Flower Pin/Hairclip: Krystal

I have another flower for a birthday girl named Krystal!  Krystal's favorite colors are yellow and orange so I used a golden yellow silk fabric with some yellow and orange organza pieces and a leopard print that is pink/orange/black!

In the center is a red mother of pearl button with a green flower bead, a yellow flower bead, and a peach pearl in the center!  The center also dangles!

 I sew on a strip of fabric on the back and use it to attach the hair-clip and pin-backing with E6000 glue.

My Nephew Tristan

 My nephew Tristan with the blankets I embellished for him!!! Isn't he cute!!!

Tea Party Piece: Starting the Applique

 Okay I finally got to sewing all the blocks together marking the 18 inch square and sewing this large block onto a piece of muslin!  It's not perfect but you know I have to focus on the fact that no one will ever know once it is embellished!!!  I am definitely NOT a seamstress...but I do need a canvas to work on and so I love crazy quilting for the creative embellishment and needlework aspect more than the sewing!!! LOL

 I made copies of the teapot, sugar, and creamer cut them out a bit and placed them overlapping how I wanted them to be.  I wanted them to be a little over sized for the middle block and you can see just the tips and handles are poking out.  I taped them together and drew in the lines that were being overlapped.  I then made a copy of that to use for tracing and cutting out all the fabric pieces.

 I needed some way to keep track and know where each piece was to be placed and in what order so I used some quilters paper and traced the design onto it.  I marked the order of layering of the pieces, and I also basted the paper into place.  I'm not sure how I'll do this I'm just winging it as I go I think I'll tear away the excess and baste as I go etc. to keep things in place.  I've never done applique like this before and I kind of feel out of my element but I'll learn something new as I do this and wing it as I go.  There's not really any rule book for how to applique onto crazy quilting...LOL!

 I used a lightbox with the copied design to trace each piece onto fabric and cut it out.

Here are all the pieces!!!  Isn't it cute!!!  I picked matching fabric only for the lid and foot of the teapot and handles and feet of the creamer and sugar.  The body of the teapot is a different fabric from the creamer and sugar.  I like my tea things to compliment but not be too matchy-matchy.  Plus how would you see the different items if they were all the same fabric?

Now to start actually appliqueing everything into place...wish me luck...I think I'm going to need it! ;)

P.S. If anyone has any tips or ideas for how to do this better, please let me know!

Amanda's Crazy Quilt Heart

 Amanda wanted to make something special for a gift and wanted to make something Crazy Quilted and loved the idea of a heart.  It was also near Valentine's Day so it was perfect.  The giftee loves purple so she chose all purple fabrics!

 Next came embellishments she sewed all the things that could be by machine first like the lace, fabric flower, bow, crochet heart, etc.  Then we put it in a hoop and she hand sewed on the little bits that couldn't be done by machine like the buttons and sequins.

 After the embellishments were done we cut out the heart and then took bits of lace to sew by machine around the edges to make it a nice finished heart!

 This is the heart finished after sewing the lace around the outer edge!

After that I gave her the suggestion of maybe adding feathers and she LOVED that idea so here is the final result with a bit of feathers peeking out from behind one corner!

And it just goes to show how you can create a wonderful crazy quilt project without using ANY embroidery!  Yup it's all embellishments of lace, buttons, sequins, feathers, eyelash yarn, and some fabric bits to create the flower in the upper right!

Tea Party Piece: Coming Together!

  After each block was pieced I basted them outside the 6 inch block line and then cut them down to 7 inch blocks which will give me a nice and large seam allowance to sew them together!

Once I cut them all down I started playing with placement and this is what I ended up deciding on!  I just fiddle, flip, turn, and switch the blocks until I feel everything is as balanced as it can be!

I also love to see the photo at this stage it gives me a better "birds eye view" and overall feel!

I'm really adoring this piece it just feels so cheerful and sweet the perfect atmosphere of a tea party with dear friends!

Now that I think of it, I think this is a good description of the reason why I didn't piece any tea prints into my blocks.  I like that the fabrics in rose prints, pinks, and greens give an "atmosphere" for building a tea party with embellishments.  This way I don't have to worry about covering over tea prints with embellishments too.

In this photo you can see I cut out the prints of tea cups which I plan to applique on the piece.  This is just a "tryout" to give me an idea of how I'll do things.  I'm hoping that the prints will look okay when I applique them in place.  I'm a little worried because of the gold lines, I think I'll have to try to applique up next to them but not right on them...hmm sounds tricky...we shall see.

The rose print fabric I have folded in the center is what I'm considering making the teapot out of.  Once I have all the blocks sewn together I will work on the center applique of a teapot and creamer and sugar.  Then I'll probably applique all the teacups on and start embellishment.

Wow this piece is HUGE but I love it, it's going to be so fun to work on!  I'm also thinking of getting a huge quilters hoop to work on this...we'll see how that goes too!

Tea Party Blocks Being Pieced: The Rest

 Here are the remaining 5 of 8 blocks!  Now I've just got to sew them all together to create one large piece.  Normally people embellish each block and then sew them all together but just like with Fairy Treasure I want this one to have that same whole-cloth feel instead of a separate blocks feel. So that is why I'm going to sew them all together first!  There are pros and cons to each method and for what I want the pros weigh in favor of sewing them together FIRST! LOL

Tea Party Blocks Being Pieced

 Here's a bunch of fabrics I picked out for piecing.  Usually I do that using an inspiration fabric which is the rose fabric I'm using as the center of each block.  I don't usually use all the fabrics I pick out but I like to have the options as I do piece and I try to have unity for the blocks. As I started I ended up leaving out the yellow fabric and a couple of fabrics that didn't feel right after all.  So far I've pieced 3 of 8!

I also finally got the Teapots 2 to Applique book and I have an idea to have a Teapot with a creamer and sugar in the center!  Then around the center will be teacups and tea things and goodies!!!  This is going to be so much fun!!!  Also I'm thinking of using my inspiration rose print fabric as the main body of the teapot, we will see how it goes!

 The piece of Dupioni silk fabric on the bottom of this block is really neat it's both green AND pink at the same time!!!  So sometimes you see more green other times you see more pink but usually you see green with a tinge of pink like this photo!