Susan's Stockings

Susan sent her stockings early due to company coming in.  I have finally found my camera and have taken pictures of these BEAUTIFUL Stockings! She sent in 3 of them for swapping.

Here they are:

She also has goodies in these for some lucky person!

Silver is turning out to be an excellent theme!  This years batch of swap stockings are just sparkling!  I can't wait to see more.

TTFN
The Lion

Stocking Talk

As I am slowly coming around to the real world and leaving the anniversary of the Bastrop fire behind I was brought back to the happenings of today and my GREAT Stocking swap.  I wanted to start with my first updates that came to me on August 25th.  A lady who I have been cyber friends with for years and an excellent CQ teacher herself Arlene and her two friends Alison and Eva had a wonderful weekend stitching on their stockings.  All three are sending in stockings for the swap.

They spent the weekend before the 25th of August at Eva's house.  Guys Eva has a house overlooking Shute Harbor, Australia.  Awesome view!  They also attended a Quilt Show that weekend.  What a way to enjoy a weekend!

Here is a picture of Arlene's unfinished stocking.

You can see her stocking finished on her blog.

Here is a picture of Eva's unfinished Stocking.

Alison forgot her stocking for the photo shoot the day Arlene was taking pictures so we don't have a picture of hers but that just makes things more fun!

I do have more stocking updates to come I just need to break out my camera and get pictures uploaded.  I  have three that were sent to me already!  Just wait until you see these!

If you need my snail mail addy please email me privately at glynpg@yahoo.com.

TTFN
The Lion

The 2012 Lions Stocking Swap

Wow! How the year has flown!  I have been working on an extra special project since you have last heard from me.  I want to surprise everyone when it is done so I will not let that kitty out of the bag just yet but you will get to see it VERY soon.

In the mean time the clock just keeps ticking away and it is now time to announce the annual Lions Stocking Swap!  Yes, one more Christmas is coming our way and we get to prepare for it.  I have already started buying Christmas presents for my family!

This years theme was picked out by a cyber friend of mine Arlene.  Are y'all ready?  This years theme is Silver.  What can you do with a Christmas stocking with the theme of Silver?  I already have mine planned out.  Just wait and see!

Here are our 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, 2012. I will mail them back to you on November 1, 2012. Sign up will be from now until September 1, 2012. Please do not forget the return postage, Swappers from other countries can send  bribe goodies and I will pay your return postage.

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

TTFN
The Lion

Another Midnight Fantasy Garden Block

This is Kathy L.'s block.  Awesome is it not?  The first two ladies to work on it put some purple flowers.  So I went to the bottom corner and put in a spiderweb I used some of my Rainbow Gallery threads in making it.  I thought that it made the web look like the moon was shining on it.  I also put in some SRE flowers.  I kept the ribbon in the purple family and because that cute little fairy has a red dress on I made some red SRE roses.

I have one last block to work on and then that would be it for this Round Robin.  This has been a great one and I have learned quite a bit during this one.

TTFN
The Lion

Stitches

Today I want to talk a little about stitches.  I have been up on my soap box for a few weeks now about stitches being the basic rule for Crazy Quilts.  I thought that some of the ladies out there might be feeling helpless or frustrated and might need a little push in the right direction.  This might be the case if you are limited in the wallet area like many of us are these days.  I went to my Google box and typed in embroidery stitches and up came quite a few items that you could print up for you reference.  I would like to show you a few.

The stitches above are some that I use on a regular basis.  Especially the Fly, French Knot, Lazy Daisy and Feather stitches.

After seeing the above set of stitches I am thinking that I need to "play" with the chain stitch.

Out of the above stitches the leaf in the lower left hand corner caught my eye.

The above stitches show a few great combinations.

These images were picked up from the Internet quite fast and they make a great "quick" reference for your stitching.  Of course there are many more where these came from.  You don't really have to put out a whole lot of money to get "how to's" for the basic stitches.  Print them up and put them in your Crazy Quilt notebook so you have them tonight when you sit down to stitch.

I have said it before and will say it again, you are only limited to your own imagination.  Please, feel free to use these images for your stitching.  Just Google embroidery stitches and you will find many more.

TTFN
The Lion

Midnight Fantasy Garden Block

Here is a late picture of a RR block that I worked on for Kathy S..  I LOVED her block.  It was wonderfully Victorian.

I was the second person to work on Kathy's block.  I chose to work on the silkie that had not been worked with.  First I went around the silkie with a metallic Rainbow Gallery gold braid with a Buttonhole Stitch.  I then stitched on the one vertical seam, the top of the seam I did a combination Feather Stitch and Lazy Daisy stitch, the bottom of the seam I did a Herringbone Stitch combined with the Lazy Daisy stitch.  I also put in the SRE roses at the corners of the silkie.

TTFN
The Lion

Something Neat

In February I went to The Best Little Quilt Show In Texas.  I thought that y'all might appreciate seeing some of the more interesting quilts.  At least the ones I thought were interesting anyway.

It was a really great show this year and I got to go with some really great friends from Colorado.

TTFN
The Lion