Update on Crazy quilt!!!

Here I have done a joining seam with
white daisy trail and also some blue
french knot flowers.

Uhm just got carried way with this one and
added lots more cream embroidery to these roses.
Now its looks so nice and full.

Its amazing that I still come up with these embroidery stitch combinations
after the many years I have been working on this.
I am trying to get this crazy quilt done now and working on it as much as possible.

Now a wonderful blessed creative 2014 to all of you!

Just more of daily life!!!!!

Interesting! here I used loose french knots in different collections and
each time the flowers came out so different. Its the row of yellow pink blue and red flowers that is covering the joining seam.

Enjoying the sunset over Clanwilliam Dam with a nice braai with
my son and his family

Here is my new leaves that I thought out and its so easy and quick

Wow still embroidering!!!

Wow still embroidering slowly but surely. It is very hot here and temps are over the 40*C daily here and its is a bit warm under all this fabric on my lap.
 I am trying to work something in the mornings. Hubby and I were chatting this morning how just more and more ideas of embroidery possibilities are still coming in my head for the finishing of the crazy quilt. I have decided that I did not want the separate blocks to show but will embroider over them to have a nice overall crazy quilt. Here is what I am doing. Using some of the embroidery that I did on the blocks and taking it further over the other blocks to form a nice overall flow. 

Here is where I have added more of the same embroidery
over the seams to have a continues flow of
embroidery and not block by block

Here I joined the blocks with a lovely bright green leave and
shades of pink french knots. The leaves came out great.
I did a long stitch and then went over that with a chain stitch
and then using the weaving technique I wove these lovely leaves
through all three legs.
uhm thinking I will have to make some more of these in the rest of the
quilt as it was so nice and easy and also fun to see that the leaves
did not all turn out to be exactly the same. 

Here the 4 seams come together just to show that
I am now embroidering on the seams after joining
my blocks together

Joining at the new seams

Last but not least, at last I have now wrapped all

the Christmas gifts and just hoping the grandsons will

enjoy them. 

Busy Busy and a surprise!!!!!

Christmas decorations are now up and this is what it looks like
before the lights are switched on.

Here I have started with the embroidery after joining the blocks together into rows and now joined 2 rows
I will be doing two by two and then join with the centre row.

Well I am a very sentimental person and this proves it.
We received a lovely set of different crystal glasses from my Mom
and slowly over the years they have broken out and this is the last one
left. Well I could not throw this one away and strange enough they all
seemed to break just under the round of the glass.
There is a lovely crystal ball just above the foot of the glass.
So looking at it I turned the foot upside down and there we
are I have my very own crystal ball in a nice snow bubble.
Now I have preserved this piece of history for many years to come.

Here you can see my crystal ball when the sprinklers have settled down.

Okay here is what everyone has been waiting to see. Here I have
laid out all 25 blocks of the crazy quilt and as you can see
they are not arranged the way I wanted. But be assured I will
be posting this when completed.

All done, 10kg apricots into jam. I get apricots yearly and have to make
into jam because the bought ones are not so tasty and also lot less
sugar and no preservatives in. This will last us about a year.

A Little of this and that!!!!!

A bit more done

Just love using the House of Embroidery threads

I found some fresh water pearls in my bead box and
just had to add them here

Well this is some fabrics that I bought at a quilt shop that I visited
this past week. It was a huge gift because I have not been to a real
quilt shop in a few years. heheheheh no not joking we hardly
ever go to Cape Town just for shopping, its only for visits to the Specialists
And on Tuesday was the day for Qubby to be at the drs. Well while
waiting for the next appointment I decided to go to Thimbles, a very
nice quilt shop in Durbanville near Cape Town. Well it was really like a
Christmas gifts for me. I was totally lost between all those lovely fabrics and ideas. As always I could not decided what I wanted and what to buy. So while there daughter phoned and asked where I was, must have sounded overwhelmed, so of course
she is also a quilter and had to get her some fabrics too.
So this is what I bought and a bit more other goodies.

Now you are wondering what this is. I just love to add something colorful to new linen when I buy them. We have bought some lovely white percale sheets and this is a crocheted strip that I added with some nice red satin ribbon. Also did the pillowcases to match. Well I put this on
the flat sheet so that I know where is the top of it. And of course this makes the sheets look so inviting to me

Well thats it for now and I have 3 blocks to check and hopefully have it laid out open to see what block goes where. I also have to put the Christmas decor up this week. To get into the Christmas feeling. So all have a great creative week. Take care and hugs to all.

Embroidery, life and a cat!!!!!

A bit more filling done today

Added grapes and also some stars and beads.
Added the grandsons names and birth dates.

I just think this is really wow.
Love the way the use of the House
of Embroidery threads just give
this the extra wow that I needed.

This is pure orange blossom honey that
hubby and neighbor collected yesterday
nothing added..

And last but not least, here is Tonic
trying to wake me up early morning.
I was peeping at her to see what she does
and of course she knew that I was awake.
She just has the most magnificient whiskers

Just daily things!!!

Just a smalll update!!!!

I have been busy going through all my blocks of the crazy quilt and found lots of places that needs to be filled.

 Am taking my time and just enjoying the finishing part of the crazy journey. Will post pictures only when I have completed all the blocks.

Well at last I had a haircut, my hair was getting to long and heavy.
Was not planning on cutting it but long hair at my age, humph
makes me look very old and also having grey hair when its long
just does not look very nice.

Matthew and his parents went to Sudwana Bay and had great
fun, esp Matthew with this huge crab.

All in a weekend!!!!!!

 A seam done

a filler done

one whole corner completed, this was my
very first block and now I am going back
and filling in.

the House of Embroidery thread is the orange one and this
is just to show how nice the shaded area of the orange
flowers are.

