Blood, Sweat, and Tears

This block really has been all about blood, sweat, and tears.  The blood starts with my poor sore fingers.  For some reason, it has been a particularly rough week with the needle and I've never been comfortable with a thimble.  I have an aversion to things that confine, like shoes, gloves, and thimbles.  Chalk it up to claustrophobia, but this week I kind of wish I had learned to use the thimble years ago.  To top it off, I burned two fingers and a thumb (different hands) at lunch time. 

Remember what the block looked like last week without the embroidery?  It's quite a change, eh?  First up is the lace purse.  The lace was from a vintage lace sleeve from Roxann.  I hated cutting into it, but this way I can see the beauty instead of being stuck in a box. 
To the right is my take on a hibiscus, embroidered on top of a sliver of tropical barkcloth.  I used to wear a lot of Hawaiian shirts. 

Here is my pocket watch appliqued from a piece of very pretty silk.  Ignore the purple marks, please.  That's just from the disappearing ink that hasn't disappeared.  I am planning to extend the chain into the next block when they are sewn together.  And yes, there is significance in the 3:00 time stamp.  The very pretty olive, beige, and rose fabric (which is also the softest thing on this quilt) is picked out with plain brown backstitching on the brown lines in the fabric.  It's subtle in the photograph, but very nice on the real thing.



This is where the tears come in.  Every time I located the peacock, it would disappear again.  Really.  I lost this thing at least 6 times.  I was so relieved to finally get it sewn on.  See the blue velvet it is mounted on?  I embossed that with a peacock feather rubber stamp, but you can really only see one of the feathers now. 



My corset mannequin took some doing.  I bought a stamp when out of town this weekend along with a set of dye markers.  Then, after coming home, realized that I didn't have the right stamp ink to apply it to my fabric.  Did I mention I live int he middle of nowhere?  I finally traced the design, embroidered it to the block, then filled it in with dye markers.  The flowers are those chiffon and tulle things I made before with the candle.  I like the outcome, but I still wish I had the right stamp pad.

One more block to go.  I don't think I will have it done for a couple of weeks due to time constraints, but next week I will post what the blocks are looking like sewn together.  I have ten together so far, but I am going to give my fingers a chance to heal before finishing the joining embroidery on them.