11 Flower Gardens Finished!

Oh, dear, I have been a bit slack posting this year so far! But, I have been working. Here are eleven small pieces that are finished. The backgrounds have to be touched up with the iron. New photos will be taken as I want to turn some of these into prints.

These will be matted to fit an 8" x 8" frame. The actual opening is 5" x 5". All my small gardens have a few dandelion flowers embroidered in them. When I was a child, I would pick them in the grass and bring them to my mother. I can hear her now: 'Oh, Judy, these are lovely'. I also remember that they never stayed long in the house either!!
Enjoy!!

• QuiltCon 2019 is opened in Nashville, Tennessee this weekend. You can see the winning  quilts HERE   

Miniatures

Have you ever made any miniature quilted pieces?  Back in the late 90's, our guild had a challenge to create a very small quilted piece. I made two.

This one is 4 1/4" x  5 3/4" and was hand stitched.

The heart block mini is 3 1/2" square. Each block is less than an inch and consist of 9 pieces. I would never attempt doing that today - I think I have more sense (Grin)!!

Other miniatures:

• Over 50 Free Mini Quilt Patterns
• The Spruce has some free Miniature Quilt Patterns
• Free Quilt.Com 
• Miniature & Small on Pinterest HERE & HERE 
• Small Stuff's Print Mini  
• More Miniatures 

Enjoy!!         

Friday Finds

It's Friday again and I have found some interesting Friday Finds!

• Friday Instagram Finds at Feeling Stitchy   
• Friday Bundle Batch at Fort Worth Fabric Studio
• Finish It Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts   
• Whoop Whoop Friday at Confessions of a Fabric Addict 

The wind outside is quite high and tomorrow's forecast doesn't look good wind wise. As the old folks say, 'batten down the hatches'!

Enjoy!

Another of my miniature embroidered gardens! 

Bristol Renaissance Faire

This is the second year that I've attended the Bristol Renaissance Faire in Michigan. It was a very hot, sunny day. Many of the vendors and food stalls were the same as before but there were some new ones.

 

I was amazed at the different coloured leather skins that were available at a stall I didn't see last year. Anyone working with leather certainly had their pick of colours as well as natural coloured ones.

I loved the miniature fairy village (it wasn't there last year either). The photos don't do justice to the details on the pieces. Speaking of fairies, I got photos of three fairies this year. My little granddaughter was smitten by them. She's the little rag-a-muffin pictured below.

Enjoy!

Quilt Canada, NS, 2012

This is the Quilt Canada 2012, Seams Like Home, weekend, Halifax, Nova Scotia. It will probably be awhile before we see photos of the National Juried Show (NJS) quilts. However, I did find Scrapmaster, a blog from Nova Scotia. There you will find some photos of the quilts from the Mayflower Quilters. Scroll down a bit further and you will see some of the Trend-Tex Challenge entries to Quilt Canada and the Miniature Challenge.

On the Quilt Canada site you can view the winners to the Trend-Tex Challenge HERE and there is a list of the National Juried Show winners HERE (no photos yet).



Enjoy!

Work in Progress - flowers

This is the last day of March and St. John's woke up to a snow storm! I can't believe it. But then we do live in the middle of the cold North Atlantic, so you can expect all kinds of weather at any time. I spent the day inside working on my art and wishing I was somewhere warm. You can see the flowers added to some of my pieces. Hopefully all will be completed by tomorrow. Then they will be matted and framed. I have black metal frames that are custom cut for these art pieces.

Looking out at the back garden - today!



Work in Progress - Foliage

Today I've been adding foliage to the mini art pieces I posted about yesterday. However, I still have to stitch everything down as my applique pins are holding the pieces together. Stitching will be done with free motion embroidery. Flowers will be added by hand.

Knitters - Take Note!

Yarn bombed? This pier in Saltburn-by-the-Sea near Teesside, England, certainly was! Take a look at some awsome photos of these Olympics-themed knitted figures that a mystery knitter did for the London 2012 Olympics. Check it out on this video by the BBC. Could there be a new knitting book out there soon? There is one about the Royals. Take a look at it on this video.

In this article, the creative knitting has been called Yarnstorming. Also check out these 41 Extraordinary Knit Designs. It's amazing what knitters come up with these days!
To find out about the history of knitting, check out Wikipedia's definition and links.

Now for some free patterns:

• mini christmas figures
• miniature dolls
• Easter Peeps
• Jack Frost
• Little Birds
• Gnome Children
• Ribbit
• Kitty
• Elephant
• Monster Chunks
• Tiny Perching Pigeons
• Miniatures - lots of them!

On My Work Table

For the last few days, I've been playing catch up with some small projects. This is what I was working on today. I am using mostly batiks cut in strips, folded and attached to a background to imitate clapboard. These will become 5" x 5" framed pieces similiar to these from a previous post. However, I have decided to use a different method for the window frames. Keep checking back.

Mini Art Pieces

I've been doing a series of framed 5" x 5" textile art, called 'Back Yard' since the fall of 2009. Check my previous post here for information about them. The photo below shows two of the pieces that are currently in the Craft Council Shop, Devon House.

The Craft Council just opened an on-line shop to make it easier for people to buy unique one-of-a-kind ars and crafts. One of my Piscius Fantasticus is one of the items listed.

2014 Winter Olympics, Sochi, Russia

The "patchwork quilt" is the concept design for the 2014 Winter Olympics to be held in Sochi, Russia. The design was created from motifs of ornaments of the most famous Russian national crafts.
One such craft is Gzhel Ceramics, a pottery made of burnt white clay, covered with painted glaze. This pottery is traditionally blue on white. (see photo below)

Check out a few more of Russia's national crafts:
Khokhloma
Palekh Miniatures
Trihedral Champleve Enamelling