Crazy Quilt

I bought this book , Fabric Embellishing: The Basics and Beyond by Ruth Chandler, Liz Kettle, Heather Thomas and Lauren Vlcek, a few months ago.

 It is a wonderful book for anyone who likes to make crazy quilts. In it, the authors write about an amazing number of embellishment methods: to name a few, beading, couching, needle felting, and weaving.

One of the chapters is about "deconstructed" crazy quilting. Each block is made of a variety of fabrics placed on fusible stabilizer in a random pattern of fabrics. The example in the book looks very geometric, with squares and rectangles.

I am going to try this method on my stash of construction fabrics. I have rinsed the fabric out and am now drying it. I hope to iron and cut it tomorrow and start the deconstructed crazy quilt this weekend. I can't wait - such fun... I just love new projects!

Train Class

Thursday night we went to model train class in Wallingford, CT. It was amazing to find out the amount of  information we do not know. We listened to four teachers, each of whom has been modelling for years, for two hours. I learned about the differences between product magazines and how-to magazines, between weathered and un-weathered cars, between freight and passenger trains, and between different scales and sizes of models. I was overwhelmed with information, and we have five more classes to go!

For fun today, Bill and I went to Yankee Candle store in Deerfield, MA. It is one of my favorite stores. In addition to candles of every conceivable size and scent, they carry books, home goods, Department 56, and trains. They actually have trains going around the walls near the ceilings! We usually wait until the fall to go there, making a day of shopping and having lunch; but today we wanted to see the trains!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/Yankee_candle_shop_flagship_outside.jpg
Slovakjoe at en.wikipedia [CC-BY-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], from Wikimedia Commons