Monday, December 23, 2013

Back to Reality - Trip Is Over and Mini Quilt Near Completion!

It is back to reality for me.  We had such a wonderful trip.  We travelled 23 days, starting from Iowa we headed to Virginia/Washington D.C. ending up in San Antonio, TX.  Along the way we met up with several friends and relatives as well as some beautiful places including Virginia Beach, Myrtle Beach, Ashville to see the Biltmore Estate, Hilton Head Island, Savannah, Orlando/Disney World, and New Orleans.  We made lots of new memories.  It was our first Thanksgiving away from home and I sort of missed the family gathering but we met up with our daughter's family who was vacationing at Orlando.  Our Thanksgiving dinner consisted of order-in pizza at 10 p.m.  The important part was being with at least some of the family and spending a couple of fun days with our granddaughters.

When I was settled in back at home I began working on my doll-size crazy quilt again.  I am happy to say it is nearly completed!  I'm sharing lots of photos here.

Here are the blocks stitched together without added embellishments.  It started out as my CQJP 2013 but I knew I would have a lot of work to do after the blocks were connected so I fell short on the number of blocks for the year.  This entire quilt minus binding is 16" x 19" with each block being just slightly over 3" square.  I therefore was doing four blocks a month.


I knew I wanted to add stitching on the seam lines between blocks and also wanted to embroider on the blocks.  My goal was to create a CQ that was similar to an antique.  It looks antique to me but unfortunately in the photos the colors pale a bit and the burgundy has a pink cast to it.

As you may know, I am a firm believer in God and believe the skills I have are a gift from him so I try to honor him in my work.  This quilt is filled with some of my favorite things including some of my favorite Bible verses.  Alternating blocks have various flowers as I also love flowers.  Below is a sampling of some of the blocks.  You should be able to click on them to enlarge them for a closer look.

















I truly enjoyed working on this mini quilt and could probably go on adding things for quite some time, but it is time to finish it and move on to my next unfinished project.  Although it started out as a bit of a challenge not adding lace, buttons, beads and other embellishments I soon began to love the purity of decorative stitching and I'm sure this will have an effect on future work (after my UFO's are completed).  I also normally work in softer and more romantic colors but really like the rich colors of this quilt.

My goal is to have this mini-quilt completed before the end of the year.  My word for 2014 is 'focus' so I will continue working on my unfinished projects and try not to start anything new until I finish them.  That is incentive to get done if ever I needed it!  What do you all have planned for the coming year?  Do you have a word that will inspire you?

I do love to get comments!

8 comments:

Debbie said...

This came out great, Connie! A masterpiece. I really enjoyed looking at the enlarged closeups. With three inch blocks, that's a lot of teeny tiny embroidery! Very skillfully done. Happy holidays, Connie!

margaret said...

sounds like you had a lovely holiday, the quilt is superb, so hard to do such tiny blocks and you really have caught the antique look, it could easily pass as a very old one in the style and colours you have used, beautiful Connie and have a joyous Christmas celebrating the birth of Jesus

Lorraine said...

Oh Connie, absolutely beautiful. Thank you for all the close-ups. They truly show how much work was put into this with stunning results. Merry Christmas.

Mosaic Magpie said...

Connie, this turned out to be a stunning version of an antique doll quilt. I love the lamb you embroidered. Nice work!
Focus....that is a good word for me as well.
xo,
Deb

UrbanFrog said...

Wow, this is gorgeous! And it looks a LOT like a full-sized antique quilt I have seen pics of - right down to the colours and stitching, so you have definitely nailed the antique-look. Beautiful :)

Debbie S. said...

Stunning quilt, your colors are so beautiful as is your stitching. I love just the thread and ribbon such a wonderful antique looking style. You have inspired me to try a small quilt too.

Miriam said...

Wow!! That is absolutely beautiful, I think you could probably spend hours looking at it and finding new details; I don't even want to contemplate how many hours of work that must have been. The gold stitching on each of the blocks would have been amazing but you have taken it so much further. I think my favourite detail is the little bicycle. Thank you for putting up these lovely pictures of your work

Lisa Boni said...

Love your tiny blocks! I hadn't been to your blog before but have now added you to my list of CQ blogs to follow! Lovely work!