Crazy Kindle Cover

My mother is permanently attached to her Kindle like my kids are to their cell phones.  So what do you give the woman who has everything for her birthday (especially since the last gift was an Amazon card)?  A crazy quilted Kindle cover!

I researched a few tutorials online and came up with my own design for this thing.
There is a pocket for the Kindle when not in use:

And corners to hold it while you read:

Elastic keeps it all together when in "storage mode."  The elastic I used is not beautiful, but by that point I was ready to pull my hair out and elected to just make do.

I tatted the orange and turquoise laces.  The whole thing is made from quilting cotton so it will wear better than something made from satin, silk, and other fancies.   The colors are much brighter than what I usually use for anything, but are perfect for my mom.

Close-up of lace and silk ribbon roses

I am planning on making a pattern for this cover in general, but leaving the embellishment ideas up to the seamstress.  I will probably also make a few for my Etsy store. 
I've never wanted a Kindle because I love to hold a book in my hand.  I might be tempted to change my mind, though, if I had a cool cover!

The whole thing when laid flat (the butterfly is a pin-no I didn't make it).

Updated 6/13:  See Etsy for the Vintage Lace eReader Cover I have for sale & check back soon for a pattern!

June CQJP

This is my June block for the Crazy Quilt Journal Project (for more info, click the button on the left sidebar).  I am mostly happy with it.  It's just the tops on the left that are leaving something to be desired.  But since I'm not sure what, I'm going to just live with them for now.  They are stitched onto felt and then appliqued on.

I am very proud of the sewing vignette.  The petite spools are 1/4" tall.  The sewing machine I stamped onto silk and heat set.  I drew on all of the notions free hand and then embroidered them using silk mori (Kreinik) and floche and flower thread from DMC.  I just discovered those last two.  Why didn't someone clue me in long ago??

By the way, this is my grandfather.  My nephew looks exactly like him.  The picture is from the mid to late 20s. He is also the gentleman in the uniform in an earlier family block from this year.  I have some really cool pictures of him as a baby and toddler in the requisite boy dress.

The 3" windmill is from an Aunt Martha transfer that I shrank.  I added the tank and fence.  When I was growing up, the neighbors had a tank like this that we used to catch tadpoles from.  Life was so much simpler then.  

I have had a lot of trouble getting the red marks from the transfer pencil to go away, but I will keep trying.

One of the first things I put on the block was the trellis using hand dyed silk ribbon and Lizbeth thread as an experiment.  It looked lonely so I embellished it with hand dyed venice lace and more silk ribbon to resemble grapes. 

I used a different color green thread to attach the leaves with the intention of the change to look like veins, but it doesn't work very well.  I will probably rethink this.

Things to be Thankful for:

After a rotten weekend of being sick (congestion, allergies, cold, etc, whatever), I thought it important to regroup and remember what I was thankful for on Thanksgiving.  It already seems like sooooo long ago, but laying around in bed for two days will do that to a person.  I didn't spend time doing anything creative!  Not even planning something in my head.  What a sad waste of quiet time.

I am thankful for my children, who are finally old enough to realize that leaving me alone when I'm sick is in everyone's best interest. 
I am thankful for my husband.  No, really!
I am thankful for the roof over my head and the fact that we both have a job.
I am thankful for my family and friends, both in person and cyber!
I am mostly thankful for God, who has blessed me with a creative mind and full heart. 

I am also thankful that the ribbon I ordered to tie my quilt came in today!!  It is 2mm silk ribbon in "petunia" from silkribbon.com.  I notice that now, after I've ordered, of course, you can get 15% off until December 2nd.  I have enjoyed using their Cam Creations silk ribbon in both the colors and the white that I have dyed. 

I hope the colors come out right on your screen.  This is the backing fabric, a golden green, with the rich, bright pink silk ribbon.  I have decided to tie off and try to hid the knots.  I am also going to try to just go through the foundation fabric instead of all the way through the front of the quilt.  Cross your fingers for that!  And thanks to everyone who had a suggestion or comment, either on the blog or my facebook page. 

