Winner

Hi All!  I was the winner of this cute Ruffles pattern from Pauline at Quilt N Queen!  She had a random drawing during the Ruffles blog hop and my comment was drawn.  Lucky me!

 

 

 

 

Here's the fun part.... Last week, I was working on this little hanging for my table stand.  I was putting on the finishing touches when I found out I had won the Ruffles pattern.  Guess where the cute snowman stitching came from? ...... Yup, Pauline at Quilt n Queen!  I won this snowman in September of 2013 from another of her blog hop giveaways and had not done anything with it until a couple of weeks ago.  I wanted to have it done earlier during the winter weather, but it continued to be put on the back burner for one reason or another.  I bordered it asymmetrically and will probably add some buttons on the left side... maybe some snowflakes.  

So here it is finished.... finally!  It's being displayed right now as we are expecting more snow tomorrow.  Like our last snowfall, this one will be short lived and won't require any shoveling. 

Thanks so much, Pauline, for both of these generous giveaways!  I'll be thinking about you while this cute snowman is making me smile!

Here's a peek of the quilt top that I just finished.  I need to find a place to take a full shot but thought I'd put a little tease up first.

 

This was a free pattern called "Trade Winds" that came from the Hoffman Fabrics web site.  I went back to give you a link and it is no longer available on their site for free.  I did Google it and it can be purchased in several places.  This must have been one of those patterns that was only free for a limited time.

 

Anyway, it was made from a batik jelly roll that my friend, Kathy, gave me a couple of years ago.  If you do track down the pattern, you will see that I changed many things, like adding sashing and corner blocks.  I did this because I had some distortion with all of the bias edges and wanted it to be true, flat, and square when finished.  It is. 

 

I'll blog more about it when I can get a decent picture.  It only has one border right now, but that may change to make it larger.  And, of course, now comes the hard part..... quilting it. 

 

 

My assistant is enjoying a rare moment of a clean, cleared off cutting mat.  Don't get too comfortable, Oliver!

It's been a rough winter.... Happy Spring!

 

The calendar says it's spring... let's hope that

Mother Nature is in agreement!

 

 

Here's block #10 in the Fat Quarter Shop Designer Mystery Block of the Month series.  Apparently, the last three blocks will be kind of flowery.  As usual, I just love their block patterns.  Always so unique and creative. 

 

I've also been working on a new quilt using a bright, batik jelly roll.  The blocks are all finished and I'm ready for the sashing and borders.  It will be nice to get this one completed, as I've had the jelly roll over two years.  It's far from my oldest UFO, but it will still feel wonderful to complete.  Phew....

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

 

May you find that pot of gold

in everyday blessings!

National Quilting Day

Happy National Quilting Day!

 

 

 

What did you do to celebrate the occasion?  I went to our 24th Annual Gathering of Quilters.  It's your typical quilt show with lots of quilts, lots of vendors, a catered lunch, and a keynote speaker.  This year, the speaker was Beth Ferrier of Applewood Farm Quilts.  She treated us with a humorous trunk show... lots of eye candy and some of her "true confessions."

 

I only took a few pictures of the quilts on display. If you click on them, you can get a better view.  (BTW, none of these are Beth's quilts.)  I'm a bat lover and this first quilt really grabbed my eye. 

 

This one was had the cutest little embroidery motifs all around each of the plain borders.  I just thought it was very clever and made a really simple quilt pattern stand out.  It would be perfect for mini charm packs.

In my opinion, this last one was the show stopper out of hundreds of quilts!  At first, from a distance, I thought it was an embellished quilt panel, but each item on the quilt is individually appliqued.  It was truly amazing and fun to read the book titles and just browse around the quilt.  She said the idea came from the wood grained fabric.  It was a great job, full of her special memories!

 

 

And if you can't get to a nearby quilt show, I hope you can grab some quality time with your sewing machine today!

I have been wanting to make an ironing pad to take with me when I go to a class or friend's house.  It seems like I always forget to unplug my iron and have to wait for it to cool a bit before packing it up.  With this little ironing mat, I can just wrap my iron and boogie.  I've seen the iron caddies, but this is more what I had in mind.

