Our daughter-in-law Alka with her almost completed wallhanging. Alka is a engineer and works for Catapiller out of Puerto Rico. She had never really done any needle work growing up. Since she has been dating and married our son I have been teaching her some quilting and knitting (when shes home she starts the project then takes it with her to finish). She loves it. This bird is a pattern from "African Folklore Embroidery" (as seen in Fons and Porter magazine). The embroidery is designed in Africa by the Ndebele women and part of the profits go back to them. You can make the panel into a quilt, tote bag, jacket back etc. Alka made it into a wallhanging for her sister for Christmas. Every year I teach an after school quilting class and this past winter I taught this. There are a lot of different animals to choose from. The kids loved them. We made them into pillows. Alka also started a wool pumpkin penny rug, she saw the picture of Joni's and designed her own.
Every year I grow bittersweet and in the fall I pick it and wrap it around my kitchen window. I love it and it lasts a good year before the berries start to fade in color.

This crazy quilt was made by our quilt guild members to donate to "Tempting Tables". One member pieced all the blocks and then passed them out to different members to embellish. The quilt was raffeled and the proceeds went to breast cancer research. (Tempting Tables is held at Maranatha on Lake Harbor Rd. every other year).
Well, our family has all left, we had a wonderful Thanksgiving for two weeks, lots of laughing and eating . This is Grandpa taking the grandkids and our daughter on a "hay ride" in our back yard, into the woods. The kids love it. Now, maybe I can get some quilting done! Friday, I go all day quilting with my friends, so hopefully I'll get some inspritional photos.

Quilt bee show & tell

The past 3 years, two weeks before Thanksgiving my husband flys down to Florida and drives back our daughter and grandchildren, then her husband flys up for Thanksgiving and drives them all back. One evening, while they are here I have my girlfriends over for supper and "show & tell". (Our daughters were in dance and gymnastics together for years, starting when they were 5 yrs. old). I taught all of them and their mothers to quilt. Now our daughters are grown with children and us mothers still meet and quilt about once a month (we've been meeting around 20 years). This is some of our "show & tell". The 1st. picture is our daughter with my last year Christmas present from her. It was such a surprize. For some reason the little grandchildren started calling me "Sunshine", (it so cute, I hope it lasts) so my daughter made me a Sunshine wallhanging. I was shocked she had time as the twins were 2 and the baby 6 months and her husband works long hours. I think the 9 year old helped out a lot. She had never paper pieced before and ended up calling my girlfriends for help. On Christmas eve she went to "bed" early. I later found out she was still hand quilting it. (she learned to quilt before machine quilting was an accepted like now).
My friend Laura made this fish backpack for her granddaughter for Christmas. It is so cute. This is my grandson modeling it. He loved it and immediatly put in his toy cars.
Another picture, this is a pattern but I'm not sure of the name.

Another friend Joni made this pumpkin penny rug with natural dyed wool I gave her. I believe it was a pattern in last falls issue of American patchwork and quilting.
Cathy made this sock monkey quilt for her granddaughter for Christmas. I'm not sure of the pattern name.
She also made these two jackets, one for herself and one for her granddaughter.
This is my oldest grandson curled up reading with a bear paw quilt I made several years ago after we came back from canoeing the "Boundry Waters" between Minnesota and Canada and "ran into" a bear.

Tempting Tables

Tempting Tables is a volunteer organization that showcases exquisite, elaborate and creative Tablescapes. It also spotlights very unique collections. It is open to the public and every cent of the admission goes to breast cancer research, even the volunteers pay to get in. This year there is 32 tablescapes and 21 special collections. I loved the tables and have a few pictures to inspire you for your holiday tables!
This tablescape was called Reflections of Autumn.
If only my Thanksgiving table looked like this.
This table was called "The Cats Meow" and the volunteer who did this table donated it to Tempting Tables . You could purchase raffle tickets to win this table.
This was a cute table called "Sweet and Spicy Divas". The two lady's made the table cloth, chair covers, everything, even a painted floor mat under the table.
This table was done as a deer hunters table, the silverware handles and legs of the table were covered with birch bark. I don't know if I've ever saw a hunters table look like this in Michigan.
This table is called "Blue Autumn" and was different look for an autumn table. The dishes were a beautiful pottery.
I thought this table cloth was cleaver, they sewed ribbon loops along the bottom under the fringe. I have a few more Christmas tables I'll show you next week.

Neddle Felting

My friend Deb from Alaska, sent me a wonderful needle felting kit and wool roving for my birthday this past April. This past weekend I decided to try it out, it was very easy and fun and could be very addicting. (Deb does fabulous things with needle felting, check out her blog site: Akquilter1.blogspot.com). I used a piece of my indigo dyed wool and played around with a lizard design. In the new wool quilt I've started I'm doing our family homes and I want to embelish the blocks with needle felting.
This is a piece I did a couple of years ago for our bee challenge. The challenge was to use the boarder and lattice fabrics, which none of us liked but that was the challenge. I made the attic windows block and in the windows I used my hand dyed/printed fabric that made when I was in Alaska at Deb's house. We had spent the afternoon dying fabric and the plastic table cloth had dye spilled all over it when we finished, so we went outside and picked some leaves and rubbed them in the dye and printed our cloth. When I made the quilt I didn't want to cut up the fabric to much so this block seemed perfect. I machine quilted the leaf designs in and hand- embroidered a spider web and added my new spider from Sarah in New Mexico. (You can see the details better by double clicking on the picture)

A little trompe loeil from Florida

Our daughters friend, Kim Miller does wonderful trompe loeil (I hope I'm spelling this correctly) painting. This is her, painting a Northern Michingan scene in our daughters home, its on a peak near the ceiling between her great room and kitchen. It now looks like a window to the outside.
My husband made this birch bark canoe for Melissa and her husband for Christmas. It's 5 ft. long and very authentic, (although I don't think it would carry many passengers). Their going to hang it so it looks like it's part of the scene. Kim also painted the wall behind the canoe, it has a wonderful "Venetion" finish, a lot of layers with metallic paints. (my picture is a little fuzzy) This is their piller in their entrance way, Kim gave it a wonderful marble finish.
This is our daughter and son-in -laws wedding quilt I made 4 years ago. They now have taken it off their bed and are using it as a wallhanging in their bedroom. It's their "family tree" quilt. I started with the palm tree since they started their marriage together in Florida, every immediate family member is represented by a block, mine is the my handprint with a needle and thread. The maple leaf represents Michigan where Melissa grew up and they met. The other hand prints are their children's, cut out of fabric I bought in Africa. I still have to add the newest childs (under the palm tree). There are wonderful strips of my son-in-laws traditional outfits. The long purple and orange, was hand-woven in Africa, I keep the shirt (I hung it in my living room) and cut up the pants. The gold panels were embroidered in Africa. I love using different ethnic fabrics.
The "antique" world map fabric completes the story as they will be traveling and living all over the world. Every block has the name of the person or story written on it.