Emilia's Christmas Fairy Dress

This is the first of three fairy/princess dresses that I am making for Christmas presents.  This one is for my great-niece, Emilia who is nearly five.  The velvet bodice is a pretty royal blue, not the dark Navy blue that the photo shows.  Also there is a gold swirling pattern all over the velvet in tiny gold dots.  With this dress will go blue wings, silver tiara with blue "jewels" and a silver wand with a blue butterfly on the top.
Next will be a similar dress for my granddaughter Juliet only in pink.  Juliet told me that she wanted yellow so I bought yellow tule, sparkly fabric and lace and then she told me "but I like PINK!"  Pink? You told me yellow!  "No I didn't, 'cos I like pink!!" Juliet is 4 1/2 so she will get pink.  The yellow can be put away for next Christmas for my nephew's twin daughters who will be two. Finally, another granddaughter Alyssa will be six in January - she considers herself a big girl now so she would rather have a floor-length Princess dress.

Australian Block for CQI retreat

I have finally finished the block which represents Australia using the colours of the national flag plus the green and yellow/gold which are our sporting colours.  The block will now go to USA where it will be stitched together with blocks representing the flags of every country that members of the Crazy Quilting International group belong. I think I've covered most things Oz - Kangaroo, Platypus, map of Australia, Gum blossoms, Wattle, Grass trees, the Sydney Opera House, Koalas, the flag, a lizard within an aboriginal pattern and Gum leaves. Ooh, I almost forgot - and the famous star formation of The Southern Cross in sequin stars. I found that blue material with the rather subdued pale blue stars and thought that the Southern Cross would really stand out on that background. Hope it does the trick.

This is the block within the lines of stitching marking the seam lines.

Grrrr! I've just noticed that in the photo, there is a tiny piece of white cotton which has strayed onto the blue velvet patch on the left hand side and a little smidgin of yellow thread on the red patch below it and there is nothing I can do about it now because the block is all packed up in the post bag ready to post to Cathy Kizerian on Monday....... Cathy, if those cotton threads are still there, remove them for me please  xxx

Victorian Pink Jewellery Box

Last week I was at an Antiques and Collectables Fair where I met a lovely lady named Janet. I showed her a crazy quilted top I was sewing for a wooden trinket box. I was using sepia colours but Janet said she would buy the box if I could sew the top in "Victorian Pinks" because her bedroom - her whole house - is very "oldy-worldy". Today I delivered the box to her and she was really happy with it, especially as I had used some vintage tatting and some tiny antique pearl beads. Here is the box with the crazy quilted insert on top.

Hexie circle finished..........three more to go

Here is the first circle of nineteen circles completed and laid out on the bed on which the finished quilt will go.  I will definitely need four circles plus extra hexies to fill in the gaps to make the quilt rectangle shaped.

Hexagon 19 Bluebirds

Here is the final hexie in the first group of nineteen.  I wasn't sure how this one would turn out after the vibrant Peacock but in the end I am happy with the end result.  Now I can join all of these hexies together to form the first circle.

Hexagon 18 - Peacock

This has got to be the most challenging hexie so far.  The colours were not my usual ones and I have to admit to being waaay out of my comfort zone. I feel as if the hexie and I were in a continual battle of wills and inverably, the hexie won!!  There was loads of stitching, unpicking, more stitching, more unpicking etc however I am really happy with the end result and I think the hexie is happy too!!!

The two pieces on the sides of the peacock were cut from a piece of patchworking fabric called "Arabian Nights" and they set the colour scheme for the block. The glass peacock button was from Thearica Burroughs as part of my prize for the "Message in a Bottle" challenge and it seemed to cry out for a bead frenzy.....again, not my usual style.

Hexies 16 and17 Completed

I spent the day with my husband at Royal Perth Hospital while he went through the procedure of being injected with dye and then hanging around for over three hours until he could have the bone scan.  Needless to say I took these two hexagons with me to stitch the black Feather Stitching around the edges.

Here is Hexie number Sixteen which shows a little girl with her grandfather in his garden. The original painting is called "In Grandpa's Garden" so the hexie really suited lots of flowers and gardening charms like the fountain, watering can, humming bird and Ladybird (Australia) Ladybug (USA).

Hexie Seventeen turned out to be one of my favourites - amazing how it developed a happy Spring personality (I won't say Summer because the little girl feeding the Swans is wearing a Winter dress).  Several people contributed to this hexie - I bought the berry lace motif from Cathy Kizerian, I won the Dragonfly button from Thearica Burrough's with her "Message in a Bottle challenge" and the two white Swan earrings were given to me by a friend in a box of junk jewellery.

The patch of very, very old blue Satin at the bottom stretched with the heat of the iron. At first I was going to Kantha quilt it flat but then I decided that I rather liked the puffy, watery look so I left it.

The blanks for hexies 18 and 19 have been stitched so now I will have the fun of embellishing them both and that will complete a second circle of hexies around the central hexie. ie. one in the middle, six around that and then twelve around those.  I'll take a photo of them all sewn together. The next circle after that will need twenty four hexies to complete - could take some time, lol.

Blah!!!  The close-up photo of hexie 17 shows that I will have to revamp the sequin flowers along the edge behind the two swan earrings.  I attached the large flower sequins (which are actually irridescent greeny-red, not that dark red colour) then the tiny apricot coloured sequin centres with a 3-wrap Colonial Knot. The iron has flattened the Colonial Knot and one sequin centre has popped off and a whole flower above the higher of the two swans has popped off leaving just the knot.  OK, seed beads will do the trick.  While I'm at it, I will also Kantha quilt the water.......sigh, and I thought I'd finished!! So here is the new version.  Hexie Seventeen mark 2.