 

I bought some pre-quilted ironing fabric from Joann's.  In hindsight, I wish I would have bought the plain, silver material.  The problem came when I wanted to quilt the cat backing and didn't want to quilt through the already quilted fabric.

 

I ended up quilting the cat backing to some Insulbright and not through all of the layers.  I think this will be just fine and it makes a nice, thick surface.

 

 

Ironing side.

 

Pretty side.

 

 

Little by little, I'm getting some sewing room projects finished.

 

Today is yet another snow day.  I have shoveled three times today and I still have more to go.  I can only handle about 45 minutes at a time and then I'm just exhausted.  Maybe one more shovel session today and I'll be done.  And I'm hoping I'll be done for the season, but I've wished that before. ;-)

BOM

It's a record for me!  My Sew Lux Boms arrived today and I actually finished both of them and put them on the blog..... all in one day.  Yippee! 

 

Same block, two fabric collections.

 

 

 

 This block is OK but there is very little contrast. 

 

It's sure nice to be on track with this series!

I was happy to find that I had enough fabric left to make a matching cover for my extension table.  I wasn't in the mood to get too complicated, so I made a simple, fold over envelope pouch.  Its purpose is to keep the table from getting scratched and this will do the job well.  I only have small scraps left, but there could be a coupon keeper (or something like that) in the future.

 

Oliver managed to slip in a partial photo bomb. :)

 

Yesterday was a snow day and except for shoveling, I spent the day sewing.  We got pretty lucky with the snow, only about 5" and it was a bit powdery, making it lighter to shovel.  My back is grateful! 

 

My sewing machine needed a new cover and new mat for underneath the machine.  I have an extension table for my machine and my old table mat was too short for the extension table to sit on top of it.  Plus.... I just needed a change. 

 

 

 

 

 

There are eight pockets on the machine cover, six on the front and one on each end.  I like to have these little cubbies to store frequently used (and often lost) items, like my readers.

 

 

 

 

The table mat has six pockets.  Whenever I'm at a class or a friends home, besides using the pockets for sewing tools, I like to use one of the pockets as a thread catcher.  Sometimes a trash container can be hard to find or far away from where you are sewing.  This lets me be neat and not have to leave my seat.

 

This is a close up of the fabric.  It's that double sided, pre-quilted fabric.  I really loved this when I saw it and that's what inspired me to make the new cover and mat.  I found this fabric at Joann's and went back to get some more a few days after I bought it.  It was all gone!  The lady said the bolt sold out in less than a week.  They are expecting more, but you never know if that will happen or not.  I have a little bit left over and may see if I can eke out a bag to hold the extension table when it's not on the machine. 

 

And one last thing.... the binding on the cover and mat is a hot, bright pink.  These pictures (on my monitor) look really washed out.  It's nice and vibrant and really screams "happy" to me!

 

A couple of weeks ago (maybe not quite that long) Good Morning America had a Steal & Deal that was for a fleece photo quilt.  You go to the site.... Collage.com .... upload your photos, arrange them, resize them, whatever you want.... and they print it out on a dense fleece.  There are many different products to choose from, this just happened to be the "deal" that day.  Oh, this throw is 50" x 60."

 

 

 

Overall, I was pleased with the final product.  The photos seem a bit darker than they were on my monitor and the whole quilt is printed a bit off center.  The photos remained pretty crisp, in spite of being printed on fleece.  You can't see it in this picture, but the lower left border is only about an inch, while the other borders are two inches.  I can tell that the fabric wasn't fed evenly into their printer or it shifted toward the end of the printing.  Still though, I thought it turned out pretty nice and will be a sweet keepsake to honor Oliver and Gracie.

Oliver Wins His First Giveaway!

It's true!...... Well, kind of......

 

Debby had a generous fabric giveaway on February 22nd, Washington's birthday, featuring some great George Washington fabric.  We were just asked to leave a comment telling her what we would make with the fabric, etc.  Well, Oliver's birthday is also February 22nd and because of this, his middle name is Washington.  I told Debby this, and we were picked to get a piece of this GW fabric.  I'm planning to make a small wall hanging with GW in the center and add some kind of border.  We'll see.

 

 

 

I have to give Oliver the credit for this giveaway since it was his birthday that made him a winner!  Thanks Ollie, and of course, thanks to Debby!