Our Holiday Hours

Here it is, all finished. I didn't like the frame I'd embellished tho... the buttons are too pink-y a taupe. I'll have to look for something else!

We're trying to look ahead to the holidays, kids out of school and planned vacations and traveling out of town. Because of this, we're going to be closed November 25, 26, & 27. and we'll be closed for Christmas and New Years from December 23 through New Year's Day. We'll be back on the 4th. If you need to order for Christmas plan a little bit beyond the usual 3 to 4 days because the postal service tends to slow down with the rush!!

Talk to you later! xox Meg

This House Was Built...

Well, didn't get much done on this today...actually had to do "weekend" stuff instead. But... I got all the stitching done and I'll add the leaves and frame tomorrow (that's a piece of the wool I'm using at the left edge. I also have to do the lettering, attach the needle/floss, and sketch my house & add that too. So far, so good! I'm liking it!!!

OH!!! I forgot to put the dresden plates on it... made them last night, they're VERY cool!

What did you do today?

I've had a lovely, quiet day today with nothing to do but sew. It's been SO NICE!!! Sheila took Windflowers home this weekend to stitch on it (we're going to "tag team" it!) and I was left with nothing to do but make something for myself!!!! Heaven forbid!!! I decided to make a stitchery for the new house... kind of my version of a "champagne bottle" christening! I got a readymade frame and glued mother of pearl buttons all over it. I added silver lined beads in all the glue-y voids between the buttons. They'll tarnish quickly and will turn kind of gray...pretty! The picture shows them above but the glue isn't dry yet so I wasn't able to turn it upside down & knock off excess beads. I'll do it tomorrow.

The bottom is randomly pieced and the band above the piecing is going to have a saying made with letters/words cut from old books (don't worry... they'll be color copies!) that will say "This house was built with a needle and thread" (Because it WAS! But that's a story for another day!)I'm going to thread an old needle with floss and sew it to the band somewhere. I haven't sewn on the rickrack and old lace pieces yet. I'm going to wait until the top portion has been embroidered so that I don't scrunch it up with my hoop. I'm thinking of attaching the wide lace though and stitching right over it. I'm going to do branches coming up around the square in the center and sew wool leaves to them & maybe a few buttons.

The square in the center will have a frame appliqued around it.... think I'll applique something in the two full squares in the bottom pieced area too.... we'll see. I'm going to draw a little pen & ink sketch of my house to stick in the center of the square at the top of the lace. I scanned in the inside cover of an old piece of sheet music & I think I'll do the drawing on a copy of it... it's all water spotted and aged.... COOL!! I think I'll do a couple of little dresden plates to put up in the top outer area too, kind of layered with the embroidery & lace. I'm going to try to do the handwork tonight... I'll show you what I've come up with tomorrow!

Oh! Brenda wanted to know what to hang with painted clothespins! Well.... just about anything that you can get them around! I hang ornaments, copies of old postcards, old linens for curtains, use them as paper clips, clip cards, letters & photos to an old gate here in the studio...... the ends of garlands........tags to presents.........OH!!!! I should show you how to make little candle holders for the tree!!!! (not lit of course! HA!!) A couple of years ago I scanned in tons of old family photos & used my photo program to make them black & white (they were mostly in color) and then printed them off in sepia tones. I used scalloped scissors to cut edges around them like old photos and clipped them to the tree.... TONS of them... tried to find every old Christmas or snow picture I could. It turned out really, well... I'd get teary eyed every time I looked at it! Of course..... that's coming from someone who gets all choked up when they start running those coffee commercials where the son comes home & surprises his mom... or those new crescent roll ads where all they do is click their heels together and you just know it means "there's no place like home"..... Ooooooooh..... here I go! Can't see the screen because that's all it takes to get me going!!!! See you tomorrow! xox Meg

Blog Tour Winners!!!

Well, our portion of the blog tour is over and we've chosen our winners! Thanks to everybody who stopped by to visit and took the time to enter. We had such a fun day yesterday, reading all of your messages and comments!!!

Our three winners of the 100 Blocks magazine are:

Nancy Alderman

Sharon Szekely

Edith Soper

Our winner whose name will be sent to Quiltmaker's for the big drawing is:

Robin Brown

Our winner of the gift from Crabapple Hill is:

Scarlett Hobbs

We'll be contacting everyone for addresses so that we can send out your prizes! See Ya!!

And.....yes, I'm decorating the studio for Christmas so I thought I'd share a little picture!

"Ho-Ho-Ho, who wouldn't go?.....HO-HO-HO, who wouldn't go-o-o-oooooo? Up on the housetop, click, click, click?? Down through the chimney with good St. Nick!!!"

