Hard to believe summer is half over!!!! How did that happen?

Well, my stitching passion started early in the year with the first County Fair in our area, in Asotin, Washington. I had never put anything in their fair before, so this should be fun. I entered four items that had never been entered in any other fair before.  All four items received
a First Place ribbon.

This first one is for St. Patrick's Day...one of my favorites, great fun with greens.

Here's what it looks like without the plastic over it.

Some of you will remember my Patriotic piece...We will never Forget.

Then on the wall facing, is April Showers Bring May Flowers! Then below is the stocking I made for Sandy, my husband!

So not a bad way to start off the year. Of course I have been busy, and will have more to submit later this year.

In June I found myself drooling over Jennifer Clouston books, though I have all four of her books, I found that the two on Foolproof Freeform Embroidery, being slightly thinner books, I had them spiral bound together by a office store.

I wanted to work with really vivid, Jewel tone colors, that I call Boho colors!!!

I purposely chose mostly solid print fabrics, some of these didn't even get used. I knew I wanted to try my hand at Jennifer's stitching ideas, so I didn't want patterns to interfere.  I wanted to do this piece as a whole cloth piece, but I divided it up into 6 blocks of 10" by 10". I had stitched all pieces by hand. 

So below you can see I have added 5 blocks with only one left to do.

One thing new for me, Jennifer talks on her videos about backing her fabrics with a stabilizer. The only one I had on hand, had a thin layer of batting. So I decided to use it anyway. I did it on my practice piece, a wooden spool!!

 It actually main stitching through it a real breeze, and I love the effect. So I thought I would use the same idea of the bigger project!

If you haven't visited her you tube site, you are in for a treat. Just type in her name on You tube.

Although, she doesn't teach on her site, she does do some demonstrations, but she also shows how to use her books. What a brilliant organization in her books!!!! So I have watched them all, and had her voice on when stitching. 

This is the top left side of the quilt, with the title being, "Jesus talked to Apostle Paul, why don't we listen."  And how to denote "listening" but by using talking bubbles!!!! I use PowerPoint on my computer, you can choose from different shapes and sizes, choose your color, font, etc. I chose the Bible quotes I wanted to use (all from King James Bible).

This one below is the top right side of the quilt. Some of the square blocks are taken from Memes on the net. Many are also Bible quotes.

Below are the bottom left and then right side of quilt.

Another new technique, was not to just embroider the seams, but to allow my stitching to travel across more than one block!!!

Another thing, I learned several new stitches. I really love the Chain Feather Stitch, on page 76 of her Foolproof  Freeform Embroidery book. It is now a favorite of mine! 

I finally mastered the Colonial knot...but I cannot do them as fast as she does!!!!

Feathered Twig stitch, page 79, still challenges me. But I love the look of it. The Knotted Feather Stitch is also still a challenge for me.

I did do a lot more ribbon embroidery than I normally do. I have taken classes, so I just needed to make myself do more of it.

Jennifer, do you see my little water jar? Couldn't believe I found mine, had it since 2014! I knew it was in my sewing rooms somewhere!!! I also learned to love the ZZAdgcr Chako Ace Pens that are washable....What a difference in making my stitches go where I want them to!!!

Time for backing and adding to the front. I even watched some videos to fine-tune my mitered corners, not perfect yet, but getting better!!! I did a blind-hem stitch all the way around to attach.

Then I did a button-hole stitch all the way around the quilt.

I always make my label for the back. Title, date, my logo. Of course, when I put it in the fair, it is covered over with fabric.

And now the finished quilt hangs in our entry way!!! In September, I will enter it with a few other items into our County Fair. Will post again then.

Also, I have several pieces, that have never been entered into fairs before, so in September I will be entering 5 pieces in Coeur d'Alene Idaho State Fair. And then I have 6 pieces to enter into the Spokane County Fair. So stay tuned to see what happens. Wish me luck.

Well, that's enough for this blog. Hope you enjoyed learning how I did this project. 

Don't forget to visit my Flickr site: https://www.flickr.com/photos/60882932@N06/

It documents my 28 years of Crazy Quilt Journey!!!

Happy Stitching!

BJ Sandusky

Sew Crazy For You!!!!

 SPRING HAS FINALLY ARRIVED...AT LEAST FOR MOST OF US!!!

LOTS OF RAINY DAYS, HAS BROUGHT OUT LOTS OF FLOWERS. MY FAVORITE TIME OF YEAR. ALSO, BECAUSE THIS MONTH BRINGS US EASTER. AND  I LOVE ALL THE FABULOUS SPRING COLORS AROUND US.

I was very fortunate to teach a beginners Crazy Quilt class at a new fabric store locally, Sew Happy Stitchery. The new owner, Shelley Flerchinger took over an old favorite, remodeled, and has reopened a beautiful store.

Lots of fabrics, of course, but also threads, kits, supplies and more.

We had four students to take the class. Chloe, Ginny, Illa and Connie. Most had not yet tried to crazy quilt, even embroidery was new to some.

But we had great fun, and I am pleased that they all seem to really enjoy the class.

Illa standing back to check her progress!

Chloe, our left-hander, really took to the embroidery work!

Ginny's block shows great progress. They all loved working with Shibori Ribbon.

Apologies to Connie, I didn't get pictures of her block.

Maybe later this summer we can do another class and get to more complicated stitches!!!

Working on a couple new projects for the local county fair again this year. Stay tuned to see what gets entered.

On my table now....updates to come....

