Christmas Village Completish

Our Crazy Quilt group decided to do a group challenge for the next quilt show.  We all chose to do something you'd find in a village.  I chose a candy store.  Not something easy, like a park or garden.  A candy store...  Then, that morphed in to a Gingerbread House because I don't know how to make a candy store.

  I have a love/hate relationship with every crazy quilt project I've ever done.  I love the embellishing but I hate the construction.  I forgot to leave a 1/4 inch seam allowance while embellishing a few of the blocks and ended up having a terrible time putting them together.  Again..

I ordered that Santa and Sleigh pin from England.  I wove the gum drops.  The tree lace is cut off of a bigger piece.  the background is hand dyed by me and the wool was a generous donation by Dana D.  Speaking of donations, most of the fabrics were collected from my super generous friends in the CQ group.

 The button snowman is one of my favorite elements and then I cut off his hat with my seam allowance!  Dang it.

 I used my books by Kathy Shaw to inspire my seam treatments.

 Lots of Etsy purchases for candy beads and nutcracker button.  I don't want to contemplate the cost of the embellishments I purchased.

 A final shopping spree at Hobby Lobby last weekend garnered more bits and bobs.  I wove the poinsettia as well.  I still need to tack everything to the back, "quilt it".  So the puffy seams should flatten a bit after that.  And hopefully, help with the wonky shape but I think my expectations on that are err on the side of realistic...

 My snowman sequin is from a few years ago.  I like to think he's shrugging, "Well, it's not perfect, but it's done."

 I really like the rhinestone tree.  the clear snowflake button is from about ten years ago.

With that, I bid you adieu.  In the coming weeks I hope to go through my UFOs and hammer out a few of them.  I've been itching for new projects but haven't allowed myself because I already felt buried in projects.  I'm not on lay off but I do have an extra day off or two every week and hope to not waste them!

Tryin' To Make a Dolla!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  I've been eager to try something new in baking lately.  Seems like I've done what I can do with a cupcake and wedding cakes without weddings is weird.  So, I've decided to improve my Sugar Cookie game.  I tried out 2 dairy free recipes so that Bethany can have some.  One recipe was shortening, the other was actually Vegan and used coconut oil.  Shortening was the clear favorite, although there's no true replacement for butter, as long as it won't kill you...

I struggle with icing consistency, so I wanted to start out fairly simply.  I did get lazy at the end and used my flood frosting for the vines and leaves.  Big mistake.  Next time, I need to remember to set aside stiffer frosting before I add water to make the flood frosting.

Just a cute pic of Mr. True protecting his ball from Rich.

So, I was going to name the post "It's Tough Out Here For a Ho" but decided I should be classier than that... Vicki R convinced me to approach Jackman's Fabrics about teaching classes.  I had mixed feelings.  First, because I have my little shop and felt like it would be a conflict of interests.  They apparently are not feeling the least bit intimidated by my business and have accepted all of my ideas for classes.  LOL.  One of them will be Crazy Quilt Block Design, we will explore designing the block itself in  and a second class will focus on embellishments, both machine and hand.

A second idea was Stupendous Stitching.  We'll be exploring what our sewing machines can do with a little hand beading and embellishing added to it.

I'll be teaching my Spool Bunting pattern, also available in my Etsy shop.

Finally, I'll be offering this Machine Applique Tulip pillow.  I'll keep you updated with dates when they release the schedule.

Barb N. and I finally got together to work on her first quilt!  She finished the top and it turned out fantastic!  Now to get it sandwiched, quilted and bound!  Hopefully before Christmas, fingers crossed.

Last Saturday at The Applique Society meeting, we made felt trees.  So cute!  Thank you Dana D.!  She hand dyed the wool and gathered everything we needed.  So much fun!  I finished mine up while nursing Bethany after her Wisdom Teeth surgery (the pill bottles).

In other news, I got my Art Nouveau quilt back from Jane H.  She did an amazing job!  I don't know if the quilting is very visible in the photos.  I hope you can see all her hard work.

She outlined all the applique, did swirls in the background and matched the fabrics on the larger applique pieces.

My only request was to do what I considered to be a "cathedral window" style border.  Not sure why I keep calling it that, but there you have it.  She had NO idea what I meant by that and then had a different name for it that I still can't remember.

I'm absolutely in love with the quilt!  I'm even considering applying to Paducah with it... The designer, Morning Glory Designs has already granted permission.  I have to get it bound and properly photographed by 12/6, I think...  Seemed like that was awhile from now, but actually only 2 weeks.  Ugh.

Any who, my day job won't be offering my favorite schedule this year (seasonal layoff) but they did offer extra days off in December to soften the blow a bit.  So, hopefully, I'll get my act together and get some sewing done this winter.  I'll keep you posted!