Feel free to hum along! xox Meg

Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks Blog Tour

Thanks June, for sending me a picture of the block.... you're so sweet!

"Windflowers" first corner is almost completely stitched!!! YAHOO!! only 3 more to go! Then I can get started on the beading and mother of pearl buttons. That will REALLY be the fun part! I got the border fabric from MODA this morning so I should be able to have this stitched, bordered, embellished and the pattern written by the end of the month (barring any difficulties! knock on wood & all that!) I'm planning on releasing it in January or February. I know that this seems a little out of the ordinary for me, but really it's not. I dearly love so many different styles and color palettes.... I just haven't dragged them out for everyone to see yet!!! This fabric just sang to me when I was shown it be my very sweet MODA rep, Bonnie Tyro. It has another fabric that will be used as the outer border..... it looks like a band of gorgeous, ...."gasp"....watercolor-y lace laid over the blue background! It's SO beautiful!!! I used that same band of lace but cut it up and pieced it for the inner border. There are two other colorways in this line too... I want to use the beige one too because it will come out looking snow-ish!... It's called "French Lace Batik". There are so many types of fabric that would look good with this. Everything from soft florals to Kaffe Fassett or Amy Butler. All that would have to be changed would be the floss colors used. I'm using 1 yard lengths of 10 or 12 different flosses randomly. It's been so much fun doing something a little bit different than the norm! I hope that everybody likes it!

Several months ago I was asked to design a block for a book called "Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks from Today's Top Designers". I designed a simple to stitch urn full of buttonhole stitch daisies with an old fashioned cross stitch type border done all in rich golds and chocolate browns (Though you could use any colors you'd like, of course!). I wish I'd taken a photo of it before I sent it off to them but I just never thought I'd need one! Joke's on me!!!... because I really could use it right now! LOL!!

Anyway... They're doing all kinds of fun stuff to kick off the book's release. One thing is a "blog tour". You can follow the 100 Blocks Blog Tour daily November 9th through 13th at www.quiltmaker.com/quiltypleasures for inspiration, ideas and giveaways galore! Look for 100 Blocks from Today's Top Designers in your local quilt shop, or purchase it at www.quiltmaker.com/100blocks. They will be posting new links and prizes each day and all of the designers in the book have donated items that have been put together into a "Big Bundle Giveaway" that will be given to one lucky reader at the end of the blog tour.

www.quiltmaker.com/100blockshttp://www.quiltmaker.com/100blocks

We will also be choosing a winner within the next 24 hours who will receive a copy of the book and another winner who will receive a little gift from Crabapple Hill! All you have to do is contact us by email through the website http://www.crabapplehillstudio.com/ or directly at info@crabapplehillstudio.com and we'll put your name in the hat! If you enter by commenting on the blog we may not be able to access your email address to contact you. Sounds like fun on a cold November day, doesn't it????

Less than one month left!!

Hi!

It's hard to believe that it's already November! That means that the "Forget Me Not" quilt winner will be drawn on December 1st !!! You would not only win the quilt but also a pillow made with the block made by Judith Baker Montano! If you haven't purchased your raffle ticket yet, just follow the link on my website (http://www.crabapplehillstudio.com/) and it will take you to the Susan G Komen website where they are being sold. HURRY, HURRY, HURRY!!!!

I'm sorry about huge lapses of time between posts. Between working on new patterns and our new house, time just seems to disappear! Our house looks like it's about 2 months LATE and we may be moving around Christmas time..... I'm going to take the "Pollyanna" high road and look at it as a great big Christmas present and not freak out!!!!! But.....really...... I want to say "#$%^!@*, get it DONE already!!!" In the meantime, I've almost totally packed our old house, & since I'm not going to decorate IT for the holidays, I'm going "all out" in the studio! The tree is up...lights on....no decorations yet... village houses, lights, vintage ornaments, and greenery is arranged... music is on (I'm actually kind of embarrassed by the number of Christmas CD's I've found I have... I have two copies of several of them (must have REALLY liked them! LOL!!) so I'm telling myself that I just thought ahead... how CLEVER of me!.... and got one for the player in the car too!)

I'm going to have to paint clothespins to clip things to the tree and it dawned on me that you may like to know how to make them! So... here goes.... easy, easy, easy!

