Arabella

Okay, so I was fumbling around on the living room floor yesterday and a faery darted out from behind the sofa. To save her from Jynx, who is a Supreme Catcher of Many Small Wriggly Things I caught her under a water glass and took her over to the faery front door (the one by the television set). I put her down there and she squeaked her thanks. We got to talking about the neighborhood and I asked if I could take a picture of her for my blog and she shook her head vigorously "No!" She made it clear that to take a picture might mean her soul was captured in 2D and she didn't like the thought of it. So I asked if I could sketch her. Again, she said no. Could I made an image of her in needlepunch embroidery since it wasn't all that 2 dimensional? She reluctantly agreed. In fact, I think she kind of liked the idea.

Gnarf Cat and Blue Embroidery

Last week I found an incredibly cool embroidered wallhanging - it measures 105 cm (about 42 inches) and I think it would be perfect either in my teeny tiny dining area, next to my Incan Calendar wall hanging or as the headboard of the bed in my guestroom/office...

Hmmm...where to put it? I also thought about getting rid of all the surrounding frou-frou and using just the center piece, but, all that outer busy-ness is kinda growing on me.






I had this oh-so-profoundly-brilliant idea to create a set of punch needle embroidered pins this week and started on my Fuzzy Moggy series. Here is Moggy #1, a prototype also known as Gnarf Cat. I picked that name because my friend Tini uses the word Gnarf quite a lot and I don't know quite what it means, so I googled it and I must say, I think it appropriate for this little fellow. He measures 3 cm by 4 cm-ish, and is made from plain old sewing thread. He has Austrian crystal bead eyes, though! Now I have to glue him to a piece of cardboard and slap a pin thingy on the back!

Quilty Goodness

I started one of my deranged Florida patchwork quilts sometime in 1991 (?) and used the patchwork part of it:
1. in a movie - it was part of an outdoor street market scene supposed to be somewhere in the Bahamas
2. as a duvet cover
3. as a wallhanging
In 2001 or 2002, I decided to make it into a quilt, so I replaced the duvet backing and added a layer of batting and pinned it. And there it sat for a few years. So by 2005 I realized I was never going to get around to doing the quilting part myself, so I sent it off to a professional quilter with one of those big fancy quilting machines and had her quilt it.
Like an idiot, I didn't want to pay for her to bind it because I kept thinking "Oh, that's the easy part! I'll do that myself!" Well, when she mailed it back to me I put it in a plastic bin and forgot about it. Well, not exactly. Every time I went by that bin I looked at it and thought, I'll get to that next week/month...
Last week I got it out and FINALLY FINALLY sewed the binding on to it.

Of course, I cannot sew a straight line to save my life, so I sewed the binding on with a compendium of wavy and most crooked lines.

Then I added threads of differing colors to the mix:

Is it the best quilt I have ever made? No. Is it finished? Why, YES!!!

In a Red Currant Jam

The Northwest is renown for its cherries, apples and berries, but I was completely surprised to find a half flat of red currants at Central Market! I didn't know we grew enough of them in this area to merit them being packed up in half flats and sold in grocery stores. So, naturally, I HAD to purchase a half flat and make some jam.

While I was in the check out line by the cash register a man behind me in line said "Oohh, those things are sour! What are you going to do with them?"
"Make jam," I replied.
"They're really really sour, you can't eat 'em. I know, 'cause I tried a couple and had to spit them out." he said.
Niccccceeee, I thought. Some old dude goes around sampling the fruity wares and spitting all over the floor of the produce section. Just greaaaaaat.
So I brought them home and started removing their little sticks and stems...Aren't they just darling?

And, yes, I did have to put one helluva lot of sugar in the pot as I cooked them!

I actually got 4 jars out of this batch, but gave one to a colleague at Amazon.

What to do? What to do?

There's a big fabric swap in Tacoma next month where I will be able to sell some of my treasured fabrics - I know, it's almost sacrilegious to do so, but it must be done - and as I am sorting through my goodies to sell I came across my collection of devore/burnout velvet scarves.

I'd collected them over the years to put together one of Kayla Kennington's Paris evening coats, or Panel Tops but, (let's all chime in together) I never got around to it.
Looking over my collection, though, I realized I really didn't want to sell it; there are too many pretties! And I would never get back the money I've invested in all these scarves.

Admittedly, most were purchased for a few dollars at either Goodwill or Value Village, but I've amassed them over a period of probably 10 years.

So I need your help!
What should I make from all these luxurious snippets of Devore velvet?