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The lower right patch was too pink and I wanted to soften it so put a layer of fine lace over it...  It also would have been easy to change the patch also to a soft green...

Two things which often look unnatural and awkward in CQ are trees and spiderwebs...  I do like this method of doing the trees which Judith Montano demonstrated..  An assortment of threads are wound together for the trunk with threads hanging loose.  After the trunk is attached I was able to manipulate the "branches" with my left thumb while couching with my right hand.  I was able to achieve a nice fluid look and was happy with the technique.


Now what to do for foliage...? I want to use ribbon but not sure how at this point.  And I also want my tree blooming... After all it is a spring tree.. And I have some MOP birds for the tree... They are left from a tree I did for Lauri B. But the problem that I am trying to think through this am is the the lower right.  There will be something floral.... probably a trug of flowers but I also wanted to include a toy or toys to represent a child in the garden... I've considered a wagon, a trike, a doll, or a ball  but have not been inspired  by any of them... But then inspiration hit me.... Since I have the lady in bloomers gardening on one of the earlier blocks, I'll have a sunbonnet sue type child with a watering can... I want to use lots of my flower beads and this would be the perfect spot to do it....

CQJP progress

My goal with the last 4 blocks is twofold.  First to always have something ready for handwork which I can throw in my bag and run.  Second I am focusing less on a seam treatments on these blocks and more on a new technique or idea.  On the left below I am doing a tree in the method Judith Montano demonstrated in the last  minutes of our workshop last summer.  On the other block I want to experiment with the several kinds of ribbon pansies  in my ribbon books....

On these two blocks it is stumpwork with some very unique lace I've had forever...  I think the wishing well will be my favorite when finished.

One of my stitchers is finishing a CQ stocking.  She was in one of my very first classes last winter.  Although she is new to CQ she was already a very skilled embroiderer.  Check out these seam treatments!!!  We all met yesterday and everyone is anxious to start a hanky quilt in January.

cqjp 2013 and thrift store find.....

I still had 4 blocks to go to finish the CQJP13 series and needed something portable so started to gather them last night.  The theme for these two will be pansies and roses...  The other two will be a spring tree with swing and a wishing well..  Both the arbor and wishing well will be constructed of lace.  I keep a lightweight folding TV tray in the back of the car to use when I am stitching in odd places.  I have spent hours and hours with my mother in doctor's offices, hospitals, and rehab centers and that little TV table has been worth its weight in gold.  

I dropped off several bags of donations at my favorite thrift store on my way home today and since I was there already....why not? Since early summer I had been looking for more 2-sided bulletin boards to no avail.  When none had been showing up at the thrift store I made the rounds of office supply stores.  Lots of one -sided ones with the plastic for markers on the other side.  I like to keep anything in progress stretched and blocked when I'm not working on it... Today I not only found one but TWO extra large 2-sided boards...  With 9 suffrage blocks I really needed extra boards and was delighted to find them... even better they were only $3 each.

Overall preview and mother frustrations

Here is a rough overall preview of all nine block.. the buttons and lots of fine tuning remain but I'm taking a break to work on smaller projects while I sit with my mother and.................

that's why there have been so few posts... My relationship with my mother has always been trying.  If I had to pick three adjectives to describe her they would be negative, stubborn, and critical..and that's at the best of times.  Now she is 94.  She hears what she wants to hear when she's at a doctor's office and if she doesn't like what she hears, she goes to a different doctor.  Consequently her doctors are reduced to those who just give her lots of pills and out the door. She dislikes drinking fluids and hates water.  So it is a revolving door to the hospital with dehydration and kidney and bladder problems.  Then they send her to a rehab facility who insist on physical therapy which she hates and refuses to do.. So they send her back to assisted living even worse for wear and it all starts again.

Hummers vs. swallows..and my beloved sheep.

I love it when I have a lonnnnnnnnnng anticipatory period before I start a new project and can play with lots of options.  This hankie project is just one of those projects.  Since it was last spring when I did birds I want birds...

First I wanted to do swallows... mainly because I've never stitched them and also because they mate for life and are symbolic of fidelity... But I also wanted lots of ribbon and stumpwork flowers so I have settled on hummingbirds... swallows are insect eaters and hummers just go with flowers.  You can find lots of hummers I have stitched but all except one have gone out to others on round robins.  These were for Diane in a stumpwork RR.

I did this one for Ritva in Finland and always wanted to do it again for myself and this might be the perfect project.

My hankies have arrived and they are indeed cutters and all have a stain or two... BUT all are lovely and lots have tatted or finely crocheted edgings.











This last couple weeks I have found myself in situations with folks I haven't seen for  years and invariably they ask if I still have sheep...Everyone knew how much I loved them.. So I have been thinking about them a lot...especially since Susan E. did the lovely post on Scotland which links to a 13 minutes video about a shepherdess. Any woman who can shear sheep wearing a skirt could easily be my very best friend.  The sloe-eyed girl in the middle is Ruby and to the right is Topaz..my fabulous beauty.  It was Ruby who had twins the last year and I gave one to Pitiful Pearl whose lamb was stillborn.. The ewes were the most gentle loving animals.