You will need:

wood clothespins (the cheap ones in the grocery or hardware store, not the craft store expensive ones)

a large zip lock bag or a good, thick garbage bag.

a bottle of acrylic craft paint (I'm doing white this time.... the black ones for Halloween turned out great too... I've also done pink, green, orange, and white.....wonder where those disappeared to?)

an old towel or large rag (absorbent and nothing you'll care about ruining)

paper towels

Pour some of the paint into the bag and mix water with it until it's about the consistancy of whipping cream (before it's whipped....duh!) Just squish & rub it around in your hands to mix it.

Put the clothespins in the bag of paint. Seal it up and roll them around until they look like they're thoroughly covered.

Take the clothespins out of the bag (I use rubber gloves) and spread them out on the towel. You can dab them with paper towels if they seem really..... paint-y.

Let them dry in a warm, dry place. If there's plenty of air movement they'll dry faster.

Every hour or so, turn them over & roll them around as they dry.

That's all there is to it!!!! Have Fun!

Who "helps" you stitch?

I have to admit it... I like dogs. In fact, I like them alot. But I LOVE cats! They're funny and cuddly and clean and.... well, I don't think they get the good PR that dogs do! So, when we got this email from Doris Marie Gerard of Cincinnati, OH, I decided that now's the time to toot the horn for kitty "helpers" everywhere! This is Doris' email:

... You left out one requirement in (Rules for Knot-y Girls Membership) Rule #4, but I don't know how to phrase it.... here's what happened: I did, on one occasion, stitch my cat's paw into my needlepoint! Biscuit was laying in my lab bathing when the loop of yarn caught her paw and pulled it up to the back of the canvas. She didn't scream or jump and run, she just laid there purring until I realized that I had a cat paw caught in my stitching. Then she gave me "The Look" as I picked out a half dozen or so stitches to free her dainty little grey paw! Years later, the same thing happened with my Siamese, Princess Oscar, aka The Kitten From Hell (shown below in the window) She wasn't so forgiving. Still have the scars! Fortunately, one of the skills Grandma taught me was how to reweave holes in embroidery fabric! LOL!



The next three pictures are our friend Shellee "Hiccup Girl's" helpers. I love the first one's hanging over the edge of the table/acrobatics act....

Somebody needs to keep the ironing board warm.....right?? Besides, what project would be complete without a little bit of cat hair sewn into it? Maybe if you move your board out of the sunshine... it's just TOO tempting!

The last one is a clear cut case of "Pay attention to ME, not your pattern!" I get this one all the time from my helper, Honeybunny. "If you like it, mom, I must need to be right in the middle of it!"

We got this picture from Terri Woodford from Fall Creek, WI. She says that she makes samples for a local quilt shop called The Quilt Yard. This is her "spin" on Halloween Journey. I wish the image was larger! She did her pumpkins in wool and it's SO STINKIN' CUTE!!! Thanks Terri!

This is Winter Wonderland made by Jan Thompson of McVille, ND. It was one of the first place winning quilts at the Indian Summer Quilt Show in Fargo, ND. (Congratulations! Great Job!) If that's not enough, her quilt will also be shown in a special show held by the North Dakota Quilters Showcase and will be photographed and documented as a quilt from the 21st century. Holy Moly Jan! How cool are you????!!! We're really excited for you!

These stitcheries were done by Robin Diessner (hope I got that right?) She made Halloween Journey and then decided that she wanted two stitcheries that could be hung together.... SO... she got really creative and flipped the border of Halloween Journey, designed her own title (Trick or Treat) in the same style of writing as mine, wrote her own verse in the same style as mine (LOVE her verse!!!) and added images from Vintage Trick or Treat that she shrank down to size to fit the stitchery. It is SO, SO COOL!!!!!! I want one.................really, I mean it Robin... get to stitching!!!! Really not kidding here Robin.... Get to work.

This Over the River and Through the Woods was made by Doris Jablonski from Georgetown, TX. She won a ribbon for it in the Chisholm Trail Quilt Guild Show this fall. (Once again, wish the picture was WAY bigger. AAarrrgghhh!!!) She also wrote that the judge's critique read, "Original hand quilting design showcases lovely embroidery"...blush, blush You SHOULD be proud of yourself!!, so stop blushing! You did a great job. (send us a larger photo next time please so that we can really see the detail.... I know, some emails automatically resize photos, what a pain!)

Well, that's it for today. Send in your photos of your projects (leave them as large as your email will allow) and photos and stories about your kitty helpers. They're so much company! There's just something very calming about stitching with a warm, purring (and vibrating!) cat leaning on my arm. The occasional floss covered in kitty spit is OK too! LOL!!!

By the way! Pieces of the Past (that's the center block at the top of the post) is almost ready and will be put up on the website next week! That pattern is HUGE!!!! Hope you like it!

xox Meg