The Best Laid Plans...

Sigh.  Yesterday morning (a Monday, no less!) I got ready earlier than usual and went outside at the first light to take pictures of some additions to The Quilt and a few of all the blocks together.  Then I downloaded them onto my flash drive along with some other stuff from the weekend.  At some point I deleted them.  All of them.  The entire folder labeled "crazy quilt."  Every single blessed picture from the beginning is lost.  It makes me sick.  Of course, it's not as bad as losing the actual quilt!!!!  But still, it is maddening. So here we are on Tuesday, trying again. This time I at least got them on the blog! Cross your fingers that nothing else happens.  This time I took the pictures in the evening, but it was so windy most of them came out very blurry.  These are the best:

Mind boggling, isn't it?  There are twenty total blocks, ten of which have pictures.  They arranged so that the picture blocks do not touch.  In some cases I moved around items that had been appliqued, like two of the saints and their frames, and some of the small lace pieces.  I added the rooster and frog lace and still need to find places for a few of the other lace pieces. 

This is my shell and holy water to represent baptism.  The shell is appliqued from white velvet and the water is made of french knots from variegated thread. 

The satin stitched crown is in honor of my friend, Lanita.  Lanita passed away in April of 2011 from breast cancer and continues to inspire me today.  She was always smiling and serene even when she was in the worst pain.  Lanita was creative, down to earth, and an awesome mother.  When she decided to shave her hair instead of watching it all fall out, she had a shaving party.  All of her friends were instructed to bring "something to wear on her head."  She meant a hat or scarf, of course, but I took a tiara.  My favorite picture is of Lanita with a wig and the tiara. I thought of adding a breast cancer ribbon in her honor on my quilt, but the tiara means more to me.

I got my punch needle last week!  It was confusing at first and I am still not comfortable with it, but I managed to decorate my son's picture and make a peacock feather.  I will need more practice.  The feather is my own design.  Actually, I still have a real feather in my purse that I was looking at for inspiration.  I love peacocks. 

Speaking of my adorable son (and this picture was when he was almost two and he is now thirteen), I added a bit more to him.  The spokes of the wheel have been picked out in brown stem stitch and the red stripe with the same stitch.  Then I added a brown silk ribbon belt, tiny blue belt loop, and buckle using real gold thread in a satin stitch.

I am now working on four corner blocks and then will put on the 6" border.  Maybe it will be finished by Christmas.     

 

Nearing the Finish Line!!!

Finally, number 20 is complete!  I think it still needs something, but I'm not sure what yet.  It will come to me eventually.
The Tiffany blue brocade and lace are from my aunt's wedding suit back in the 60s.  The dark blue (it looks black in the picture) is from my uncle's dress blues that he wore for the wedding.  He was in the Navy and is a Vietnam Veteran.  I feel very, very blessed to have these fabrics but I'm not sure if it's because Aunt Tricia cut up their wedding outfits for me or because I have his uniform, a true piece of our history.  It's very humbling.  My aunt inspired me to start quilting.  She is very, very creative with a needle and thread and has unwittingly challenged me to change, adapt, and improve in my own little fabric world.  This is not to say that we are the same at all, but we do appreciate each other's work.  Aunt Tricia's quilts, and decorative clothing, is generally super bright and very modern, except for her work with buttons, neckties, and yo-yos.  (She is being featured in an upcoming issue of Belle Armoire.)  I tend to be much more traditional and while I enjoy pops of brights, I lean toward spring and fall colors. 
The brown floral, black cat, and turquoise paisley are from my cousin Tommie Sue, whose favorite colors are orange and turquoise.  Can you tell?  One of TS' jackets was in the Valentines issue of the same magazine this year.  I'm thrilled for them both to have been published, as well as extremely jealous!

