School blocks

Hi!  Part two of my humongous post....

I placed the blocks in alphabetical order....

Painted and beadwork.

Appliqued and machine letters

Lots of people transfered images (mostly the flag) to the fabric we provided.  This is the first of many.

My daughter made this one!  I love how she painted the water and sewed on the beads as pearls.

This was painted.  

Transfered images

Transfered image

Painted

Transfered image

Lovely applique

My sweet son painted this one!

I made this one.  I love the coffeebean fabric I chose to spell out the name of the country! 

Painted

Appliqued

Sewn on. I had to sew on the fabric flowers as they started coming off!

Transfered image

Sewn on

Transfered image

This was the most creative piece and a big challenge for me!

Drawn

Painted

Cross-stitched

I think this was pre-made but then sewn on.

Silk and machine appliqued

I couldn't cut out Uki.  She is so darned cute and my biggest fan.  Or maybe I'm HER biggest fan!!  This beautiful block is hand painted with incredible use of embellishments!

This is definitely almost crazy patched!

Transfered image

Transfered image with sewn borders

Drawn

Painted

I believe it's appliqued and hand made flowers

Machine sewn

Transfered image

A beaded necklace sewn on.  This did not come back the size I needed so I had to add the black circular border.  I think it works!

Painted

Painted

Painted

Transfered image

This is sewn and has trapunto and there is applique.

Machine sewn

Hand painted by an upper class student

Trapunto, machine embroidery

Appliqued

Machine embroidered

Transfered image

Appliqued. My daughter penned in the name of the country and the little flower.

Ready made trim sewn on.  Painted name and a little pin Llama.

I made this and just used Sharpies.  This was the very last block that was included.  My daughter did the flowers, which is their national flower, and she did not like my colorful letters so went over it in black and then wrote my name.  Hmmmm....

Transfered image

Drawn

Painted

Painted

Appliqued

Painted

Painted

Two bracelets sewn on

Sewn

Hand painted on velvet!!!!!

Transfered image

looks like painted and or Sharpie'd

Glitter glue

Painted

Transfered image

Painted

I did this one!!  It's appliqued with Swarofski crystals for a little bling!!

Transfered image

Batik painted

Looks like a pre-printed piece and then appliqued name

I have to say, now that this project is over and permanently hanging at school: that I have learned a lot.  I've learned about myself; how to work with others; how to fix problem blocks in a diplomatic way and how to stay on a deadline.

I would like to thank all that were involved in this project!

A special shout out goes to Mala and her team in Dubai at Classic Quilts and Quilting for helping make this the beautiful quilt that it is!

Stay tuned for Part 3!

School Quilt 1

Hi!  Been away a LONG time!  I have been wanting to come back and post and every single photo I take; I take with my blog in mind!

Nonetheless....

I have been working on a school project with some other ladies.  Here is my story!

We have 68 nationalities in my kid's school.  Someone came up with the idea of commemorating our diversity and celebrating 25 years that this school is open with a QUILT.  Right up my alley!

I chose to make blocks for Colombia, my birth place and the USA, where I grew up and my heart resides!  

Here is a sneak peak of my Colombian block.  I chose to do the flag but did not want another flat image of it.  I tried to ruffle it up a bit!

I pulled the colors of the flag out of my stash.

I chose this dark coffeebean fabric, which you KNOW I love and am really pleased with how it turned out.

This is a bit bright and couldn't figure out how to make it more dull but I ruffled the strips.  In the Colombian flag; the yellow should be double the size of the blue and red.  I did cut it out as such but you really can't see that!

I did not extend the ruffles all the way to the right.  I thought I could finagle it later but in order to anchor the ruffle you have to sew a line down the center and then it was too late!

I zigzagged the letters on with cream thread.  I'm pleased.

I also made the USA block using left over stars and stripes fabric that I used on a previous project.

I pulled out my gun and put lots of Swarovski crystals on it!

