crazy'boutquilts

You know the saying 'even the best laid plans..'?  Well that was my day! ;-)  I did get a few stitches sewn on the vines in this topper.   But the majority of today was spent...



cookie making! DS aka my cookie monster wanted to make some cookies and so we teamed up and made 14 dozen! Hopefully there will be some left for him to take back to school. lol

Thanks Terry,  Lindsay,  Sharon,  and Linda for sewing with me today! :-) I am headed to my chair to work on the vines some more. :-)

Until next time~
Happy stitchin'!!

Is anyone sewing today?  It's a free-sew day, so whatever you are working on; Thimbleberries or not~ let me know so we can visit! :-)

Happy last Wednesday of 2010!!

I'll be back~~ ;-)

I wasn't sure I'd get it together~ but I sewed today!! :-) This Prairie Point Tree was designed by Cara and was a project at the Moda Bake Shop. Sinta and Sherri picked it as our December Le Petite project.




I made mine small. And purposely didn't use any holiday fabric so I could keep it up through the winter. Hopefully I will get it quilted this week yet, but just in case~ my top is done! :-) I had a couple cardinal buttons that I'll add when its quilted.

Thanks for stopping by~
Hope you have a wonderful New Year!

~is this Wednesday!  Do you have something to work on? It can be a pattern using Thimbleberries fabrics, or a Thimbleberries pattern using fabrics of your choice. Please let me know if you will be sewing so I can come and visit! :-)

I will be working on this darling wall hanging~

Patty @ momloves2quilt had a giveaway a while back and when I saw these Thimbleberries goodies I got my name in her hat! And I won! :-) Thank you so much Patty! I think it was destiny that these came to play with me as I have the book the wall hanging came from~ and I even had a marker in the spot! It was on my to-do list. :-) You've gotten me over halfway there!

I hope you all had a joyous Christmas! We sure did! Thanks for all your comments on my new 'baby'~ I haven't figured out a name yet, but I'm sure I will. ;-)

Hope I see you Wednesday!
Have a happy week!

Thank you to all my wonderful followers and friends for a year of fun! I appreciate your visits and comments more than you could ever imagine!  My wish for each of you is happiness, health and many blessings. Merry Christmas!

Santa knew he would be really busy tonight, so he stopped by a little early to my cottage. :-)  And this is what he left!!~~

WOW! I must've been better than I thought I was! LOL  :-))

Actually, I had been dreaming of my own longarm for years, and DH was planning to surprise me~ but I didn't think it would happen until maybe next year. Yup, 30 years and he can still surprise me! :-))  I've already done a little test run on a table runner and I love it! It is going to be so wonderful to be able to quilt at home and not have to plan time to rent at the LQS. :-) I'm on cloud 9!

Until next time~
Merry Christmas!!

Two of my favorite things! :-)

I am hosting a swap on the HGTV Quilting and Needlework message board for 10.5 inch  fabric squares. If you've never been to the message board go HERE.  You have to join/log in to see the photo's, but it is well worth your time. The ladies make amazing quilts and are a very friendly, helpful bunch. :-)


If any of my blog readers would like to join us, just let me know and I'll email the guidelines to you. :-)

Until next time~ Have a happy day!

It's here! :-) I won this book in a giveaway QuiltSue had last month. I've never received mail from the UK and wondered how long it would take to get to the western US. Wonder no more! It's here!  :-))  And sweet Sue included a few extra's!  I love the Snap Happy bag she made!  And chocolate treats! ;-))


Thank you so much Sue!
{{hugs}}

Thank you for all your lovely comments! :-)

Hubby just drew for me before heading out~ and out of the hat~~~

He drew Quilt Hollow!!  Congratulations!!!

Thanks everyone for participating!~ I have a few more giveaways planned after the holidays!

Have a happy day!!

Hi everyone! Sorry I have been a bad blogger of late~ I've been visiting, just didn't have a lot to talk about here. Well, now I have a lot to talk about! lol

I finished my Charming Girls Club goals for the past 2 months. One was to do Butter Churn~ pattern by Sherri K. Falls and the November Le Petite project.

