Well, I just found the artists postcards I designed for Baby Lock have been finally posted on their site - they are fun and easy to do! Enjoy !!!

http://www.babylock.com/ftp/projects/Project-artist%20postcards.pdf

Fat and Cheeky Baby Bird Quilt

The baby quilt is finally complete.

When I began this project all I knew was that I wanted birds - everything else evolved along the way. It was going to have fat baby birds but they each had to have a personality - so each was appliqued with hand embroidered details added. Some are cotton, some have a touch of wool and there is a silk breast here and there; all tweet with "attitude" !!! I knew it was going to be mostly white with touches of blue and a tiny bit of red - the Mom-to-be loves vintage things so it had to have that old fashioned puckery look. I didn't wash the fabric ahead of time but waited until it was complete before washing and drying it to get the lovely puffy effect for the birds.

(I'm so glad that I did a test piece using the hand dyed red fabric for the red bird - it ran and made the white pink so I chose another red which ran very slightly. Luckily, I belong to a Yahoo dye group and one of the very clever ladies suggested using a Shout color grabber sheet and that worked like a charm)

To make it a little more special, I wanted it to have something for the Mom to read to the baby while they snuggle - so I added verse taken from poems about birds and stitched the text along the borders using my trusty Pfaff 1475 - just fabulous for this - I can program in any text I want and it will stitch out from memory - no hooping needed! One border includes a verse from a popular old Scottish poem learned when I was young "Wee Chooky Birdie, To Lo Lo . . . "

As far as the quilting goes, I wanted a stippled look but decided as I went along that the plain white squares called out for something different to break up the monotony - pinwheels added just the right touch giving it a little more tailored effect and keeping it from being too feminine (I thought).

It's such a dark and dreary day here making it really hard to take a good picture but I'm sure you'll get the idea -- it is sooo soft with just the right amount of puckers surrounding the puffy birds.

Back to felting after the beginning of the year!

One More Thing . . . . .

I picked up this book at a wonderful quilt shop in Frederick, Maryland, "Needles and Pins" and decided to try out the technique - this is a first attempt at needle felting one of the tiny dogs for a birthday gift for one of our granddaughters; it's a miniature version of a life size stuffed puppy she also received. All I can say is FUN! This is a great book! My second attempt is underway and I think I'm hooked! The picture just doesn't do it justice because the eyes (I embroidered since I didn't have the glass eyes) ears and markings looked so realistic in real life!

Cheeky birds -- The Makings of a Baby Quilt

I have tried to make a special keepsake for all the new babies our children have had and have been thinking and planning for weeks for our newest expected arrival. While I'm in my studio, I can see lots of bird activity out in the garden so I decided to make a baby quilt mainly in white, with a variety of hand embroidered and appliqued very sweet blue birds and with one very naughty red one. I'm fortunate enough to have my wonderful Pfaff 1475 that can be easily programmed to stitch out verse - so I'm gathering children's bird poems and stitching some lines along the borders - this is what we have so far. Of course, nothing is sewn together yet but you get the idea. Once it has all been pieced, plans are to machine quilt it and wash in the machine so it will shrink and get the vintage look.

My Mom

My Mom has been seriously ill and we almost lost her - but thanks to the good Lord, she is improving daily! She is such a very special person adored by her family and we need to have her for a few more years. Needless to say, there hasn't been much felting time for the past two weeks - vigils and prayers by the bedside. Prayer works :-)

Things I've Been Up to Lately

Meet cashmere "Teddy" who is only 6" tall, very soft and a perfect friend for a new baby.

I haven't had time to felt but I have been working on some things for our new grandson who we expect in early February - he will be the first for our youngest and her husband and we are thrilled and waiting with great anticipation!