Prismata

 My eldest daughter drew an incredible water dragon when she was in high school.  

At the time I told her that someday I would make him into a quilt for her. 

My skill level was not where I felt comfortable at that time.

I had just started quilting.

This is the original I was working from.

Over time I picked away at the project.

Always in between other things and with zero regularity.

I took it to a retreat a LONG time ago and the people there sort of made fun of the project.

I shoved it in a bag and it was literally YEARS before I took it out again.

I had taken the drawing and enlarged it.

(bite marks are from Finny)

I numbered all the areas on the drawing.

I traced all the pieced on to fusible.

I had chosen the fabrics and fused the pieces.

I brought everything with me to the Reject's Retreat.

I worked really hard on getting started on him.

His name is Prismata.

He is a rainbow, water dragon.

I managed to get him all fused to the background. 

Then I brought him home.

Afraid once again to go any further.

I finally took him out and brought him to my local LQS to ask about interfacing and thread.

They had excellent suggestions.

I bought the sharps sewing machine needles.

I bought 100 weight thread to stitch around him.

I used tear away fusible on the back of the piece.

I stitched all around him and he was amazing.

BUT, he needed amazing quilting.

So he flew on a plane to Washington to Quilting is My Bliss.

Let me tell you, he turned out better than I could have imagined!!!

This is the backing I chose.  I even put a hanging sleeve on it!

Let me tell you, my daughter was so excited to finally have him in her hands!

I gifted it to her on her birthday too.

So now you think this is the end, right?

Well you would be wrong.

If you noticed in the original drawing, he has rainbow colors and bubbles coming off him.

I was nervous to do this on the quilt.

My idea was to possibly use Intense pencils to create the rainbow in the water.

I also considered using hot fix crystals for the bubbles.

Since BOTH are things I couldn't remove, I wanted to see what she thought.

Of course she loved BOTH of those things.

YIKES!

I have not picked him back up to finish, yet.

I need to quilt up a sample to practice with the pencils.

You can color with them and then use water over the top to blend them into the fabric.

I had placed some crystals over the quilted bubbles just to see what how it looked before I even made this as a suggestion.

I remembered to take a picture of those so here is what I put in place, it was not all, as I would fill all the bubbles but I just wanted to see if I even liked it.

She assured me I could not make it too "rainbowy".

I sure hope she's right!

She seems to be the child I make the most complex quilts for.

(Remember her Hallowedding quilt??)

So Prismata is with me for just a little bit longer.

Until I become brave enough to use the colored pencils and put in his bubbles.

He is already an very handsome boy.

I'd love to hear what you think of him.

I think he is gorgeous!

More to come.

~XOP~

Happy Mother's Day

 Happy Mother's Day to all mothers, adoptive mothers, dads that are mothers,

 heck any and all that identify as a mother. 

 I was sitting out on my porch yesterday and a van drove up and a man walked up my driveway with a huge bouquet of flowers!  

They were from my three children and my grandson.

I hope you all have a relaxing, blessed day.

~XOP~

Happy Mother's Day

My daughter called me home from camping to celebrate Mother's Day early.

We went to the nail place and I got my toes and my fingers done.  

I decided to try something new. 

 I had a sparkly teal for the "French" pedicure/manicure.  I LOVE how this turned out!

 My daughter in NC sent these beautiful flowers.

My son gave me these beautiful flowers too. 

 Apparently everyone knows how much I love Stargazer Lillies!

My younger sister sent me the nicest card this year too. 

She has CP and I work to make sure she has what she needs to live as independently as possible.

The family took me to dinner too.  

All in all a pretty nice time!  

Just missed having my other daughter there too, but I know she was there in spirit.

On Sunday hubby and I went back to the camper.  

I thought we needed a photo of the 2 of us.  We are terrible at taking selfies, LOL.

Hope everyone had a nice weekend too, whatever you got to do.

~XOP~

WIPs With Friends

I have been so busy with the new camper that I have little to show.  

I did finish my stars and have sewn 33 sets of the setting squares but 

I forgot to take any photos of those.  

Last 4 stars of what I had to make.
Linking up with Sew Fresh Quilts

I thought I would show you my fisheries biologist daughter at work in the field.  

That right there is a 57 pound catfish!!!

I also have some pretty photos of some flowers in my garden to share.  