Another goal was to corral battings and backings to rent the HQ at my LQS. And I'm happy to report I got everything quilted and bound(!) that I had hoped to do! :-) This is the BOM we did on the HGTV quilter's message board. My friend Lindsay and I picked the blocks from various internet sites and presented them to the board members to do each month. I also used EQ to downsize the 12 inch block to a 4 inch one. I made the layout in EQ7, got my blocks together and took it to quilt last week. I used an all over panto called 'Featheration' by Meredith England.  I used 80/20 batting because I wanted the crinkle look. ;-) I'm really happy with how it turned out. :-)

If you are still with me~ I had this book in my stash and as I was unpacking I realized, it has very cute and quick projects in it, but isn't really my style. If you'd like to have it, just leave me a comment telling me so. If you really, really want it, and are a follower; tell me that in a second comment. This will be a short giveaway~ I'm headed to the PO Tuesday and would get it mailed to you then. So I'll draw Monday afternoon.  Good luck!




Happy Stitchin'!

It's Holly Jolly Bingo time!  Oh yes!  :-))
The gals at The Quilt Shoppe are going to host this fun game again this year.
I'm excited!  Hope you join in the fun too! Click the button on my sidebar to go right to their site~~

Have a happy day!

~ you can find me here. ;-)

Have a happy day!

The mailman pulls up to the house and rings the bell~ DH says 'what did you order?' And I could honestly say 'huh?' ~that's my response before I know I'm totally innocent. lol  And I was! Totally innocent, I mean! :-))  My Charming Girls Secret Santa gift arrived! ~~and you know, I was so busy making the gift for my Secret Santa that I totally forgot about the part where I'd receive a gift too! :-o  And look at my wonderful gift!!

It was wrapped so beautifully!  And she made the adorable cardinal card too! How did she know I love cardinals too? :-)  AKK! So sorry blogger tipped my photo! :-/ But it really is cute from any direction. :-))

And inside I found this fantastic log cabin table topper! It fits me to a T! And speaking of T's~ it has my favorite Thimbleberries fabrics in there!! Wow! She also sent this wonderful Holy Family decoration and chocolate! Oh boy!! Does she know me or what?! lol

Thank you so much Sharon! I'll bet your grandchildren love visiting Camp Gramma! (that's Sharon's blog, and if you haven't been, you need to!)

Thanks to all of you for stopping by in the last few weeks too. Things are calming down a bit and I plan to get back to more regular blogging. Sorry I didn't get a chance to answer your comments personally, I really appreciated each of them and plan to try to keep up a bit better in the future!


Have a great night!

Yep, its that time of the year and it seems like it just gets busier and busier! DS had a harrowing ride home from school for break which involved an accident. He & his friends are fine, his nose was broken but is healing well. We've had ice and more ice! Last night our power went out for a few hours. And ~the joys of home ownership!~ we have had more large limbs come down. :-/ But the good news is~ no damage to the house or cottage. And the kids are all ok. Whew!

Did you notice the little button in my sidebar? Yep! I won an issue of 100 Quilt Blocks from Quiltmaker! Maybe our luck is turning! :-)

Today I mailed out my Secret Santa gift for the Charming Girls Club~ I hope she likes it!! I had a bit of a hard time parting with it. LOL  ;-)

And I finished my Le Petite project for this month~ I'll quilt it next month. It is Sherri K. Falls Butter Churn pattern from This and That Pattern Co. I didn't do my borders like the pattern because I decided to make a table topper from the Park Ave layer cake I had left after making my Plan C quilt. Using up the bits and strips worked really well.

That's it from here! I hope y'all have a wonderful Thanksgiving filled with food and family fun!

