Annies Crazy World

 
 
 
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    This is Annie Whitsed's Crazy World a world where I stitch the joys and chaos of life into beautifull crazy quilts. email annie@loopylace.com
December 2005
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Fireworks on Fabric December 6th, 2005

It is my Katrina block…when I finished piecing it last night I liked the block but the zig zig fabric is very dominant and being a big patch in the centre is going to hard to work around…actually I think I was more annoyed with myself then anything as I had layed the fabrics out, thought the pink was to much so swappd it for the music print, that was to dull so I put a smaller piece of the pink back in with the music and liked it but then when I pieced the block I managed to get a big patch of the pink.

fabric test 1fabric test 2fabric test 3

I wanted to make another block with a different centre but had no idea of what I could replace the pink with, besides there is no time to be making another one, so this morning I gave myself the reality check lecture, I would just have to make it work…but how, I was having no ideas of what embellishments to do, for inspiration I looked at images on the web and there was a few good ones but copyright prevents me using them…while procrastinating about embellishments I decided that there needed to be a bigger piece of the firework fabric and I stitched a bigger bit on, looked at it and thought that maybe I shouldn’t have done that but it was too late, what to do…make a feature of the fireworks…

pieced katrina block

I love fireworks and how they light up the sky in celebration…I think I had been lacking ideas because I was thinking Jazz but I am tone deaf, enjoy music sometimes but prefer silence, I know very little about jazz or any other music so had nothing to relate to…fireworks I could relate to and once I had a start a few more ideas followed…I was sketching them into my visual journal when they started talking about stage coaches on the radio and I thought that a stage couch would be a good symble to indicate that New Orleans has had a long history…Once again I have let time slip and I am going to be pushed to get the block done on time but that is the story of my life, my creativity is stimulated by dead lines…at least I now have a few ideas to go on with.

Visual Journal page

Is it my Katrina block? December 5th, 2005

Ready for the next step December 5th, 2005

The embellishments that I added are a dark pink bow and piece of lace to move the dark pink through the block, a few MOP buttons stitched on with beads and a silver button and butterfly to reflect the silver in the heart at the top…I have put a Full size image in my website gallery…the block is ready for the next step but the next step is going to have to wait until my Katrina block is done

the finished block

A solution in the mailbox December 3rd, 2005

For the last few weeks I have been casting around in my head for an idea of what I could do for a class sample that I need to make….my head is full of ideas but all of them would take more me to long to stitch and be to intricate for this project…I needed something that would be uncomplicated and quick to stitch…the solution was delivered by the postman…I am in a christmas cracker swap and one of the crackers I received was wrapped in a pretty pink and cream piece of crazy patchwork… when I was showing Sharon, we commented on how lovely it was to receive a pieced wrapping and started speculating on how I could use it …Light bulb moment…I knew how I could use it but because I needed it before christmas I did have to cheat a little, Sharon did conspire with me by rewrapping the cracker in another piece of fabric while I turned my back so that I couldn’t peek inside.

Crazy patchwork wrappingnew wrapping

Debbie’s block is partially embellished leaving empty areas for me to work on.

Debbie\'s pieced wrapping

The first thing that I had to do was adjust the size of the block to fit my project…I could have done that by trimming off one end but that would have meant moving embellishments and loosing most of the dark pink fabric and I didn’t want to do either so I decided to cut off one side and add it to the bottom.

When I stitched the piece across the bottom I wanted to include as much of the pink fabric as I could which meant that I had a whole in the pieceing, I covered it with 2 roughly leaf shaped appliques.

there is a whole in my piecingI filled it with leaves

I started the embroidery with a row of buttonhole stitch with seed beads and covered another seam with herringbone stitch worked over rick rack braid and trimmed with colonial knots and pistol stitch…At that point I felt compelled to straihten the edges because I like to know exactly where the edge of patches is….I used the grid on the cutting board to get it square.

The next thing that I did was make some praire points so that I could use the bits of fabric that I had cut off when adjusting the block to size. Praire points are usually made from a square but mine are made from rectangles because the bits of fabric were not quite big enough to cut squares.

Praire Points

By this stage I knew what I was doing…in keeping with the block I am doing only the basic stitches and not over embellishing…Normally I fight with keeping things simple but with this block it has been easy, I think that it is because the colours and embellishments on Debbie’s Block reminded me of my first quilt, and how much I enjoyed the stitching on it, with these thoughts in mind I have enjoyed a contented days embroidering the rest of the seams…tomorrow I will add just a few embellishments and the block will be finished…

seams all embroidered