After an exhausting two weeks of Judging, and hanging the exhibits for the Townsville Show, it's all done.  Last Thursday night was the Presentation evening, and there was a fabulous show up.
Some of our sponsors were there to present their prizes, and I was honored to be presented with the Innovative Champion Trophy by Jean Grove for my CQJP 2012 Crazy Patchwork Christmas Tree Skirt. 
To add more icing on the cake, I received 3 firsts and 2 seconds for my 8 entries. The three first's were for my gold beetle, Cheerful Fluttering's and my Crazy Patch thread roll.  The seconds were for my 'Doris' and Goldwork Poinsettia flower.



Getting a first for my beetle was a wonderful surprise and just adds to the excitement that little bug has created. Not to say I'm not excited about my other pieces, but he is something special to me now.  I am also over the moon about the tree skirt, it's amazing how many men have actually stopped and looks and oohed and aahed at it, very exciting.
After the show is finished I will post the winning champions.
Arlene

Well G'day everyone.

Yes, I have finally finished my beautiful Christmas Tree skirt, and Yes, before Christmas 2012, and do you think I am happy with the result, I'm over the moon, I am thrilled it turned out so well.  So here are my last few steps for completion.

The last post on the skirt I had it basted, and ready for the blocks to be added after I had done some hand quilting.  The quilting was done, very little mind you, it really didn't need it. Then the blocks went on and the 12 meters of braid placed, pin and hand stitched down, and each block was finished with a button on the loop join, and the red trim on each block had gold feather stitch added.
I then pinned the rest of the gold trim and started stitching it all down, two days later......
What a job, my fingers are aching....
The I cut of the extra wadding, and the red background, pulled out most of the basting (except around the opening). Turned it over and hem stitched the rim down.
Cut the slit for the opening, hemmed it also and then added the Merry Christmas buttons.

So what do you think??????
She's now under the undecorated tree (will do that next weekend).
Thank you everyone for following my journey this year with this project, I'm just thrilled it's finished and under the tree.  Watch this space, I am seriously thinking of publishing a book with the construction of this wonderful project.
A few stastic's for you regarding this project: 12 months in the making, 165 -170 hours of work, all hand stitched except for adding the rim to the black skirt, and the construction of the 10 fan block bases and red edge on each. Each fan block averaged between 6 - 10 hours of embroidery, gold work and stumpwork.  12 meters of gold braid to finish skirt, and 4 rolls of red, and black sewing cotton. Along with 20 charms, beads, gold braid, and at least 12 gold buttons, and several meters of silk and satin ribbon. And lastly 3 Santa's helpers to do the basting of the skirt, Lyn, Barb and Diane, again all hand stitched. Almost forgot Carol, who supplied permanently the batting for the skirt (thanks Carol).

I hope you follow my next years project, a '12 days of Xmas' wall hanging.

Arlene

Now that all the blocks are done, and the base is in some sort of design, it was time to get the skirt ready for the blocks.

Thank heavens for friends who know what their doing.  We made our sandwich, pinned it and tacked it.  Here is my wonderful Fibres Friend who helped me 'sandwiched' the skirt, and helped also to pin it and tack it. There was four of us on Wednesday tacking it together.


 This next photograph show's it all based, and the excess wadding trimmed back.
 This photograph show's it now with the blocks on and the trim, with the wadding and back skirt folded under. It's looking good, now all that's left is the hand stitching down the blocks and the trim, the outer hem and put on our 'Merry Christmas buttons' and sign it on the back. The Block in the front with 'Noel' buttons, is now being changed, it just looked so out of place. I have taken off the bow and the buttons and made it similar to the other blocks.
Here is the skirt now with the changed block.
Arlene's little helper: This is Ally, my son's Labrador, she is with us for the short term.
Arlene

I took my 10 blocks and the black skirt fabric to Fibers today.  I don't own a table big enough for me to spread it out on, and I'm not going to crawl on the floor (I'd never get up again).

So after an hour of trimming the fans, pinning them into place, reposioning, re pinning, pinning the gold braid into place, we then stood back to admire the hard work.  (It's hot here now, got up to 30C today).
So here are the results.
The four photo's show it from different angles.  Now remember this is just pinned in place and may not be my final layout.  I do want to add a 1/2 inch border on the base of the fans, this will be done in a deep red colour and finish the hem of with a single gold row of stitching.  I also bought some red fabric as the backing fabric for under the skirt.  My friend Carol has the batting for the sandwich of the black and the red.
 The bundle of gold braid is left over, I actually have 12 meters there, and only about 3/4 of one left.
 Each alternate fan will have a large loop and the other alternates will have a small loop.
 At the base each will have a small loop to link them all together.
The gold braid is continuous with not joins anywhere. OK, so now what do you think of it so far, I still don't know what I'm going to do for the border yet, but I still have time for that, maybe a 1 inch strip of deep red material?  Does anyone have any suggestions for it?
Arlene

