Hatching Eggs!

It is embarrassing to look at the date of my last post-- I assure you, it is not because nothing is happening here-- quite the opposite is true! I am going to pack this blog with less blather and more visual delights to make it up to you.

Most of the time and energy went into the Cloud Club finishing kits. We are still making five new birds this year for a larger piece, but it was so gratifying to clean up and trim those blocks and then even just sew two together-- don't they just make you want to cry! This quilt seems to be going together more easily than the Baltimore Album or the still unfinished...

 ... "Beacoup de Bouquets," which was supposed to be a show quilt this year but is still wrapped up like a burrito in a dusty corner.
I took it back out-- I mean, what am I waiting for!  Here's a sketch of what is stopping me...

Yes, it is over the top, fully embroidered borders... the intermediate one is going to be an ACTUAL lattice-- just like a garden-- it is strips you can see through. So I wrote "this is beautiful" at the top to encourage myself! And then started digitizing...

... my absolute favorite, beach roses, and I am throwing in some of this vetch pea vine thing that I can never eradicate from by garden but on closer look is very beautiful.

These are BIG borders-- like 60" long in all, so multi-hooping, and while we will probably make the borders for sale for your own project inspiration, no, we are not writing instructions for the lattice borders, mostly because they haven't been invented yet!

This is the Cherry Zen block which has long been in need of a 

gorgeous setting...

The Zen designs are not top sellers, but they do have a select set of very discriminating fans and we love to do them.

Hoping to have carrots for Easter!

It's always fun to look up the names of the fruit and veggie varieties when we digitize the border and it's always surprising how many you have heard of, but also, how many you have never heard of!

Anyway, we are making a small finished piece out of that Cherry block with fabulous Cherry borders. It was so enjoyable to do the fabric pull on this.

This is a quilt just for fun... I'm planning to do an open lattice on this as practice so it's serving a purpose for that, too. I'm calling it "Mon Cheri." Appliquick has really helped me up my skills... 

yes, it's a bowl of cherries... (sorry)

Next up, a group of people from my quilt guild are meeting once a month for a day of machine embroidery... last time, we all made little applique elephants, and I had the privilege of taking them home to assemble a charity quilt... super simple setting with 6" blocks. Isn't it adorable! SO hope it gives a baby somewhere a happy start in life and such a pleasure to get to know these women better. xoxo

On the machine cross stitch front, well, everyone loves it, so we're already sketching out a TON of Christmas stuff... we're hoping for a whole series starting in September with, you guessed it, some free stitch a long tie-in. So fun to see what you make.

And speaking of cross stitch, every morning, just about, I have gotten up sipped my tea, and stitched for a couple of minutes on the infamous 20 year old stocking project...

On the left, we have it when I freed it from the box it was living in for ten years, the middle as it exists now, and the right is the picture of the finished stocking. So you can see that progress has been made. My ever supportive husband commented that I am almost finished, but when I showed him the finished photo and he saw all the french knots in the chair, he said, "Looks like you still have some wood to chop there."

:-)

Finally, my daughter was home on spring break-- her last-- she graduates in May. So not much got done that week except this-- we are such fans of Perler Beads AND those soft foam houses they always have at Michaels for every holiday-- we picked the greenhouse, and that's the perfect way for me to end and say:

HAPPY SPRING!

xox

Carol