Saturday, January 15, 2011

Chocolate Challenge Quiltlets

                                                                     "Layer Cake"
(this is the only pic I got of it...this is still in process picture, note the needle? I did block it and iron it smooth
 for a tidy presentation!)
Note the blocks, and I use that term loosely, resemble a slice of chocolate cake with raspberry filling and yummy frosting. A picture from a magazine of just such a cake was inspiration. I saw a block! I used my embellishing machine to punch the old chiffon scarves of pink, brown and light tan into recycled wool from a jacket...all from my favorite haunt, Salvation Army. Kantha stitching covers the entire piece, which for me was the best part. I love that repetitive, texturizing stitching. I was torn on the "finishing". I tried to put a binding on it and it was all wrong. I tried to sew it to a background....more wrong. I could have done the envelope or facing method but to me it would have been almost tragic to cover all the stitching on the reverse. I know the traditional judges will comment on that fact, amongst other non-traditional issues! Funny, I thought I could have rolled the edges and hand stitched them after it was out of my hands. When I get it back I think it will become part of a larger project....nothing is ever finished to me!


                                                             "Candy Bar Penny Rug"

I whipped this up a couple weeks ago when I wanted to play. The background is the requisite brown wool with a great shade of blue "candy bar" shapes sewn to it with a shiny blue fabric bit punched into it and some handmade X's over them. The tongues are the same rectangle shapes. Not a very complex plan but was oh-so-fun to make!

My presence was necessary at Michael's football banquet in Rochester today so I had to miss guild.( Of course he informed me Thursday at 11:00 AM of this after asking many times) I did hear that there were many awesome Chocolate Challenge pieces turned in today including art quilts, crazy quilts and traditional quilts. I can't wait to see them in the Batavia library throughout the month of February. If you are in the area, check them out.
I did see a few of them before the reveal and WOW. They were great~!

My little art quilt group met this past Tuesday and as usual it was a wonderful sharing of idea's and discussion on the new group book project. Karen brought in these grommeted fabric samples that we decided will make a good base to put our pieces on. The original idea of an 8"x8" page is now a 12"x12"  page. So my approximately 3.5" ish square window of crazy quilt will now enlarge 4x's. I am excited about this and am anxious to begin.

Tomorrow I am ever hopeful I can sew more Jam & Jelly blocks. That is the plan. Maybe some bulls eyes too! I love them!

This wintry weather is wreaking havoc on my energy level. I am so tired at night...by 8 PM I am nodding off on the couch! I can sleep 8 hours and feels like 4. That coupled with work world......and of course cresting 50 must figure in here...all I can say is feeling so January.

I have learned:
  1. I am still amazed that people I hardly know find gossiping about me interesting. I am so boring.
  2. American Idol. Jennifer Lopez. Steven Tyler. Weird.
  3. Apparently Joann fabrics was bought by a large something or other company....hope they focus some attention on the small stores. Ours is suffering from young-clerk-girls-talking-amongst-themselves-for-all-to-hear-inappropriate-conversations. 
  4. The man that hired me almost 32 years ago, died yesterday. He was a good man that had worked his way to the top from the bottom. That's how it was done back in the day. Now we have boy bosses that have earned no stripes. I am getting old!

No comments: