Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year!!!  2011.......WOW!  Just thinking about 2011 and how fast 2010 went.  In the year 2010 I had many, many changes in my life.  When things started happening they happened really fast.  At the beginning of November I started thinking of the coming year and all the things I would like to do and where I would like to end up at the end of 2011.  Not only in professional life but in my stitching life as well.

I decided in both places that it is time to go back to basics.  To go back and work from the beginning.  My motto for the year is:  "To go forward sometimes we have to take two steps back."  In that with every thing that I am working on for the year as of  January one I am in the "two steps back" mode.

Now in moving forward with stitching I am concentrating on the just basic stitches and how to build on them.  There are two blogs that I find inspiration on.  One of them is Kathy's blog Shawkl.  She has the TDiTM.  That is short for Twelve Dozen Stitches in Twelve Months.  It is the most AWESOME inspiration that you can get for your stitching.  Here is the address to her blog:  http://www.shawkl.com/ .

Now the next blog Kerry Kati Cakes has not only great eye candy but the BAS, that is short for Build A Seam.  Kerry not only puts up a seam to build on but she has tutorials on how to make the stitch.  She will also show pictures on how she builds on it.  You can take her great inspiration and then go from there!  Here is the link to her blog: http://kerrykatiecakes2.blogspot.com/2010/12/ahh-moments.html .

Now I don't want to leave out the books that I look at for inspiration.  There are three of them that I will be working from this year.  The first one is Dorthy Bonds little brown book entitled "Crazy Quilt Stitches".  I have had this book for years.  This book is the best for a quick reference for a basic stitch.

The next book one that I absolutely treasure.  I carry this book everywhere!  Is the Carol Samples book "Treasury Of Crazy Quilt Stitches".  I have said this once before and I am writing it down for posterity right now.  You will have to pry this book out of my cold dead hands!  For those of you who do not have this book let me just say you HAVE to get one!

The third book that I am taking my inspiration on this year is a book from Judith Baker Montano.  It is entitled "Floral Stitches".  For those of you who have never owned a book from JBM I have to let you know that everyone of her books are full of inspiration and she goes into great detail on techniques and methods for any crazy quilt project you would like to tackle.  All of her books have a stitch dictionary in the back of them.  I own five of her books and they are main staples of my CQ library.  I do have to let you know that "Floral Stitches" is my favorite inspiration book for many of my floral stitches.  In this book she shows you how to take inspiration from the flowers around you.


I can't count how many times I have heard from beginning CQ'ers "I just don't know what stitch to use" or "how do I do this stitch", or "what stitch do I put here?"  Here are my plans for the year for The Lost Pines Crazy Quilt Group:  We are going back to basics.  We will take one stitch a month and explore it.  I am going to show everyone how to "build your own" stitch dictionary. With drawing the stitches you want to use to taking a picture of your work and posting it in your on stitch book.  This is some of the basics in which I speak.  If you have this type of basic book with which to reference you will have the best inspiration of all!  It is one that will never end.  You can have a book of inspiration that interests you.

I have also thought on what about my blog and the followers.  I know that some of you have expressed that you wish you could be here to attend the meeting of The LPCQG.  This year I am going to bring The LPCQG to my blog.  I think that the topic of going back to the basics is of interest of all.  So for my blog followers I am going to help you go back to basics also.  Now is when you will need to go and grab a paper and pen I am going to give you a list of items you will need to go back to basics and be the master of your own inspiration!

Here is your Back to Basics list:

spiral or composition notebook
crayons or colored pencils
10 8inch blocks crazy patched
needles and floss
camera
glue sticks

The colors of the blocks and floss I will leave up to you.  When the year comes to an end we will all have a beautiful basic crazy quilt to show off to all our friends!

See you in the next post.

TTFN
The Lion

Landscape Progress

 On this beautiful Sunday morning in central Texas I decided to take pictures of some of the projects that I am working on.  One of them is my landscape.  I was looking around the house for a great spot to photo my project and I could not find a really good spot.  So I I decided that outside was the best.  It is 49 degrees outside!  (I know, I know to the majority of y'all this is a heatwave but in central Texas that is pretty chilly!)  In order to get the right place I tough the great out doors!

