Crazy Quilt nearly there and life!!!!!!

Well all here I have the whole crazy quilt all of the 250x250cm square at my feet. I have joined the two pieces together and am busy embroidering the last joining seam. I still cannot believe that this journey is nearing the end. Its been very hot here lately and I have very sore fingers at the moment so I am not working on it this whole weekend. hehehehe It is just such a strange feeling having all this hard work together at last and have a feeling with all this at my feet "I feel so rich". Will post picture when done.

On facebook these last few days I have been able to reconnect with lots of my cousins on my Dad's side of the family and its just great. We have not had contact in years because my parents got divorced when I was very young and we had mostly contact with my Mom's side of the family, which was 2 sisters and 10 brothers of which there is only one brother left, just great to be able to get to know them all over again. My Dad had a huge family of, if my memory is correct, hehehe in most cases its not, 3 sons and 10 daughters, so I have a huge family with lots of cousins who I have never met. So now there are only 6 sisters left and funny enough they still remember me, well when I was that cute blond girl.
Life just has a way of coming round and to me it feels like after completing with this crazy quilt I am able to face the world without the heartache of missing my parents, much easier.

Wow nearly done!!!

Well now l have the 2 sections stitched together and started the last of the seam embroidery. Its really a huge 250x250cm square challenge with the hot weather we have , although its cloudy here the humidity is high and also the electricity was down for a few hours this afternoon, its very hot to be under it. Well will be embroidering like crazy now to get this huge project complete after 3 years                                                                                                                                                                         Something interesting l read the other day about the cherry blossom meaning is "incidents and emotions".  I remember at the time l wanted to have one in my quilt not knowing the real meaning pot the cherry blossom, but had to have it in my quilt. Will not be posting until l have all the embroidery done.

A new flower specie!

Charka testing a flower pot! Or is he trying to tell us something?

Crazy quilt progress!!!

I have 2 pieces now after joining all 24 blocks together. Now will be joining the last seam and then it will all be done. This was 2 days work. Must add l still having fun after the 3 years l have been working on it. Wow now its not long to go till completed.

Great visit at Ubizane Wildlife Reserve!!!

Here is what we went to visit, our daughter, her hubby and Matthew
and of course all the pets, Ziquenya the dog and Chloe the goat. 

Here is the way the animals greeted us when we left early morning to come home
They are not very bothered with the car. 

This is a tiny cabinet made by my wonderful Stepfather
when he was in high school. Now sadly not with us anymore
but now I have a small piece of his world.

Am still working on finishing my crazy quilt but took a rest to visit with our family for a delayed Christmas holiday. The kids are too busy with the Lodge for us to visit over Christmas as it is when the Lodge is fully booked. So we decided to visit them later. It was also great fun because my daughter has started crocheting and I had to help. Lots of laughter and excitement for her learning all new crochet terms. 

Well its now back to complete my crazy quilt journey as I have now ended lots of ends of this journey and just now at the last of this crazy journey to get done.

Visiting

Visiting daughter and family at Ubizane wildlife reserve. Will post m
ore when we are back home.

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.