Anyone have a baby girl / granddaughter on the way?

I couldn't believe when I saw this...usually $270, the Denyse Shmidt baby crib set - quilt, bumpers and pillow sham - in pink "no strings attached" design is on clearance, only $50.  Makes me wish I had a baby girl to buy for!!

I am finishing up my FMQ of the Unwind / Stitch in Color quilt tonight.  During breaks I've been playing with some Circle of Flying Geese paper pieced blocks, working with some color ideas and a small wandering swirl of geese on the back...pics of that soon.  If it comes out like I envision it, it will be fantastic!  I've been working on a few other things too and I'll try to update on those tomorrow if possible.  Until then, here is a look at my first item done as part of the Atlanta Modern Quilt Guild.  It's the first of a 4 block BOM, called Shooting Star.  I had a lot of fun making it. The fabrics are from the Habitat line by Jay McCarroll , donated by Free Spirit Fabrics.  They feel lovely and soft. The background is Kona, I think it's either Sand or Natural...can't remember which.  The block itself was easy and went together well.  The tutorial for it was very well written!  I can see this as a part of a cool star quilt, can't you?

Hopefully I'll be back soon with the finished Unwind / Stitch in Color quilt :)

Have I mentioned how much I love these??

    I finished my Almost Harry, Almost Hermione and Almost Ron pillows last night...just minutes before it was time to wrap them and give them to my daughter for her 11th birthday celebration.  She loved them.  And I love them, too...I'm so excited with how well they turned out.  It was SO much better than Id' even hoped!

 Almost Harry ...oh!  I learned a new embroidery stitch to do his glasses and scar!!  It's called the Whipped Running Stitch (it's the second one from the top on that link).  It was really fast and easy, and it looks so nice and smooth.  I'll never use any other line stitch again, lol.

 Almost Hermione

And the last one, my sweet ginger Almost Ron. 

I added a lining of Bella Snow to all of them, and a hidden zipper in the bottoms...see?

And finally, one last peek at what I'm doing for the rest of the day...

And off I go!!  I'll see you when it's quilted ;)

Any ideas?

I'm pinning this up tonight, and will be quilting it this weekend, because it has to be to Intown Quilters down in Atlanta before the 26th. I'm sort of stuck on how to quilt it, though.  Any ideas?

And the Winners are...

I used Random.org to draw the numbers for the Fugly Fabric Party drawing.  There were three FQ sets to give away, and the winners are: 15, 61, 26.  I All three preferred the Mendocino, so I had to throw the three numbers in a hat and have my co-worker (who has zero interest in quilting OR fabric, so was totally unbiased, lol) draw the Dancing Bugs name from a hat (well, okay, it was a styrofoam drink cup..no one had a hat).  So, the Dancing Bugs fabric goes to:

Number 15 was Paskiaq  of Sew Easy Pleasy. her new follower post was actually #15, but on her previous comment she recommended In Color Order and Oh, Fransson as good sites for my friends to try in their quest for newbie quilting lessons.  I agree, those are both fantastic sites!

1.  PaskiaqFeb 9, 2012 05:23 AM

2. new follower :)

Next was #61 - Melissa  from Happy Quilting!  She recommended the tutorials she has on her site - which is funny because hers is one of the sites that I recommended off the top of my head when they first asked me about them.  She wins the first set of Mendocino FQ's :)

1. 

2. Melissa @ Happy QuiltingFeb 11, 2012 01:37 PM

   I am a new follower :)

And the final number was #26, Stephmabry of Hope Sewing is Genetic... she had some good recommendations and wins the second set of Mendocino FQ's.

stephmabryFeb 9, 2012 09:07 AM

For quilting and sewing tutorials that end up with useful items at the end (because you can only use so many mug rugs and the like!), I definitely recommend the following sites:
www.stitchedincolor.com
www.danamadeit.com
and
www.ohfransson.com/oh_fransson/
Lots of great pictures and clear explanations, and definitely some of the sites that helped me out when I started sewing about 18 months ago! :) Thanks for the chance to win!

I'll be emailing each of you today to get your shipping information.  Congratulations, and thanks so much for visiting!

Status update...

Oh my gosh, these could not be turning out any better!!  Look at Almost Harry, Almost Ron and Almost Hermione!!!  They are 16" square, and will be pillows for my daughter's birthday Thursday.

All I have to do is a tiny bit of detail embroidery and sew the back on...I'm so happy with these.  Also put together a little signature block for February's Wonky Bee here

and finally, I finished my Pineapple blocks and the signature block for my February Stash Bee

That's it for the evening's progress - I'll be back tomorrow with the name of the Fugly Fabric winners!