Thanks for visiting....as always,

Happy Stitching...

BJ Sandusky

https://www.flickr.com/photos/60882932@N06/

 HALLOWEEN IS PAST...THANKSGIVING IS AROUND THE CORNER!!!!

As with everyone, I am sure, this part of the years gets so busy...holidays, celebrations, much to be thankful for. As usual I have been busy since the quilts entered in our Fair in September. Not one to slow down or pause with so many ideas in my head!!!!

This first project was started earlier in the year, but set aside because I wasn't sure how I wanted to finish it. I didn't have any long fringe like I have used on this pattern before, so off to JoAnn's I had to go!!!

 And this is the result. The front is cq, but the back is diponi silk, with moiré inside. The satin strap is extra long, as it is designed to be a "hip" purse. Holds wallet, cell phone, glasses etc. It will be entered in the Fair next year as these two had been in the past. The first one, was the first time I made this pattern, the yellow more recently. So it will be fun to see how the black one will do. 

We remodeled our kitchen and laundry room last fall, staying with my favorite colors of yellow and country blue for both. The washer and dryer are not at the same height, so hubby made a top for it with white laminate board, and I made the bumble bee cover for it. 

The canister set, along with the coffee canister and sugar bowl were all purchased at different times at garage sales. So I decided to do a quick block to pick up all of the colors to accent. 

Titled, Treasure the Bees, it fits in with the over all theme of our room. Our laundry room also doubles as a "Butler Bar", as our coffee pot, etc. is located on the right side of the sink behind the door. Sandy also put up shelves on the opposite wall from the washer and dryer, where we keep our microwave and toaster over.  Which leaves our kitchen counters less crowded. (Since we rarely use these two, it's not an inconvenience for us!)

My latest project is a bit whimsical, a bit stick it in the face of one who thinks we can get rid of CO2 on this planet by getting rid of trees!!! And then I saw this picture on the internet....

And my brain went to work. Since trees absorb our CO2 (carbon dioxide) to feed the trees and turn into oxygen for the life on this planet, so naturally, a quilt idea popped into my head. (Now you can see where I get some of my ideas!!!)

_

And this is the result...25" across and 37" down. I will do some close up pictures to show my techniques.

Printed the original picture in black and white to make a similar shape. The green portion of the tree is crazy quilted, but I wanted a more "wrinkled" look, so by spritzing with water the pieces of fabric, and then pressing with a hot iron, the wrinkles stay in place!!! They do have a think batting behind to give a little 3D look.

I did the tree trunk in the same manner. 

By pushing folds in the fabric, again with water and pressing, the folds look more like the trunk of a tree. 

And then I "landscape" the background for hills and embellished them.

I knew I needed a "forest floor" so I used pieces of felting wool, with a few pieces of yarn, and then embellished with glass rocks!

For the border, I wanted to crazy quilt, but when I put together a bunch of flowered fabric it was way too busy...so I decided to use batik fabrics, with black stitching to mimic a stain glass border effect!. And if you look closely several pictures of kids planting trees and other messages. 

 By now, I had a title in mind, and decided it needed to be on the front of the quilt!

I have this block that Pat Winter made for me. I made the block and sent it to her, and she did the embellishing and then sent it back for me to finish it off...

It is such a beautiful piece, and I love her dragonfly in shibori ribbon. So I decided to add one to my quilt. Though I didn't have the little metal pieces she used, I used what I had.

This is what I laid out originally, but ended up using some different beads.

I knew I needed a sun, and Barbara Nicki came up the perfect sun lace...

And using her idea of adding beads to the laces, I used twisted bugle beads with seed beads to give it a shine. I used gold and clear alternating.

I went back and added beads to more of the green laces also.

The two corner leaves are ones that Nicki had done herself. 

Then thinking, something was missing, I sat looking at my wall above my computer, and my eyes rested on a beach picture my mother had painted years ago. 

And then it hit me....I needed some birds flying in the sky.

So I printed out this portion of the picture, and used her idea of putting birds in the sky!!!

And now it was complete!!! Bordered back fabric to the front. And I finally nailed the mitered corners, by watching a you tube video!!!

She made it so easy and near perfect...I shouldn't get any negative comments on my fair admissions from now on!!!

And by the way, all these projects will be entered next year. We have 3 local county fairs, and I am going to enter in all of them!!! Got to get busy!!!

My next project is a special one, and will do a blog later when it is complete, but I will give you a hint right now...

My mother, being an artist, could paint and draw, in any medium. When we were stationed for four years in Japan, she took up charcoal drawing from an old Japanese man. I only have 10 or so of her pictures, but she did hundreds. She used to do Art Shows in parks in Pensacola and Panama City, besides selling an the Artisan in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. So I took photos of each large print, and put in the center of each block. Using Japanese fabrics along with diponi silks, I will be embellishing with Shibori Ribbon, a Japanese method of dying silks, charms and more. This is going to be a fun project. Each block is 8 by 8", so it's about 24" across and 32" down. So tuned next time for a how-to on this project!!!

One last note, Friday evening, we had a special celebration. I had signed Sandy up for a Veterans Valor quilt back in April, at our local Seaport Guild Quilt Show, and the lady managing the table, Susan Kruger, kept Sandy's name so she could make his quilt.  Thanks so much, Susan we love the quilt. And Sandy collects eagles in his office!

As always, thanks for visiting, and Happy Stitching...

BJ Sandusky

Visit my Flickr site for more photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/60882932@N06/