Crazy Quilt Christmas Tree at Crown Center

On the Friday after Thanksgiving they turn on all the lights at Crown Center in downtown Kansas City. We stumbled on this event several years ago and it has become a tradition in our family. I stock up on fabric for my business and we go to Crown Center and watch them turn the lights on. This year we went to the Hallmark Visitors center. We hadn't been there in several years and we look around at all the displays they have. They had a display with all of the beautiful Christmas trees that the employees had made for the original owner of Hallmark. I walked by them and continued on. My husband says to me (after I had left the room), did you see the CRAZY QUILT CHRISTMAS TREE? Of course, I stopped so fast that probably the child I was pushing in his stroller probably got whiplash! I could not believe I had missed it. I then began taking a multitude of pictures much to the annoyance of one lady standing there! Enjoy the pictures I took, it was a very awesome tree and I would love to make one of my own! What an idea!

Update On My Victorian Fancyworks Sampler

Here is an update on my Fancyworks Sampler. Boy, this sampler has alot of stitches on it! It will be worth it when it is done. I ran out of the right colored thread to finish my bullion roses...AHHH! And nobody I know has anymore of that color...I guess I'll try to order some more and hope they have it. I changed the shape of the monogram in the middle and I am happier with it. I'll try to keep updating you with my progress! See you later!

Merry Christmas to All!

I am determined this year to get all of my Christmas cards out early this year! Here is my Christmas card to all of you that read my blog. This is a picture that we had taken at my 3 year old's preschool. Now you can see why sometimes I don't always blog as much as I would like to! My husband's name is Craig and he works at Cessna designing interiors of airplanes. Thomas, my oldest is 19 and attends WSU. Jacob is 11 and extremely gifted with a beautiful singing voice. Eli is 3, soon to be 4 and well...he is Eli. Noah, is 2 and he is our redhead. Between my 4 boys, my crazy quilt website and teaching crazy quilting, I keep really busy! Again, MERRY CHRISTMAS everyone!

Latest MCC Block

Here is the latest MCC Square that has been finished. I think this makes the 7th block that is complete. There are 5 more left to go and probably a couple more of them are done and I just haven't seen them yet! The quilt is due at the MCC office by early March so hopefully I will have all the squares soon. After they are sewn together, the quilting group at my church is going to help us inside tie it!

New Yuletide Color!

For the past year, I have been doing alot of research on dyeing silk ribbon and lace. I also have a friend that helps me with the color formulations(recipes). This is a new color that is varigated with reds and greens just in time for Christmas. It has been fondly named Yuletide. It can be purchased off of my website and is available in just about anything I can get my hands on to dye!

Victorian Fancyworks Sampler

Well, the weekend we had with Carole Samples was a complete success! We had 17 wonderful ladies come from Nebraska and all over Kansas to learn some new stitch combinations. The stitches were intermediate maybe even advanced and it certainly challenged us for 2 days. Carole came to visit my shop and she had a chance to see some of my crazy quilt block of the month classes I do. She also brought many of her wonderful things that she has done for show-n-share. The sampler will be beautiful when is it done. As you can see I only have a little bit done on mine but I will keep you posted on my progress. The pattern for this sampler as well as pre-pieced blocks that are made to fit the sampler she designed are available on my website, www.valeriebothell.com. The pattern features I think....7 new templates that she designed just for us. Thank you so much Carole for coming to visit us!

Carole Samples Victorian Fancyworks Weekend!

I cannot believe that it has been almost 2 months since I last posted! I am so sorry about that. I have been really busy getting ready for the Carole Samples workshop that I am hosting this weekend. I had to piece 21 difficult crazy quilt squares for the workshop (but who was counting) and I finished all of them today. The students had a choice of ivory, pastel, jewel tone or pink. Those squares were so difficult that I was soooo glad when they were done! What made them hard is you are trying to piece a traditional sane quilt square, which is fine when you are using cotton quilt fabrics. When you are using the fabrics we use for crazy quilting, they simply do not want to match up at the corners!!! Anyway, I thing I am done venting about that. The pictures I have posted show what the squares look like.

See you later,

Val