Still Stitching in Color...

          I got SO much done this weekend.  I don't even mind going back to work tomor - er, well, let's just leave it at 'I got a lot done'.

          I started out Saturday morning with some yummy banana-nut and blueberry muffins and a stack of quilt blocks.  My daughter (who will be 11 on Thursday) whipped up a little breakfast for everyone.  It really doesn't get much better than this!

          I really liked using the Lazy Angle ruler.  It was quick and easy to use, and I'll be using it again soon on another pattern that I bought last month.  I did find out that you have to use a REALLY scant 1/4" seam when sewing the colored strips together.  I had to do some tricky sewing to get all the seams to line up.  But I'm so happy with the top.

          My mom was my quilt holder for this one, but she'd only do it if I promised not to show any part of her, lol.  I'm hoping she won't notice the 4 fingers on the left ;)  After the top, I pieced some of the leftover scraps for the back and then set them aside so I could get a couple other projects finished.  

          First up was these cute Valentine tea bags.  I used my favorite fruit teas and made little heart bags out of muslin and embroidery floss.  I'm going to send them to my son and his girlfriend along with some other V-day gifts.  All I have left to do is the tags.  I want to draw a little heart on them with a red sharpie.  What do you think?

          After that I worked on the February bee block for the Wonky Bee.  Jodi asked for some wonky strip blocks using strips she sent, plus some brights of our own..  I might have used some of these

          I made two of them.

          My next project was Valentine's cards for my two youngest to give their classmates.  I cut out some hearts from my red scrap bin, and I cut up some heavy watercolor paper to make the cards.

          Then I free-motion quilted/sewed the hearts to the cards.

          They are just plain cards...not the folded kinds that you open.  I figure they can write the To/From stuff at the tops, and I bought a couple of bags of Reese's heart candies so they can tape a piece to the bottom of each one.

           To round the night off, I put together my February Stash Bee blocks.  Samantha asked for Pineapple blocks made with blacks and reds.  I've never tried a Pineapple block before.  I was pleased with the way they look.  But they are very time intensive so a quilt made out of them would have to be one of those where you make a few blocks here and there til you have enough.  I thought that made it a GREAT choice for a bee quilt!!  I made 2 blocks, each different.  I'll post a pic tomorrow when the light is better.

           Happy Monday!

          

  

          

                   

Ain't no party like a Fugly party...

    Wow, have you been over to the Fugly Party being thrown by Lucy from Charm About You ??  A whole bunch of people are giving their fugly stash pieces away.  Fugly can mean ugly, or it can just mean something that you know you'll never use for one reason or another.  And beauty is in the eye of the beholder, right?  Their fugly might be your favorite new quilt fabric!

    I'm giving away a little bit of both...some I think is ugly, some I'll just never use.  I have 3 packages of fabric all together, which I'll ship to anyone in the US for free, or internationally if you are willing to pay the postage with Paypal (sorry!).

   Package #1 is the ugly.  A set of two FQ's of Dancing Bugs 3, by Juan David Cordona.  Even the name is weird, since there isn't a bug in sight, hahaha...just lots of fun music-y stuff:  I was going to use if in a quilt for my daughter, but now I just don't know what I was thinking.  I get too excited in quilt shops, I think.  It's unsafe.  For my wallet.

     Packages #2 and #3 will be identical.  Each is a set of 2 FQ's from the popular (and out of print) Mendocino line by Heather Ross.  The one on the top is Giant Octopi in Orange, and the one on the bottom is Kelp Forest in Blush.  I bought this back when I thought I needed a yard of each fabric to make anything.  I've since grown to realize that the pillows I wanted to make for my niece's birthday (last March, oops!) will be even better with a little of both and some pretty linen to pull it all together ;)  Anyways, these are out of print, and still pretty popular I think so I hope someone wants them, lol

     There are two ways to become the new owner of this fabric:
                    1.  Leave me a comment telling me what site or blog you think has the best tutorials for a complete beginner to quilting.  I have a 2 dear friends who are going to take the plunge and they've asked me where they should go to learn.  I don't know offhand, so maybe one of you can tell me!  If you don't know of one, that's okay, just say hi, or tell me about your favorite super easy tutorial, or just leave an emoticon ;)

                    2. You can get a second chance by becoming a follower of my blog (or if you already follow, just mention that in a comment).  My blog is new, and I'd love to have more followers.  I might stop feeling like I'm just talking to myself!

    Oh, and don't forget to stop by Charm About You and see all the other great stuff people are giving away.

