Fill in the blanks...

Shannon over at luvinthemommyhood had a cool fill in the blanks questionnaire yesterday on her blog and I thought it would be fun to fill it out and share it with you.  Who knows, you may learn something about me!

So here it goes:

* i'm longing to make "something with hexies" right now.

* i wish i could sew with "Anna Maria Horner" fabric.

* i dream of making "dresses for my girls".

* i keep track of my ideas by "making lists".

* i'm inspired by "color".

* i would love to meet "all my bloggy friends" in person.

* i like to sew with "100% cotton". 

* my favorite color is "orange".

* i rock at "matching seams".

* i would like to learn how to make "hand dyed fabric".

* i like to listen to "music" while i "sew".

* i bring my "books" everywhere.

* my favorite thing to "sew" is "a quilt".

* my favorite thing to "embroider" are "labels for other people's quilts".

* my crafting space is "my haven".

* i sew with "a pfaff".

* i like to "applique" "by hand and by machine".

* i can never get enough "sewing time".

* i adore "my family".

* i also enjoy "reading" and "baking".

* i like to fill my shelves with "fabric, photos and books".

* i create the best when i'm "at home in my pj's".

* i am currently excited for "the challenge at my Guild (which I am organizing!)".

* right now i am "getting ready for a family weekend away". 

* i love to watch "Young and The Restless" while creating. (sad, I know...)

* my current favorite music crush to listen to while creating is "anything by John Mayer".

If you feel so inclined, you can copy and paste the questionnaire in your next blog post and replace all the " " with your own answers.  You can also head on over to luvinthemommyhood to see Shannon's answers and share your post in her comment section for everyone to see.  

Have a great weekend everyone!  We are headed out of town for a family getaway with my parents!!

WIP Wednesday - 09/26/2012

Here's a little sneak peek at what I have been working on.

This snowman will be a Christmas gift for my youngest's teacher. 

I am done all 44 log cabin blocks!!  Just need to find enough time to lay them all out and sew them together in one sitting, so they aren't laying around for too long and I don't end up moving them around too much!  Hoping to have the top done within the next couple of weeks.

And finally, I picked out these fabrics to make myself a lunch box for work!  I think they will be awesome!  I am going to use this tutorial at Pink Penguin.

You can check out what others are up to over at The Needle and Thread Network.

A Winner!!

This is the first time I host a giveaway.  I had 9 people leave comments and Mr. Random Number Generator chose number 8.  That means Maxine is the winner!  

Thanks to all of you for your kind words and congratulations Maxine!  I will send you an e-mail shortly to get your address.

TGIFFF!

If you are here for my blogiversary giveaway, please click here.

I am calling this one Thank Goodness it is FINALLY Finished Friday!

I have been working on the binding for this quilt for a month!  Apparently there was no rush because the lady who is buying it still has not told me what she wants on the label.  

So I took my time but I am really glad it is done!  

I love this pattern for baby quilts!  It is from Moda Bakeshop, called Building Blocks.  I added some blocks and a border and made the outer border wider because the customer wanted a bigger quilt that would fit a toddler bed.  This one ended up around 51"x58".

I had some the fabrics for the blocks but I needed more for the borders, so I ordered on-line from AbbiMay's.  There service was awesome and there fabric selection is amazing!

With the exeption of the white sashing, these fabrics are all from Me and My Sister Designs for Moda.   I decided to use the same fabric for the outer border and binding.

I forgot to take a picture of the back but it is a flannel from the same designers.

The lady who is buying this quilt is also buying this one, so her niece can have a little playmat for tummy time.

I am just waiting for her to give me the info to put on the labels and then the quilts will be on their way to the little baby who was born September 4th.  I hope she likes them!

On this really rainy day, I also wanted to share with you my new umbrella!

Don't you just love the orange peel pattern!!  

Have a great weekend and don't forget to go check out the other finishes at Where Jane Creates.

1 year and a giveaway!

I can't believe it has been a year already!  My husband and my mom encouraged me to start this blog and one year later, I am so happy they did!  

I started this blog so I could share my passion for quilting with anyone who would be willing to read it. I have had so much fun sharing my projects with all of you and I have "met" some amazing quilters at the same time.

I wasn't sure anyone would want to see or read about my quilts, especially because I consider myself such a traditional quilter and there are so many modern quilters out there in blogland, but I am so excited to have recently made it to 25 followers!    

