Takin' a Trip!

Tomorrow morning we are 'leaving on a jet plane' to go back to the States! I am so excited. After our return I will be out of commission for a few days while we relocate the home about 5 minutes away where we will have a larger, nicer and and TWO- count em- TWO Bathrooms. I am a very happy camper!!! I should be back in action about the ninth of October- more or less.

Happy and Safe Traveling to all who I will see in Missouri at Conference in the Upcoming Week! I look forward to the fun and fellowship! To those I won't see, I will truly miss you!

Christmas Orny

I am swapping a Christmas Orny and put it in the mail today. I took this BEFORE I sewed it shut and I wish I had taken a pic before... oh well.

Quick and Easy...

McDonald's in Taegu

Recently we went to the McDonald's in Taegu. ( I love McDonald's fries when they are hot!) It is kind of funny when you see McDonald's in a foreign country. They are prevalent around the world, aren't they??? They have the ordinary Mickey D's fare except they do not serve Quarter Pounders with Cheese! I think because they are too large. and most of the meals are smaller sized. They also have Korean style burgers such as bulgogi burgers. and shrimp burgers.

Korean is very east to read. It is phonetical- each symbol- is a sound. Read from left to right- this phrase says - joon bee dayt na yo, meaning ' Are you ready?'
This is hilarious. Koreans have many English Words that they use and this says literally- Big Tasty. The Korean pronunciation adds some vowel sounds and it sounds like beeg tay ee suh tee. The smaller print on the top (to the right of new) says 'premium burger' pronounced in Korean as puh ree mee ohm buh guh. Below that it is saying that it is 100 percent beef yadda yadda.

All GONE! =) And it was YUMMY too!

Brenda's and my hearts

Brenda and I planned on swapping hearts when the Hand Emb List first started. There wasn't enough interest back then, so we postponed till a later date and could get morepeople involoved. She has kindly made this heart for me and I have made mine for her. Awww..... looking at her heart and comparing to mine makes mine pale in comparison. Hers is the pink "Poor Baby" heart and mine is the fushia, purple and lavender heart. I hope you like it Brenda.

Hearts Close Ups

Here are some more close ups from the heart swap. They are truly lovely. I apologize for not listing whose heart is whose. I am getting ready to post Brenda's heart....

Crash Course In Crazy Quilting

Jackie had asked how I attached the fabric to the coin purse in a recent comment. Actually it is sewn down to a foundation fabric (cheap cotton muslin) in a flip and sew fashion. It is easy once you get the hang of it. After that, you sew the front and back together and sew it into the purse frame. The purse frames are sold without any purse attached to them.

Over time I have compiled a crash course in crazy quilitng- list of favorite sites and blogs and I will post those here.


Crash Course in Crazy Quilting-

It is important to know that there are many variations in crazy quilting-(as opposed to traditional quilting) What works for one person might not be the best technique for another. There are no wrong ways and right ways. I hope these links help you get started-

General Overview of Crazy Quilting- A great resource
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Lofts/6531/cqfaq.htm

Piecing techniques-

Foundation Pieced Crazy Quilt Blocks-
http://www.nmia.com/~mgdesign/qor/styles/crazy/crzayqlt.htm

Free form and/or flip and sew-

http://cqmagonline.com/vol03iss02/articles/art284/index.shtml

http://www.caron-net.com/classes/classmayfiles/clasmay1.html

http://www.wyldwmn.com/fanblock1.htm

http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/cr_quilting_blocks/article/0,1789,HGTV_3299_1391664,00.html



