Christmas has come Early!

Look at the beautiful Christmas ornament I just got in the mail from Lisa's Crazy Quilt Ornament Swap! Peg S. made it, and she calls it "Victorian Christmas." The actual crazy quilted part is 5" long and 4" wide at the widest. Then that gorgeous fringe is another 4". You can't see real well, but the fringe has silver sequins all over it.

Here's the silver beading that goes on the upper right side of the orny, along with the stitched and beaded seam treatment.

The silver lame piece has more beading. Although it looks black in the photo, the fabric in the lower left of this picture is actually a navy velvet with more meandering stitching and beading. In the upper right, you can see where Peg stitched her initials and the year.

Here's the center patch. The fabric on the upper left is another shiny silver color, filled with beads and sequins.

This fabric is on the left side of the ornament. The fabric itself is sparkly, and Peg added stitching and beads.

 

As much as I love looking at all the eye candy online, I love even more getting to see someone else's crazy quilting in person. It's so inspiring! So thank you, Peg, for making this beautiful ornament and thank you, Lisa, for hosting the orny swap!

 

If you want to see the ornament I made for the swap, click here.

 

Now all I want to do is go work on my crazy quilt block, but unfortunately, there's housework calling my name. Maybe tonight?

 

Happy stitching!





CQ Christmas Ornament 2012

I have been a member of the Quiltropolis Crazy Quilt email list for several years now. Each year, Lisa D. hosts a Christmas Ornament Swap. I participated in 2008; here's a photo of that ornament. Then in 2010, I started working on an ornament for the swap, but I didn't finish it. This summer, I decided to finish it up and send it off to Lisa.

I decided to make a diamond shape for this year's orny. I went with the traditional colors of red, green, and gold because I love them! The photo, above, shows how far I had gotten in 2010. All the embellishing was done, I only needed to assemble the orny.

I don't usually use printed cotton in my crazy quilt blocks, but I just love this red poinsettia fabric witht the gold highlights, so I used it in the center patch. I added several gold seed beads to the middle of the poinsettia.

I used a bit of green ribbon to make this bow, which I then couched down with clear beads. Underneath it, there are red bead "flowers" as part of the seam treatment.

These little red sequins were in an embellishing packet I bought somewhere. I used beads to attach them.

The center button in this cluster is from a huge jar of buttons I bought at an antique shop. It's very sparkly in real life.

A bead cluster with several different shapes, sizes, and colors of beads.

When I went to assemble the ornament this week, I pulled out this beaded fringe that I had left over from a different project. I added two strands of the beads to the bottom of the ornament.

I added a metallic-floss hanger to the top of the ornament. The back is solid red fabric, with my initials and the year embroidered on it. Not including the beaded fringe, the ornament is 4 1/2 inches tall by 4 inches wide.

I start back to work on Monday (the students don't come until the Tuesday a week later). I'm planning on packaging this up over the weekend and taking it to the post office after work Monday.

I can't wait to see what ornament I get in return! Since the swap is open until November 1st, you still have time to make an ornament or two and join in the fun :)

Happy stitching!

CQ Christmas Ornament

I made this crazy quilted ornament for a swap Lisa D. is hosting through the Quiltropolis Crazy Quilt email list. The ornament is about 4 1/2 inches in diameter.



The center gold fabric is a piece of silk that I got from Fay in South Africa. (I'll have to post a picture of the crazy quilted mini-quilt that she also sent me). The top red is cotton velveteen. I had bought a few yards about 8 years ago, planning to make a Christmas dress for my daughter Kendra ~ she was 3 at the time. However, I was so exhausted due to being pregnant with my 3rd child that I never got around to making it. When I started crazy quilting 2 years ago, I started cutting into that velveteen, since there's not enough of it to make Kendra a dress now that she's grown into an 11 year old. It was just sitting in my armoire, begging to be used! The other red fabric and the greens are poly satins that I've collected.



On the left side, I attached a button cluster with some gold beads. The seam treatment is a piece of ribbon I got at Hobby Lobby. The top red has a small lace motif which I painted using my (favorite) Liquitex "Iridescent Rich Gold" acrylic paint. I attached it to the velveteen using an iridescent-type white bead. The feather seam treatment has yellow-ish clear beads. On the right green fabric, I stitched a swirl motif out of Carole Samples' wonderful book, Treasury of Crazy Quilt Stitches, then I added a few red and gold beads. The bottom seam has green buttonhole and lazy daisy stitches to look like flower stems and leaves, and gold bead flowers.

I added a pretty, sparkly gold braid to hang the ornament, but it got cut off in the picture.

It was such fun to make a small CQ project. In fact, I've started making one similar to this one, so I can keep it. One of these days, I also need to take some pictures of the big crazy quilt that I finished in January.