Now on to my landscape.....I have been working on this one off and on for about 8 months now.  I have had other projects in between but for this year this is the big one.  The story behind this is one day I was in our local quilt store.  Just looking around, the store and there it was just sitting on the shelf!  It was a really great tree panel.  At that time images started popping in my head on how this panel would look and of course all of them different!  With those ideas and plans in mind I bought several panels with matching fabrics.

I took these great cotton fabrics home and started putting together my first of several landscapes.  After that I started working on the one that I am showing you today.

This top picture is of the whole project.

Here are close ups of the different parts of this CQ.

As y'all can tell I have been working from the top of the piece down.  When y'all get to these pictures y'all can really see where I am putting in more trees around the house.  I have started on the trunks with a chain stitch.  Y'all can also see where I have drawn these trees in so the vision of what the trees will look like when I am finished can be seen.

I still have a long way to go on it but I am thinking that this is a great start!

Here in the past year I have been playing a little with quality cotton fabric and silk embroidery floss and silk ribbon. I have got to let y'all know that I really like the way this combination is working for me. Oh, I still work with my fancy fabrics but I think that I will keep playing with the cottons also. It also helps that the owners of The Lost Pines Quilt Shop are very supportive of all types of quilting.  I have to let y'all know that she brings in some great Crazy Quilt supplies also!

I hope that y'all enjoyed this trip into my imagination!  I will be back later with some more!

TTFN
The Lion

Inspiration On A Sunday

This Sunday I am planning to just sit and stitch.  We all need that type of vacation from the world.  Where we never leave the bed, just stay in our night gown, turn on the TV and watch old movies and stitch.  I have a couple of stockings made to stitch on for The Lions Christmas Stocking Swap and have writers block so to speak.  Well anyway stitchers block!  So as I am browsing through my blog list just reading along I came across my friend Kathy's blog.  http://www.shawkl.com/   Kathy has the Twelve Dozen Stitches In Twelve Months.  Awesome inspiration!!  If anyone is having stitchers block I recommend going over to Kathy's blog and take a look at her inspirational stitches!

In addition to all those great stitches she is one super stitcher herself, ans she has some of her great eye candy put up on her blog also!  So if you are looking for something to do this Sunday go and check out Kathy's blog!

TTFN

The Lion

A whole New Look

I have had a bee fly into my bonnet so I changed the look of my blog again!  I am hoping that y'all like the new look.  This look is going to take me into the new year.  I do miss posting to my blog, so I am going to try posting at least once a week to show everyone what I am up to.  I do have a ton of things to share with everyone.

First I need to let y'all know that I am having to borrow my daughters laptop.  My computer caught a virus.  It has to go to the geeks to get fixed.  I am thinking though I need a laptop like this one as this one is just too cool!  So with that I am going to leave everyone for the night.

I hope that everyone has a good week I hope to get in a blog post this week.

TTFN
The Lion

The Lion's 2010 Christmas Stocking Swap

Here they are the guidelines for my Christmas Stocking Swap. I hope that everyone has a chance to join in! I am hoping to start this swap and have a new one every year! Sssoooo, here is this years theme: Angels.

Remembering in to my childhood I could not wait for Santa to come! Remember the whole week before Christmas day you always tried not to make your mom yell at you? But you always wanted to smack your sister in the back of her head just because she was annoying you? Oh! Wait a minuet! That was me! That particular sister is now a correctional officer in McAllister, Oklahoma! She is able to annoy a whole new group of people!


The stockings:

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 December 15th. Please, send along with you stockings return postage. I will mail them back out to you no later than December 20th.

Sign up for this swap will close November 15th 2010.

Please, email me with any questions at glynpg@yahoo.com. Also please make sure I can get in contact with you so that you can get my mailing address to mail your stockings to me!

Remember to swap unto others!


TTFN
The Lion

It Is October!

Yes, Yes I know it has been three months since I visited everyone!  I am still trying to make a happy balance in my life.  Of course now I have added in teaching CQ classes in the mix of everything!!  I have my first course under my belt now!  That took up the month of September with a couple of trips to Dallas in between.

Now we have October!  WOW!  What a month!  It is GREAT this year in Texas it is actually pleasant this month weather wise!  Makes me think that we are going to have a humdinger of a winter though but I am ready for it!  Just bring it ON!

