Floral Spray

I've been working on this floral spray on my encrusted block. Some of my classmates thought my block looked finished, but I just think it looked "nice". Anyway, I wanted to place some motifs around the block to help its "flow" like we learned in Sharon's class. Just a few more things to do and I will consider the block really finished.

Fan on Encrusted Block

Things have been busy lately. Last weekend I was out of town for a women's convocation, which was wonderfully uplifting and inspiring and very fun. Also, I laughed and laughed and got very little sleep, so I've been playing catch-up all week. Now back to the encrusted class.... When I put this curved piece in the corner, I hadn't really planned for this to be a fan, so the curve wasn't right, the pink piece wasn't symmetrical, etc. So I spent a lot of time fudging things and trying to camouflage the unevenness. Then, I just couldn't stop adding things to this fan. Oh, it just needs a little more dark pink, now some cream, what about more beads - rick-rack, pearls, you name it! But I am very happy with the way it came out. Meanwhile, I removed some boring lace, changed the other curved seam and went shopping! Two steps forward and one step back....oh, well..

Happy Stitching!

~LinMoon

A beaded seam

Here is my latest seam on my encrusted CQ block. I am having so much fun with this! I bought some sequined trim to use on this block - small blue flower-shaped sequins. I cut the sequins off the trim - I thought they would be perfect. I sewed four of them on this seam, but it just didn't look right. So then I surrounded them with beads. Then I added the pink flowers in metallic thread. No matter what I did, I couldn't make that seam look right. Finally I cut off the "perfect sequins" and changed them to these flowers - viola! looking much better. I think it s so funny that it took so long for me to just chuck those stupid sequins!

Another Encrusted Seam

Here is another seam I've worked for my encrusted CQ class with SharonB. I love the look of this "trellis" from Carole Samples book - but it's a hard one to get straight. It looks simple enough, but keeping things parallel and even is hard!

Happy Stitichin'.....
~LinMoon

Started Stitching

Started stitching on my block I pieced for Sharon's Encrusted class at joggles.com. Yesterday the kids were off school, but busy so I had a few hours to work on it. I swear, the first hour I just stared at the thing, not knowing where to start at all.... I was glad I had made a notebook of pix printed out from flickr for ideas, because Flickr was down all last night and I was in need of inspiration! With 2 teenagers in the house and a husband whose idea of fun is writing programs, I sometimes don't get much computer time, so a hardcopy of some CQ is good for me....

Happy Stitching,

~LinMoon

Encrusted Class

I am currently taking SharonB's Encrusted CQ class at Joggles.com. We just finished the first week and I have pictured my naked block. I know, naked blocks are kind of boring, but it's nice to see the difference in the "before" and "after" pictures later on. I think there are about 40 of us, mostly from the US, but also from Sweden, Norway, Australia, France and Canada! I am soooo enjoying it. Can you believe I have never used lace on a block? Lace and the dark oriental brocades somehow don't mix in my mind. So it's off to a pastel CQ wonderland for me....

Happy Stitching,
Lin Moon