      My giveaway will close at 12:00 noon (EST) on Tuesday, Feb. 14th  (which also happens to be the 30th anniversary of my first date with my husband...awwwww).  Good luck!!!
               
    **UPDATED - This giveaway is closed.  For the post listing the names of the winners click here.  Thanks again to all who visited and entered!!!

Stitching in Color...

I had a terrific weekend. I just wish it would last another 90 days or so ;) It started out Saturday morning with a drive down to Atlanta for the Atlanta Modern Quilt Guild meeting. My new friend Cindy, from Spin the Bobbin, told me about it so I went to check it out. It was really fun! A lot of very nice women meeting to talk about their projects, charity projects, etc...plus an interesting speaker, Rashida Coleman-Hale from I Heart Linen. She has a fantastic book (Zakki Style) and the most gorgeous fabric line (Washi, below...don't you LOVE it??) - and she shared a little about how she got started in all that, how it works in her day to day life, etc. She was sweet and self-effacing, and I really enjoyed her talk.

After the meeting (I joined up!) I did a little shopping at the shop where the meeting was held - Intown Quilters. They are having a special challenge getting ready for the Atlanta area Shop Hop coming up this spring. They want quilts to 'show' for their County Fair theme. So if you buy fabric from a current line and a pattern then bring it in to them by Feb. 26th so they can 'show' it, you get a gift certificate for 100% of your purchase. So, free quilts! I got a pattern called Unwind and 1/6 of a yard of 18 different fabrics from the A Stitch in Color line. I also picked up the Lazy Angle ruler that I've been wanting (yay!!!)...

I picked a pattern that uses it, because I have another couple of patterns that call for it so I know I'll be able to use it a lot. And I was able to cut carefully so I can get 2 sets of the 36 blocks needed to make a baby sized quilt from it. I could do 1 youth sized quilt with the 72 blocks but I only bought enough of the coordinating fabric for the back/binding of a baby size. Maybe I'll save the extra blocks and buy enough fabric with the gift certificate to make enough more for a larger size. Although I was pretty set on getting some of that yummy Washi. Hmmmm. Maybe 2 baby quilts will be fine, lol.

Aren't the colors pretty?????? It's so bright and happy!

I also bought some fabric to make a birthday surprise for my daughter's birthday. These three Harry Potter pillows by the flipping genius who owns this etsy shop

Of course, I couldn't buy plain fabric for it, I had to get some with at least a little bit of a print in i5, lol. I'm going to copy her beautiful creations ... hope she doesn't mind. Imitation IS the most sincere form of flattery, right? But you should definitely go over and buy a set from her, okay?

Finally, I have some fat quarters to show you, but forgot to get a photo. They are from the ATL MQG - a challenge with a really cute block called Shooting Stars. I'll bring it next time. I think I'll have my new charm pack by then too - the one I won from April at Kool Beanz. I got an email from Stephanie at The Fat Quarter Shop letting me know that my order had shipped out. I had to write her back to tell her what a shock it gave me...I told her it was a progression from confusion wondering what I'd ordered, then fear that I'd ordered something and didnt' remember it, then terror that I'd begun fabric shopping in my sleep, and finally relief when I remembered it Kol Beanz giveaway! Added zing to my work day, lol.

Okay, off to bed now...see you soon, with pics!

Giveaway over at Linda's Quiltmania...

Linda over at Linda's Quiltmania is having a nice giveaway -a Balipop (think Jelly Roll meets Batiks) ll in shades of pink...can you say baby quilt? :D I'm going to win it, but if you want to make a futile effort to beat me out, or to win her consolation prize of 3 FQ, just click here to go sign up, lol.

Good luck!

A couple of finishes...

Well, after my disastrous first attempt at a tree block for Sunni, I still had to think of a second one for her. So I took some inspiration from the movie my kids have been talking about non-stop for the last several weeks...The Lorax!!! So here are Sunni's Truffula Trees. I really hope she likes them!

I made a little signature block for her, too. There were several ideas posted on the Stash Bee blog, but my printer wasn't working so I just drew it out freehand and then paper pieced it. I like how it came out, with the little heart <3

And one more finish. I has SUCH a good time making this block for Georgia in the Wonky Bee. It's called Wonky Triangles, and it was so quick and easy to put together. I really think her quilt is going to be fantastic when she gets it all finished. I think they look like sailboats. It's a big block, and all of them put together will look so cool. This pic here is after I did the triangles, but before I pieced it together. I forgot to take another one after I was done.

Everything is off in the mail and good thing because I have to get started on February's, hahahahaha. Can't wait! Although I'm a little nervous about the new Bejeebers Block. I have to make a board game block, lol!!!!