My coneflowers were gorgeous this year.

I planted a new foxglove and it is doing so well.  

My grandmother used to tell me the spots on the flowers were where 

the bees walked in with muddy feet!

I also had this little guy show up on my house too. 

Apparently you should not touch them as their "fur" can cause a rash.

Who knew?

I will be attending the AQS show in Grand Rapids tomorrow 

so hopefully I will have more to show next week.  T

hen we are off on another camping trip this weekend.  Trying to eek out the last bit of summer fun!

Please link up what YOU have been working on and if we can get 10 people to link up I will do another little giveaway!

~XOP~

An InLinkz Link-up

Bridal Shower/Mother's Day Weekend

Last weekend was jam packed! 

 I finally, had that bridal shower I have been preparing for on Saturday.  

I drove the 2.5 hours (one way) with my SIL and that was nice.

  I love catching up with her.  

If you remember this is the one I have been making all the things for.

I will show you how I packaged the gift.  Let's "unwrap" the gift and show you.

This is how I brought the gift, all wrapped up.

I put everything inside a Pyrex casserole dish, a covered one.  So when she opened the cover...

She saw this.  Coasters were on the top

Next layer was the trivets

Under the trivets were the oven mitts

Under the oven mitts were the first set of dish towels

Under the first set of dish towels were the second set of dish towels

Lastly, when all was removed it revealed that I had glass etched their last name on the bottom (outside) of the Pyrex dish!  This way, if they have to take a dish, they always get it back!

The glass etching cream (Armor Etch) came from Michaels. 

 I used a stencil and a bristle brush. 

 I used my spray baste that I use for quilting to adhere the stencil letters to the bottom of the pan. 

 I drew a line with a Sharpie that was straight, so I could line up the letters.

  I cut the letters apart and spaced them on the dish, then held it up to make sure I liked the spacing.  Since I had to use the S and the L twice I had to make sure to leave room for those.  

Then I painted the cream on, let it set for 1 minute and washed it off in the sink.  

EASY!  

I have painted the bottom previously for gifts but I like this better and it will NOT come off.

OK so this is where I say, if you are my friend or relation and you KNOW I do this for showers, please don't do this at showers you know I will be attending.  

You would think I not have to say this but I know how crafty all my friends are! 

 Or just ask me if I am planning on doing it.  

If not, then glass etch all you want.  

Or etch something different, like glasses.  

If there is a stencil for it and you have glass, go for it!

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts

I leave you with a fun little flipgram of the whole loading process.

We went out to the farm for a Mother's Day brunch.  

Eric cooked eggs Benedict, sausage, hash browns, among other things.  

He made Mimosa's and also bought Diet Coke for me.

Weren't the plates beautiful?

My son brought me these beautiful flowers.

Beep was enjoying the warm day to enjoy a dust bath!

All in all a great weekend!

~XOP~

Father's Day Weekend

This Father's Day was a little bittersweet.  

I have the best husband and father to my kids ever, but I am missing my own dad...a lot! 

 We did a lot of things this weekend so we kept pretty busy though.

Hubby and I went out and helped on the farm a little bit.  

The peafowl pens are coming right along.  

There is still a LOT more to do though!  

Here is Blu.  He sure is a beauty isn't he?

  Have you seen Jurassic World?  *SPOILER*

The heroine in the story is a Raptor named Blu too!!

This is looking at the pen structure for putting up the fencing.  

You can see the existing coop and their pen.

Digging down to put the fencing in around the bottom of the pen.

Lots of digging!

Soooooooo much digging!

This was Blu and O2 showing off for the ladies.  "How you doin'?"

 The star of the weekend, by far was Beep.  Isn't he just the cutest little peacock?

The neighbors had a party on Saturday night so all of Saturday was a wash.  

Their son has a band so we even had live music!

Then for Father's day we took my hubby to the local airport for their annual pancake breakfast.  

They have a small fly in so lots of planes for him to drool over.  

The two kids that are local came with us.

Son looks a little rough.  too much celebrating the night before!

Then our daughter took us to see Jurassic World, which was awesome.  

One of the folks in the movie reminded me soooo much of my son (Chris Pratt).  

Love it!

I have more to share but am out of time and this is a lot to look at all at once!

How was your weekend?

~XOP~