Yipeeee I won / California here I come!

I'm so excited!  Last month I signed up for a Challenge hosted by  judymurrah .  Judy sent each contestant 4 pieces of her beautiful vintage lace and challenged us to create something with it.  The prize, a pretty chest full of more vintage laces!    Now ya'll know I love lace so I had to try!

Well, this morning Judy notified me that I had won!  Lucky me! Thank you Judy for making me step outside my comfort zone.  Working with tone on tone vintage colors was a first for me and I have to admit - I loved it! 

It didn't take me long to figure out what I wanted to do with the laces.  I cut a piece of double sided peltex 8x11 and went to town.  Not quite sure what I am going to name this one but I'm thinking of putting up for sale in my Etsy Shop.

Judy's Vintage Laces

Well, In a matter of 5 hours Rob will be trying to wake me up (4:30) to get to to the airport.  Heading out to California to see my precious grandbabies.  Evita and DeAngelo will be 3 years old on May 8th - where did the time go?  This Nana can't wait to wrap them up in hugs!

Evita & DeAngelo...almost 3!

CQJP 2012 Jan, Feb & March Done!

At the beginning of year I signed up for the CQJP 2012 (Crazy Quilt Journal Project) with all intentions of creating one block a month for the year 2012.  I've had a bit of a slow start as life seems to be running its course with one thing after another happening.  Finally, with a breather, I have managed to catch up and have completed my Jan, Feb & March blocks with April's not far behind.

I decided since I wasn't going to be going with a "theme" I would create my blocks with a different color combination each month.  Some months, my favorite colors, other months...not so much.  As you can see I have yet to use my usual "blue" on a complete block but did manage to push through and use my favorite "blue" color along with my least favorite color "orange".... all in all I think the combination came out pretty cool for the month of March.

January CQJP

February CQJP

March CQJP

 

Thearica's Crazy Quilting Supplies Give Away!

Congratulations go to my friend Thearica on the Grand Opening of her recreated Website... crazyquiltingsupplies  To celebrate her Grand Reopening she is giving all you Crazy Quilters a chance at winning a beautiful box of fabulous Crazy Quilting Supplies so be sure to head on over, take a chance and browse her array of pretties for your next and future Crazy Quilt projects.  As a long time customer I am especially in love with the variety of beautiful Pearl 8 threads and OMG! The River Silks are to die for!!! If you are addicted to color you will have a hard time making up your mind as to which colors to buy.... me.... I'm slowly putting a collection together.

Incredible Estate Sale Finds

Early this morning I got up and headed to the beautiful town of Cohasset - the town where Witches of Eastwick was filmed.  Cohasset is about 25 minutes from where I live and is just about one of the prettiest little towns in MA.

I had heard there was going to be an Estate Sale and that the lady who has passed away was an avid quilter.  Upon arriving at the house all I could think was "it is so pretty, it is a shame that she will no longer be here to enjoy it"  Then I walked through the doors...OMG!  It was a quilters dream.  I stood there just staring at all the piles of fabrics, the boxes and boxes of fabrics, the beautiful quilts, the pretty pictures and art work, the boxes of arts and craft supplies and the pile of bags containing lace.  I stood there in awe and also with a heavy heart.  This was her life.  You could tell she loved what she did and enjoyed collecting beautiful things.  I thought to myself "is this going to be me one day - is this what will happen once I'm gone?"  All your cherished items left for strangers to pick through.

I was happy to see that there were other quilters there all admiring her quilts and treasures.  Hopefully we will all do justice to the items we bought. All sales were for Cash only...I wish I had had more money on me so I could have bought one of her art quilts.  In the end I spent every last dime I had in my purse on fabric, vintage lace, doilies, tatting, ribbon and even a pair of beautiful vintage porcelain pins.  All in all I ended up with approximately 40 yards of fabric.  Here are a few of the treasures I got.

Want to see something purty?

