Sprinking Bling

The Dance Of The Sunbeams quilt will be sprinkled with shimmery bling today. Even though it is a cold winter day, it’s bright and sunny outside — a perfect day to spend with this quilt adding lots of colorful embellishments!

 

I hope to spend most of the day sprinkling bling here and there, adding glittery sequins and, of course, more beads and buttons. 

Some of the embellishments already on the quilt include beads, buttons, and even tied flies. If you’re curious about the progress on this quilt, check out a few of the past blog entries here:

Fly Baiting A Quilt

Working On The Dance

Yards and yards of specialty bling threads are being stitched in, too. Glitter threads include the Sulky Sliver threads in gold, copper, green, red and black. These are stitched lightly atop the quilt, following along the meandering quilted areas.  

The quilt is truly starting to shimmer and dance. But to get this quilt to perform, to REALLY dance and shimmer like those sunbeams I spotted in our woods one day, I have more work ahead.

I’ll spend hours and hours with this quilt today, giving it the life it needs. When finished, I hope this piece will dance just as those sunbeams did for me that day in autumn.

A Little Girl and Her Little Quilt

On Christmas day, when I watched my little granddaughter reading one of her new books upside-down, I thought that she was so special that she deserved a new quilt for her efforts.

I decided to make her a small quilt that she could keep at our home — one that she could use when she is napping or reading her books upside-down. 

Already on hand was an unfinished project, a crib-size quilt top in pastel tones, waiting for a border to be added. I made this quilt top long before my granddaughter was born but it looked like it could be a perfect little quilt for a perfect little girl.

Looking through my stash for border fabric, I tried to find the same minty-green fabric used in the patchwork blocks, but I wasn’t successful. I did find a fabric cut that was very similar in color (and I liked it better). Luckily, I had enough for a 4-inch border.

After adding the border, I rummaged through my stash and was able to find just enough backing fabric for a full back without having to piece sections together.

Over the past couple of days, I have been working on this little quilt for my granddaughter. I have just finished stitching down the binding, using leftover fabric — there was just enough of one similar pink print to make the binding. Since I am still in my stashbuster-mode, I’m happy that I used up about 2 more yards of my stash while completing this quilt.

The little quilt is finished now, and measures 43″ x 53″.  So the little quilt awaits the little girl who will hold it and bring it into her life. For now, it sits on a child’s rocking chair, waiting, for a certain little girl who will claim it as her own.

The little maple rocking chair under the quilt was mine when I was a little girl. It was stored away by my grandmother and when it was passed to me, I saved it for my children. My 3 boys rocked in this chair and now a grandchild is learning how to rock in this chair. 

Soon a little girl will enjoy cuddling her little quilt while she rocks in her little chair and reads her books upside-down!

Admiration: The Finishing Touches

My January Take It Further challenge has a binding and now the finishing touches will be stitched on. I need only to sew a few large embellishments onto the wall quilt. And I need to make a label.

Most of the buttons on the wall quilt originated from my grandmother’s button collection. Several small packets of buttons came from her Aunt Grace — she had saved these buttons in an envelope, noting where they came from. Since she never used them, I thought it would be lovely to use some of them on this wall quilt.

The stuffed Drummer Boy doll in the lower left corner was a gift to my grandmother back in the late 1960s. The Little Drummer Boy was a favorite holiday tune of mine and one Christmas, I gave her a 5-inch Drummer Boy doll.

A tiny winged angel appears in the upper part of the wall quilt, and it was added as a tribute to the fictional characters my grandmother would tell stories about.

The miniature scrap album was created as a tribute for one of her passions in life — family history and genealogy.

The collage pin was crafted from several found objects and signifies her love of brooches. Most of her jewelry, including her wedding ring set, was passed down to me upon her death.

The bottom photo shows four generations: my grandmother, my mother, me, and two of my sons. My grandmother was holding her second great grandson, Ryan, at 3 weeks of age.

The Admiration challenge was an enjoyable project. I am looking forward to next month’s challenge now.

Admiration Gets Embellished

This morning I finished piecing the front of my January Take It Further challenge. At this point, I don’t believe that I’ll be adding a border.

I plan to work on some embellishments next, using buttons from my collection. I am hoping to gather some vintage buttons that came to me from my grandmother. Wouldn’t they be perfect on this challenge project?

I might also add a bit of lace somewhere, too. My aunt & uncle (my grandmother’s son) used to own the J. C. Maile lace factory in New York and many of my grandmother’s small sewing projects were trimmed in laces from their factory. Even our Christmas gifts were trimmed in elegant laces!

On to the embellishments….

Admiration In The Background

The background on the front side of my January TIF is pinned on my design wall now. I spent part of the weekend thinking about how I wanted the background to look. I decided to go with a strip-pieced background because most of my grandmother’s quilts were made with strips.

The miniature Split Rail Fence will be stitched as-is into the background (in the top right corner). All squared-up photos are on fabric with ink jet print techniques so they will be pieced into the background. The large cut-out photo on the bottom right was a photo transfer with a special iron-on sheet. It will be treated with an iron-on fusible backing and then transferred to fabric. I’m unsure how I’ll work the photo edges at this point.

I have one or two more photos that I need to add to this TIF challenge. I need to check the family photos carefully — I am hoping to find a suitable picture of my mother and uncle, the 2 children my grandparents had. And If I can find a good photo showing the ‘next’ generation which includes me, I’ll include that too. Then I can begin sewing the pieces together!