CQ, RR's and more..........

Has it really been a month since I last blogged? Where did the time go? Where in the world did summer go! I hope everyone had a great time over this past summer and you've found some new ways to be creative.

Summer is coming to and end and I find myself starting to hibernate already. How can I tell... well my creative juices are flowing. I'm not quite sure why, but in the past 2-3 weeks I have been on this creative, sewing binge.... hmmmmm ...getting ready for the long winter? I'm thinking it might have something to do with the fact that I have been walking 3-4 times a week and all the fresh air is airing out my brain! Not only has the walking been helping me sleep and making my legs feel better, it has given me so many new ideas and so much more motivation to create. It's about time! So... with that being said I have a lot of catching up to do with my blogging over the next week. I guess I'll get started by telling ya'll about what I've been up to the past week or so.


I just finished a CQ block for the Art4Mail Group. The theme was "monochromatic CQ blocks". The block I was to make was "teal". Without a doubt I was so excited as teal is one of my favorite colors and I knew I had plenty in my stash to work with.




One of my favorite swaps I'm in right now is a CQ Face RR. A group of ladies from the CQI site signed up to do this Round Robin using faces. I sent 6 polymer clay faces that I had made along with 6 naked CQ blocks to be embellished in whatever manner by the ladies .... I can't wait to see how they come home. Here are two of the blocks that I have had so far to work on. Rose Anne sent me the first one - she sent along the face and her celestial blocks. I immediately knew what I was going to do with it - I had bought a bunch of these crazy looking motifs while out in LA this past summer... at first I thought they looked like octopus and have dyed some of them to be used in various underwater themed CQ projects. When I saw Rose Anne's face I knew one of them would take on the roll of being the sun. I beaded around the face and then embellished the sun rays with gold bugle beads.

Now this next block was a challenge. This block is Leslie's and for the life of me I had no idea how to create a sugar plum fairy. My niece told me they should look like a fairy so I made her a dress and gave her long golden locks along with some make up.

A while back my friend Barbara from the ART4Mail site asked me to make her a Sewing/needle case. I love making them and especially enjoyed making this one as I was out of my color element - I used only pinks and greens... no blues! LOL! I have to admit I love the color combination and will be using them again. You know how you start something and are really into it and then all of a sudden you hit a wall and just can't think on how to finsih it? Well that happened to me so this pretty sat idle for a couple months. I'm preally pleased with how it turned out and hope Barbara likes it as much.

Currently I am hosting a "CQ for Me Challenge" on the HGTV Quilting web site. All year we spend so much time making this and that for everyone else, I thought it would be nice if we made something specific for ourselves. This would give everyone a chance to use all those "special" pretties that they have been saving.

I decided to make a Challenge out of this swap. I had each lady (42 participants) send me their vote for their color choice. Top two votes ended up being Blue and Green... now I know what you think, Nicki loves BLUE. But... I actually voted for pink! All the ladies chipped in for the pretties to be used. Once I had the colors I went on a hunt for some pretty fabrics. I bought two beautiful silk... the blue being a dupioni. I also ordered each lady a floral motif. The two pieces of fabric and the motif are to be used in the Challenge which is due January 1, 2010. The nice thing is everyone will end up with something pretty that they created for themselves.

My wonderful and talented friend Carolyn, Sunshinedesigns , painted me a beautiful peacock as a gift last year. I have been wanting to make something special with it and decided immediately that now was my chance - the colors were PERFECT! If you haven't seen Carolyn's work check out her blog - she paints the most amazing flowers, birds, and pretties on dupioni silk...she even offers a few of her designs for downloading.

My blocks will be made into a purse. The blocks measure 13.5 x 15.5 - the first block will be the front and the second , the back. So far I've only dyed the motif and placed it on the block alogn with another peacock that I'm not sure if I'm going to use. I have all winter to play with this project and want to take my time - might even try my hand at some new techniques and try a little encrusting.

Also on the HGTV Board, ToryAM is hosting a Self Portrait ATC (Artist Trading Card) Swap. These cards are so much fun to make - they measure 2.5x3. I started out buy using up the left over scraps of fabric from all the CQ blocks I have been making and ironed them down to large piece of double-sided peltex. Next I used some gold metalic thread to embellish the seams a bit- and just meandered all over in a swirly motion. Once that was done I cut out the ATC's with a rotary blade then fuse a picture of my eyes that I had downloaded onto fabric.