Moonlight Sonata with Freddie Croaker and the Clockworks!

You might be asking yourself what on earth is this woman on about now. Surely she's finally gone off the edge... and it may be so this time. You tell me!

Spoonflower is having another contest. This is the Theme:

Frogs

Where we live, spring nights tend to turn into joyous and noisy frog parties. To celebrate our amorous little friends, this week's theme is fabric designs featuring frogs. Previews will be show at a swatch size (8" x 8"). Deadline for entry is Tuesday, May 28, 2013.

http://www.spoonflower.com/contests/191  will be the link for this contest when it's in action.. after the 30th May.

My eyes saw 'Noisy Frog Parties' and my mind went back in time to my childhood and the very sound of frog parties that used to lull me to sleep at night. I know now that you can build a pond and frogs will not come and live there, unless you put some tadpoles into the water. A frog will live around and near the pond he or she was born in and will only go back there to spawn.. so if you destroy a pond or a source of water, you can destroy a species of frog.. WOW!
Anyway I digress.. really badly, sorry... Frog Parties, Spring Nights and Joy... these are the keys to my design.
I created a tree frog, ( they're my favourite frog ever), except I didn't want him to be ordinary so I made him a steam punk frog. 

Introducing Freddie Croaker!

I decided that I would have to go all the way and get more involved in the steam punk idea, so I designed nautilus shells and put the hours of the day in them.

Another tree frog hugging a Nautilus Clock.

Next I wanted to create another type of frog that sits on a lily pad ... These chaps would be serenading and backing up Freddie in the Moonlight Sonata. Of course the night sky and rising moon would also have to be created just right to set the mood.....

The clockworks, frogs on watch lily pads,
 back-up singers to Freddie Croaker.

I put it all together and this is what it finally looks like.

Freddie Croaker and the Clockworks, getting ready to sing the Moonlight Sonata to You ,
 should you wish to come on down and join in the FUN!

The night sky, for some reason changes with those fat dark stripes whenever I reduce the picture.. but in actual fact the real deal is the same all the way up. The design can be seen here http://www.spoonflower.com/designs/2072125 if you want to see it in yardage etc. 

Feel free to leave comments either here or on the design on Spoonflower... You don't have to be a designer to have an account on Spoonflower, and that's the only way to see the comments written under the designs...some of them are really fun reading.. LOL

My very First Paper Piecing Block

I was surfing the net the other day and saw a beautiful quilted block on Pinterest. Thought to myself... oh I'd love to be able to sew like that. SO I put the question out in our QQQ Team on Etsy, asking how is something like that done and got a few really helpful answers.
This is the quilted block I saw and fell in love with :

http://pinterest.com/pin/5981411977882379/

One of my Etsy friends, Patricia Caldwell of The Butterfly Quilter, said I should look at this site : http://www.averyspecialcollection.com/freepatterns/howto.pdf and another friend steered me towards 

Soma of Whims and Fancies ....who does a LOT of paper piecing.. she has a web site :  http://www.whimsandfancies.com/ where she holds paper piecing hops every month :-) Very interesting... Also she has a paper piecing pattern tutorial for beginners called the School House...

Donna of June Bug Quilts posted a link to a video on Utube : www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNzg78tsF7g that shows paper piecing.... all so very helpful, thank you All!!!

Anyway I digress, I sat down with a cup of hot Bovril, don't do coffee and I've run out of Green tea with Mint... so Bovril it is. and started reading.. I looked through that school house pattern and thought.. Wow that sounds quite simple, but I don't want to do a school house... hmmm Next I looked at the link that Patricia had given me... ummm well a tad more complicated I thought, till I started! 

I had to draw my own pattern out, so I made it an 8 inch block against the 4 1/2 in the pattern. I needed something BIG to start off with.. Then I had to choose my fabrics... that took a wee while and eventually I started...

All I can say is that IT'S TOTAL FUN :^D !!!

This is the outcome :

Of course you should mentally cut off the 1/4 inch seam around the outside edge to get the outside pointy bits be the same as the rest..lol  AND I didn't hand sew the brown handle onto the fan.. i sewed it with the machine... I didn't realise at the time that I was doing that bit wrong.. but I still sort of like how I 'fixed' it..I think I'll change it later though..  hehe 

It's nowhere near the first photo, but I think it's a great start.. don't you?