Lemon Tree Tales

Yellow Linen & Liberty Floral Wristlets

Yay! After a long time, I finally finished these two wristlets last week and mailed them out to their very patient recipients. I used a lovely pale butter yellow linen accented with a yellow striped quilting cotton and a little of the Liberty floral that I bought in London.

The flowers are those 3-D fabric origami ones that I've used so many times on quilts in the past. I accented them with some deep ruby red beads.

The interior is more of that lovely Liberty floral plus what turned out to be a rather large pocket of that striped quilting cotton. As you can see, I've been experimenting again with printing my own labels on ink jet fabric.

Ahhh, I can't tell you how great it feels to cross that off the to-do list.

Great resource for quilt patterns

Since I've been a part of the Spring Fling Round Robin for all three times that it's been offered, I've been on the look out for online quilt resources. Here's one that offers Free Quilt Patterns ... check it out. You may find something interesting to use for your next quilt.

Sometimes tests can be a good thing

I want to thank you for the well wishes while I waited for the test results. I'm very happy to say that it turned out well .. none of that dreaded cancer. They still want to take a bit of tissue to be safe but I'm no longer freaked out. All I can say is that it's a good thing to do what your doctors advise and get your mammogram when they tell you it's time. Now it's almost time for Steve's qualifying session for this weekend's race. I hope he does well ... after all it's his birthday today. Yay!!!  Shhhh, don't tell him but I brought a little birthday cake with us to the track for tonight's celebration.  :-)

Have you signed up for the Block Swap?

Margaret's hosting a Summer Block Swap made up of these color blocks. Wow, won't that make up a truly gorgeous quilt?! I've signed up and can't wait to see what blocks I end up receiving. At the end I'll probably try out various sashings to tie these 6" blocks all together. Won't you try it too? Hurry because only 50 people can play.

Art and Ghosts artwork

A few months ago I couldn't resist ordering this delightful print from Louise Robinson of Art and Ghosts. It's haunting and has some of my favorite colors in it. The only thing more perfect than apple and pear heads would have been a lemon head. Don't you think it looks great on my studio wall?

Louise has a great digital collage style that I really admire. I have to stay away from her etsy shop otherwise I'll find other prints that are just as irresistible.

*****
In other news, remember how I went for my first mammogram? Well they saw a little speck of something they didn't like so I had to go for a second one. It still didn't make the doc happy so he wanted me to do a needle biopsy. Yikes! It wasn't very painful but it did seem that I was climbing up onto some type of medieval torture table. Imagine if you will, a table with a hole in it. Yeah, kind of strange, no? At any rate that wasn't near as scary as I thought it would be. Now the tough part is to wait until next week to make sure that it's nothing. The doc seemed to think that there was a 90% chance that it would be A-okay. So in the meantime I've been keeping busy ... I made another tiny world teacup pincushion and have begun the spring cleaning attack. Also we're getting ready for more racing. Perhaps this time I can gather my supplies together. I'd like to start work on a cathedral windows quilt for the living room wall.

Tiny World Pincushion

I'm addicted to making these tiny world pincushions from Mimi Kirchner's new pattern. I keep having ideas of how I'd like to embellish them differently. Go check out the flickr group here. Have a great weekend!

Dotee doll off to the North Pole

Just a quick little dotee doll that I made for a Doll Street Dreamers swap. (They all go to the list's owner, Judi Wellnitz of Art Dolls, in North Pole, Alaska.) I was playing around with angelina fibers and free motion quilting again. Next I'd like to have a go at some bobbin work. There are some gorgeous threads out there just for that purpose. Okay, time for aspirin ... I have a stubborn headache that just doesn't want to go away.

Tiny World Pincushion Testing

Mimi Kirchner asked for pattern testers to try out her soon to be released Tiny World Pincushion pattern. Lucky me that I saw her request within minutes and signed up. I've been enamored of these little creations from the first time I saw one on her blog. They're an extension of the make-do pincushions that women used to create from old china ... a lone cup, a sugar bowl missing its lid, etc. Mimi has taken that one step further by transforming them into tiny worlds with little landscapes.

I have a little tea set with the infamous Blue Willow pattern on it that was given to me by my grandmother when I was a little girl. However it was deemed too precious for me to play with and it was safely boxed away for later. Later never seemed to arrive until finally a few years ago the box was rediscovered in my father's garage. They're darling little cups made in Japan. I'm short the lids for the sugar bowl and the teapot. Also I must be one cup shy as there's an extra saucer. These would make the perfect tiny world pincushions!

Here's my version complete with a piece of Donegal tweed wool for the roof:

Mimi said that the pattern should be available by the end of this week. It's chock full of color photographs detailing every step of the way. Superbly done! Go and visit Mimi, you know you want to make one too. Here's Mimi's flickr set of her tiny worlds for inspiration.