May Wrap Up

 

My columns of blocks are now all sewn up for my May UFO, Mountain Mystery and now I have to sew those rows together. The number for June is #12 and that is my Twister Quilt. I have the quilt top made, the next step is to cut out the twisters and then sew them together.Go to Patchwork Times to see what others accomplished.

 

My Christmas gift is this mug rug/candle mat for Christmas Through The Year. It was the sample I made for the class I taught.

I participated in Dandelion Quilts Mini-Quilt Swap 2012 and my swap quilt is done and sent out to my partner Cheryl. Here is a sneak peek of the back. Here's hoping that June will be as productive!

Exciting Days

I have had a few exciting quilting days and I have not had to do any of the work! Saturday I went to a beautiful quilt guild show. Unfortunately, my memory stick got left in my computer at home.The quilts were gorgeous and there were great vendors too. Just for a lark, I decided to see if I could find an EZ Easy Dresden Ruler. I had been looking for one locally 2 years ago, when I was in the Bee Beautiful Bee, but couldn't find one so I used another ruler instead. At one of the booths, they had one hanging on a rack all by itself. I was so excited. I just found out yesterday too that there is an EZ Dresden Challenge starting June 1. There are some amazing prizes to be won!

The guild had a really neat door prize. They had collected all the spools the guild had used for a year, put them into a huge raffle cage and had you guess the number. I guessed my daughter's favourite number and on Sunday evening I got a call to say I had won the basket. I have no idea what is in the basket because I was doing it to keep my kids busy.

Yesterday when I got home, I had the most beautiful parcel package I had ever seen.

 

 It was the swap quilt from Cheryl of Polka Dots & Rick Rack. The quilt is stunning.

 

She also had made me this really cool journal and a mug rug. It will go perfectly with my Jelly Roll Swap quilt once it is done. I can sip hot chocolate put my mug on my mug rug, lie under the quilt and watch a movie.





The winner of my Sew Mama Sew Giveaway is  #14, Jennie P. who would love to visit Hogwarts. I read all of the amazing places everyone would like to visit, and I have to say I now have quite a bit more added to my list.

Sock it to Me!

The end of the school year is always so jammed packed and no matter how much I know that, it always seems like a stressful time. I woke up quite early this morning and decided it was time to get my socks finally done and off my UFO list.





I am very happy that they are recognizably socks. The pattern was a good one, but at the beginning it told you how to measure your foot and add more stitches if you needed it. I did need some extra stitches but there was not a clear explanation of how to divide them amongst the needles, especially when changing from the various parts of the sock. I have knit quite a few things before, so I felt okay doing it and besides they're for me. I must say, even though I have knit hats and scarfs and mitts, it was a weird but great feeling to have something on my feet that I made.  I am linking up to TGIFF being hosted this week at Dreaming in Patchwork.

Sew Mama Sew Giveaway

 

Hello Everyone, and welcome to the Sew Mama Sew Giveaway. I am giving away this bundle of fqs as chosen by my son.

To enter, all you need to do is answer this question : If you could go to a different time period or fictional place what would it be? For me, I had a couple of ideas, but after just watching the season finale of Once Upon a Time, I think it would be interesting to be in the world of Cinderella, Snow White, Belle and Little Red Riding Hood. I wonder if we will see Ariel next season?

The winner will be chosen randomly and you must have a way for me to contact you. I will leave the giveaway open until May 25 at 8:00 PM Eastern DST. Good luck with this and the other giveaways at Sew Mama Sew!

Bloggers' Quilt Festival :: Spring 2012

 

I have lots of quilt tops right now, and smaller projects that I have been working on, so I looked back in my quilting vault and  I realized I have never really talked about this quilt. I made this quilt 2 years ago for my mother. At some point she had given me a quilting book either for Christmas or my birthday, and I decided to use one of those patterns for a quilt for her. I chose the Irish Chain, and started to make it. What I did not realize at the time, was that I had an inaccurate 1/4 inch foot and when I went to put the blocks together they did not match up properly. Frustrated I probably put the quilt away for about a year unsure what to do with it. Then one day, I was looking through my quilt patterns, I found a baby one that used 9 patches. I realized I could replace it with my 16 patches and enlarge the size to make a lap quilt. This was the first time I had completely enlarged a quilt pattern and it was fun figuring out the math. This quilt taught me that even mistakes can be turned into things of beauty. Now if I make something that does not turn out the way I think, I don't worry as much because it can always be used for something else. Check out all the amazing hundreds of bloggers for the Bloggers' Quilt Festival hosted by Amy. Thank you to Amy for such an amazing quilt show.

