New project

I started a crazy quilt pillow top over the weekend for Mom and Dad's 62nd anniversary in June. The photo was taken in 1949 at my Dad's Purdue graduation. Mom is pregnant with yours truly.



I chose green to go with their beautiful tone on tone leaf green bedspread.



Embroidery on the seams is the next order of business.

Buttons

It amazes me all the twists and turns that one can take just looking at someone else's blog and following links to favorite blogs of theirs. This morning, I happened upon a glorious site called Button Floozies-- wonderful photos of beautiful buttons of every shape and color, lots of antique buttons, and plenty of creative projects using buttons. It makes me long for a lazy afternoon of strolling through antique stalls in search of button treasure! Please click over and visit. The Button Floozies have inspired me to show you my button collection and some of the things I've done with button embellishment.

My MaMa (my mother's mother) was the seamstress in my family and I've written about her before. She died in 1969 when I had just begun to get interested in sewing. Luckily, my mother had the foresight to save all her sewing things for me including her large button collection. The box above I decorated for my PaPa one Christmas. All the buttons were from MaMa's collection. When PaPa died in 1980, the box was returned to me. It is one of my dearest treasures.

Some of MaMa's buttons were still on the cards and I saved many of them for years. This is one of the last ones left. Note the price!

Since most of the button embellishment I do is based on color, that's how I've chosen to store my buttons.

This is the first button nest I ever made. When I went to the IQA show in Houston in the late '90's, I saw a man's vest that had been embellished with doilies and lace and buttons, so I came home and liberated a vest from Jim's closet that he never wore and made my own.

On that same visit to Houston, I found a really unique vest pattern and made my first crazy pieced vest. Above is the nest of red buttons...

..and this is the green one.

And this is the latest button nest from my fancy pink, black, and white crazy pieced apron. In closing, I will leave you with a fantastic quote from Ringo Starr:
"America: It's like Britain, only with buttons."

Almost quilted

The dancing skeletons piece is almost quilted. I'd love to be able to finish it today, but that may be too ambitious a goal. I still have to make dal for the Multicultural Fair tomorrow. Here's another view of the quilting.

Now that the time has changed, Dan and I can get our walk in after dinner. We saw a beautiful forsythia bush down the street.

And our neighbor Keith has an absolutely gorgeous weeping cherry tree. I want one for our front yard.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

On this day when everyone is Irish, I wish you a happy and safe St. Patrick's Day and offer some views of my crazy pieced vest made for the day. This was actually the first of these vests that I made. I had done the counted cross-stitch shamrock and was casting around for something to do with it other than doorknob art.

This was my first attempt to use beads and I really like the little bead worms around the meandering chain stitch.

The shibori circles may have made their first appearance in this vest, as well. It also features fabrics other than all cotton because I had scraps left from making my mother-in-law a leprechaun doll.

Working on Caylan's piece

This is the front of Caylan's little birthday wall quilt. The label on the back says that the dancing skeletons image on the front was created by José Guadalupe Posada. The copyright on his work has expired, but I don't want to take credit for an image that isn't mine. The Alexander Henry fabric on the back was also based on Posada's work.

Once I got everything pieced and embellished, I sandwiched it using iron-on fleece for the batting. I'm quilting it now. Here's a detail of the echo quilting around the figures.

Someone asked in a comment on one of my posts about the order in which I do things. I follow this order:
1. piece
2. embellish
3. sandwich layers
4. quilt
If you do plan to enter your work in a show,the back side of your embellishment stitches (embroidery knots, beading thread knots, etc.) aren't supposed to show. Hence this order.

Two-hour delay!

Naturally, since I was already up and ready, getting that message that we were on a two-hour delay meant the gift of two hours in Safety Pin Studio before going to school. First I finished basting "Mérida Remix." It's in the hoop and ready to be hand quilted now.

Next I went back to work on my niece's birthday gift. Since she sometimes visits the blog, I won't show too much. It's a crazy pieced wall hanging with lots of embellishments. I've been loving the work of several wonderful crazy quilting bloggers in Australia, Annie Whitsed of Annie's Crazy World and Sharon B. of Pin Tangle. As a result of looking at their work, I've added more trim and more rows of stitching.

Feather stitch with beads is one of my favorites.

Here's another row of feather stitch using a fine cord with a gold thread through it.

What's happening this week in Safety Pin Studio

Aside from a little cooking and cleaning, I spent most of the weekend in the studio which was very good for my soul. On the OP Challenge front, I'm getting ready to finish the back of the "Mérida Remix" piece: the label is printed, and the bias tape is made. I just have to print out the scanned pictures and then all my materials will be ready. I'm anxious to compose the back. Pat Sloan is apparently going to be doing a block this coming weekend during the virtual retreat, so I may encorporate one of her blocks into the back.


When I taught the crazy piecing workshop for the Piedmont Quilter's Guild several weeks ago at Randy's Quilt Shop, I used two demonstration pieces. This apron was my finished piece to demo embroidery and embellishment. (I won't show the crazy piecing demo piece yet because it's going to be a birthday present for one of our nieces.) I found the Soul Food t-shirt at Goodwill, cut out the design, and Wonderundered (I'm not really sure if that's a legitimate verb or not!) it to the muslin base, then crazy pieced around it. Crazy piecing something like an apron that's long and not so wide means that you sometimes end up long strips at the bottom. I like to cut that up visually by making strips with several fabrics and then sewing and flipping them.

The other thing I did this weekend was to get the new baby quilt pieced. I took a ton of pictures and I'll get those posted in the next few days.

More crazy piecing and embellishment

I tried to take a picture in the mirror and it's not the best, but this is the apron that I made as a sample for the class. I have had a piece of 1930's Depression fabric for years that's bubblegum pink, black, and white and I love that combination of colors. It was my inspiration fabric. I used it in the apron and for the ties and the binding around the top. I made a strategically placed button nest when one of the seams frayed a little while I was embroidering. I love using my Mama's old buttons in my projects. She is my sewing model. My mom knits and does embroidery, but never took to sewing. Her mother could sew anything. I can remember her cutting patterns out of newspaper. When my mother and her sisters were teenagers, Mama would make dresses for them based on what was in movie magazines. When I get a scanner, I'll put up some pictures of her. One of my favorite things to hear her say was, "That's foxy!" I think she'd say that about this apron!

Crazy Piecing and Embroidery Workshop

Yesterday was my crazy piecing and embroidery workshop. A small band of brave participants showed up and worked on vests or aprons. I brought several vests I've made as well as two small wall pieces.


The black and white is called "Morning Pages" and the red one is called "Te Amo Mucho". Both were in my last one woman show at Crawfordsville District Public Library. I really enjoy crazy piecing and learned lots from Judith Montano's books. My technique developed over the years and I added some beading and other embellishments along the way.

Walking for Peanuts

I've just finished a wall quilt for Anna that commemorates her participation in the Boston 3-Day Walk for a Cure next week. It's called "Walking for Peanuts" since she's dedicated her walk to her Grandma Mae "Peanuts" Fisher, a breast cancer survivor.
Dan was kind enough to take some pictures for me so I could post it right away.
I started with the design from an overly large sweatshirt I bought in Boston. Adding pink fabric in a crazy piecing manner around the design, I then embroidered over the seams and did some embellishment with beads, buttons, ribbon, and lace.
Next to quilting, embroidery is one of my favorite things to do. I completed most of the embroidery on the screened porch, my favorite sanctuary.
I'm so proud of Anna for doing this walk. I really admire her dedication to raising money and training for the walk itself.