 

I have never worked with wool before.  It sews nicely, but does it ever attract every snippet of thread and anything else!  How in the world do soldiers keep themselves looking as handsome and neat as they do?  It boggles the mind.  Anyway, the eagle pattern is from the Q is for Quilter blog that I found a few days ago.  I just had to play around with the size and transfer it to my water soluble stabilizer.  The USA is free hand.



My strawberries are satin stitched.  Didn't I say a long time ago that I was NOT going to satin stitch again?  Ah, well.  They turned out nicely.  The pink flowers to the left are silk ribbon and done in a lazy daisy stitch, as are the leaves.

 

Tommie Sue's Halloween cat was cute but needed something.  I picked out his whiskers, eyebrows, mouth, and ear hair with a single strand of gray.  There is satin stitching on the solid orange of the striped fabric he is wrapped in and black backstitching.







My lucky horseshoe full of flowers is tatted.  Some of the flowers I had laying around and can't remember where the patterns came from (sorry to anyone I have offended).  The horseshoe came from Be-stitched.  This is a very cool site with lots of different motifs well beyond the general doilies and edgings.  This arrangement didn't come out the way I envisioned, but I'm not sure what to do with it so it's staying as-is.

 

I finished the block last night and stitched it to some of the surrounding blocks early this morning.  Hopefully next week I will be able to share pictures of all the blocks sewn together, before the border is added.  I found the perfect fabric for that last weekend while shopping for school clothes.  I know, the fabric store is not the first place most people think of these days for school clothes.  But after spending that much time shopping with my little teen angels, I deserved a mommy break.

 

Comments?  Suggestions?

The Next Chapter

I believe we are at number 18.  This one features my mother-in-law in her wedding portrait.  I tried to make a veil for her, but I just couldn't get it right so I picked out her pearls with french knots and her bouquet with satin roses. 

The paisleys are free hand with variegated thread and a silk ribbon rose.  I love paisleys.  A lot.  More than I probably should.  But they're just so cool and free while still being contained.

This is Noel.  She is my favorite dog (which is saying a lot because I love dogs and have had many, many favorites).  My husband rescued her from the local shelter at Christmas several years ago because I adore bassets.  She never completely fattened up, but she always made me laugh.  Have you ever watched a basset run?  It's more of a rocking motion and is adorable.  Noel died last July and I still miss her.  Anyway, I sort of copied a drawing from the internet and used the water soluble stabilizer trick to embroider her.

I went to an estate sale last week and found a pile of nice fabrics for crazy quilting.  The light blue, purple, and burgundy were all from that sale.  At fifty cents for a couple of yards, I felt that I could finally experiment with burn-out velvet on the burgundy.  It turned out pretty well, until I cut it off when sewing it on the block.  Oh, well.  Only God is perfect. 

I collect hats. I have downsized quite a bit in the last 10 years, but I still have quite an affinity for them. Nano bought my first one, a black velvet that molds to the back of my head and reigns from the late 1800s, at a festival (Tuleta Days) in a neighboring community. I think I was about 12. The embroidered one doesn't look like anything I own, but I thought it looked Victorian. The fuzzy brown stuff is supposed to look like ostrich feathers or some such. Not sure if it does, but it works for me.

My aunt visited this week and brought a large bag full of lace bits and yards.  First I found the little off white loop thing that was the perfect length for the area above the blue butterfly.  I had left the embroidery off that area with the intention of putting in a piece of lace or trim and shazam!  There was the perfect piece.  After I embroidered the hat, I decided a lace parasol would be cute.  Back to the bag where I found this soft polyester that wasn't what I had in mind, but was too pretty to pass up.  It wasn't stiff enough to applique an open parasol, but I think it turned out very nicely.

I am planning to stop at 20 blocks, but I'm still not sure.  I had originally wanted the last two to really be one.  I have an awesome piece of organza with a large peacock machine embroidered onto it that I wanted to mount to the block, but the way it was cut when I bought it is awkward and I don't think it will work just right.  Still thinking about it, though.