My Ali made this block for China.  He used paints and drew it out himself.  The only thing I did was to write CHINA in English as he wrote it in Chinese.  Did you notice that Uki LOVES this block!  It has her 'paw' of approval!

My daughter made the Bahraini block.

She used gold paint for the face mask, ( NIQAB ), and glass beads for the pearls in the basket.  Love it!  It says BAHRAIN in Arabic above.  I can READ it now!

So, that is what we did.  I will post in another post the problem blocks and how I sorted them out.  I learned a lot from this experience indeed!

Thanks for stopping by!

The last several months...

 Beach in a new resort town called Siffa.  Very beautiful with great seafood from these waters!  That's my new crazy friend Hanadi.  Love this name!

Ali at his 13th birthday party with his Momma.

Ali's 13th birthday party with friends at the local bowling alley.

More photos of his party.  Check out the beady white eyes!!   F R E A K Y!!!

Ali wears other clothes, I promise.  He organized our home to be used for a going away party.  This is just some of the kids.  There were kids here I had never met.  The Asian girl standing next to him on his right is the gal that has left.

The kids checking out Lizzie our Tortoise of 10 years.

The cake Ali made and I decorated.

Cutting the cake.  I have NEVER seen a cake disappear as fast as this one did.

Amal being tested on her skill level by several of the musicians and the director on the right.  This was all leading up to her second performance.

Ah, there she is. YES!  She passed!

On the way to her second performance.  I still have to post the first one.  She is asleep as she is very tired and nervous.  We had professional makeup done.  She asked me for more 'grown up' as in 'smoky' eyes this time.  The first time the artist wanted to do the whole smoky thing and I said, 'SHE'S ONLY FIFTEEEEEN!!!'

So beautiful my baby girl.

Uh huh...

This is her with her new glasses!  This is also her teacher, the BEST OUD player in Oman!!  He will be performing this month at the Royal Opera House with the Macedonian Philharmonic!  We can't wait!  The Association was taking down names cuz you get a discount with 20 or more people and she put me down and I said, 'but I'm not a member' and she smiled and said, 'yes, you are, wink wink'.  I guess my winning smile and sunny disposition paid off!

Now they were playing together.

There is so much more but I need to get to bed as the Winter break finishes today.  School starts tomorrow and I can't wait to tell and show you all what I got myself into now!! Hmm... I just noticed this is a movie. Oh well!

Thanks for stopping by!

Rain In Muscat

Sometime back in either November or December we had some rain.  Not like, 'drip, drip' rain but pouring for hours rain!  I took some pics on the way to a 'certain place'.  Enjoy....

Oh, first of all, heehee, this is just a pic outside my studio window one fine day.  You can see in the distance that they are building a palace, yep, a PALACE very close to me!  Uber cool.

Traffic jammed up due to rain.  The orange and white car on the left is a local taxi cab.  There is no place for the water to go and we have 'wadi's' here or to my best understanding 'valley's' and they get flooded easily.

In the distance here you can see our new Royal Opera House.  I took the kids to see Swan Lake and it was amazing!

Not sure what I was shooting here.  I think Ali took this.

Yes, we have stop signs just like home in America!  See the water how muddy it is?

Uh oh, an accident,...ALREADY!!

Yep, the dudes are assessing the damage and seeing if they need to call the PoPo.

Water gushing down this hill...

Water escaping the grounds of a property through these holes in the walls.  Some houses are surrounded by tall walls to differentiate property lines?  Privacy?  All my neighbors know exactly what's going on in my home because the maids all gossip, yeah!!

Can you see the flow of the water?

Later that night my friend Karen and I went to see a movie.  Can't remember what we saw.  Bummer!

I asked some dude to take a pictures and the dipwad made it blurry.

Then I took this one myself.  I really like Karen's umbrella!

Thanks for stopping by.

Newest member of our family...

Welcome little Jo.  I will try my hardest not to call you a Rat as Ali gets upset with me!  You have come into our lives not only to stink up Ali's room but to give him a new little pet to love.  We hope your little black beady eye gets better real soon.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALI!

December, 2011