Annies Crazy World

I had a frustrating morning which had left me feeling drained and as glum as the overcast day…Then this afternoon I picked my neice up from school and on the way home we passed my favourite tree, it is bright yellow and always makes me smile, I remembered that I had my camera in my bag so we stopped to take a photo, the day was to overcast to get a good photo of the whole tree but you can see the colour in the close ups of the flowers and see why I would think of it as a bright spot in any day…I don’t know what species it is but it is a Grevillea which are native Australian plants.

Admin note: Thanks to comments I now know this to be Grevillea Robusta also know as Silky Oak.

Across the bottom I did clusters of Silk Ribbon Roses.

I did give these clusters there own detail number but they could equally well be considered as an extention to the Ooh La La detail

Across the top of the photo I have put three lace flowers, with bead centres and green lazy daisy leaves, in the left hand corner and then lightly sprinkled beads across the top of the photo and down the sides…I put tiny straight stitch leaves on the bead closest to the corner and after looking at the photo I will add tiny leaves to all the beads around the edge.

Re the thin line I blogged lasty night Elizabeth commented Snip…And when I read what you said about the thin line something clicked in my mind. Not only because I remembered being so impressed with this as I saw some of your work on your mom’s memory quilt but also because that was a common element in the printing I was involved with at work. There they called it a thin key line…snip

A thin key line…So my thin line actually has a name…I love how so many things learnt from doing other things can then be incorperated into crazy quilting.

I have done no stitching tonight because I missed getting a phone call on Sat night so didn’t find out till late this afternoon that my brother would be arriveing tonight…he rang to tell me that he had been delayed and wouldn’t be here untill tomorrow morning, which is just as well because it at least gave me this evening to get a little housework done.

When I put the gathered organza ribbon on the top and left edges I was still going to put lace flowers in the bottom right corner…but…

When I put some lace flowers along the bottom and right edges and stood back from it the flowers didn’t balance the ribbon…More gathered organza ribbon on the other edges…Still not sure it is working, while thinking about it I used a slightly darker green thread to do stem Stitch along the edge of the photo…Umm I am starting to like it, I find it quite amazeing that a thin line, that can barely be seen, can make a big visual difference to how a piece looks…

Know that I like what is happening around the photo I think that it will only need a few lace flowers and beads scattered around the edges to finish it.

When I prepared the photo to put on the block I put a layer of batting under the photo….Before stitching the photo on I took the batting out because it made the photo sit to high off the block.

Originally I was going to put the beaded braid along the left side and across the top, when I got the photo stitched on I didn’t like the way the braid looked and thought if I put the gathered organza ribbon under the braid it would blend the braid in….

When I got the organza ribbon stitched on I still didn’t like the way the braid looked and thought about what else I could do…I like the look of the green beads but don’t have enough green beads and opted for a line of green Stem Stitch

Today was voteing day for our Federal Elections…My Sister and I drove out to the National Tally Room but it seems everyone else had the same idea as there was a long que to get in, so we came home and watched it on TV…The result, after 11 1/2 years, we have a new Prime Minister.

To Finish the patch with the gold design I added 2 extra pieces in the middle so the the design has a continuous flow from top to bottom.

To add the extra parts to the gold design I cut around parts of the gold design from the unused fabric, backed the cut out pieces with fusible webbing, ironed them in place on the patch and did a few stitches with a gold thread to reinforse the fusible webbing.

This is an Up and Down Buttonhole Stitch trimmed with beads.

Holiday Snaps Day 25
and Day 26 home

Dentists aren’t commenly connected to crazy quilting but for me they are or at least one is…Visits to the dentist with my daughter used to be Very traumatic for both of us until she started seeing Dr T and his assistant E, 2 very special people, they talked to Jessie about things she was interested in and got her confidence so she didn’t mind going which took the trauma out of going to the dentist…and as they got to know us and what I do they started saveing the little bottles for me and every visit they would give me a few…we haven’t seen them for a while and the today I was in there to see another dentist but we passed Dr Tang in the corridor and he said Hallo, and could I wait a tic because he had something for me, he went back to his surgery and came back with a bag of little bottles, he is still saveing them for me which I think is really lovely…These little bottles from the dentist are my favourite bead bottles.

I clouded and/or scratched the plastic of a few bottles trying to remove the labels from the round ones, in the end it turned out easy to remove them the trick is to soak them in soapy water, overnight so that the water can soak in under the plastic coating, then let the labels dry before soaking them again for a few hours after which the label simply peels off.

My Bead Storage is based on small bottles including purpose made bead bottles, my dentist bottles, perfume bottles, medicine bottles and any other odd bottles.

Originally I stored the bottles in chocolate boxes, they are now stored in stationary draws…There is enough flexability in the plastic to pull the draws out of the unit, I use plyers to snap off about half the little plastic bits that are there to stop the draws coming out, leaving just enough to catch so that I know the draw is nearly out but allowing me to keep pulling so that the draw comes out as a tray.

I line each draw with cotton batting so that the bottles don’t rattle about when I am using them.

Holiday Snaps Day 24