Little Bits of Everything

Block #17 showcases Grandma.  Actually my husband's grandmother, but she feels like mine.  She was always interested in my latest project and was also very religious.  When we were finally forced to put her in a nursing home for her last few months, she would bunch up her sheet and use it to pray the rosary.  No, we were not so mean as to not give her a rosary.  We just couldn't find one that she didn't break before she was forced into bedrest, and afterwards she kept losing them in the bed and resorting to the blanket or sheet.  When she passed, it was about 2:30 in the afternoon on Good Friday.  Still gives me goose bumps. 

This is the oldest picture we had of Grandma, in keeping with the other old photographs I've been using.  It had some issues and I had to cut someone else out, but I finally got it just the way I wanted it.  This is what the first try looked like, but it was awful and I ripped up the block: 

I finally printed her picture again in an oval with a printed background around it and I think it looks much better.  The flowers are mostly hand dyed silk ribbon, with a few simple flowers I tatted to give some more dimension. 

The fan next to Grandma's picture is my adaptation of one that appears on many of the older crazy quilts. 

The little black doo-dad is an engraved design I copied from my son's shotgun.  I think on the block it looks kind of like a bat off of a Scooby Doo cartoon or something.  The lace applique was also hand dyed. 
Check out the detail of the large piece of lace. It broke my heart to cut into that piece, so I just cut off one end and kept the width. I try not to use patches that big, but I love, love, love that lace!

This odd looking thing is a mockingbird nest.  There was no way I could embroider a mockingbird (the state bird of Texas, for those of you not from the Great State).  But a few years ago I took a picture of a nest and eggs in a tree in our yard and decided that was the perfect compromise.  The eggs are satin stitched in a light blue.  I then tried dropping brown dye on them, but it turned into lines instead of speckles.  I will probably try to fix that later on.  The nest is made of couched yarns from Roxann and leftover bits of brown velvet and silk ribbons.  The whole thing is super soft.

Church Window

Here I go again, not posting in a while.  Honestly, the thingie to download pictures from the camera was lost and I was too cheap to buy another.  I finally broke down and bought one.  It was the principle of the thing.  It's been in my camera case for years, but the husband and kids played with the camera when we went to the beach on Memorial Day weekend and it suddenly disappeared.  Of course, no one saw it or knows where it is. 

This block is supposed to look like a stained glass window.  I tatted the cross a few years ago with no real plan.  It was originally going to be a bookmark, but it ended up way bigger than I had envisioned.  The main window at our church has a Jesus on the cross statue with a purple cross behind him in stained glass, so I dyed some purple lace to go along with the black ribbon (leading) around the window.  The red background came with gold sequins sewn on, which seemed appropriate. 

The "L" is my initial, and the lilies of the valley my birth month flower.  They are made with the wider white silk ribbon.  Each is 3 petals with a bit of yellow hanging down.  I drew the little Victorian boot when I was bored one day and added it as an after thought because I couldn't come up with anything else to put in that spot. 

I am very, very proud of the Mexican dahlia.  I dyed the ribbon and just kept adding petals that naturally curled.  It's very thick and looks just like I imagined it.  That almost never happens. 

The whole thing is finished with hand dyed fans and velvet ribbons, and some vintage lace at the bottom.
I promise that the next post won't take so long, since I almost have that block finished and I can download the pictures now.

Eleven and Counting

Another block down!  This one is without family photos and such, but still filled with special stuff.  I must admit, though, I'm just not feeling the love for this block.  It doesn't feel right, but I really don't know what to add.  It's awkward, like the geeky kid in the family that no one knows just what to do with.  Hmmmm.  I think I was that child.  Oh, well.  I was loved and included, so I guess block 11 will be, too. 

