I’m still stitching away on my African Folklore Embroidery piece. It’s coming along slowly but surely. I really like doing hand work. I should bring it along with me in my purse so I can work on it here and there. You may not be able to see it, but I’ve done some itty-bitty beading on the mama’s necklace. I’ll need to find somewhat larger beads for the eyes.
The March issue of Cotton Spice was released today on PDF. Here is my project, found on page 14, a needle keeper that for all you beaders out there, also holds tubes of beads and doubles as a beading mat. There are quite a few quilt patterns as well. I flipped through it with the intent of choosing my favorite one so I could tell you all about it, but could not decide. So you’ll have to go to www.cottonspice.com (it’s free!) and decide for yourself.
This weekend we attended a birthday party complete with a petting zoo. Annika liked holding the bunnies, but I couldn’t resist the chocolate brown Merino lambs (below).
(Actually according to Morehouse Farm, brown sheep are actually black sheep whose wool has been bleached from being out in the sunshine.) Brown or black, I wanted to give those lambs a good shearing and go play with my needle felting machine.
Here’s a peek at my California Beadin’ piece for my guild’s spring challenge. If the dates for turning pieces in don’t overlap I might enter it into the California-themed exhibit at the new IQA show in Long Beach.
I’ve also been working on my Quilt Every Day Rail Fence quilt, although (confession time) not quite every day. I can’t believe I forgot and missed two whole days out of the first week. I did some extra tonight to make up for it though, and I can see a lot of progress. I wonder which quilt top I’m going to practice my free motion quilting on first this summer? I’m glad to see that quite a few of you are also making good progress on your 10 minutes of quilting a day. It takes just 3 weeks to make a new habit. This could mean the end of the ever-growing UFO stack and the beginning of lots of finished quilts!
Still way into beading, I’m working on a beaded appliqué design for my March 12x12x12 project. I’m still using that bad batch of Wonder Under, which I really need to return. The paper doesn’t want to come off the back, shredding the appliqué edges. I was too impatient to leave it for days first. Luckily the beads cover the edges well, and I zig-zagged around the fabric first for extra protection before adding the beads.
It’s official—I’m a bona fide bead-a-holic. I need an intervention. As you can see, a plain binding was not enough. I had to bead the binding (as if I had nothing else in the whole world to work on). And I’m certainly not a bead snob, although I do love expensive beads too. All the beads on this quilt are from the craft shop. The small black and white are glass seed beads, the red hearts are plastic pony beads, and the large white ones are faux pearls (I had to use them to keep the hearts from falling off).
My February 12x12x12 challenge is done (minus the binding as usual). I hope I can finish it off before my guild meeting next Friday, when we’re all supposed to bring Valentine and/or red quilts. 
I really like the backing fabric on this quilt (and the fabrics on the front as well). The lettering is done in black beads and the white dots have pearly white beads on them, which you can’t really see unless you’re up really close. I think the lively tossed hearts pattern helped me make the lettering more carefree. Marking the letters wasn’t working so I beaded them freehand. I love the texture the echo quilting makes. Even though it was hand quilted, it still drew in the fabric quite a bit. I think it shrank an inch in each direction. I barely had enough left to make the 12 inches square.
I’m really glad this one is done. There are a lot of designs I want to sketch before I forget them all. See more 12x12x12 challenge quilts at the Quilt Studio blog.