So in honor of my 1 year blogiversary and my first 25 followers I want to host my first giveaway!!

I am giving away this charm pack of Moda's Juggling Summer.

This giveaway is open to all of my readers, canadian and international.

All you have to do is leave me a comment and make sure I can get in contact with you to let you know if you win.  (That means, if you are a no-reply blogger, please leave your e-mail address in the comment box!)

M. Random Number Generator will pick the winner on Sunday September 23rd.

Good luck to everyone and I am looking forward to my second year of blogging!!

Playing with log cabins

Since my last post, I have been working on the log cabin quilt I am making for my 4 year old daughter. 

Saturday night I finally got to 44 blocks and thought maybe I should stop and figure out exactly how many blocks I need before continuing.  So I took the blocks to my room and started playing with some layouts.

option #1

option #2

option #3

My favorite is option #3 but I only like this layout when the quilt is square.  This being a bed quilt, I know I don't want to make it square so I think I am going with option #1. 

What do you think?  Which layout would you choose?  I would love your input on this.

I have also changed the layout and design of my blog.  What do you think?

Be sure to come back on Wednesday... it is my 1 year blogiversary and I will be having a GIVEAWAY!!

Row Quilt

This week's theme for the contest over at the Quilting Gallery is row quilts.

Quite a few years ago, (I think 8 or more), my quilt group decided to do a Row Robin.

We each prepared our first row and that set the theme for our quilt.  Mine is a hand appliqued log cabin in the woods.

We then put our row and the coordinating fabric in a plastic bin and passed it along to the next person.  The 2nd person had a month to add a row of their choosing.  At the end of the month the quilt was passed on to the next person, and so on and so forth, until all 6 people had added their row to the quilt.  We chose to unveil the quilts to one another at one of our retreats.  We had so much fun!

Here is my quilt:

This was definitely one of my favorite projects to work on!  I love my quilt and the fact that my best quilting buddies helped me make it just makes it all the more special!

I would really appreciate it if you headed over to The Quilting Gallery and voted for my quilt!  

Voting ends on Sunday.  Thank you!

A small finish, but a finish nonetheless!

I finished this mini-quilt on September 3rd.  It was a little late but so worth the wait!

I had lots of fun going thru my scraps to make this quilt.  As it came together, I got more and more excited!  

I used black thread for the buttonhole stitch around all of the pieces and I think it was the perfect finishing touch.

Those of you who have been following me for a while probably know I got the pattern from the book Count On It by Art to Heart.

I really think this would be great to give as a gift to a teacher with his or her name appliqued on instead of "Sept".  What do you think?

WIP Wednesday - 09/05/2012

September is so busy already and my calendar just keeps filling up!  I am surprised I am getting any quilting done at all!

Yesterday, I made this little table topper for my 4 year old's night stand.  

I pieced the background then basted the quilt.  I quilted a simple cross-hatch pattern through the squares.  Then I ironed on some shapes I cut out with my Go! Baby using Steam-a-seam 2 Lite.  I proceeded to machine applique the quilt shapes down using a buttonhole stitch, quilting through all layers at the same time.  Then I finished it off with a decorative stitch in the border.  

As you can see, I still need to stitch down the binding.

Today, I pieced some more log cabin blocks.

Tomorrow I am working so I think the next time I get some sewing time will be on Friday night.  I should have a finish posted for TGIFF though, so stay tuned!

Linking up to WIP Wednesday

Color My World White

I am a few days late with my challenge block... the color for August was white.

This was definitely the toughest color yet.  Once I got to looking through my fabric though, I was inspired to call this my winter star.

I know it is very hard to see, especially in photos, but the center and points of my star are a snowflake fabric with a tiny bit of glitter in it.  I think it will show up a lot better once all of my star blocks are together in a quilt.

This block looks better in person.  I took a few photographs but these were the 2 best ones.  

I used fabrics with different tones and prints.  

I am definitely glad this one is done and excited to move on to September's color which is orange!!  

I also realized last month that I haven't told you where I got my patterns for my blocks.  Most of them are from a pattern of a class I took back in 2000 called Century Stars.  I also pulled a few from the book called Around The Block by Judy Hopkins.  All of the fabrics have come from my stash with the exception of the black star, where I had to borrow a piece from my mom.

You should go check out M-R's white block.  She got very creative I think!