The center is a scrap of satin and lace from my wedding dress.  My aunt made my dress, decorated a teddy bear for me from the scraps and gave me the rest.  I've been hanging on to them for 21 years.  Not sure what I'll do with those pieces, but I'll probably save them for something for my kid's weddings. 
The rose is for the United States and for England.  Funny story about this one.  I couldn't get a free hand made (ripped out twice), so I finally decided to trace/draw one on some water soluble stabilizer, embroider over the lines, and then soak it off.  Some idiot didn't think ahead far enough.  I used a ballpoint so I could see to embroider.  When the stabilizer was soaked off, the ink was left all over the satin and lace.  I almost cried.  But with my trusty hair spray, I was able to get it off.  Whew!  That was close. 
The ribbon embroidered bluebonnet is hand dyed silk ribbon and is for the Great State of Texas.

The last piece of interest is Jesus and St. Joseph.  I left the upper edge of the lace frame loose and will sew it down on the adjoining block when I put everything together.

On to #12!

I'm in the Double Digits!

Woo-hoo!  Block #10.  Only 2 or 6 or 10 to go.  I just can't decide how many I'm making.  I really think it will be 16.  I laid out the 10 that are finished on my bed the other night and wow!  Even I was impressed and I'm my own worst critic.  I can't stop at 12 because there are some more pictures that I want to include, along with some other pretty things.  My poor husband walked in and almost dropped his jaw.  He's seen me working on blocks (everyone has seen me working on blocks), but I don't think he realized how much work I've done.  Or maybe I just didn't want him to know how much time I've spent on this.  After all, it's not like my family has missed a meal over it. 

This is Papa and Nano.  She taught me to embroider when I was probably 6 and is the grandmother whose passing made me finally start this whole process in the first place.  I credit Papa (and my dad, too) with my attention to detail.  When we were watching the roustabouts (he worked in the oilfield), he would tell me "you watch 'em, baby, and make sure they do it right."  Like I would know.  He's been gone 23 years, but I can still hear those words.  Anyway, the picture is from right after their marriage.  She was 16 and he was 18 and had always been childhood sweethearts.

The block doesn't have as much embroidery as the other blocks.  I'm not sure why, but it just didn't seem to want much.  Maybe it was because of the brightness of the block.  There is a lot of chartreuse and bright pink, much more than the pictures capture.  This one of "before" is probably the closest to the real colors.  I hate how the pictures are so clear in their folders, but never look the same on the blog.
The yo-yo flower garden will be extended to cover the seam when this block is attached to another.  The last time my grandmother was lucid enough to watch me sew or talk to me during a visit, I was making yo-yos.  So I made some special ones for her block to remember that afternoon. 
The Easter lily is important because Easter is my favorite holiday.  And on that note, a very Happy and Blessed Easter to you all!

A Thyme to Be Me

Welcome to the unveiling of block #6 in the crazy quilt saga.  No pictures, no initials, just "things."   I love the bright colors in this block.  That's really the only thing I don't like about antique crazy quilts.  They just tend to be too dark.  I wonder if our ancestors really used colors that were so heavy all of the time, or if the fabrics have just darkened with age. 

The silk ribbon flowers on the right are my representation of thyme, the national flower of Bohemia.  Yes, Bohemia really was a place and doesn't just mean someone who is a Hippie.  I am very proud of my Bohemian roots. 

These are my Bohemian great grandparents, Jacob and Otillie (Ziegelbauer) Cimrhanzel.  He was born in Bohemia and came to Texas in 1890 and she was born here to parents who were immigrants.  I just share that because I really love the picture.  They were married in 1910.



Please ignore the funny blue spots.  That's the wash-out ink that I have so much trouble washing out.  I made a tiny cross out of tag board for a template and then spaced out lines for the arrows.  The sets of threes are, of course, for the Holy Trinity.  I tea dyed all of the thread and silk ribbon for this.  I really like how it turned out, especially against my favorite shade of green.

Second Block Finished

I finished the second crazy block!

 This is a close-up of the silk ribbon wreath, fan, and monogram.

#3 is ready to go!  And I think I'm ready to start trying to add fabric photos with number 4.