First WISP completed

Since my New Years Resolution to complete all unfinished projects before tackling any of the two hundred ideas in my head, I've actually completed one. This pincushion is titled "An Octopus's Garden." It's not living with me at the current time, as I entered it in Piecework Magazine's Annual Pincushion contest and had to send it off to them. It won't be back until the judging and photography is finished. BUT the key thing is I finished a WISP. Woo Hoo!

It started out I intended to make a fairly simple crazy quilted piece but the embroidery definitely took over. The top is a piece of hand dyed silk velvet. The sides are various silk, brocade and velvet scraps with couched specialty fibers and bead, silk ribbon, and silk floss embroideries.

Boc Choy

This small quilt is part of a series of vegetable portraits I've created that combine painted and hand dyed cottons. Work remaining to be done: quilting and binding.

Steadfast Tin Soldier

I participated in a Crazy Quilting International Round Robin with a fairy tale theme. I selected my favorite -- Hans Christion Anderson's The Steadfast Tin Soldier. I pieced an oversize block that will be used as one side of a project tote bag. The work on this one is beautiful. Most of the elements of the story are there. I love the ballerina and tin soldier together on the left side. You'll also see the goblin that cursed them in the upper left, the creaky old tree outside the window ledge from which the tin soldier fell, the tin soldier adrift on a paper boat in the center, a wonderful fish swallowing him up center right, the melted tin heart lower right, and in the lower left you can see the castle the ballerina danced before.

Work remaining to be done: Fill stitch the castle. Add a swan swimming on a mirrored lake. Fill in the few blocks without motifs. Sew together the tote bag. Use and love.