Take It Further Challenge - January

This will be worked over the weekend as well as I do want to finish this one before I start the new fan piece. I am working with very long and wide stitches as well as overstitching to make them larger and staying away from a lot of frills on this one. I like how the angel is reaching forward and the wedge will be filled with a picture of a mentor either surrounded with a floral base or some reverse image beadwork to highlight the silk.

Block for auction this year at Omaha

This block is nearing completion and will be finished when the overdyed lace and the little silk print of a young girl is attaached. I will also add some more silkribbon flowers and a special little pin that means a lot to me and would have meant a lot to my friend " Barbee ". It is a collector pin from the Martha Pullen series. I chose the deep pink overdyed to make pop up flowers on one long line as "B" had a love for deep pink. Hopefully this will bring some sunshine into a rather wintry weekend that we are expecting, and I can mail this off to Rita who is taking on the challenge of putting this quilt together.

Art bra Wallhanging Block 2008

I stitched almost every day and some of the evening on this block. It finished at eight inches and is pieced at nine to stitch at eight and half inches.

I truly enjoyed the theme this year of butterflies and spring. It makes the storm that is headed our way this evening seem a whole lot easier to bear. I started with a sprig of lavender and tied it with a 15mm organza bow. I used overdyed brown caron wildflowers for the sprigs and a deep purple silk ribbon for the lavender........the organza bow is from Bucilla. I then moved to another wedge and embroidered a wandering rose and two buds. I used wildflowers spruce for the stem and veins and silkribbon that is a series ofoverdyed yellows for the rose and the two rose buds, the green is from Bucilla. I used a challenge of herringbone stitches and finished with a cascade of flowers on top. I used a lot of small embellishments and miniature butterlies as well as the word " HOPE", and that is something we can never forget, " HOPE" for a cure and ""HOPE" that we live to see a cure in our lifetime, we have come a long way. I also added a three dimensional butterfly in the centre that is touched with yellow to represent both peace and the daffodil that is the actual flower for cancer. I truly enjoyed working on this block and found the charms, buttons and beads all seemed to blend in. Hope it works. If I were to do anything different on this one it would have been to have a large butterfly with a swirl of miniature roses flowing from behind. I saw this on a website once with gorgeous porcelain butterflies and the work was out of this world, wish I could remember where.