Wednesday, August 23, 2023

Am I Crazy? Check it out today!

 When I decided to join this "Crazy" blog hop, I knew what I would share--I am participating in Whole Circle Studio's Shoreline Shells block of the month. Sheri Cifaldi-Morrill is the founder of Whole Circle Studio and the creator of this block of the month. I often think that it was a crazy idea to join in on the fun...


The circle setting is the one I decided to do, and it wasn't enough to make it as shown in the photo above. I wanted to add sea glass to the center. (That was a crazy idea too.)

(The above photos are from Sheri's website.)

The BOM started in January, and I determined to keep up with it. Well, nothing got done in January or February, but in March, when Cerro Gordo Quilters had our annual retreat, I was able to get started. Below is the first block and some of the sea glass. I am using Chalk and Charcoal for the shells and Kona Celestial for the background.


Here's February's shell.


So far, I have all the sea glass parts done and even attached to the blocks up to this point, but I haven't sewn any blocks together yet. Here are the first seven blocks.


Just finished number 8 (snail shell) in time to get a photo for this post.




It wasn't enough to do that--I took a class on using a photograph to make a quilt. Here's my progress on that, but I haven't started to quilt it yet... There will be a lot of thread painting, and I'm working up the nerve to start, as well as finding the time to devote to it.


I had also decided to do one of Angela Walter's workshops on free motion quilting. Well, it's done. I sort of enjoyed stitching all the FMQ patterns, but some are not me.


The CG Quilters decided they wanted to make chicken pincushions again, so I had to remember how to do it before teaching that lesson:

In case you're wondering why they look kind of wimpy, these don't have filling yet. :)
On the right is Jenny Doan's method, in the middle is another method I learned at a quilt retreat, and on the left is combo of both. 

I went on a shop hop bus trip Saturday, through my LQS, Stewart's Sewing in Mt. Zion, IL, for the All Illinois Shop Hop. We went to 5 shops, loads of fun and expensive... brought home lots of goodies! At the very first shop, we saw placemats made from the Take Four Placemat pattern, and I commented that I had made a bunch of these. Someone who knows me said, "Teach a lesson on it, Carol," and others quickly said they would come. Here's a set I made several years ago.

As a result, I am teaching a lesson on these placemats in October and have 11 signed up so far to come. Now I need to start another set (or two) as my teaching tools.

In the meantime, I am also making school bags for Church World Service school kits and Christmas stockings for the local domestic violence shelter. 

No shortage of things to sew--and I love it--is that crazy? (Why aren't there more hours in the day?)

Thanks, Joan, for hosting Call Me Crazy!!

Here are the week's participants. If you haven't been to all of them yet, check them out!