest sister. Pictures are from the 1960's.

The rick rack in the upper left is from Malaysia. I found it on Etsy. Sorry about the picture quality. My good camera is broken & I haven't made it to the camera shop yet.

The bonnet stitch is one of the later TAST stitches. It was done on the seam in the upper right hand side.

CQJP - June and an Overview

Here's a view of the completed block and my July block, which I've just begun stitching. 

Looking at the photos, I wish I'd thought of  arranging them so that they form a big circle around the quilt. Just didn't occur to me. I noticed this when I put the bottom middle block next to the bottom right one. That would have really made the eye travel around the quilt. Next time!

The middle block will consist of the photo I have up and I am thinking I'd like a lot of flowers - appliqued, embroidered, ribbon, fabric - something of that nature, surrounding the photograph. 

I also need to soften the angles of the linen pieces in the middle, perhaps some of the florals overlapping those would help.

Your comments are welcome!

A Small Problem...

...which has been corrected.

Here is the preliminary layout of the entire quilt (disregarding extraneous photo in the middle). This is the back of my design board. I had something else on the other side and I've just never switched these over. The other side is much nicer looking.

This is the sixth and final "aunt" block. It should be in the lower right hand corner, chronologically. But I realized after stitching my mother's block that hers should have been the middle block, with the two linen pieces pointing up. That was my first screw up. So I decided, what the heck, this is for me/my daughters and we know who came first. And if anyone doesn't know, does that really matter that much? No.

Then I started block 6, Aunt Peggy (bottom pic) and stitched the basket (lower right). Pointing those linen pieces in the right direction will make the basket upside down. So I pulled out the pics, which I had really just tacked down. This will be the first block in the second row-as you can see in the top picture. I'll have to do another one for Peggy, bottom middle, with the correct placement of linens and pictures.

Eventually, I will be doing something to soften those hard edges and angles created by the linens. They're too stark for the overall effect that I want.

This will probably work out better anyway, since one of Peggy's photos is a little large, and I can make a larger space to put it, and place it so it is balanced and fits in with the other blocks' photo placement.

I've got to start thinking about the middle block and how it's going to look.

I hope you followed that. It's very early and I'm probably not making sense.

Happy Independence Day!

I survived my third Independence Day Parade in Marietta, where it was in the 90's - practically a spring day after last weekend.

However, between not getting much sleep, the heat, the sun, and a visor that was gripping my head like a vise, I have had a splitting headache all day. Bitch/moan, bitch/moan.

Just for fun, and because I don't have a thing to post today, here's a really sweet Youtube video that I watch about once a day because it just makes me happy:

If you haven't seen this, you've probably been in Siberia for the past few months.