Give Aways

I have found a couple of give aways that I like, you know maybe I shouldn't tell anyone about them  so I could have a better chance of winning. Oh well here goes, Stray Stitches is giving away some wonderful fabric. she has a great blog!
The of course you got The veggie Hunter who is giving away some beauties herself. Check em out.

Don't forget the mystery here, couple posts down is fabric requirements. Cutting is coming soon!

It seems that all my sisters have gotten on the band wagon for loosing weight. I need more motivation or something. I have a feeling next time we get together for our Sisters retreat (no not in Sisters OR, We 5 siblings get together for a weekend in MI) I am going to be the fat one!

Fri Night Sew In and ......

Ok so last night was the first Friday Night Sew IN of the year. I sewed and I am remembering to post about it. First off if you want to be part of it go here to Heidi. she is one of the hosts of this. It is just an encouragement to get something done. Sew what did I sew. First I tried to finish a top that  I had started for a demo at club this past week. I only had 3 rows made and got busy on the rest. Now first off if you know me then you know if I got something done that fast it would be a miracle,so I got stumped on my border.
Here it is, it is called Twilight by Saginaw St Quilt Co. It uses the ruler Curves for Rectangles from Creative Grids. I bought both the pattern and the ruler in a shop in Joplin, MO this past summer. I believe the name of the place is Sew Neat. I just know my Mom goes there and calls it Brenda's. She had the top hanging and I fell in love, had to have. I don't usually pay much attention to tops or quilts hanging around, but this one caught me. I knew I wanted it bigger than the pattern and I definitely wanted something a bit more umph for the border. So I took some of the pieces that you make and I cut them again and sewed them into these little border pieces,but now I am not sure. I am thinking that I want to get one purple batik for the frame out border then put these pieced ones. My problem is that when I make these border pieces I have two and the other ones are the opposite of these shown meaning that the lights are the long triangles and the dark would be where the lights are now. So that would  mean I would have to make twice as many and I know I don't have the fabric for that. So............resting on this one moved on to the next.

This is the Morning Star block from Quilters Cache. I did a swap of these on one of my Internet groups. But I wanted more so I started adding my own to them making and making them,but I guess it got to late can you see what I did. Or shall I say what I forgot to do. Yep That will be ripping out for football game tomorrow. I have decided that I want to add another row to the side to make it 6x7. I know you can't see all of it on here but trust me it will be 6blocks x 7 blocks with a wild border. This will be called MM'S, for the blocks in it will be from Mary, Maggie and Susan. I went to bed when I found this mistake and now I am going back to the quilting machine and see what kind of trouble I can cause there.


All in all it was a great Friday Night Sew In even tho I didn't get done what I wanted to but next month I am going to bring these two back out and finish at least one of em. Thanks to Heidi and Bobbi for throwing these Friday night parties.

Where oh where have the..................

Yep I think I need to get it together. This past year I entered into two count em two weight loss challenges. The first one was for $440.00. I got right on it and lost 34 pounds. BUT I didn't win the money. I guess that discouraged me and by the time I got home from vacations I didn't even try to get back on track. So I joined another challenge less people so the pot was only $250.00. Do you think I did anything but gain. That was a bust the gal that won only lost 7 pounds, ya hear me 7 lousy pounds netted her 250 smack-a-roos. So to date I have gained it all back but 4 pounds. So the gross loss for 2010 4. So now my sisters and I have another challenge going on the pot $100.00 Notice a trend they get smaller and smaller, which so does my enthusiasm. But I have to do something so I am claiming on here to all keep me honest. I will be keeping a total on the side bar and if I forget to add at least monthly ask me about.

My son was over this past weekend with the grand kids and my grand daughter decided she wanted to make a quilt. Well she pick out the fleece so we made a blankie instead.

 Here she is doing all the tying. I cut the fringe and then cut a slit in it and all she had to do was fee the two layers through and pull. And she did every single one of them. Yes look at how proud she is!

Here is the finished blankie, a nice cuddle blankie for watching TV.












Next I have a quilt that belongs to Diane.

This the 4 patch stack n whack pattern and she did this at  a retreat.

Here is one of the blocks. I don't know if you can see the quilting or not.

And this is a freehand border pattern.













Thanks for stopping by!

Mystery Time and stuff

Well here it is the 15th and time for the fabric yardage for the mystery quilt. I have had the grand kids over today so I am late in getting this posted. They are both asleep now so I have a little piece n quiet to do my thing!. You know those little ones wear me out!