'Gobble til you Wobble'! LOL :-)

We had a great wind last night and my plans of sewing today were interrupted. :-/  The cable was out until just a few minutes ago, but the power stayed on~ yay!  BUT~






We lost a pine tree.  We were lucky it didn't damage the roof of the cottage, just the rain gutter got crinkled .  DH and I spent all morning picking up branches and we trimmed this so it is off the roof now~ but there is much more work to be done. I guess you know where I'll be~~

 Stitch a stitch for me! ;-)

Have you heard about SewCalGal's Christmas Quilt Show? It is very inspiring! Hop on over and look at all the gorgeous entries!

I had a hard time deciding which quilt to enter~ not because I have so many Christmas quilts! :-o  I don't ( I'm working on that) ;-) but because the ones I do have all have special meanings to me. I decided to show you this one. (and blogger tipped my photo! :-( boo! ) This lap quilt started out as a swap for 6.5 inch squares of snowmen fabric. Then I used all my snowflake prints to make the nine patch blocks. It was fun to see all the different snowman fabrics while swapping with my friends~ I'd not seen even half of them in the shops near me! I made it about 6 years ago and it is a family favorite for snuggling and watching TV. It reminds me of a great swap, great quilting friends, and happy days stitching.



Thanks for stopping by! Now don't forget to go see all the quilts in the show!

Whoohoo! I just love renting the longarm at my LQS and getting things quilted! No, I don't have all the bindings on the things I did last week, but I am making progress! And now I can add these to the 'needs binding' pile. :-)

Wall hanging from Nancy Halvorsen's 'I Believe' book

Christmas toppers and another N. Halvorsen pattern

'Maple Mumbo' topper and autumn mini

Fig Tree Club table topper

One of these things is for my Charming Girls Club Secret Santa~ which do you think she'd like? :-)
That's all for now~
Have a great weekend!

Do you piece batting? I do for wall hangings and things that won't be washed too often. It's easy to do and it has always held up nicely for me. This wide zig-zag stitch on my sewing machine does a good job of holding the pieces together and is pretty invisible ~ can you see it right above my signature? Once it is quilted into something, I don't even know it is there. :-) 


I need to thank a couple fellow blogging friends for their generosity~
Karen at Quilts... etc had a wonderful giveaway last month and I was the lucky winner.  She had these patterns and fabrics from a couple of her recent projects. She also had a pair of Christmas socks tucked in her pkg, but I put them away before my DD spotted them. LOL Karen does amazing hand work, stop by and see what she is up to. Thanks Karen!!


Also Vicky at LA Quilter had a great giveaway of this book and fabric kit and I had to pinch myself when she wrote that her cute pup Penny picked my name!  I was so surprised! {{hugs}} to Penny! lol And Vicky too! She was so generous that she included a little extra for the backing fabric! :-o  I have always wanted to do more applique but have been intimidated but after reading Karen's patterns and Vicky's book, I am ready to go! I purchased a bunch of fusible this weekend and my Dad made me a really nice light table for my birthday one year, so I see some evenings spent tracing in my future!  Once I master fusible applique, maybe I'll be ready for hand applique! :-o  But don't hold me to that yet! ;-)


That's all for now~


Have a great day and make a little time to sew! ;-)

My design wall is bare, I just finished this one up and will be taking it to quilt later in the week. It is the second project from the Fig Tree club this year. Yep, I'm behind, but that's ok because I have been enjoying the sewing time! :-)  To see lots of inspiration and lovely works, visit Judy L's Patchwork Times.

On another note~ have you ever seen one of these? My friend sent it to me~ it is a house blessing box.  She explained that it is a German tradition and inside there is a small piece of bread, a little bag of salt, a coin and a religious medal because according to the German saying all man needs to live is God's blessing (the medal), bread, salt and a bit of money.  My friend doesn't blog, but if she did you would see she is a master cross stitcher and hand quilter. I am indeed blessed.


Until next time~
Happy stitchin'!

