April Calendar

Hello friends!  I haven't posted much lately and I think I figured out why.  I make my cards and other things because I love it.  It's my quiet time.  My "me" time.  I LOVE to sit and color.  I love poking through my stuff to find the right things to embellish with.  A while back I had people telling me what I "should" be making because people would buy those things....  Now, I have to admit the cards are piling up.  I can only use so many of them.  But honestly, my hobby supports itself.  I occasionally sell some of my cards and I use that money to buy more stuff.  I don't do this to make money.  I do it because this is how I was made.  I love to create!  It's my passion.  It's my escape.  And I forget to turn off the well-intentioned voices sometimes and just do what I love.  But, I am back!  I worked on this project last night til I hit a small roadblock.  On my run this morning the perfect solution came to me and I finished it up!  So here ya go:

I used the CUTEST new image from Mo.  If you've been here before you probably know how much I love her images!  LOVE her images.  And when I saw this cutie it took me about 2.5 seconds to buy her!  True story!  That face!!  Those chubby legs!!  She makes me smile every time I look at her!  I colored her with my Prisamcolor pencils and I loved it!

Then I really had fun and dug into my quilting stash!  I poked around til I found fabrics to match the colors then I got busy!  I cut small squares and pieced a small quilt.  I layered it with batting and backing and even hand-quilted part of it.  I have to admit the quilting was a bit difficult because the piece was way to small to put in a hoop and I couldn't quite get the motion right but I do love hand quilting as well as coloring!  I didn't finish quilting though.  I left the needle and thread in there because I thought that would look like my dear little fairy friend would be back to finish her work!  I struggled with what embellishments to add and settled on a few small flowers.

Here you can see the whole calendar.  The bottom section is what I was struggling with.  I didn't want to add paper or lace.  Running must be good for my creativity because that's when I came up with idea of digging through one more stash in my studio and finding these tiny wooden spools.  (Yes, I have many many stashes!)  I wrapped matching thread on them, leaving the white thread longer to reach across the bottom.  I kinda like how it all turned out!

So, there ya have it!  Loved working on this piece!

I am entering my calendar in the challenge over at:

Mo's - Add Fabric (check!!)

I thought you might like to see some of the quilts I have made, so here ya go!

 This "Trip Around the World" hangs in my foyer and is still one of my favorites.

 The "Double Irish Chain" hangs in my stairwell.  The outer border really should be removed, doesn't quite work.  However, the muslin squares are quilted in a cross-hatch and embellished with butterflies made with pearl cotton and seed beads.

I can't remember the name of this one.  I made it 17 years ago and I still love it.  It was probably beyond my skills at the time and I ripped out plenty of seams, but the perfectionist in me would not accept points being chopped off.  I am still proud of this quilt.

I think that's about it.  Thanks for taking a peek!

Blessings & Hugs,

Michelle