A couple months ago I signed up for a RR on the CQI Forum.  I had always wanted to to step outside my typical blues & greens or pink & green colors so decided to go with a Pink & Black color pallet.  The theme of the RR was Roses.  I created my 12.5" block using dupioni silk, satins, brocades, velvet and and a pretty little silky and sent it on it's way wondering how it would be returned (always love a mystery).  Well.... no surprise to me I received my block back dressed out to the max with beads, buttons, silk ribbon, beautiful stitches and even a fabulous spider!   Thank you Ely, Rita, Gerry & Lorrie for creating such a beautiful block - I just LOVE it!

Catching up on some CQ RR's & more Dyed Pretties

For the last couple of weeks I've been playing roulette with my  CQ needles,  my dyes and lots of tiles/grout for my new walk-in shower.  Yea!  The shower is finally done and I'm happy to say that I actually enjoyed my first loooong hot shower in my own home in over a week! I'll post pictures of the before and after once the walls are painted.  I'm thinking maybe I'll give myself a break from this type of hard labor until next week.  Already have my paint picked out (warm coco) and have plans on making a one-of-a-kind shower curtain - wait until you see what I've dreamed up - I can't wait to get that project started!

After my days of tiling & grouting I relaxed by catching up on some of my RR's.  3 of them are already in the mail leaving me with about 4 more to do.  Once I've completed these RR's, I need to get caught up with the TAST and CQJP projects.   I've decided to combine both and actually have January's done.. but here it is March so I guess I need to get my mojo working overtime!  After that I think I am going to give my hands some much needed rest as they have seriously been hurting over the past week.  I know I should have elected to have the surgery in January but I just didn't have the time to have my hands tied up for weeks at a time.  Tough getting old.

A weeks worth of CQ -

SRE Spider & Cabbage Roses for Kathy S

Framed Hat Lady for Kathy S

6" Vintage Valentine for Connie

Roses for Rita

Butterfly & Roses for Ely

Cabbage Rose Frame for Ely

 

6" Under the Sea for Ruby

Not sure where I got the energy but I also dyed up about 200+ pieces of new lace.  Pictures have been taken, items packaged so all I need to do now is upload them into my shop..... when I catch my breath.  Please peek into my Etsy shop during the next week for lots of new Spring Time pretties!

Pretty Spring Time Trio

Gorgeous new Rose

Is this not the most beautiful heart you've ever seen!

Can you just picture the center cut out
so this could be used as a beautiful frame!

CQ Valentine Challenge Contest

Yea!!!!!!!! I can finally show ya'll what I have been busy working on for the past month or so.  I'm so happy to have another project done and one that I really enjoyed creating.

2 months ago I Challenged a group of Crazy Quilters on the HGTV board to a Valentine Contest.   Each participant was mailed a kit consisting of 7 items - 2 pieces of fabric (red & cream) 2 medium size lace motifs,  2 small heart motifs, 2 charms and 1.5 yards of pale pink rayon ribbon.  The Challenge was to create something no smaller than 10" using every item but with the extra added bonus of adding anything else they wanted to incorporate.  Materials in the kit could be altered as long as they were used.  If you'd like to see some pretty eye candy please check out the CQ Valentine Challenge in my Flicker Albums.  The names of each participant and their Winning blocks are noted under their names.

This was my entry into the Contest (12"):

CQ Valentine Give Away Winner & Devils River

Oh My! I am amazed that there was a grand total of 114 ladies who left a comment for a chance to win my Valentine Heart.  Thank you all for stopping by - I'm sure there will be many more Give Aways throughout the year so please stop by again.  I got hubby to draw a name out of my basket just before he went to bed... and the winner is..........

Judy of apronstrings !!! Congratulations Judy!  Could you please contact me at bnickilee@aol.com with your mailing address so that I may mail out your heart.  I have decide not to post a picture of the inside goodies right now so that they will arrive to you as a surprise.  I read that you are new to the world of Crazy Quilting so I hope you enjoy these pretties.  Not sure if anyone has told you but... CQ is extremely addicting! 

