I WON ANOTHER GREAT GIVEAWAY!!

Pic borrowed from Connecting Threads website

I cannot believe how lucky I have been the past few days. This is the second big win I have had...so exciting!! I want to thank Kiera at http://kiki-itssewkiki.blogspot.com and Connecting Threads , who sponsored this great giveaway. The picture is from the fabric line I chose from the Fat Quarter Samplers offered (and believe me it was not easy to choose..they were all so pretty). This one is called Sweetgrass Prairie from Country Essentials.  I am looking forward to creating some fun projects with this wonderful prize. Please be sure to check out Kiera's blog...she has some really fun tutorials and check out all the great fabrics, tools, threads, etc. at Connecting Threads.

FUN AND EASY PILLOWCASES

A friend asked me if I'd make something, to be auctioned, for the charity fundraiser she is involved with. Since pillowcases I made for a different fundraiser sold quickly, I decided to make some for this one as well.  I followed the same easy tutorial I used previously to make the other pillowcases; and, just for fun I reversed the fabrics on the body and cuff for each set. The fabrics were purchased at a LQS and I think they'll look adorable on a little girl's bed with plain white sheets (and maybe even a pink teddy bear!).

I WON THIS AMAZING GIVEAWAY!!!

(Picture 'borrowed' from Lily Pad Quilting blog)

How exciting to open my email this morning to find out that I am the "BIG" winner of this amazing giveaway from Lily Pad Quilting....see all those yummy goodies (there's even more inside that adorable pouch...handmade by Snoodles herself!) I'll have to start planning projects with all those great fabrics! Thanks again to Lily Pad Quilting and all her generous sponsors!!!

ST. PATRICK'S DAY WALL HANGING

Needed to replace my Valentine's Day heart wall hanging, so I stitched up this quick shamrock for St. Patrick's Day.  I didn't want to buy fabric and so I used some more leftovers from the large tumbler lap quilt and scrappy mug rug I recently posted. I used the 'envelope' method with some straight stitching and a small decorative stitch in the center of each 'petal' to quilt this. The finished size (without the loops) is 11 1/2 inches square....a perfect fit for my hanger and a little something for St. Patrick's Day.

SCRAPPY MUG RUG

After making the large tumbler pattern lap quilt for our friend that I posted recently (and before shipping it to her yesterday) I made a quick, scrappy mug rug to go with it.  It was so much fun to just stitch all these different scraps of fabric together and it gave me a chance to practice some free motion quilting... (don't know why it looks so wonky in the pic....it wasn't in real life...oh well). Thanks for stopping by!

LARGE TUMBLER LAP QUILT

While looking through my fabric stash I came across a quilt kit I purchased from a LQS. I liked the fabrics included in the kit, but not the pattern, and knew I'd come up with something else to do with them.  I decided to make a lap quilt (as a 'just because' gift) for a dear 81 year old young long-time family friend. She is always doing for others and is so much fun to be around. Unfortunately, she lives on the other side of the country so we don't get to see her as often as we used to. Since the fabrics were a combination of plaids and stripes, I felt it needed something a bit more 'girly' and found some cute solid color with all-over tiny flowers in yellow and blue to use for some blocks and for the backing. I used my 10" layer cake tumbler template (purchased from Missouri Star Quilt Co. online) to cut the blocks...I used the yardage that came in my kit and not 10" squares. Additionally, I made 6 blocks to piece with the backing fabric  I did straight-line quilting on either side of all seams and around the outside as well. Then I used the 5" charm pack tumbler template as a guide for the inside of each of the blocks. I decided to add a small heart in the center of these using one of the fun stitches on my Janome (you can see it in the close-up pic above). The bottom pic shows the finished quilt hanging over the back of our sofa after I washed it (so it would be ready for our friend to use as soon as she receives it)...and I love the way it looks all soft and  'quilty'!!

ITTY BITTY TWISTER QUILT

 Front of finished itty bitty twister quilt

 Back of finished itty bitty quilt

 Cut and sew squares

 Add border

 Line up Twister Tool and start cutting

 All cut and ready to sew

 All stitched  (see how much smaller it is now)

Binding stitched on the front, Wonder Clips to hold in place for hand sewing to back

I picked up this Itty Bitty Twister Tool on the trip to Colorado, I mentioned in a previous post, at the same time I purchased the slightly larger one.  If you follow the instructions that come with it, you will end up with a tiny 10 inch square quilt. I wanted something smaller to use in my sewing room as a mug rug so I didn't cut as many 2 1/2 inch squares.  The pictures show how I made this miniature quilt.  Mine is approximately 7" square.  I decided to have fun quilting it by using some blue thread to make free-form flowers in the center of each lighter color twist (they can be seen best in the picture of the back of the quilt with those cute mice). As a note, it is much easier to cut with this size tool if you have a rotating cutting mat (the yellow one in pics) along with a small rotary cutter. I love my Wonder Clips, they were especially helpful with the narrow binding on this project. While this was a lot of work, it was fun. The best part is you can use jelly roll strips to save time in cutting all the squares, which I'll probably do next time I do a project using this tool.

