Whiteface Mt....Adorable Bullion Stitch Frog..etc.

Last weekend I went with Michael to his girlfriend, Karyssa's house in Vermontville, north of Saranac Lake NY. Meeting her parents was like meeting up with old friends. We drove to the top of Whiteface Mountain, which is virtually in their backyard. Was I nervous up there? Yes! There are no ropes at the edges of all this rockage! Michael & Karyssa were standing perilously close to the edge of a rock and I was getting weak and nauseous! If you are claustrophobic, even a little, you may not want to take the very small elevator up inside the mountain. But what views! It was a perfect day. Check this out for more pictures. We also went to Lake Placid which is also charming. Wonderful time in a wonderful place with wonderful people!

Our program for quilt guild today was by Barb Sackel. She is a designer for the Accuquilt GO and pattern designer for QuiltWoman.com. In 3 weeks she will release 2 quilt books of patterns and in the fall a 19 pattern fabric line for BLANK fabrics. Impressive! And she was a gracious lecturer also. Her trunk show can be viewed here.

BUT of course her one and only Crazy Quilt caught my attention! Barb is still working on it, with beading and more stitching, it is a work in progress.

This frog was my favorite bit. It is from a book (she is going to email me the name of it & I will post it) and used bullion stitches to make his entire body, legs and arms which secure a real twig in place. Even his eyes were made with bullion stitch. Bullion stitch is not in my repertoire....yet! I am going to make this frog!

This is only 1 of 4 corner area's she painted using oil paint I believe she said. I like my crazy quilting to have some another dimension other than stitches.

I am just about finished with Lynn's CQ RR.....finally. After stitching up BELIEVE, there wasn't very much blank space left so I concentrated on seams. I think she will be very happy with it.

OF course I found myself lured by Nicki's CQ for ME challenge! It's not a swap nor a RR since we are actually assigned to make a block for ourselves. How clever is that? It is a way for everyone to make that special piece using all the "too-great-to-use-and-never-see-again" bits. The one rule is to use 2 (majority voted) colors of a fabric she will purchase and 1 motif of her choosing. I am thinking of using wool and linen for mine. They are my favorite textures and know stitching shows up well on both. SO I am just waiting for our fabrics to get going on that.

AND my friend Colleen organized a small Mixed Media Book RR with a few girls that exhibit similar artsy tendencies! We are to make a front/back cover in our chosen size using anything we want.....fabric/paper/polymer clay/decoupage/metal/wood...etc. My mind is reeling! THEMES? Doors...or windows...or wings...or maybe an idea like interpreting in your own way a painting or work of art....or collage...and the list goes on! Nailing down my theme will be hardest part for me. Colleen is going to do a portraits of the artist idea. SUCH CREATIVE opportunities!

I received another exemplary applique block from Christine today for the raffle quilt Tracy J and I are heading up for my guild's quilt show next October. I am confident it will be desirable and sell many many tickets!!

The backgrounds for these 6 blocks are various cream colors. The stems are a "muddy" green and the flowers are "muddy" red. Surrounding these 6 applique blocks will be a prairie points strip (is it still called prairie points even if it's not 3 dimensional?) then rectangular courthouse steps (maybe paper pieced) and 4 corner appliques using only 1 stem/flower. We will introduce a tobacco brown for nice contrast in the rest of the quilt. So we have tea with cream, the muddy greens & reds and tobacco/mocha browns. Will keep posting as we progress at our somewhat "winging it" pace!

I learned:

1. Bruce is coming to Buffalo in November...last concert of current tour. YAY.
2. Cut hair shorter and love it.
3. Michael is back at Fisher....football camp. Jr. year begins.
4. Project Runway soon. YAY.
5. 30 year high school reunion last weekend. Wasn't here but wouldn't have gone anyway.
6. I will be teaching needle felting at my library this fall. Connie will teach Iris folding.
7. I must need new glasses...I have to look through my bifocals to see people close to me!
8. I want some Kutter's cheese....2 yr aged white cheddar. I tasted a 12 yr aged cheddar from Kutter's....good, not 12 yr great though.
9. I CAN retire in 6 yrs 8 mos 2 weeks.