Crackpot Quilters’ Blog

Here is the tulip applique that I started about a year and a half ago as my first attempt at hand applique. I was inspired by the Tulip Time quilt show both to try hand applique and to make something to enter in the show the following year. Of course, that year has come and gone. I finished the tulips pretty quickly, but it took me a while to get around to putting the squares together with the borders and setting triangles. Then, about a month ago, I finally put the layers together and got it ready for hand quilting. I haven’t done much hand quilting for a while, due to the 5 and almost 7 year old time constraints in my life. But it’s been fun to get back to it, on a manageable scale. I’m outline quilting the tulips, which you may be able to see faintly here:

Then, the plan is to do a tulip pattern to fill the setting squares, which is a little more visible here:

This may take a while, so it may not make this year’s quilt show, but there’s always 2010!

Here’s Andrew’s pillowcase along with a picture of the happy owner. He chose one of the fabrics Helene sent me for Christmas. It was a little smaller than the pillowcase pattern called for, so I made the red cuff part bigger. He’s very pleased with it!

My current crackpot project is making pillowcases for Nicholas and Andrew. Nicholas picked out this flannel fabric himself. This was my first pillowcase, and I found it to be quite easy! It really took only about 30 minutes, just as the directions from Field’s promised. There was some leftover fabric, so Blanket Bear got his own matching pillow. Here are the happy pillow owners:

Now I’m working on Andrew’s pillowcase. I’ll post pictures when it’s done!

It is time to reveal some of the Christmas secrets. Here are some very cute pot holders Nancy made for all of us.

Mine are blue and Rebecca’s are red. I don’t know what other colors were used. Perhaps Nancy will post about her process of combining two sets of instructions.

Here are some thread catchers I made for the other crackpots. From the side:

From the top:

The thread catchers can sit on your sewing machine table, and you can put all the snips and ends of thread in them to save for another occasion (or to keep them out of the vacuum cleaner). Or you can fill them with chocolate. They are made from some of the hand painted fabric I made during the summer. Aha! At last an answer to the question about the fabric, “What is it for?”

You can read more about my fabric painting adventures here.

I found the pattern here. Thanks, Leanne!

Now that my Christmas Crackpot projects are (nearly!) complete, I can start working on making some Christmas decorations for our house. I’d like to make a Christmas table runner and some Christmas placemats. I saw the pattern for this quilt in the November/December ’08 Quiltmaker and thought I might be able to modify it slightly to make it a rectangular placemat. Here’s the first attempt – I think it turned out great!

P.S. To Cathy – This is my first time putting a link in my post – pretty advanced, don’t you think? 🙂

It wasn’t my idea in the first place.
It wasn’t even my idea in the second place.

But we’re going over to The Dark Side.

What would lead us to this point? Greed? Social pressure? Or just the state of the world today. Something else? To think about this any more will just lead to despair. So we don’t think about it.

They say it’s a slippery slope. And we slid down. First, the CD player bought second-hand from a college student. Then a touch tone phone with an answering machine. Next, a cell phone–never mind that it was a refurbished model with a pre-paid plan. Finally, the updated phone service with the free month of cable TV. Ach, yes, it’s a slippery slope.

We’re going over to The Dark Side.

We’re keeping the cable TV.

Here is the current progress on my December BJP.

The idea I’ve been thinking about is the longest night of the year. Well, that’s a little misleading. What I’ve really been thinking about is that there are still sparkles on the longest night of the year.

So I decided to use dark beads that sparkle. I’m almost (but not quite) embarrassed by the number of different kinds of dark sparkly beads that I have. And I can’t believe how much time I spent sorting through them to choose the ones to use! There is a reason for the title of this blog. The entire situation is a little crackpotty!

If you look closely, you’ll see a diagonal line leading to the upper right corner. Maybe I’ll use it and maybe I won’t. There is also a spiral sketched in the lower right corner. I’m not sure if I’m going to put a spiral there either.

If you look even more closely, you can see a small blurry spot on the diagonal beaded lines. That’s a snowflake in the air between the camera and the page. My method for getting a good picture is to put the item on the floor just inside the patio door. Then I open the door and the screen for the best light and take the photo with the camera set on macro with no flash. Snow can be a hazard at this time of year. But I am dedicated to my art (such as it is)!

I believe I’ve mentioned before that cleaning up my stuff leads to no good end. A case in point is the pin I worked on in mid September. I cleaned up the pin so I could work temporarily on another project. The pin was apparently insulted so it went missing. It was in none of the logical places. Or quite a few illogical ones. I even wondered if I had brought it to a workshop to show and then left it behind. That was part of the inspiration to work with the dark sparkly beads again for the December BJP.

Well, wouldn’t you know? The pin showed up. It was in the bag with all the dark sparkly beads. Naughty pin!

I made Christmas tree ornaments for two swaps. This is one of them. The other was also white but with a different beading pattern. For some reason (duh!), I neglected to take a picture of that one. I hope the recipient of this one doesn’t read my blogs since it won’t be swapped until next Monday.

The one not pictured went to a member of our fiber arts guild. Tomorrow I’ll post a photo of the one I received. One of the most interesting ornaments was knitted lace over a glass ball. Someone (you know who you are) should figure out how to do that. I’m sorry I didn’t get a picture, especially since I had my camera in my tote bag. (re-duh!)

You should not take the above information to mean that I am not dedicated in my photography. I have figured out that the second best way to get a good photo (the first way is outside in shade) is to open the patio door and the screen and put the object just inside the door. I turn off the flash and set the camera on macro. Then I hold it as still as I can about 8 inches from the lovely object. I did that this afternoon, and I did not let the fact that snow was blowing in through the open door bother me. Much…

Here’s the link to the ‘Little Things’ art show.
A little part of my beaded doll Not Quite Pink is in the middle row, third column.

And here’s the link to the State Street Gallery.