Sunday, February 27, 2011

Moon Flower and Quilty Stuff

moon-flower
The picture is a flower called the Moon Flower. Supposedly only blooms at night. I have a friend in Nebraska that has this growing in her garden .They are quite spectacular. So I have some cuttings rooting; a pink and a yellow. They grow like weeds here, but I plan to use them to cover one of the walls….

design-wallToday I finally got my design wall done. It’s not what I am used to, but it will do for now. Finding the things I would have like to have used to make this, reminds me of how lucky we are in the United States. For instance-- the wood. I had a choice of 2” x 2”, or moldings 3/4” x 2 1/2”, 2” half round or a 4” molding for a door frame and lathe, oh and lets not forget MDF… . What I really wanted was plain 1” x 1”… inexpensive and sturdy. I really didn’t care if it was straight or had knots in it… I was covering it up. The Design wall is 6’ x 6’, a bit smaller than I am used to ….


Funny, while I was looking for the wood, I found some 4’ x 8’ sheets of Styrofoam…. too bad, I already bought and covered most of the 2 x 3 Styrofoam boards I had already bought. Oh well…. this will do and it is better than nothing!


So now let me tell you about the items hanging on the wall.


amri-blkI belong to a group of quilters and artists called the Sparkly Chickens- and we swap. This time we are doing a ‘Receiver’s Choice’ swap. Each member has chosen a theme, and the rest make a block to fit the theme. Some of us have rules and others a simple color guideline. My theme is Paisley, and it can’t just be fabric, but the makers interpretation of a Paisley. It takes forever to get mail here, and the first block was in transit for a month; 2 weeks from Canada to the US, and then 2 weeks from DC to South Africa! So it finally arrived last week. The maker, AnneMarie, blogged about it on her blog,  Artful Dreamer. It is stunning.












candy-blkThe other block is also from a Sparkly Chicken. Candy, does not have a blog, so I will have to tell you a bit about it. Its raw edge applique, and Candy let the fabrics and colors play for design. There are flowers, hearts and swirls. Truly inspired. Candy didn’t like that I have to wait so long to get mail, so she mailed it as soon as she got it done and it came a day or so after Annemaries. Candy also sent along books. Great looking novels that will keep me occupied, when there is nothing on TV, which is quite frequent here.










FQ-SwapThe other item on the wall is a Fat Quarter. I am in an International Swap. My
request this year was batiks. This one came in the mail also this last week from Australia, Thanks Suzie. It was a great week for mail.














One last piece of fabric, I had to get more flannel. This fabric store has lots of upholstery fabrics too. I saw this a couple of weeks ago and liked it… Today I saw it was almost all gone, so I picked up a meter and a half. It is silk, a loose weave of different weights of threads. I am not sure what I will do with it. … maybe a little jacket or a tote… I’m thinking a jacket… maybe someday it will be cool enough to wear pants and a long sleeves here. 
silk-upholsteryI’m a bit early for Design wall Monday, and I won’t be getting the UFO for February done either…. but now I can start on it, because I can put the blocks up and see the design and how the fabrics will play.

6 comments:

  1. Hooray Beth! Your design wall looks great! I will have to talk to my quilting bee about more creativity or challenges to spice up the meetings. Miss you! 8-)

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  2. Your design wall is great! What a nice job you have done with it!

    Those paisley blocks are fantastic. I'm starting to get nervous about mine...

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  3. I have never seen colored moonflowers, only white. We had them at a house we rented and were amazed to see them bloom at night.

    I'm glad you finally got a design wall up.

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  4. Here we call them Angels Trumpets (thats Brugmansia, not Datura) and if you fertilize them like h-l during the season, they gro to smallish trees. But, here you have to take them indoors during the winter months, they don't do well with cold.

    That fabric looks terrific!! Me I would be happy to just make some pillow covers with it, lazy me. But I am absolutely assured you are going to look just splendid in a jacket:-D

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  5. Wow nice job on the design wall. It is absolutely bee-u-ti-full.

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  6. Beth,
    I heart paisley designs too. What a great idea. I'll be back to see what else the sparkly chicks think of and do.

    Jane

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