The last block done!!!

 Well now I have done all 25 blocks and have them pinned to a huge sheet. Now I am going to go through all the blocks and fill in all the empty spaces. I need to use much more of my threads and goodies.
Then the huge task begins of putting all these together into a likable quilt and more embroidery to combine all the blocks together. Am just loving this and now need to get it all done. I am so proud of the huge crazy quilt and the completion of it. It did take long but I worked on it day by day and also got to enjoy all the memories behind all the work.

Just had to add some lovely pearly beads

This is a daisy 

Just had to have something nice and loved doing the pink flowers
in my special threads from "House of Embroidery" I was lucky to
have bought the whole range of nr 8 perle and am
having such fun with threads.

Wow What a Day!!!!!!!

I feel so special today. I ordered some threads
from "House Of Embroidery" on Thursday and received
them today all nicely rolled on the bobbins and also
numbered. Thanks to the staff esp Kelli for getting
this order out so quickly. They also post international.

This is what the threads look like when embroidered.
The shading differs quickly and makes the embroidery look very real.
I love using DMC too but their shading is very spaced.

Went for lunch today at Lambert's Bay, The seaside nearest to us
is about 60km from here and we love to have lunch at
Isabella's.

Now here we are having  lunch and also enjoying our 41 years
anniversary today. Still cant believe time has gone by
so quickly. In the previous post I have just started with our wedding photo
and here we are still very lucky to be together after all these years.
When we asked our grandson Matthew which one of us
deserves the medal, he answered Grandpa of course
because he has been looking after me for so long. hehehe

Last Block Done, well no !!!!!!!

This is lavender and just
love using the threads from" House of Embroidery"
which is a local thread company, great postal service and
the colors are just to lovely. The threads look like just one
color but when embroidered it looks so beautiful.

This is done with silk ribbon that I received from a friend
and it reminds me of wild violets that grow in the
veld here in Clanwilliam. Not the african
violets that is well known.

Well I thought I have nearly completed my blocks, BUT
yes but, I have seen a lovely crazy quilt embroidery blog
by Jenny at sewsocrazy.blogspot.com and I can see
that my blocks are just too empty so now I will
have to work through them all and get them filled up more
I have lots of threads and stuff left and need to use
it up. So here we go with embroidering a nice full busy crazy quilt.

Okay great news!!!!!!!

I am now on my last block nr 25 of this crazy journey and now have to go back to the first and work through and get them all completed, because in the beginning of this journey I was not sure about adding the beading and charms and stuff I had. I am now much more confident about the embroidery and stuff and will now go back and add lots more. hehehe Amazing that one is so unsure in the beginning but now after this wonderful long journey I can nearly call myself an experience embroiderer in "free embroidery" that is what all my embroidery journey is about. I have learned lots of new stitches and tricks and all thanks to the help of all the people in the internet world who post pictures of their work. I have never tried to copy the exact picture but they did inspire me to use my own brain to work things out for myself with the inspiration of their work. So Thank You all to the wonderful world of embroidery in whatever style you are for all the sharing of your work. 

Also want to say Thank you to all my friends here for your great support all through this journey. You are all very special real persons in my world here where there are not many people interested in the world of embroidery and handmade items. 

THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR SUPPORT!!!!!!!!!!!

And last but not least is my best friend who got me started in this embroidery world. You are the best!!!!

Block 22 done and block 23 nearly completed!!!

This is block 22 done

Just close up of a heart in block 22

This is a favorite of Benjamin our oldest grandson
and he just loves John Deere tractors
at this stage of his life! Must say
on second thoughts he has not swapped
his likes in life very much so far.

This is Liam the youngest grandson, favorite "Cars" also at this
stage of his life, which I am sure will change
a lot.

This is Matthews, which is the middle grandson
and his favorite at the moment,
before that it was snakes. I remember
that he loved frogs for many years
and also tortiouses and and, I am sure
that this will also change a lot.

This is the photo that I chose for the
crazy quilt. It was taken in Durban 2013.

Well now I am nearing the end of this journey I am very excited to say

that I now have only two more blocks left and then I will be joining the

whole lot together. I cannot believe that these have taken a lot of my time now for nearly three years now. But must add that this has taken my into my own life journey with lots of healing while embroidering away at the special blocks. The next stage will be joining them together and then embroidering over the blocks to make it into a whole quilt look. Also in the process my best friend Anna is going to help with the outlay as she has inspired me all the way through this journey and also thanks to her for all the inspiration behind making this crazy quilt.

My country living!!!

We have a huge problem here in South Africa,
Lots of elders are being murdered
and someone decided to do something about it
in using a protest march and it was
decided that to do the march on an old holiday
that was removed from our calender by the new
failing government. It is
named Red October and will
be a unofficial holiday in future!
I was not able to attend and
after starting the day with a down feeling,
I saw the postings coming in from fb and they all
used red balloons and red t shirts I got my inspiration
to complete with this little banner.

This is what I have been working on and its was
not easy working from a picture and
trying to get it look right.
Well after a lots of undoing I achieved this.

A bit more seams done

This is a very special flower for me, its
the beautiful violets, not those we know as african violets
but the ones that Louis Leipoldt wrote in his poems
of this area, these are what the real traditional
ones look like and I just love the colors in this
color chart and had to make new curtian for my
guest toilet. Well its a bit dark now but hardly
gets used and I like it anyway. Still have to crochet
the toilet cover.

We spend another day in the veld around this area and there
are always lovely flowers to see. The yellow is the "waboom" protea
and the lovely red ones I have no idea what their name is.

These are (not sure how to spell these) tjienkeretjies in
 our garden that are now flowering
and they are around our small piece of lawn in our garden
and hubby has been pampering them so that they
become more and make a lovely border.