I Am All Set

I took this week off from work to recharge.  I have been doing allot of that this year.  The most frustrating part of this year is my inability to find my happy medium.  Which brings up the question of why can't I?  Am I looking too hard for it?  Am I not trying hard enough?  All I know is it feels like I am starving for something and I can't find it.  That just brings  on a depression.

So I took this week off as a Birthday gift to myself.  Yes, my birthday was Sunday I am another year older.  I cleaned the house from the top to the bottom.  Cursing the old man the whole way.  He took two weeks vacation the later part of July and all he did was just mess the place up.  That probably added to my depression.  Between him and my youngest daughter I almost gave everything to them and moved.  I still might do that since they both want to work my nerves.  It is hard to be positive when you live with two negatives.  I digress.

Today I am to call my friend Shari then start on my quilting.  I tried to call her yesterday but she did not answer.  She was probably out buying more stash.  I hope to do that Friday as well as mail some coffee to Connie.  Mail some things to Shari and mail out a gift to Angela.  I digress again!

Becky, I received your Birthday Card.  Thank you!  I love it!  It gave me some inspiration and I have got out "Seanes" and am going to work on it!

I am also working on my stocking lesson.  For all of y'all in the Central Texas area I will be teaching it at our local quilt shop.  I am done with breakfast and ready for my day!  Shari are you home?

TTFN
The Lion

The 2011 Lion's Stocking Swap

It is time to announce the annual Lion's Christmas Stocking Swap!  I am all excited about this years swap as I have picked a theme that I think everyone will enjoy.  This years theme is...................................Birds!

I remember the Christmas crafts that my mother did one year with the bird theme.  It just seemed to make the holiday so much more magical and sparkleing.  Sometimes I wish I could frame my memories of that time and hang them on the wall for everyone to see.  My mother does not have the time for crafts and needle work these days.  She works for the University of Texas and is busy with her duties as the High Priestess of the Ben Hera Temple.  I hope that she will find some time during her retirement to do some.  She is a very talented lady!

Now on to the guidelines!



Height: Stockings should be no taller then 11 inches high and no shorter than 8 inches high.

Width: Stockings should be no wider then 8 inches wide and no narrower then 4 and 1/2 inches wide.

Attention: Please, line the stockings in case your swap partner would like to use them for more than decorations!

You can send up to 4 stockings, stockings are to be hand embellished.(please no glue)

This swap will be a centralized swap. Stockings are to be mailed to me no later than October 15, 2011.  I will mail them back to you on November 1, 2011.  Sign up will be from now until September 1, 2011.  Please do not forget the return postage, Swapers from other countries can send a bribe goodie and I will pay your return postage.

You can email me privetly for my address at glynpg@yahoo.com.

Please, remember to swap onto others!

TTFN
The Lion

Let's Talk

Today I had one of the best phone calls that I have had in a long time.  One of the best friends that I will ever have (and I have never met her in person) gave me a solution to a couple of long standing projects that have been stagnating.  She completely took them off of my hands.  This is one of the biggest reliefs that I have had in a long time.  After our conversation I sat down and cried for ten minuets.  That is how big of a relief this is.

I have been having some problems in my life that have prevented me from doing what I would like to be doing.  Slowing me down so to speak.  This lady has been one of my biggest supporters and not judging.  I don't trust easy and it is easy to judge someone when you don't get to meet them face to face.  She has the same problem and it is amazing that we have become such good friends.  I wish that everyone could know her in the way I get to know her.  I have a feeling that if we do meet in person that we would create so much havoc that our husbands would divorce us.  I think that someone knew what they were doing by placeing us so far away from each other!

We in the stitching community know each other by our postings and emails and by pictures of our work.  Most of us get to know each other pretty well even though we live on the other side of the world from each other.  It is that communication thing even though it is through email.  We also have to remember that by not ever seeing a person face to face we can also damage that person through the email.