Looks like a busy week ahead for me and not much time for stitching.  We've decided to get rid of the bathtub and make a huge shower.  We've lived in this house for going on 13 years now and neither one of us has ever taken a bath... always a shower.  The tile area is absolutely horrible - hate it!  I think it must be the original tile from when the house was built in 1986.  I've picked out some pretty beige, stone looking tile with an darker accent for a trim.  Demolition will begin Tuesday morning and I'll start tiling Thursday with hopes that it'll all be done by next Sunday...anyone want to take bets?  I bet ya'll didn't know I am a lover of tiling?  Well before CQ I was addicted to mosacing - love it!  I've done a few jobs but my favorite is my gorgeous turquoise bathroom counter top. 

Just this past summer I spent 3 weeks down at the Devil's River in Texas.  My bestfriend Bev finally built her dream home atop the cliff over looking the most gorgeous River.  I always promised her when she was ready, I would be there to tile her ktichen. She picked out stainless steel tiles - talk about a Challenge!  Took 4 days to complete but in the end it turned out fabulous and to the 1/4"!  I don't even think I have to tell you how much fun we had being together...3 weeks was just not enough time.

Hard to believe this wasn't here a year ago -
it will now be my forever favorite place to visit.

Ahhhhhhh A well deserved float down the River

 

Bev, thrilled that the tiling is done!

Happy Valentines - Let's Celebrate with a Give Away

Happy Valentines!  Wishing you a day filled with love, hugs and kisses!

Last year on Valentine's I was given a big beautiful red heart filled with chocolates.  As Forest Gump would say "Life is like a box of chocolates"  Well, sorry to say those sweet chocolates are long gone but I might have something for all you CQ lovers out there that is just as sweet.  How about a box full of pretty laces and some other CQ surprises?

For a chance at some real CQ candy, just leave a comment and on Sunday, February 19th, I will have my wonderful husband draw a name out of a basket.  If you do not have a Blog, please leave an email address where you can be reached in case your name is pulled.

A couple CQ treats to be sure to check out :

1. 
Crazy Quilts are Quilts Too Contest - hosted by Thearica Burroughs, be sure to stop by and check out the many beautiful entries to this Contest and then peek into the wonderful CQ blogs that have been linked.  pigtalesandquilts 

2.
Check out the List of wondeful Online Classes that Maureen Greeson has put together - Online-Crazy-Quilting-Classes

3.
The Spring Time 2012 Edition of Pat Winter's "Crazy Quilt Gatherings" is out!!! Head on over an place your order - I'm proud to say I have every copy so far - yummy eye candy! gatherings

There's a Crazy Quilt Show Going On & Online CQ Classes Available!

Over the years I have been to tons of Quilt Show but seldom see any Crazy Quilts featured. Well,
Thearica of pigtalesandquilts has taken it upon herself to give all us Crazy Quilters a place to show off our stuff. With lots of eye candy to be seen over the next few weeks you certainly are not going to want to miss this show Crazy Quilts are Quilt too!

I have always loved color, lace, beads and all things pretty so what better way to combine all of these pretties into one hobby.... or should I say addiction. Over the past 6 years I have Crazy Quilted just about anything I could think of: Blocks, needle books, pillows, purses, framed art, jewelery. lampshades... you name it I've tried it. One thing that remains a constant in my work is LACE. When I first started out I could only find ivory/white lace and since I'm a lover of color I had to change it up a bit by dyeing my own laces. With so many people asking where I got my laces I decided to open up RavioleeDreams last year and have had a ball doing what I love.... playing CQ.

Here are some of my favorite work from the many projects I have made and worked on:



Last year I was one of the lucky few who was able to attend a Crazy Quilt Adventure in CT hosted by Maureen Greeson of maureensvintageacquisitions  Maureen has done it again, but this time she is making it so that anyone and everyone can take a class. 

If you are a Crazy Quilter or have never tried but dreamed of creating beautiful  items using luscious fabrics, beads, lace, silk ribbon, beautiful threads and would like to learn, please check out Maureen' s Blog for information on some fabulous online classes : Online-Crazy-Quilting-Classes  Over the next year there will be some incredible teachers teaching what they know best about Crazy Quilting.  To name a few -  Pat Winter, Betty Pillsbury, Kathy Shaw, Cristen Brown and Nancy Eha will be hosting classes in the very near future.  And while you are visiting Maureen's Blog, check out her fabulous store!