Princess Parade and Printer Cover

Today was a pretty good day. Sent off my latest Love Quilt square. Pressed another finish so it's totally done and I could take a photo. Plus I got my hair cut and colored, always a way to feel brand new.

The LQ Square is for Hailey G, who wanted bright colored princesses, especially orange and purple. I picked out the "Princess Parade" pattern from Country Cottage Needleworks. Of course, the design called for beautiful, muted, pastel hand-dyed floss. Hand-dyed doesn't work for LQ squares since the quilts need to be machine-washable. So I picked some brighter shades of regular DMC. The fabric in the photo may look like light blue, but it's really white. I made the clouds blue to compensate. I think it will work pretty well for the theme.



And I found a use for my "Sisters" Stitchery. My poor printer stays in a corner and doesn't get much use. Quite the dust catcher, so I decided to make a dust cover for it. I used this simple tutorial for an ottoman slip cover. No piecing of the fabric, just four 'darts' and a hem. Then I used Stitch Witchery to fuse the stitching to the top center and added a blanket stitch around the edges. Certainly not perfect, but definitely does the trick. And definitely an improvement over the old pillowcase that I had draped over it before. I understand the construction principles now and I think my next such cover will be better.

Bunny SAL and Carmela's Garden

I was one of many to join Kissy's Bunny SAL, 3 parts in 6 days, a commitment I could handle. I had a small piece of old fabric in my stash from Sassy's Fabbys from the days when she did the hand-painted technique. This was done on a lovely color called Spring Shamrocks. I changed up the colors to work with the fabric and just to be a little different. I loved stitching this and I love how it turned out. I made it into a little zippered bag since I never seem to have enough of those to store stitchy things and other small items.



Just finished a Love Quilts Square for a quilt with the theme of "Girls Being Girls". This design was a freebie displayed by a blogger named Carmela who has since closed her blog. She always had the cutest designs. I think I saved this one with the thought of making a Comfort Doll from it. I added the little motifs outside the border just to make the design a bit larger. Those come from some hardback books on my shelves by various designers. Just when I think it's time to get rid of those books, they come in handy!



Finally, here are some iPhone photos of the various t-shirts and onesies designed for my Jazzercise instructor's new grandson. My instructor was moved to tears by the efforts of some of her students. You can see my shirt with the owl in the top photo.

Moulin Rouge Dancer

My latest finish is a Love Quilts square for a quilt with a music and dance theme. I fell in love with this graphic style dancer from the X-Plore Moulin Rouge leaflet. The designer is Stephanie Hedgepath and it's published by Jeannette Crews. I see that it is a download on Patterns Online too. This was just so much fun to stitch. Pretty colors used in such an interesting way. No fractionals, and almost no backstitching. And check out that super-model type expression on her face. I'm amazed there is any facial expression since the stitching is so simple, but that mouth is really pouty! She's just such a Parisian. The fabric is actually white but it may look blue in the photo. Hope she doesn't seem too risque for the quilt. I often seem to pick designs that are a bit edgy for these things.

Angel meets giant ladybug...

After I finished the "My mother, my friend" quilt square from a couple of posts ago and was about to put away the JCS issue with the design, I discovered another sweet design in that issue, "Angel Joy" by Gail Bussi. And sure enough, Love Quilts had a quilt with a theme of angels that needed stitchers. I just stitched the top part without the bible verse. I would have loved to use the light tan linen in the magazine photo, but I had to go with white for the quilt. The model also used hand-dyed threads which would be unsuitable for this since they are not colorfast. I had to modify some of the conversions given to get a better look. I think when designers use the hand-dyeds and offer a conversion to DMC as well, they don't think too hard about the DMC colors. Not sure why the ladybug grew so large, but it seemed to drive the angel to make a peace offereing!

Alphabet Heart Sampler

I just mailed my latest Love Quilts square. Unlike the usual squares that will be used on quilts for kids, this one is for a special adult-themed quilt. Love Quilts is making a few that will be given to the American Cancer Society to sell as a fund-raiser. The theme of the one for which my square is destined is 'Pink'. The sign-ups seem to be for a lot of hearts, flowers and ribbons. This design from BHG Australia seemed versatile enough for this quilt and lots of others, actually. I just used brighter pinks than are shown on the model. I've seen it done in variegated thread and hand-dyes of almost every color. I expect that I will stitch this one again sometime on more interesting fabric with a higher count. This is a plain old 14 count Aida in white. White Aida is required for LQ.

Kitten in a Red sweater

Fate made me stitch this one. I had just finished browsing the Love Quilts site to see what themes were available for current quilts. Nothing caught my fancy, but shortly after that I saw the DMC chart of the week and remembered the open quilt for Emily F. with a theme of baby horses, puppies and kittens. The stitching went faster than I expected. I usually get bored with lots of grays and stripes like this one has. The fabric is white, but my camera seemed to think it was blue. The design actually shows better on blue, but LQ requires a white Aida background. And, of course, the best part is that once it's stiched, I can just mail it away.. no need to do any finishing!

I scream, you scream...

What a glorious week-end we just had here in DC. The weather was absolutely perfect and with my newly-washed windows, I could bask in the sunlight from both inside and out! Plus the Redskins won again.. might as well enjoy that while it lasts. All in all, a perfect time for ice cream and in honor of the occasion, I've completed a Love Quilts Square for a quilt with the theme, 'Fun Foods'. This is an old freebie on CyberStitchers by Barbara Ana. Barbara's designs are such fun and stitch up so quickly.

Rootin' Tootin' Cowboy

Spent more time stitching than usual on this excruciatingly hot weekend and finished up a Love Quilts square for a wild west-themed quilt. I've had this design in my stash for 20 years. It's from the Stoney Creek booklet, "Best of the West". I once picked it up for a buck on a clearance table at my LNS of the time. The designs in it were not something I was interested in, but they were very well charted and the price was more than right. I've always wanted to stitch the cowboy bear for a little boy, but those guns in his holster stopped me because I know what a sensitive issue that is. For this quilt, it specifically states that guns are OK if not pointed at anyone, so I knew the design's time had finally come.