Crooked Gulley Art Quilts

Earlier this fall my DH and I were in the NC mountains, and adventured into Burnsville to find Needle Me This , a quilt store that had been featured in a quilt magazine. The entire shop was wonderful, but the entrance was spectacular. Right beside the front door is a beautiful painted 3'x3' quilt square, typical of what you see on barns in the NC mountains. I fell in love with that quilt block and knew that I wanted to do a smaller version of it with slightly different colors.  Here is the beautiful quilt block at Needle Me This. I am staying in the same color range, however I am not using the white and light blue. On those points I am using the light and dark gold.... And then where you see the golds in the picture I am changing that to the light and dark greens. My quilt block will be 2'x2', and our house numbers will be displayed in the center diamond. So, here is what I have to this point... Yes, I'm painting in the kitchen... on the granite counter-top......

So Dick, my DH, comes home from golf... (which means he left 4+ hours ago)... looks at me and informs me I'm still in my PJs at 2:00 in the afternoon.  I of course tell him that I'm dressed..(I've even pulled on a pair of shorts). But he won't accept that! It seems I'm still in the t-shirt I slept in.  Now here's the part I like... if you pull on a bra, technically you could go outside, so technically you're dressed... Right??? I've even brushed my teeth, had coffee, cleaned the kitchen... Hey! I'm more creative in a comfy t-shirt! Miss Puny Puss, my quilting buddy, is quite content with my appearance. I've got a plan... someday soon Mr. Dick is going to come home from golf and I'm going to be dressed in that cute little black dress, cute black strappy sandals, dangly earrings, make-up, the whole nine yards! This will by my attire for the quilting studio! Who on earth am I kidding? I'm sticking to the comfy t-shirt and pull on pants! We...

I needed to write several thank you cards to friends. I decided to send them each a quilted postcard. I fused a fabric Christmas ornament onto a crazy quilted background and then started having some fun... Using free motion quilting, I stitched in some pine boughs. However, here's the kicker... I used a double needle!!!! How do you like that?! What a fun discovery. I used two different colors of green and went to town with a back and forth motion. It was easy to do and I love the effect. On one of the postcards I stitched in the branch with a variegated brown/black polyester thread. On the other card I just drew in the branch. Do you see the difference? I also discovered that by going side to side with a double needle I got one thick line of the two colors. Just curving slightly gave another effect. For the back of the card I fused muslin and wonder under together. I then trimmed the edges to 8.5" X 11" and ran it through my printer to get the tiny label at the botto...