Annies Crazy World

On this card I did an embroidered frame around the print and added a fan which is a short piece of nylon lace gathered near one edge and stitched on with colonial knots…

I do think that I do like these little cards….lately I have been buzy with family matters and not had enough energy to concentrate on anything that is likely to distract me from them…I am finding that these little cards are quick enough to make in odd moments and don’t require any thought between times but at the same time they are creative enough to be interesting and are keeping my brain stimulated…like gentle exercise…

My little beaded project is taking shape…the pattern is in Jill Oxtons book Beautiful Beading for beginners and beyond.

Nearly finished…I think that it is cute that these little beaded figures are stuffed with just a tiny bit of filler.

I played for a while tonight with the ATCs…For my first one I used a printed silk and one of the sayings from the kit, I glued them on and added silk ribbon roses and then framed it with one of the thick fluffy threads from the kit.

At the Sydney Craft and Quilt fair I purchased a kit for making ATCs (Artists Trading Cards) which came with a 50 minute workshop with Polky Bolton ( Quilting Arts Magazine)…We had a delightful, messy time playing with fabric paints, inks and stamps as we created a background that will cut into 9 ATCs…Polky also gave us lots of ideas for embellishing and instructions for finishing the cards…below is the background that I created, I like the face stamp, can hardly wait to cut it up and see what happens but must go to bed now.

My unexpected trip to Sydney was to help a friend, my reward was a lovely few days at the Sydney Quilt and Craft Fair….with stalls, quilt show, miniworkshops and a doll show there was lots to see…I ran into a lot of friends and had coffee with some of the southerncrosscrazies girls…and there was lots to buy…the things that I could not resist were a miniature Babushka doll, some beads and some charms….

….and some more beads, this lot are Delicas for a beading project which I couldn’t resist starting when I got home tonight….

My other purchase was a kit for making ATCs (Artists Trading Cards) which came with a 50 minute workshop with Polky Bolton (Quilting Arts Magazine)…We had a delightful, messy time playing with fabric paints, inks and stamps as we created a background that will cut into 9 ATCs…Polky also gave us lots of ideas for embellishing and instructions for finishing the cards…

The last few weeks I have been sharing my computer with my son who has been studying for a certificate in business and I didn’t get much time on it and this is only a quick post because although I have the computer back I don’t have time to be writing as I am going to Sydney on thursday and before I go I need to strip the wallpaper off the laudry wall before I go so that it is ready for the carpenter to put in a new cupboard next week….the trip to Sydney came up at short notice which means a couple of hectic days to get there but it will be fun because I will get to go to the stitches and craft show…

This is the wonderful 1970’s wallpaper that I am taking great delight in removing…

For my Visual Journals I prefer hard covered bound books and to prevent my them from breaking there bindings, as they get fat from what I have glued to there pages, I remove pages from the centre of each section…last week when I wanted to help my son start a Visual Journal it was the pages that I had removed from mine that I grabbed to start his…tonight I have been stitching the sections together to make them into a new book….I had forgotten how much I enjoy bookbinding.

Last week when I went to visit Sharon’s last week I took with a package of UFO bits, pieced circa 1998, it contained a couple of berets and the pieces of a Bag together with lining fabric, binding, cord and clips.

As Sharon looked at the pieces of the Bag she commented on my unusual choice of fabrics and was telling me that I should Blog the fabrics that I have used….and then she told me that I had pieces from 2 Bags and I have, I have the back and flap for a Blue Bag and the front for a Black Bag…

The fabric on the left is a piece of Gabadine, the duller of the 2 fabrics on the right is the quilting cotton that I used as the Border on Butterflies, my second crazy quilt.

The partially pieced flap has a piece of fabric from a man’s tie and prairie points set into a seam.

This is the front for a black/grey bag with a touch of gold…the 2 fabric patches on the top right are from my quilting cotton stash…the small triangle of grey at the bottom is a cotton stretch knit fabric that I made a T shirt from in the early 1970’s.

Also in the package were these 2 pieces of fabric pinned to a piece of paper…The spotted fabric is folded back on itself, I do sometimes use the back of fabrics but I have no idea what I was trying to do at the time…Sharon and I decided that I had to use it somewhere as a pocket, I often add little pockets on my crazy quilts and this is a cute way of doing it.

one of the Beret is all Black, normally hard to photograph I was thrilled to get a good photo of it, I love that black is only black till you put it next to another black….In this block the small top piece is Gaberdine and the grey looking piece on the left is a polycotton….The ripples in the bottom right patch are made by leaving the fabric floppy and then tacking it down, I will add beads in the ripples that are formed.

This Beret also has a piece of Gaberdine and a piece of poly cotton as well as a scrunched patch.