I have lots and lots to show everyone so hang on to your hats!  I think that y'all will be sick of me posting before too long!  I am going to start with the Halloween pillow that I made for my youngest daughter.  It is pretty AWESOME even if I do say so myself!


Here it is:

What do y'all think?  My daughter really likes it!  So here is the story on how this pillow came about.......


One of the local groups that I belong to came up with a challenge fabric.  the challenge fabric is the black one with the swirls on it.  I received it and thought.........What is a crazy quilter going to do with this??  Even my sane quilts are not along the line of this fabric!  I tend to stick with Civil War Reproduction fabrics in my sane times!  So I showed my oldest daughter the fabric she said that is nice what are you going to do with it?

I said:  I don't know!  What do you think??

She came back with a shrug and an I don't know.

Like that was a surprise, I showed my youngest daughter the material.  Out of her I got: That is really cool fabric.

HHHUUuuuummmmmm..........................

This one likes Halloween.  So the idea for the pillow was born!  I asked her if she would like a pillow.

I got a:  Cool Yeah!  With spider webs?

I said: Okay with spider webs.

She said:  With those roses?

I said:  Okay with those roses.

Now the skulls are an interesting part of this pillow.  My friend Renee was out bead shopping and found them.  So she mailed them to me.  My youngest wanted to open the envelope that they came in and I told her she could.

She found the beads and said:  Cool mom can you put these on my pillow? 

Of course I can......

The rest is stitching history.

She now has a pillow that reminds me of Jerry Garcia!

TTFN
The Lion

July 2010

Here we are in July.  It has been a long,long while since I have posted on my blog.  I can tell y'all that I have thought about posting but just did not.  I can make any number of excuses but none of them will amount to anything.  What was just getting in my way was me and my inability to figure out how to manage my life.

I recently went to a self help class for my company.  It is Millennium 3.  I do have to tell you that it was an eye opener!  I met quite a few really wonderful people there and the majority of them went on the journey that I did.  The class did lift a lot of weight off of my shoulders.  Well rather my chest.  My chest just does not feel tight anymore.  I can actually see my life clearer now and what I want to do with the rest of my life and I did put allot of things in a new priority.

My quilting and my quilting groups are now above anything else in my life.  Well except for my children!  Then comes my work.  I also found out that my husband is just a part of me.  Looking out through clearer eyes I see new and more possibilities opening up!

So now I bet that you are asking yourselves what I am working on.  I have PICTURES!!!!!

Here are pictures of a fall landscape wall hanging that I am working on for my office wall:

These pictures are of the tip top.

I must say that I absolutely love my spider web!  I really love to make them.  No two spiderwebs are alike.  They are all different.

Here are pictures of the middle:

I am outlining the tree branches and trunk to give more of a textured effect.  I have a couple different shades of orange and some red ribbon that I am going to use for the leaves.  Just wait I will make this tree pretty yet!

As you can tell I did start out with a panel.  I found it at our local quilt shop.  (Just for the curious people the name of our local quilt shop is The Lost Pines Quilt Shop.  The owner Linda is wonderful!  She does like crazy quilting also.   She also supports it and tries hard to feed my need for CQ items!) The co-ordinating fabrics were also found at the quilt shop.  Yes, yes The Lion is working with all cottons.  Except for my embroidery threads.  Those are all silk as is the ribbon.  I am just loving how the fabric and the thread is contrasting.

Now for the bottom!

As y'all can see I am working on a house.  The detail that I am going to put in the house is not quite finished yet as y'all can tell but I think that everyone can get the idea.  I am going to sit down right now after I finish up on this post and finish the lower part of the house not quite sure what I am going to do with the roof but I will cross that bridge when I come to it.

So now for an important question..........  What colors of flower do we find in the fall??  I know what I can find here in Texas but other parts of the country or the world in the fall???  Let me know as I am going to be working on my lawn next!

This is just an aside for the ladies of my StitchMap group.................Ms. Mischief is back and will be posting Mischief on someone............Now who is her next target??????  HHHHHUUUUMMMMMMMMM Could it be you?

TTFN
The Lion