Tree of Life

I love one-of-a-kind Christmas gifts and this is my favorite. I commissioned a dear friend to make it for my mother-in-law's Christmas gift.

As I understand wire-wrapping is an ancient art form that has been around for hundreds of years. Dolores does gorgeous work and I love this piece she made for me.

The large Swarovski stone is my mother-in-law's birthstone and the four surrounding smaller stones are her children's birthstone.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all of you a very blessed Christmas and a New Year filled with health and happiness. May God richly bless you and your family.

My Rose Block

Each year I look forward to creating a block for our yearly breast cancer awareness wall hanging. We evolved from Victoria Adams Brown's Way to Women's Wellness Foundation and the infamous ArtBras. This will mark our fourth year and I'm so pleased to be a part of this small group of very talented and equally dedicated ladies.

At present we are a closed group since we can only accommodate a certain number of blocks. We do love to share our work, however, and you can see all the past and future blocks on our Flickr site.

Each year someone suggests a theme and a color choice. This year Jan suggested shades of pink and Victorian rose with our theme being roses. Of course I was thrilled with the flower choice - I do love to make roses!

Several days ago a design popped into my head and I couldn't rest until I gave it a try. I'm attaching several pictures. I've appliqued five base petals in different shades of pink onto the Victorian rose dupioni. These are embellished with silk ribbon embroidered roses. One petal has bullion roses done with Edmar threads.

The three top petals are embellished in the same way and attached to the base petals. It is my intention for those to remain upright and give dimension to the block. I've placed some trim in the center for this picture but will replace that with rolled roses along with some silk leaves.

Fan Block Completed

In my last post I included a picture of my pieced fan block. Today I wanted to share pictures of the finished block. I used Carole Samples' new workbook entitled:
"MOMMY'S TIES"
Fancy FANS Blocks
The WORKBOOK.

I've always loved her "needlework lace" and the workbook has more detailed instructions on how to accomplish this. The stitching is done with #12 Perle cotton in ecru. Miss Carole says it was her intention to mimic real lace trim when she designed her original fan quilt which is her trademark. She has definitely accomplished this with her beautiful stitching.

Part 3 of the workbook is entitled "Designing the Needlework Lace" and it gives you instructions on how to design your own lace. I am really pleased with my first attempt. Carole is an excellent instructor. I hope many of you will have the opportunity to take her class in the future.

If you would like a copy of the Workbook you might contact Valerie Bothell with the Pink Bunny.