I remember one year I participated in a swap.  It was one of the best swaps that I had ever been in.  It was awesome and it almost did not finish.  One of the more respected members of the stitching community that we have on line put out on some of the Yahoo lists that this person was not trust worthy.  It was a mistaken identity so to speak.  It crushed this nice lady who live life through the Internet due to health issues.  Six of us stayed in the swap.  Due to health reasons she did not mail off the swap like she had wanted.  She had been in the hospital when the mail out date came around.  I did have to wait to receive my swap.  I did get it and I am still using stash from that swap.  Beautiful trims and lace.

After the swap this lady being crushed and her reputation ruined in the on-line stitching community she started losing passion for her Crazy Quilting.  She dropped off the lists.  We had become friends and I kept up with her through email.  She passed away last year.  I got to enjoy a friendship by just sticking it out with her and reaching out to her.  I think that I am richer for it.

During my time of having problems my friend has stuck by me often finding solutions to the immediate problems.  Others have not.  They have been quick to judge.  Sending terse emails.  Claiming that they are leaders.  But are judgements and terse emails what leaders do?

My question to you is:  Did you throw your nose in the air and judge?  Did you say things that were not very nice?  Is this what makes a leader?

WHAT MAKES A LEADER?

Did anyone ever think to contact me to ask what in the world is going on?  Do you care about others as a leader should or are you out for your own gain?  Your own fame and recognition?  Even if you are not a leader do you see something that is not right and judge or do you even think to reach out to see what is going on and ask if you can help?  Are you a doer and thinker or do you just want to follow gossip and judge others thinking that is your right?

In writing this post I am putting the past behind me and with the help of a friend am completing two long over due projects.  I am looking forward to the future and where my art will take me.

TTFN
The Lion

Do You Ever Think About Letters?

Do you ever think about letters in your embroidery??  How about just a monogram on your crazy quilt?  I know that I have many books that have been published by our favorite authors.  Like Judith Baker Montano and Marsha Michler.  There are many other authors that have great "alpha inspiration" but have you gone to a site or a blog that offers free vintage photos and other things and looked at their "alpha offerings" and just passed them up?  Have you ever looked at them really close and said this vintage alphabet would look great on my crazy quilt?  Can you see it embroidered with flowers and beads on your crazy patch?  I do.  I see these alphabets dressed up all kinds of ways.

I frequently spot really great vintage alphabets that come from other sites and are free for you to use for your inspiration.  One of my favorite spots is The Vintage Moth.  (http://www.thevintagemoth.blogspot.com/) Here is the alphabet I found this morning:

This french alphabet is so elegant and feminine.  It is easy to see this one dressed up with embroidery flowers and beads. 

If you are looking for alphabets you can practically find them every where in antique shops, you library.  It is very easy to find the alphabets on the web.  I found these real quick this morning:

This one is from http://www.frenchknots.com/ they have a beautiful site full of inspiration.

These amazing Victorian letters are from http://www.freevectorgallery.com/ .  Can you just imagine what you can do with this alphabet?

This alphabet I found at http://www.funphotoeditor.blogspot.com/ .  I really like this one it is very artistic and elegant.  I really can see all kinds of ways all of these alphabets can be embroidered on our crazy patch blocks.

Now I pose this question to you: How do you see these alphabets on your crazy patch block?
Just take a minuet and think about it.  How would you embroider and alphabet on your block?

This is the challenge I make to you: Take one of these alphabets and embroider a monogram on your crazy patch block.

How will you embroider it?  With floss?  With perle cotton/silk? With silk ribbon?  With a combination of all?  Will you embroider flowers with the letters?  How about beads?

What possibilities!  Please take up my challenge!  Let me see what you can come up with.  Please come back and post a link to you creation.  I would love to see it!

Have a wonderful Sunday!

TTFN
The Lion.

Let's Talk Stocking Swap

I have a new computer.  Yes, I broke down and got one while my PC is in the hospital for computer STD.  My darling son the apple of my eye decided to go on porn sites with my hub of the Crazy Quilting world.  So my poor computer is infected.  On the up swing of it all I decided that it was time to get my lap top that I had been thinking of getting.  Now I can carry everyone to work with me and "play" at lunch!  I am working on adding all of my printers and cameras onto this computer so that I can add up-to-date photos of all my work.  In the mean while................Let's talk about: The Lions Stocking Swap.

