Scrap block embellished! Solar hot water!

Whew! I thought I wouldn't finish embellishing my scrap block for the challenge on the CQ International listserv - but I did. All the embellishments are thread embroidery to maintain an old-fashioned look and to keep it flat to use as a table cloth. The block is 12 inches square and will have wide borders to make the cloth 24" square.

I just signed a contract for installation of a solar water heater. Turns out my roof is very good for collecting solar energy and the panels won't show from the front of the house. The system uses my current water heater for storage and backup heat. Hay, everybody, this is the time to invest in this. The federal, state (Maryland) and county incentives together reduce the price by about 84% for my system (40 gallons a day usage). Bye-bye to a big chunk of natural gas use from my budget and CO2 footprint.

Family visit, new blocks, and capturing rocks in thread

My sister, aunt, son, daughter-in-law, daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter all visited for the Cherry Blossom Festival! I live in suburban Washington, DC. I had to put some of them up in a motel, but the visit was wonderful and so were the cherry blossoms. We toured the Smithsonian museums, rode the tour trolley, toured the National Cathedral,ate lunch in it's garden and made an auto excursion to Leesburg, Virginia. My 84 year-old aunt and 5 1/2 year-old grandaughter both kept up with all the walking. In Leesburg, besides lunch, we visited a thrift shop and a couple of antique stores. I bought a beautiful scarf in the thrift shop that I expected to cut up for crazy quilting, but I don't know. It may serve as a table cover instead, at least until I need a piece from it to exactly fit a crazy quilt block. It's 54 inches square.

Before the visit from my family, I made two crazy quilt blocks in greens. The first was in preparation for a workshop by Allison Aller at my embroidery guild, Constellation Chapter, EGA. She is giving two workshops, one on curved piecing of crazy quilts and the second on floral embellishment. I'm taking only the second so I made a block with curved piecing to be used there. The second is a donation block in support of breast cancer research for auction at the annual Crazy Quilt Seminar in Omaha, Nebraska.

My friend Susan reported on her blog about her trip to New York City's Central Park. She speculated on how to translate the many rock formations there into needlework. Well, I tried. My daughter, when she lived in Manhattan, was a rock climber. I took some pictures of her climbing with a friend in Central Park. In my first crazy quilt I translated one of those pictures onto a block representing her interests. I can't say I was satisfied with the result, but here's a picture as a challange for you to surpass.