Since I never actually posted my accomplishments for Sept and October, I'd thought I'd do that in this post too.  My biggest goals were~
1. Get the Schnibble Paganini made for Le Petite club
2. Unpack boxes :-/
I don't know why, but the Schnibble top went together quite quickly~ the boxes languished. lol :-)  I've emptied quite a few, but there are still too many left~ I've run out of room and need to decide what to give away and what to keep... and where to put it! :-/  Truthfully, I'd rather be sewing! ;-)

Now for goals for November and December~
1. Get some things quilted and bound.
2. Get the new Le Petite pattern made~ its a cutie!
3. Get ready for the holidays.. the shopping, the sewing, the decorating (I guess those last boxes will get finished up after all! ;-)  

And I'm real happy to report that half of goal one is done! :-) I went quilting for the last 2 days at the LQS and got a lot of things quilted!~

Plan C from Schnibbles Times Two in Park Ave

Fig Tree Club lap quilt

Imagine from Schnibble Times Two book in Gypsy Rose

I can't think of the name of this Schnibble :-/ and an autumn table runner

Paganini

Sorry the photo's are a little blue~ I tried to lay them out on the lawn so I'd have enough room and it was starting to get dark out. ;-/

Until next time~
Happy Stitchin'!

Well, my 'design wall' is the back of the love seat today. :-) I know this photo doesn't look like much but it is 2 large quilt tops, backing and batting, one lap size, 2 Schnibbles, and a table topper. They are all ready along with my thread and panto's to go to the LQS tomorrow to rent the HQ. I will be quilting Tuesday and Wednesday. Whoohoo!! :-))

If you would like to be inspired, awed,  etc, check out all the design walls posted at Judy L's Patchwork Times.

Until next time~
Happy quilting!!

Oh yeah! Its that time of year and Amy (button in my sidebar) has really worked hard for this fun festival! Check out all the gorgeous quilts~ be prepared to be blown away! :-)



I could not decide which quilt to show and finally decided on this one. Unfortunately, blogger wants to tip the finished photo's, so this one is right before I quilted it. I'll show you quilted too, but you'll have to tip your head. LOL

The pattern is from Judy Laquidara. She did a Quilt Along and her pattern was called 'Bears in the Farmhouse'. I renamed my quilt Bears in the Forest because I quilted it with all over pine trees. It is my youngest DS's quilt. Its special because he helped choose the fabrics. I think he did an awesome job!

I hope you enjoy the rest of the festival!

I got the binding on! LOL If I would have bothered to stop and measure like Needled Mom suggested, I could have saved myself that little hiccup. ;-)  Next time I will know better! ;-)


Then I was going to work on the bag I have had cut out for a couple months, but this project called.... :-)  Sorry~ blogger tipped it. :-/

It is some of the blocks from the 2006 Thimbleberries Club quilt. My friend started them and decided she would never finish them, so I inherited them. :-) She had the 8 large blocks all bordered and then a few blocks that were used on the back of the original quilt. She had extra of the black border fabric but none of the light. I found a FQ of it in my stash (love my stash!) so I think I was meant to finish this one. I think I'm going to just border the remaining blocks and find something else for sashing and sew it together. The faux stitcheries in the blocks are supposed to represent the months, but since she didn't finish the club (the shop ran out of kits! :-o ), we don't have the last 4 months. So I'm just going to double up some of the blocks and scatter them in.  I think it will work ok....

Karen is working on something golden today. :-)
And Deb at Cucaroo is binding a Thimbleberries quilt.  I can hardly wait to see it! :-)
Thanks ladies for joining in the sew day!

Until next time~

Happy Stitchin'!

Yay! Are you sewing? Please let me know~ ;-)

Karen at Briarside Lane is sewing. :-)  Whoohoo!

Bridget B is not~ it is her 57th anniversary! Happy Anniversary Mom & Dad! :-))

I thought I'd get right to work on my table runner. I cut 3 strips for binding, because I thought that would be plenty~ as you can see, I should have read the pattern. I am not good at 'guesstimating'! LOL 'Sew' back to work I go!
Happy stitchin'! I'll be back with an up-date later. :-)

Can you believe it is the end of the month already?!  I cannot. The days are flying by too fast! And I'm not fast enough! LOL  Tomorrow is our next Thimbleberries Sew Day, where we either use Thimbleberries fabrics in our project, or a Thimbleberries pattern with any fabric we choose... or you can do both.  I like choices!  I'm not sure if Barb is sewing, but I know Karen will be, and I think Bridget B will be too. Won't you join us?