The final block has finally been finished, and now the next step will be it's construction.  First here is block 10.
 And of course the close ups, the first one is the gold work Christmas ornament.
 The second close up is of our toy soldiers that I got at the Townsville Craft fair on the weekend from Cherabella buttons.
I also finished my ornament for the swap that I do each year.
Arlene

Firstly I would like to thank everyone for your private emails and comments in the previous post about my Xmas tree skirt. After great deliberation I decided to add two more blocks to the skirt. When i have placed the 8 under the tree, they just got lost, so i needed to make the skirt much bigger than first planned.
As you can see the tree branches hide all that work.
So I added the two blank blocks (which I had made along with the others) but I still have to embellish. It brought the blocks out from under the tree, so now I need to embellish two more.  I am very excited about getting this far with skirt, but still a little anxious putting it together.  Each fan block will be appliqued onto the black satin fabric, then I need to embellish the outside of each block to blend it into the black background. After that it will have to be padded and sewn up.   Still a fair bit of work left to go.

So here is Septembers block.  My inspiration came from a postcard that Maureen G had done in a swap we did with Kathy Shaw last year. Maureen embroidered this lovely silk ribbon wreath as the main focal point on the postcard.

Here is my block with this idea in mind. (thank you Maureen).

And a close up of the wreath.

One more to go, and as it is going to be October, it might have to have something 'me' on it, (October is my birthday month).

Comments always greatly appreciated.

Arlene

Well since I've been out of action, stitching has been my therapy, and it's wonderful to be able to sit up and just stitch.

I was behind with my CQJP blocks, and now I'm up to date with them also.
 So here are my latest three blocks.

June:  These lovely 'noel' buttons I bought recently at the Proserpine Show and Tell.  I've added a gold work Santa sleigh, and a ruched ribbon.



July: I've used some gold braid my friends from India gave me, and some lovely satin reindeer ribbon.

 August: I got to make myself a beetle, he's pretty big, he's nearly 4 inches from top to tail.
Still deciding on how I'm going to put them all together, as I'm not a 'sane' quilter, I'm having troubles deciding, please read on and any suggestions greatly appreciated? Here are the blocks so far:

Then laid out in the way I had it in my mind, from my original idea.
I don't think I'll be making any more fans, although I do have two left, but I think I might have to make four inner sections,  I also think my 'Noel' block is out of place, it needs to have a white line edge, not the buttons, but then also the gold ribbon one with gold edge would also be out of place, maybe they complement each other? Oh dear, now I'm looking way to deep I think. Here is my original idea, all good when I started, but not so sure now, what do you think?


Arlene

I am finally catching up with all my stitching. Here are the latest two months of my Xmas tree skirt.
April's
And May's Block

Now I have to make more blocks before I can do any more embellishing, as there are no more left.

I am thinking of changing my design slightly, so stay tuned and see what comes next.

Arlene

Incorporating the TAST stitches from February's list.
Week 6 - Chevron
Week 7 - Detached Chain
Week 8 - Chain
Week 9 - Couching
Chevron is the center seam with a large gold sequin, a red floral sequin and a seed bead for decoration.
Chain and detached chain make up the two outer seams with floral red sequins and seed beads for decoration.

The Christmas tree featured motif is made up of a couched gold bead braid with a piece of gold plastic braid for the trunk. Topped with a gold star and green seed bead.

The addition of the two Christmas tree charms and gold and white rick rack finishes this block.

3 down, 9 to go......

Arlene

I don't know why but for some reason I had trouble getting started on my work for this block. Then I decided why don't I add the TAST challenge stitches to it.
Here is the finished block

How I incorporated the TAST stitches was to add them to the seams first, Cretan with star sequins and red seed beads and feather stitch also enhanced with red and green beads.

 herringbone and detached chain.
 The wreath contains chevron, Cretan, fly, and herringbone stitch.
 First was a circle of chevron, then between each was cretan. On top of that is a round of herringbone and last several random fly stitches.  The wreath was then enhanced with gold star sequins and red, green and gold seed beads.

Now two down, 10 to go.....
Arlene

Well to start the year off here is my first block for this project. To refresh you memory I'm making a tree skirt for my Christmas tree. I have always wanted an elorborty embellished one, and so I can go wild on my own.  Here is the first block and closeups. I may add a bit more to each block as I go along, but I still need to leave room for sewing together.


 And some closeups:
First the Beaded gathered chiffon bow


Double Chevron stitch with beaded and flower sequin centers. Two Christmas wreath charms, these I picked up from the cheap shop, they were a pair of earrings, they worked wonderfully.

And the other side of the fan is Cretan stitch with beaded extensions.
At the bottom you can see the lovely ribbed braid I picked up from a recent trip to the Sunny Gold Coast, wished I had of bought more, it's works so beautifully.

My sister in law wants one of these skirts for her tree, so I might be making more than one this year.

Arlene

1st December has been the date in our family for years to put up our Christmas tree. It's hard to believe that it's been 13 years since mum left us, and so I took on her tradition of putting up the tree and decorating the house on the 1st December.  So in her memory..... Here's our tree (the photo on the wall is Mum's Parents on their wedding day.