Hazel, Yoko and Anne

First Hazel

I worked on my Hazel project this past weekend.  I had sewn sashing on a couple of the blocks and didn't like it.  Backtracked and picked a completely different material instead.
Here's what I had chosen.  It was an old sheet I found at a second hand store...very strong material with an old fashioned look to the motif - red roses; I thought at the time it would be perfect worked into this vintage quilt project somehow.

But when I sewed it on, it just seemed to wash out all the colour of the embroidery instead of enhancing it as I'd hoped.  The whole block looked rather blah.

After trying a few different prints, here's what I found that seemed to have the effect that I wanted.

Hard to tell from these photos but this is a dark cherry red, not at all orange as it is showing.  I can't believe how it is bringing out the colours in the embroidery.  The small blue and white flowers echo the worked flowers nicely.  I am setting the squares on point so it took a day to measure and cut the triangles for the corners and get them all sewn.

 

Then Yoko

 I've also settled on a border for these blocks after being influenced by a project in this book...

This is 120 Original Embroidery Designs by Yoko Saito and I just love it.  This is the library copy and I was hoping for a Black Friday deal on Amazon to get my own copy but not this time.  It is a wonderful resource for the quilter offering up Yoko's unique style in a wide range of projects incorporating embroidery and quilting.  Yoko, as many of you know, is famous for her use of taupe and her appliqued houses.
Anyway more about the border later when I have a side finished to show you. I'm picking up on that blue in the sashing.

And Lastly Anne

This is one of the books I just finished reading.  Grace (Eventually) by Anne Lamott.  Anne is known for writing non-fiction of the personal, story-telling kind.  She talks a lot about her weight issues and trying to gain control over appetite.  Anne is also well known for some of her sayings like this one, "You can get the monkey off your back, but the circus never leaves town."