Happy Village

I finished off the Happy Village today at retreat:



...And guess who showed up!

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's Off to Retreat I Go!

Its been a busy month..and I am SOOOOO ready for my week in Arizona!


A dove in the Arizona desert

Stuff for Show and Tell:
A Hug from Chris..quilt was made from bright wedges that I got last retreat from Chris's stash..(Chris was one of the Arizona Retreat's Hostesses..she passed away from pancreatic cancer just before last year's retreat...)

Will also be showing Heart's Garden and the table runner I made using Aurora.

Stuff I am going to work on:
Finishing the stitching except for the label ** on Heart's Garden..it has the borders on it and I need to hand stitch the joining strips down..it needs the binding cut and applied..and hand stitched as well..that will be my major project.

I am also taking Alis (the 99..I keep thinking maybe I should rename her to Agent 99, yanno like Barbara Feldon from Get Smart)...and am going to do her 'motorectomy'...and turn her into a hand-crank machine. Hopefully that won't take a bunch of time..

I also have both of my projects from the classes at Road to finish off..almost done with the Happy Village - just a wee bit more FMQ and it will be done..

And I have a couple of other projects I can work on..a pillowcase kit..a table topper using the wedge ruler from Phillips Fiber Art that I got for Christmas...my wee Hexie basket:



And..the OctiHoops..practice, practice!!

______________________________
**  I still don't have a printer to print the label with..the Epson I was using broke..they didn't have the replacement one I wanted at Fry's when we went shopping, so I have to wait for it to come in...

A Raptor in My Tree

Found this gorgeous hawk sitting in my eucalyptus tree this afternoon:


On the sewing front, I am almost done with one of the side borders for the Heart's Garden quilt.

Made the cruise ship for the Happy Village..its pinned but not quilted..and I added legs/feet to the Garden Bird..but haven't worked on its applique..both of these may be going to Retreat as projects to work on there.

A Flash of Inspiration...

I was sewing on that Viking yesterday at my class..using a Mettler spool which is long and narrow...and was mounted on a horizontal spool pin..

This morning I  was looking at my Singer 9020 which has a horizontal spool pin, only the end cap has gotten looser and looser over the years (don't remember it ever working really well)..when I had a flash of inspiration on how to fix it..

See that center ring with a rubber band shoved into the grove?...it works!! And it was cheap...the rubber band came off of a Fat Quarter roll...

Almost done with quilting the Happy Village..except for the upper right corner where I am adding a cruise ship in the ocean..the cruise ship is just a prototype at this point..I will probably change the color to white and FMQ the portholes...and the black bands on the smokestacks...The rest of the quilting is done though..and I have to figure out how to finish it..I really like the buttery gold background color..may make a flange of that and mount the whole thing on a piece of black felt (the quilting on the back looks odd..its done in three different colors of bobbin and the FMQ on the bougainvilleas and the palm fronds looks odd on the back..) as suggested by the teacher..

 

May have to wait til the next day I am working from home to finish it though.. 

It does make me happy to look at it!

Road to CA - Day 3

Today was Happy Village day....oh my...the villages that were constructed...

We snipped our fabric into little squares and stepped pieces and stuck all the little pieces onto the batting and glued the shapes down with dots of Roxanne's GlueBasteIt and then had a blast adding doors and windows and roofs and steps and trees...After those were stuck on firmly, we auditioned pieces of tulle..I ended up liking a golden tulle best..though the white shimmer stuff looked pretty dang good as well..

I got most of my village buildings quilted..at least there are no pins left..but a couple of areas need to be outlined. Oh..and I need to outline all of the doors and windows and steps and add some thread painting to the trees..There were only a few that got as far as using the machines. DH says he thinks the sky needs a bird or the ocean needs a sailboat..have to think on that!

I liked the Viking machine that I used..it has needle down..and the presser foot lifts just slightly when you stop stitching, allowing you to pivot without actually lifting the foot..the auto thread cutter is pretty neat as well..they want 2K though for the classroom machines..or 3.5K for a new one in the box..eiii..

Here is today's haul:

A yard of DecorBond interfacing, a bag of SewBatik's light batik scraps, the cutest froggie fabric....
I got the pin from the Skizzix booth..almost talked myself into getting one of the small cutters..but decided to sleep on it...got the bird journal from a crafting group for signing up for their newsletter..
I also got a cd by Bron Journey, the harpist that plays during the show..and I bought Karen Eckmeier's Happy Village book, which she autographed.

Getting Ready for Road

Ekk!...I found three more UFOs while packing up the supplies for Road next week:

- tiny pre-cut Winding Ways kit from John Flynn
- t-shirt with fabric panel..this is truely old..my kids were really small when I bought the panel..but I still like it! I think it may go with the fabric for the shorts..hopefully a new outfit!
- another set of fabric set aside for a quilted sweatshirt..I may put these back into stash...cuz if I make the Laurel Burch one, I probably wouldn't need another quilted sweatshirt..

I am using the village of Oia on Santorini as inspiration for my Happy Village...if you know me, you know of my fascination with the island of Santorini (or Thera) and the possibility of it being the source of the Atlantis legend. Someday I hope to actually go to Greece...

I love the stacked house architecture..and the blue domed churches.