APPLIQUE PAINTBOX-I LOVE APPLIQUE

IN WHICH PERSEVERANCE IS SHOWN TO HAVE PAID OFF!

I have put together two rows of the dreaded Sweet Surrender! 

They went together pretty well.  There is some floppiness in play  especially on the left hand edge but all and all-pretty good!  Here was my method:

For the first row I cut templates for all the triangles both appliqued and pieced.  However, I found that I had cut the appliqued triangles most accurately (!) so decided no paper template would be required for them.  The templates where cut allowing 1/4 seam allowance.  So I pressed the pieced triangles well, got out my trusty elmers glue, and pasted the template to the back of the pieced triangle. (I tried pinning but too slippery).  I trimmed off any excess of which there rarely was any-mostly the pieced blocks were short on the seams.  Okay!  Since I knew my appliqued triangles were good, I  matched the two ends of the triangles together and eased in any excess.  The paper template was exact and was the standard.  Lots of the pieced triangles have skinny seams.

So there you have it!  I will do the next 2 rows this week-slow but steady progress!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Usually I work on one project at a time but currently I am working on three different aspects of my craft: assembling the dreaded Sweet Surrender, completing my Wild quilting craftsy class, and painting Arabesque.

The block below represents the synthesis of all the lessons Christina Camelli has taught us.  This has been a wonderful class and I am sorry it is ending.  The block is only partially quilted.  I find I love dense quilting and I also want to make this the most interesting quilting job I am capable of.  So I quilt as the ideas as to what to quilt next occur to me.  I started with quilting the big swoop across the quilt and am building on that.  I know I am supposed to just flow from one area to the other utilizing what I have learned but I guess that is not me.  Flowing will come in time.  Here is where we stand now:

  Here is the reason for the cat fur:  Helper Kitten! She is all over "our" work with furry suggestions.

It is so hard to photograph black.I am using varigated thread but it does not really show up and the black does not look really black.  The big circle drawn in is a thought to maybe do a Krista Withers sort of thing which would emphasize the geometric. Who knows what my fingers will think up.

 When this is finished, i will move on the quilting Chuck Susan and Me-each little square will be different. I have half the body of the quilt assembled in quilt sandwiches ready to go and have purchased my thread.

My paints arrived the other day-so many pretty colors!  I am not sure how I want to use them so I made little samples of the colors with labels so I can move them around and see what is what.

I was not sure where to start so I painted the stems.  i used a jade/spruce green.  I feel so meditative when I do this like a medieval monk at Lindesfarne painting illuminated manuscripts.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I told you last week how funding for the National Endowment for the Arts maybe eliminated and how this will affect quilt museums.  Our biggest and best quilt museum- National Quilt Museum in Paducah-is asking for donations to sell as a fund raiser-kind of a quilter's bake sale.  Info is below if you want to donate-go to their webpage.  I am going to donate 2 quilts.

AND NOW......

Your moment of Zen!

Beekeeping!

When we think of beekeeping we think of white wooden boxes or maybe one of those adorable basket skeps.  Here is one even more unique from the Cevenne region of France.  Here, for centuries, they have been keeping bees in hollowed logs:

These hollowed logs like like a forest of giant toadstools. The beekeeper gets at the honey by turning over log as you can see below.  Apparently the bees love these homes as they are close to its natural habitat in an old dead hollow tree or fallen log.

We keep bees when we lived on our farm.  Here is the only photo I have of the beehives.  This was our first one-it was early spring-the big jar is filled with honey water to help the bees make it until the flowers started to bloom.  We added two more layers to the hive and as these bees outgrew the hive and began to swarm, we captured the swarms and eventually had 3 hives.  This photo was taken about 1976 before digital camera when we just used film and you never knew what kind of photo you were going to get.  I wish I had taken more.

You can just make out the bees on the landing.  They are stretching their spring legs.

SO LONG AND HAPPY QUILTING!

I am linking up with:

Slow Stitching Sunday, Bambi's Blog,

Patchwork Times,  Em's Scrapbag,

Esther's Wow, Let's Bee Social,

Free Motion by the River, Whoop Whoop,

and Off the Wall Friday.