It only took me a few days to finish the “mountain”, but after that I was stumped on what to do next. So I taped it to my workroom wall and figured I’d finish it when I had an idea.

Fast forward to last week when, well, I had an idea! I thought about teaching myself Free Motion Quilting, and doing some fancy little moves here and there to mimic the fragmented design in the negative space to the right. I bought a new foot for my machine and I tested out my idea on some scrap fabric.

Let’s just say it didn’t look like I wanted it to. I had taught myself the technique correctly, but the technique didn’t give me the results I wanted. However the frustration over this helped me come up with the idea of hand quilting dashed lines instead. I ran to the craft store and picked up some DMC Pearl Cotton Variegated Thread in Size 5 to test this out. After quickly quilting some 45 degree lines across the entire piece, I sat down on my couch after CT went to bed, turned on a movie, and started stitching.

It came out exactly as I hoped on the front, even if the back looks horribly ridiculous, and I’m now hooked! I want to add little hand quilted details on every mini quilt I make.

I’m also really excited about the fact that I made a mini quilt that I GET TO KEEP! It’s going right on the wall outside my workroom along with the “J” mini from the last Schnitzel and Boo swap I took part in.

This whole process is making me second guess not trying out the larger version too. So maybe you’ll see that in a year or so?

Well, Yesterday I decided to lug out all of my beading supplies and try my hand at some new necklaces. I had the idea of mixing my original style Juxtapose Necklace with my new Fragmented Necklaces while I was sick. It stewed in my head the entire week!

Apparently I designed the fragmented pieces in the same form as my Juxtapose Necklaces because it was really easy to combine them! I finished about five before running out of wire. I’m hoping to photograph them tomorrow and have them in the shop by the end of this week. I’m excited!

Do you like the new pieces? Are there color combos you would like to see? Feedback is always welcome!!!

For now I will leave you with an Instagram photo I took of the work I finished this weekend. I feel very accomplished. I’m really excited about the colors I produced, they are a lot calmer. Plus if you look closely you’ll see there is some new designs in there that haven’t been updated on the site yet. I’m hoping to work on that this week!!

How was your weekend? Did you get anything done?

3D printed original, each necklace is two components, one a custom bezel and the other the piece that fits in. A mold was made of each of the designs and I then reproduced them all in a load of different colored plastic! Some earth toned, some bright and some neon!!

I expect to have the first three new designs up in the shop by the end of the weekend. I have 12 different colorways of two of the designs and three colorways of the little monster faces. They still don’t have a name… any suggestions?

several other designs will be debuted at the end of the month, I’m still waiting on the revised pieces to come in. I just couldn’t wait to show everyone!!!