cigar box makeovers

I have neglected my blog since October, but one of my 2 New Year's resolutions is to blog every day.  Don't know whether I will follow through on the resolution, but I am doing a blog for January 1, 2016.

Who can believe it is 2016!  I remember years ago thinking that 1984 was far in the future, after I read a book by the same title, and here we are, in 2016.
My husband Ron has been ill for most of 2015, first with an aneurysm surgery in April that he never really recovered from.  He spent 10 days in the hospital and another 10 days in rehab.  He is better, but not back to where he was in March.  We are hoping that he continues to improve.  Due to his health, I have been unable to travel to see Wendy, my daughter, in Overland Park Kansas or my son Scott in Castle Rock Colorado.  Luckily both of my children and their spouses and children came here for Christmas.  It was great fun to see Ellie and Sean.  They had been here for Thanksgiving. I hadn't seen them for a long time before Thanksgiving.

I made my grandchildren decorated boxes for Christmas.  One of my art quilt friends owns a high end cigar shop, and she share some of the boxes with me.  They were beautiful wooden boxes. I scanned images from a book published in 1923 and printed the images in fabric.  I back the fabric with batting and embroider the pictures. I framed the pictures with fabric and glued them onto the top of the box.  I glued fabric onto the sides of the box.  I lined the interior with more fabric. I used a handkerchief in the bottom of Rosie's box since it had an embroidered rose.







I used a handkerchief with daisies on it for the interior of Caroline's box, since daisies are her favorite flower.

I made another box for Ellie: 

I had to think hard on how to do a box for my grandson Sean.  I made a steam punk box with my friend Karen.  I used a cropped picture of Sean in his Halloween custom for the lid, and put scanned pictures of Power Rangers inside the box. I was going to use Transformers, but Scott told me he was done with transformers and now into power rangers.  Good thing I checked.


 That's all for now--Happy New Year!

Purple Mountains Majesties

Our quilt guild had a numbers challenge.  Each of us picked a number, and went to a table filled with old National Geographic magazines. The number we had picked turned out to be the page number of the photograph that we had to interpret.  The quilt had to be 32 inches square.  My picture had some mountains on it, so I chose

mountains for my theme.  The quilt is hand pieced and hand quilted.

A cloth of Beasts

Jude Hill has graciously opened a new site where her instructions and incredible wisdom are offered free.  The site's name is Spirit Cloth 101.  I am planning on working on my Beasts cloth.  I started it a while ago, putting on beasts I made in her Patchwork Beasts class, along with some others I have made later.  I have a lot of space to fill up, as I am putting the beasts on an old linen tablecloth.

Off the Wall Friday

Finished individual piece

I have finished my individual piece for the Pairings project of Missouri fiber Artists.  I used a tea dyed embroidered cotton, and did a tombstone rubbing on it.  I only used the top of the rubbing.  I couched gold thread for the floor, using a purple embroidery floss.  Then I covered a lot of the design with sari cloth remnants. I basted some gold silk under the piece so that the gold would peek through the holes in the embroidered piece I cut a piece of batting to go behind the cloth, and using ecru embroidery thread, quilted the piece.  A friend gave me a piece of pleated fabric.  I put batting behind the piece, I stuck more thin sari remnants in the pleats, fastening them down with contrasting embroidery floss.  This quilted the piece.
I put the embroidered piece on top of the pleated piece, and sewed it down.

Cemetery rubbings part 2

I have been working on my piece for the Pairings Challenge. The piece is a tea dyed doilie.  I used sari silk scraps that I bought at 2 quilt shows and embroider floss to decorate the piece. The floor is couched thick gold thread, couched with purple floss.  I plan on mounting some gold silk behind the piece so that it will show through the holes in the piece.  Then I will put some batting under it and quilt it.  Cemetery rubbings part 2 this part will be mounted on some pleated silk fabric. I'm having a lot of fun, along with some problems working on the piece, and will be excited when it is done.

Off the Wall Fridays

Cemetery rubbing

Missouri Fiber Artists is are sponsoring a Pairings event.  Two or three members are getting together to create one collaborative piece, and one each piece by the pair.  Sue Penrod and I are paired.  I traveled to their farm west of Hermann Missouri. First we went to some country cemeteries, and did rubbings on the gravestones.  We selected the one we wanted to work on together.  I used some black string and sewed around the decorations and text, making them more visible.  Sue will work on the piece next.  I am going to work on the round piece done on a tea dried doilie.
Later we eco died some fabric.   The long piece was done on a piece of raw silk that my father brought back from Japan in the 1950s.  We had a great time.

Off the Wall Fridays

The Vikings are coming

I have completed another piece in my English history series.  I call it the Vikings are coming.  I pictured 3 Viking ships approaching the British shore, with a ruined building on the top of the bluff.  I used raw edge big stitch applique for the piece. I'm not sure what comes next in the series, maybe the Norman conquest.