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

A friend is a precious thing indeed!

I have this friend. Her name is Evi Nemeth and she did me a HUGE favour earlier this year. I racked my brains to try and think of something I could give her to say thank you and finally I came up with this.

It's a Quilted Table Topper. :^D

The centre piece was created by me. I dyed the fabric and painted the bird. There are some other strips of the yellow that I cut and added to the design. The strips of fabric that look like Batik crackle are exactly that. I made those too. 

The quilting was fun too and I learned a lot while I was stitching away.. lots of unpicking was done in the process. My Mum says she never feels that the job has been done correctly when she hasn't done any unpicking during it.. ha ha 

The backing fabric was hand dyed by me too and I also designed and actually printed the label out on my regular printer! I ironed it well before I sewed it onto the quilt. It's washable, believe it or not. 

It was fun and I'm happy the way it turned out. It's been a while since I did any creative sewing and Evi was really pleased with her gift..whew :^D 

My first baby clothes quilt.

One day I was talking to my good friend, and she said she had a ton of baby clothes she just could not stand to part with. So I had seen another etsy member who made baby clothes quilts in her shop. I suggested that she send me the clothes and I would make a quilt out of them for her! She thought that was a great idea and got right on sorting and boxing clothes to send me! She's good, she'd sent me JUST enough clothes to make the twin sized quilt she wanted! This was an excellent project for me, most rag quilts I have made so far, the only creative part is picking the fabrics, the rest is just sewing pinning and cutting. This was fun!! If I couldn't fit a label, or picture, embroidered section of the clothes, then I cut them out and sewed them onto other squares that had nothing on them. I suggest anyone who does rag quilts to give this a try at some point! I would love to do another one, however I would suggest if you are going to do one, try to make most of the fabric cotton clothing, it gets really hard to work with when you had a lot of denim, fleece and corduroy! (and very heavy!)

I wanted to share the end result with everyone, so here it is! Hope you enjoy!
If anyone who reads this wishes to have one made, or wants to learn/ask questions regarding how feel free to email me @ canadianquilts@gmail.com

Any quilters who'd like to join a quilting team on etsy, please click here!!

Creations that inspire me.

I'm always browsing through books and magazines, looking for ideas and inspiration. Sometimes it's a photo of a hummingbird sipping from a flower or I walk past a bird who is staring intently into a puddle, seeing it's reflection. When I see these things I hopefully have my camera on hand and I take a photo. later I can look at it more closely and garner ideas.
A friend of mine had this wonderful book on manipulating ribbon to create flowers.  It immediately got my attention and I wanted to stop everything right there and then and start learning how to do this. Well of course I couldn't. The book wasn't mine and I think it's now out of print, so I can't buy it unless I pay collector prices...which I can't afford....so I live and dream. What I had done though was to take a photo of one or two photos of examples in the book that caught my eye.

Of course you can't just go ahead and twist ribbon expecting it to turn out like this! you'd have to, most certainly go and buy a book :-).

There are other examples of peoples work that have caught my eye over the years..one is of a quilt made by dyeing the background and then using different coloured thread to 'draw' the design on. brilliant idea I thought. Of course I've seen it in monochrome but this was the first one I'd seen in colour. I truly gives me a boost when I look at it.

The hours of work that went into this! I'm sure it wasn't much faster than making a traditional quilt.
Then there was another quilt I saw somewhere..can't remember when or where, but I took a photo and look at it occasionally. It holds me in awe...so beautiful, I hope that one day I can produce something somewhere close to this creation.

 I hope you enjoyed the sharing and that it gave you some inspiration too. ;-)