One Thing, One Week Challenge :13

I finally got this quilt all sorted out. I believe this is the longest I have ever had to work on a quilt just to get it organized. All of the blocks are now sewn together in sections and I can now start sewing those sections together. This is one quilt I am not going to give up. I feel there is a lesson in this quilt for me to learn. Check out what others finished for One Thing, One Week Challenge at Amy's Creative Side. I am also linking up to Quilting by the River's Linky Party Tuesday.

Happy Mother's Day!

 My mother wanted a cosmetic bag for Mother's Day, so I decided to make one. I found two great tutorials, on how to make these bags. One at It's A Pretty Modern Life and the other at Truly Myrtle. For my first try, I am happy with out it turned out. My husband reminded me that perfection is over rated.

Happy Mother's Day to everyone whether you are a mother or not. In our own ways, we all take care of each other, which is a big part of being a mother!

I found Love!

I am having heart palpitations right now! It must be love! I was just pulling out fabrics to make a pencil case for a birthday party my daughter is going to tomorrow. The theme is Under The Sea, so I was going through my children's novelty fabrics to see if I had anything that would work. Suddenly I saw a little piece of Aster Manor peeking out from the fabrics. I am good at organizing my fabric so I started to pull it out to put it where it should go, and then realized that it was my missing Love Is blocks! (They have been missing for months.) I am so thrilled! If I did not have so many quilting things to get done already this weekend, I would start on them right away.

Here is a pencil case that I made for a birthday party that my daughter went to last month.

I am glad that my daughter was happy with it, and wanted me to make another, or it may have been a long time before I found Love!

TNT - Teaching

This past week I spent some time teaching teenagers how to quilt. It was a lot of fun, and a great experience. I decided to focus on paper piecing, and the students made a hot pad for Mother's Day. I talked a bit about colour, and value, the importance of lights and darks, and the scale of the prints. They all seemed to be very appreciative, and happy that they had a finished product at the end. I have always enjoyed working with teenagers, and I look forward to more teaching in the future. I am linking to Trying New Things Thursday at Happy Quilting.

Liebster Award

 

I received the Liebster Blog Award from Kati's Quilting and Sewing. It it a way to recognize blogs that you enjoy reading who have less than 200 followers. I am honored to have received the award. Here are the bloggers that I am passing the award on to:

 
Citric Sugar

Em Celebrates

Proficient Needle

The Needle and Thread Network (This is a site for Canadian quilters, and I would love for my fellow Canadians to check it out!)

Wilma's Craft Corner


The acceptance conditions are :

1. Thank your award presenter on your blog and link back to him/her
2. Copy and paste the award to your blog
3. Present the Liebster Award to 5 blogs that you think deserve to be recognised.
4. Let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
5. Have faith that your followers will spread the love too!

Design Wall Monday - May 7

I decided this weekend to focus on my Mountain Mystery. I am so ready to have this quilt over with it. I got all of the blocks sewn and now I am starting to sew them together. I am joining Amy's One Thing, One Week Challenge, and I want to have all of the blocks sewn together for next Monday. I will probably be buying some border fabric so I will be thrilled if the blocks are all together. Check out what others have done for Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times.

Quilting Finds and Projects

Here are some of my quilting finds of late.

I find this in a secondhand store a couple of weeks ago. I thought it was so cute and so true. I need to find a place to hang it.

My nephew who made the quilt with me, bought me these pins from a dollar store. I thought they were quite cute. I took the quilt to my guild meeting last night, and made sure to give him the credit.

I bought this fabric panel with my daughter a few weeks ago. The good thing about her being with me is that she encourages me to buy fabric. I liked the sayings on the quilt and thought it would make a cute wallhanging. The quilt store had it made up as a quilted panel, but I have not decided if I will cut them up.





I have a few projects to finish up this month including adding sleeves, for my quilts going into my guild's quilt show. I also joined into a swap at Dandelion Quilts. It is a swap where we know our partner, and we trade with each other. I have a few ideas and hope to work on it this weekend.

April UFO Challenge Done

Hurray, my tulip table runner is all done! I have had the top done for a couple of years, but I finally cut around to quilting and binding. I love tulips and would love to make a tulip quilt one day.

 

The number chosen for the UFO Challenge is #2, my Mountain Mystery quilt. This quilt was on my list last year too. I ended up keeping the pattern for it, but changing up the fabric. I got it out last night and started working on the blocks again. I really need to get this one off of my list. Check out others' UFO Challenges at Patchwork Times.