How to embroider and embellish-

http://inaminuteago.com/crazyquilting/stitchcombinations/combinations1.html

Sharon Boggon’s stitch dictionary
http://inaminuteago.com/stitchindex.html

Eye Candy from Sharon Boggon’s site for wonderful inspiration- make sure you click on the thumbnails to enlarge the pics-

http://inaminuteago.com/crazyquilting/buttonquilt/buttonboxgallery.html

http://inaminuteago.com/crazyquilting/cq-projects/cqprojectgallery.html

http://inaminuteago.com/crazyquilting/cq-samplerquilt/quiltindex.html

Favorite Blogs for Crazy Quilt Inspiration- (in no particular order)


http://chloesplace.blogspot.com/

http://kittyandmedesigns.blogspot.com/

http://www.allisonaller.com/cblog/index.php

http://inaminuteago.com/blog/index.php

There are so MANY more blogs on CQ- if you follow the links listed in these blogs it should keep you busy for a long LONG time. If you want more eye candy- take a look at the sidebar of my blog and there are tons of links to other ladies who do CQ.

Two More Hearts

This heart is Beth's and it is lovely! I have never seen CQ done in wool so it was quite a surprise. The colors are so pastel like and remind me of sherbert ice cream. This really makes me want to try my hand at wool in CQ-

This heart was made by Jennifer and is so cute with its gardening theme. The continous roses were done with a base of a herringbone stitch wrapping silk ribbon around the stitches as you would do a spider web rose. It is so pretty!

Kindness from Cher

Cher and I have been in many round robins together and what a surprise it was to me when I found a package in the mail from her. The customs form said lace and I was confounded why she would send it to me. When I opened the package it said 'Just Because'. =) Here is a pic of the vintage crochet and bobbin laces she sent. She really made my day. =) Isn't that sweet?

Coin Purse

I made this as a gift to someone approximately one year ago. It is approximately 3 by 4 inches. Most of the fabrics are silks that I purchased from Korean. The embroidered silk motif towards the bottom is a fabric used for a Traditional Korean Hanbok. If you want to see what a hanbok looks like you can see a picture here. If you look closely around the neck you can see the hand embroidery.

Zandra's Block in the Flutterby Round Robin

This is Zandra's block in the Flutterby Round Robin. It is really a challenge for me because the colors are so bright and something I am not used to. But that is what the round robins are for... challenges.

The lovely butterfly was stitched by Debbie and is outlined in stem stitch and filled in with chain stitch. It is so pretty. I stitched the rose bush to the right of the butterfly and also the seam below it with the buttons. I hadn't planned on adding the butterfly charms or the extending flight path originally, but they seemed to work out well and I really like them there.
Thank You Zandra for allowing me to work on your block.!

Squash and More Pathways

The first pics is a bit difficult to see. Near our house is a tree and some squash bushes grew up the trunk and into the branches. The squash is huge- as big as a watermelon and I would hate to be standing under it when and if it falls. Whoever it belongs to has wisely tied some rope around it to save it- and someone else's head. (Ouch- that would hurt!)

Here are some more paths that are wonderfully overgrown since we had an abundance of rain this summer monsoon. (This is right across the street from our house that I took yesterday.) The rice fields are almost to the waist and the rice harvest is great compared to last year which seemed malnourished due to the lack of rain. (Did I mention that we live in a small agricultural town?) I just love pics of pathways and if you haven't seen my other pics they are in the archives the first month of my blog here

Flowers

I snapped these today while doing some walking. Loving Flowers, but hating to garden, I will have to be content with taking pics of the beauty of other people's labors! VBG!

Pedometer Reeding

Here is my pedometer reading for the week. Terrible thing is that I didn't put it on one day and sometimes on other days until noon time. I need to get consistent!

Surrounded By Hearts!

Here are the hearts from the finished edge heart swap on the hand embroidery list. We are currently getting our Christmas Orny Swap going thanks to Melissa's hosting. We have been brainstorming other swaps including a finished edge fan swap, needlebook swap, pincushion swap... so come on over and join us!)

These are the hearts in no particular order-- as I took them out of safekeeping- I still have 6 more arriving in the mail and will post them upon their arrival.

FW in perspective

I had posted earlier about my Featherweight and its small dimensions and portability. Here is a pic so you can see exactly how big it is in relation to my arm... the bed of the sewing machine folds down for sewing.