I promised myself that I would not take so long to announce it this year so that all my cyber friends from other countries can plan on being in on all the fun!  Now I am thinking on the theme this year.  HHHHUUUUuuuummmmmm............

The first year it was good old Santa Clause.  Last year it was Angels.  There are many, many more things that we think of when we think of Christmas.  What do you think of when you think Christmas?

I have been toying with several themes.  One of them is birds.  I remember one Christmas my mother made glass balls with birds on them.  She found paper Christmas napkins with birds on them.  She kind of rough tore the picture of the birds out and glued them to the Christmas balls.   Then she glued clear glitter on them and made them look frosty and snowy.  She also made center piece candles that way also.

AAAHHhhhh the memories!  Christmas is a magical time of the year.  I LOVE Christmas!

So what do you think??  Are there any suggestions on the theme this year?

TTFN
The Lion

My Time Away

No, it was not work this time that has taken me away from my art.  To begin with my mother was in an accident in Dallas.  She went to stop at a red light and the guy behind her did not.  She thought that she was okay but started feeling faint.  She was transported to the hospital where we found out she has an enlarged heart.  She is home now but she is on a heart monitor because her heart rate keeps dropping below 50 beats per minuet.  She is fighting the prescribed treatment.  She of course wants a quick fix that will never happen.  Mothers gotta love them!

One other big thing that happened is I lost my best friend of 15 years.  He was blind and old and I knew that the day would come........  My cocker spaniel Minnie Me left for heaven and I just have not been right since.  Every time I think that I am better I break down and cry again.  I know that I will be okay but in the mean time I am going to pick myself up and get back into the game again.

My plans are to get pictures taken of my blocks that I have done for The Lost Pines Crazy Quilt Group and get them posted.  I will finish up a swap project and get it out next weekend.  I have a couple of other blocks that I need to get embellished and put into the mail.  OH!  Lets not forget the Lions Stocking Swap!  I will be announcing that within the next month.  Also if you live in Texas and in the Bastrop area, I will be planning a weekend block party.  It is going to be a retreat of sorts.  I will be making plans for that.

Here is the next thing that I am going to be doing.  I will be writing a couple of posts for K.N.A.S.S. the StitchMap blog.  You ought to take a peak at it.  You just might want to join Map!

TTFN
The Lion

Flavor Stitches

In the month of January The Lost Pines Crazy Quilters worked with "Flavor Stitches".  I know that most of you are asking what are flavor stitches???  Flavor stitches by The Lions definition are stitches that can be used with other stitches to build your seams and add interest.  These stitches are: Fly Stitches, French Knot, Lazy Daisy and Straight Stitch.

These are the only stitches that are used on the block for this month.  The next two pictures are of the example block that I did for the LPCQG.

Using many different combinations of just the Fly Stitch, Straight Stitch, Lazy Daisy and French Knot you can create a very beautiful block.  In working on this block I also learned some things.  The biggest one is that as an "encruster" I can encrust with nothing but stitches.  As you can see from my picture there is nothing but stitches, as a friend of mine says, my fabric can't breath.

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Now here is where you learn what you are to use your composition books and map pencils for.  As you can see from my pictures I have a book not a composition book but a journal.  I have quite a few of these laying around the house that I use for notes on anything from crafts to designing a Crazy Quilt.  I pick up 4 or 5 at a time when I find them for a dollar a book.

I chose to use one of the nicer journals for the making my "Study of Stitches" book.  In this book I am taking the one stitch a month for the rest of the year and making notes on how to build my seams.  As you can see I have already started with the "Flavor Stitches".

As you can see from the pictures of the pages I mixed the colors to define the different stitches you will use for the seams.  Under the map color drawn "seam" you can see that I described the seam for future reference.

In the many books that we purchase there are the author's favorite seams that they use.  We might use them and we might not.  This is where this book of seams comes in handy.  This book is of the seams that YOU use or have used written down for future reference.  You might have a seam in it the you use only once but it is a seam that you have used.  You never know when you might use it again.

Feel free to explore all combinations of seam treatments.  Take notes on them.  Enjoy your crazy quilting!

TTFN

The Lion