I am going to be working on this bag that I've had cut out since last month. :-o  And putting the binding on this table runner that I quilted a while back. I'm bad about getting bindings on after I get things quilted. I'm trying to get caught up. ;-)


So what are you going to work on? Please let me know so I can come by and visit!
 Until tomorrow~ Happy stitchin!

I've started working on Christmas gifts and projects and also on finishing a few things. :-) I love to have more than one thing going at a time~ no time to get bored! LOL

I tested mitten making when a friend on HGTV found this video~ Mitten Making  ~recycling sweaters into mittens. I don't think I felted the sweater enough (I was too excited to get sewing) ;-) They are little big~ I also forgot to look for a sweater with ribbing for the mitten cuff. I'm going to adjust the pattern a bit and try again. I love wearing mittens when trying to clear the side walks, scraping ice off the car window etc. :-)

The newest issue of Quiltmaker magazine (page 64) has this table topper pattern in it. They did it up in summer colors, but I immediately thought 'Christmas'! I'm not sure if this will be a Secret Santa gift, or if I will make something else. :-)


And finally I got this large quilt top together. :-) It is 'Imagine' from Carrie's book Schnibbles Times Two.  I cannot remember the name of the layer cake. :-o Do you know?  I no longer have a big hall for laying out tops, so this is half of it. I am hoping to go quilting in November. ;-)


That's all the news from here~ I hope you are having a great weekend!
Until next time~
 Happy Stitchin'!

Happy Wednesday!
I've been sewing!  I think a new house needs a new Christmas decoration, so got this card holder from one of Nancy Halvorsen's books ready to quilt. :-)



I need to say thank you to a few quilty friends~ Joanne at Splitting Stitches had a 'decorate her studio wall' contest a while back and we sent her quilted blocks. I was the lucky winner in her drawing and she was very generous! The cup has a little cat ornament kit in it, and I almost have it together. I'd never had chocolate covered Peeps and they were yummy! Thank you Joanne! :-)

This group of FQ's was a sponsored giveaway by Rosebud Quilter on Amy's blog before she changed to Amy's Creative Side... It may have taken them a while to find me, but I loved the surprise mail!  Thank you Michelle and Amy. I know exactly what to do with these, I just need to shop a little for a border fabric. :-)

I hope you are having a great day!
Until next time~
Happy Stitchin'!!

I'm baa-aaack! :-)
It feels like I've been gone forever, although the computer was back and running last night. ;-)

First things first~ my Fall Into Fall Giveaway is now closed and I have emailed the winner. When I hear back from her, I'll come back and announce it here. Thank you to everyone who played along and to all my new followers! Please come back often! I'll be having another giveaway soon. :-))
Update: My winner is Deborah and we have been in contact. Congratulations Deborah!
 
I managed to get both table runners that I cut out last week, put together. The pattern was a little card and was called Maple Mambo~

To see lots of design wall inspiration, head on over to Judy L's Patchwork Times. 

Have a happy day and until next time~
Happy Stitchin'!

Oh that sounds bad! LOL But just wanted to remind y'all that my computer is headed for a check up and I'll be without the rest of the week/weekend. I'll be sewing! :-) 

Can you help my friend Karen at Briarside Lane?  She is having a problem with everyone's comments coming to her email as 'no-comment blogger' when we know for a fact that the people leaving the comments are showing up right for everyone else. It's very strange, even her own comments come to her email that way. If you have any tips for her, I'm sure she'd appreciate it! Thanks!

My Fall Into Fall Giveaway will end the 18th. So there is still time to enter! :-)

Since every post needs a photo ;-) I'll leave you with this one. It was a JoAnn's BOM, but I bought the patterns at the end of the year, so had to substitute some of the blocks and fabrics. It hung on the wall in our other house, here it will be on our bed. ;-)

 Until Monday~
Happy stitchin'!