His Love Story in the Stars

His Love Story in the Stars
2020 Challenge: His Love Story in the Stars!!!

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

January 21, 2015

    Amazingly, we still have no snow on the ground. Temperatures in the high 30's and next week,  low 40's. Usually, January is our coldest month with below zero temps. Well, I am not complaining, though we may get hit hard in February.
  This has been a busy month with my crazy quilting passion. I am doing the monthly CQJP2015Challenge. This is the first time I am joining in.  At least the first six will be on Peacocks.
Here's January's block:
I enjoyed doing this one so much, I have already finished February's block:
Then I decided to take on Pat Winter's challenge of doing a hand...she is going to put them all together in one quilt:
 First, I traced my hand on a square block of muslin, the I turned it over and crazy quilted the whole square, and then used my drawn line to cut out the hand pattern. I then embellished it on the front. I used several fabrics from Judith Baker Montano and lots of fancy threads, shibori and lace with my initials; I also had a nice little charm for Idaho.Was a fun project and did it in less than 3 hours.

    My classes have started up again this month, and they are having a wonderful time. We used a pattern from Vintage Vogue, Janet Stauffacher who offers her patterns on pinterest:

This is the pattern she sent me, though it is free on her pinterest site. Since I had never crazy quilted using a pattern before, I decided to use it to see how I would teach with it.

And the class was able to get their blocks completed in one class, and now we will be embellishing for the next 3 classes!
So thanks, to my crazy quilter friends for all their help and support, Pat Winter, Judith Baker Montano, Janet Stauffacher and last but not least, Dana Anderson for her geekness helps make my blog even better!!!
  Stay tuned for more info and pictures on our class as it develops!!!









Friday, January 16, 2015

January 16, 2015
Computer tips for the crazy quilter....

What a great day to blog and stitch...it's snowing outside!!!
   A fellow crazy quilter, Claire Turner, ask me about how the computer can be best used to show off our crazy quilts. So I told her that I would do a blog on a few ideas I have, if you have others, please add them in the comments section for all of us to learn from!
 Now, I don't use my cell phone to take pictures, I just like my digital camera best.  And on my laptop I have Windows 8.1. So if you have an older version of Windows, some of what I do on mine will not apply to yours.
  First of all, when I take pictures of my work, I do not try to zoom in. I find I get a better picture with the camera at normal. I also find that my Ott Lite gives me great light for my cloth works.
Then I download it to my computer, just a matter of plugging in the cord from the usb port to the camera, though some would take out the chip and plug it in. Your choice. I work from my desktop, so with the photo there, I right click on it and choose "open with" which then gives me the choice of "photos" among others. When it opens my picture to fit the screen, I can click on the picture and a bar opens at the bottom to give you the choice of flipping pictures and cropping it.
Now, if I wanted to show off a close up of one stitch, it's the same process...right click, choose open with, then photos, then crop.
I find this gives a much better close-up picture than if I had tried to zoom my camera in!!! The same process will allow you to alter your pictures, either sharpness, lightness, or whatever.
You do this effect, when you have your picture up on your screen, click on the picture, at the bottom of the page pops up "edit" as a choice; click on it, and on the left of your screen "effects" pops up. When you click on that, on the right side of your screen some choices pop up, one of them being "vignette". Click and hold your mouse on it and run the circle around till you get the effect you desire like above!
  Another tool I learned and love recently, from Nicki Seavey is the "snipping tool". I have had so much fun with this tool.  When you are on a web site, I will use Nicki's blog page, you would use your search tool, which on Windows 8.1, it's found by moving your mouse to the upper right corner and waiting for it to show, then click on it and type 'snip', then when it pops up, click on it, and it brings a little box on your page. By clicking on "new" your mouse changes to a pair of scissors, and you move it around your picture that you want to save.

Be sure to visit Nicki at her blogspot, Raviolee Dreams, thanks, Nicki for this tool!!!!
And one last tool for crazy quilters especially.  By visiting Big Huge Labs, you can design your color palettes just the way you want.  You click on "browse" and then upload your photo by then clicking on "create palette" and wait for the magic!
 First you will want to click on your snipping tool, which is the only way to save the palette that comes up.
So with my photo of my project, you can see the color choices I made. You can do this with a piece of fabric by scanning it on your scanner, and then save to your desktop, add it to the browse choice on the Big Huge Labs page!
  Well, I hope this helps all newbies, including Claire. And I am sure there are more tips that I don't know about. So please add them in the comments section.
                      Happy Stitching!!!


 

Friday, January 2, 2015

January 2, 2015!
  That's the first time I have had to use 2015!!! Will take getting used to....Happy New Year's to all of you crazy quilters and stitchers!!!

   We had a fabulous 10 days in St. George, Utah the weekend after Thanksgiving! The weather was warm...up in the upper 60's...which was great for seeing the city and shopping. Since we weren't yet into the Christmas season, we had the WorldMark by Wyndham condo's almost to ourselves.  The scenic view was fabulous.

For those who may not know, St. George is at the southern border of Utah, where you will find some of the most spectacular red mountains.

  I always love looking for local quilt stores and I found a great one called Clover Patch Quilt Shop, web site, CloverPatchQuiltShop.com and found these lovely fabrics. I am collecting peacock fabrics and related items for my new project starting this year in CQJP2015 so watch for future posts as I progress!

I participated in the Round Robin with our Crazy Quilt Divas group on facebook which took 6 months to complete 6 blocks.  It was such a blast and any newbies I would highly recommend you give it a shot next opportunity!
  Here's the blocks that I piece together and sent out...
This top is a picture of the blocks before embellishing...

                                    This block was embellished by Pauline Keller...

                                          This one by Stacey Sharp...

                                            This one by Cathy Glover....

                                         This one by Barbara Scalise...

                                           This one by Lauren Mattison...

                      Last, by not least, was done by Margreet de Reus, from Holland!

  All of the blocks just blow me away...I love the creativity of each one...and since butterflies are some of my favorite motifs, I knew this would be a challenge to see how the ladies would do!!! And they all did better than my expectations. Thanks Ladies!!!!

    Here's the squares that came to me to be embellished by yours truly!
                This first one was for Pauline Keller. I never worked on a block in this shape before, so this was a challenge for me. But I loved the colors!

                            This second one I embellished for Stacey Sharp. I loved working with the wintery scene.
                              

                     This third block I did for Barbara Scalise.  I loved her color combination also, and was amazed that I had a piece of the Shibori ribbon to bring out her colors!

                            This fourth block was for Lauren Mattison, this is the first time I tried bead work for the "seaweed" in the middle of the block. I love working a seascape!

               This fifth block was for Margreet de Reus in the Netherlands, quite the
                     challenge for me to keep the "garden" feel she wanted...

                            And the sixth block I embellished for Cathy Glover. Again I was pleased to have a Shibori ribbon in her colors. Red was the challenge for me here, don't work much with that color.

 Again, Thanks Ladies for challenging me and allowing me the pleasure of working on your squares!

    So my New Year has started out with me doing a major re-organization of my sewing room....but that's for another post!