One World One Heart Blog Give Away!

Receive a small crazy quilt tissue case made with vintage men's ties and embellished with threads and beads. The case will come with a small packet of tissues.

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That's the only rule! The winner will be announced on February 15th.

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Thank you! Victoria Brown www.ribbonsmyth.com http://www.etsy.com/shop/RibbonSmyth

Several of the blocks have been hand-pieced. I'm using Scalmandre Silk and rayon thread. The thread is a heavy-weight with a 3 ply twist. I'm using a large chenille needle. The stitches used are chevron, herringbone and feather. The thread is a rayon celery with a high sheen. I've picked out a mustard gold floral with cinnamon roses for the backing. It has a heavy weight and seems the ticket right now. But I won't know until I pull all the pieces together.

Tree Skirt for my Mother

For years I've been gathering gold fabrics. For me, gold is warmth, a basic tone, that can enhance any color combination. I see gold as a neutral.

I was raised in a home, where gold was a basic staple in decorating, or perhaps it was simply the 70's and everything available in home dec was gold. I still would like to create a gold crazy quilt, altho I don't know where it would be displayed. And I'm not interested in creating a quilt to then be folded and put away. We have two cats, and the thought of a crazy quilt on a bed, seems silly. But that was the orignial purpose for gathering gold fabrics, to make a wall-hanging I could view every day.

Some of the gold fabrics are wonderful embossed silk velvet remnants from Scalamandre. I was fortunate to see the looms where the fabrics were made and was told the story about each fabric. Many were created for the White House and other historic US homes. And most are fabrics duplicated from French brocades once popular in the 18th century. A yard of these fabrics would have never been in my vision. But the remnants were reasonable and stuffed into my little car. I would be a happy girl as I headed from Queens on the LIE. Other gold fabrics collected were fabric samples from France. When Mom said she wanted a tree skirt, I said I would make her one. She reminded me that she was 79 and would really like to see it in her life-time.

The pattern for the skirt is beyond simple. It consists of 8 pieced blocks that will encircle a large piece of fabric.

I thought I could piece the blocks and take them to Germany for embellishing, but no time.

So on Christmas Day I began the simple piecing of the blocks by hand in a pretty basic fashion.

The seams are embellished with simple stitches. No beads or layers of embellishing.

Fan Block Progress

Finally beginning to like the way this fan block is coming together! Using 7mm silk ribbon, easy straight stitch flowers and French knots are the only stitches used with ribbon. Now the fun part - adding many beads in the lace to give the lace a heavy embellished accent to the block.