I did this pattern last year and I used 4 fabrics. I lost the pattern when my computer crashed so redoing it, I decided to add a 5th color. So I am going to give you the instructions for both but I want you to know that I am adding that 5th color as I go, the official instructions are for the 4 colors. So I will be writing the 5th color additions as I go. but things should be fine. Lets keep the fingers crossed. No I am not a designer, I just dabble and like to share those dabbles.

Also NO yardage is given for borders. I find that I have never liked or done borders from a mystery as stated so I just don't give any on my mysteries. With that said the overall size without borders are:
48" x 60". This is traditional pieced.

Here are the fabrics I used with the 4 way

As you can see I used a black (1) and  tonal black (2).
Then a grey (bckgrd) and magenta pink (4).
Now I am adding a lime green as a zinger (z) this
time around.
If picking for these I would use for 1 and 2 something dark and very close to the same. It doesn't have to be black. Dark browns, Navy, Dark greens .....................
Color 4 is something that will pop against your color 1 and 2.
Bckgrd color is something that shows great contrast with your other fabrics.

Yardage:
Color 1) 1 1/8 yd
Color 2)  1 yd
Bckgrd)  1 1/8 yd
Color 4)  1 1/4 yd          if using 5 colors 7/8 yd and then color z) 3/8

Now you have a couple weeks to get the fabrics and then the 1st I will post some cutting. Any questions post comment here (just in case it might be helpful to others). Thanks

Now lets see some eye candy

 This is Margie's I believe she called it Think Spring. I know some of you are ready for spring but I love the snow and cold. This is a beauty though. Margie always does so well with colors. I will say that Margie starches all her fabric after she pre washes it. So her quilts are wonderfully square. The first time the hubby saw some of the excess starch on one of her tops he thought he had done something to it. Oh he puts on the tops on the long arm. Isn't he a sweetie. Well anyway it was funny to me to see him a little worried.  I love the fabric in this top and I really enjoyed the color combinations that Margie used. Once again Miss Margie great top!

Just a pic of the back to show the quilting.













See ya later

Mystery and old bag challenges

Hi all it has been awhile! I hope every ones Holiday was just the bestest ever. We had a very Blessed time here in IN. My family in MO always has Christmas the week before, I was unable to go but I had my kids here that day so we could participate via phone. I bought a couple items off the family auction (which reminds I must get the check in the mail). My sister in KS bought the zebra quilt that I sent down.

My son who is going through a Divorce finally got a court order for visitation on the 23rd. So with very little notice he got the kids on Christmas night till this past Thursday. Well you know he had to work so guess who got the kids! Yep grandma got grandma time. I am worn out, I had such grand plans of quilting but!!!
 I would watch the kids through the day and then he would either come her or I would drive them to his house so he could spend the evenings with them and then they would sleep at my house. Yep I know why we have kids when we are young!

I wanted to start the mystery but with them here plans have changed. Starting JAN 15th I will start posting the mystery.
JAN15 fabric requirements
FEB1 Cutting
FEB 15 Sewing
MAR 1 Cutting
MAR 15 Sewing
APR 1 Cutting
APR15 Sewing
this mystery is traditional pieced and is a 2 thimble in difficulty out of 3. (ya like that terminology)

I did go through some old floppy discs last night and found some pics of quilts I thought I would share. These three tops were  bag challenges. This first one Judy sent me a bag of scraps with a bit of yardage. I had to make something out of it and this is what I came up with. This is off of a pattern called Message in a Bottle by  Miss Rosie's Quilt Co. I of course made the border different.

This top Mary sent me these diamonds or were they in the strips.Oh who knows. Mary would!  I really wanted to do something different. My thought was to make them look like they blew up  but they ended up just looking like they are falling or blowing in the wind.

This was for Teresa, she sent me the Ohio Star blocks all made up she had gotten them in a swap and then she had the 9 patch squares made up in matching fabrics. Se then sent matching squares and yardage in a coordinating print. All this made me nervous, like she already had a plan and I better figure it out. I never did hear if she like the top for her life to a sudden change and she has been off the net shortly before receiving this back. But I loved how it turned out.  Just hit me I should have done this for the mystery. Well guess maybe I should write up a pattern for this one, just in case later down the road.




Ok so that is it for now. Don't forget to check back in for the mystery.