DEATH VALLEY NATIONAL PARK ADVENTURE

Ubehebe Crater

Tea Kettle Junction

The Racetrack

Zabriskie Point At Sunset

Zabriskie Point At Sunset

We just got back from a trip to Death Valley National Park in California with some close friends and I wanted to share a few pics that I took.  The weather was perfect for off-roading with our Jeeps and hiking. We were 'welcomed' to DVNP by a giant dust storm as you can see in the first picture. It was at least 7 miles wide and several thousand feet high!!! We got to see snow on the mountains and even a bit of rain...not what you'd expect in the desert!!!  I've labeled the other pictures so you can see where I took them. What a fun (and very different) place this is.....some women got flowers and candy for Valentine's Day...I got this.. LOL!!! Be back soon with another quilt project I'm working on.

MINI TWISTER TABLE TOPPERS

When my hubby and I were in Colorado, I got to shop at a local quilt shop where I found the Primitive Gatherings Pinwheel tool. It is a smaller version of the Lil' Twister tool that is used with 5 inch charm squares. This one uses 3 1/2" squares and was so much fun to make. The fabric is some that was left over from my Winter House quilt.  I wanted to try something a little different with this twister by sewing matching colors in a row (alternating light and dark) to see how that would work with this tool...I love how it came out! To start, I cut 30 squares and sewed them together in rows and then added the 2 1/4" border, your quilt top is now approximately 19" x 21 1/2".  You then use the pinwheel tool and cut these so your quilt reduces in size to 13" x 15 1/2" before you sew them together. Once sewn (and before binding) your quilt is a cute 10 3/4" x 12 1/2".  You can see in the third picture the difference in size.  If you like working with very small pieces, you can save the scraps and use them for another project.  I quilted this by straight stitching along the pinwheels as you can see in the second picture. The first picture is to show how it looks on one of my end tables to give you an idea of the actual size. If you add an additional border you can use these as placemats or how cute would they be as 'doll quilts' for little girls? I really enjoyed making these (I made one for each table) and look forward to using this tool again.  As a side note, they also have an even smaller tool called the "Itty Bitty" which makes a 10" square...bought that one as well and can't wait to use it.

VALENTINE'S HEART WALL HANGING

I don't usually decorate for Valentine's Day but wanted to create a little something to put on the new hanger I recently purchased (it holds a 12 inch block).  It was simple enough to figure out that I would need eight half square triangle blocks and eight squares (six of the design fabric and two solid white) to make a heart.  While looking through my fabric stash, I found a quarter yard of fabric that I got from my daughter (she bought it a long time ago to make some fun project but decided she wouldn't have time as she's extremely busy with her hand crafted jewelry business). The colors were right for my heart block, however, the design is (I'm guessing) Superwoman so I carefully fussy cut as much as I could but you can see in the lower right corner part of the 'S'.  I used the rest of the fabric to make hanging tabs and pieced the back.  To quilt it I straight stitched 1/4" around the inside of the heart, along the outside edge and outside the heart block. This could easily be made larger to use as a place mat by adding larger borders; as a mug rug or with extra batting as a potholder. 

THREAD CATCHERS aka BOBBIN HOLDERS

After purchasing these cute 'sewing motif' fabrics on sale (60% off...woo hoo!) at a local quilt store, I couldn't wait to start creating some items for my 'sewing room' (which magically..thanks to our wall bed.. transforms back into our guest room when needed).  I found this cute tutorial for a 'thread catcher' here (thanks Edna!!!) but after making them (one for me and one for my quilting buddy) I decided it would be perfect for storing my empty bobbins rather than for 'catching my threads'. My quilting buddy loves hers and plans on using it the same way. So now I think a mug rug is in order.....just have to decide how I want to make it.

ZION NATIONAL PARK TABLE TOPPER/WALL HANGING

A couple of months ago while visiting Zion National Park (my favorite of all the NP's we've been to so far), I happened to see several great fabric quilt block sets for sale in the gift shop. They come with a pattern and so I decided it would be fun to make a table topper/wall hanging. I took the blocks to one of my local quilt shops to find some batiks that I could use with them. Early Wednesday evening, after playing golf, I decided I was going to start this project, but wait to finish it on Thursday.....didn't happen....cut everything out....went out for dinner...continued working on it and stayed up late to get the top done, backing and batting cut, all pinned (using my new Pinmoors that I just love!!!) and binding ready. I wasn't sure how I was going to quilt it, so I had to set it aside on Thursday.  After a fun day out with my hubby, I took another look at it and knew that stitch-in-the-ditch was going to be perfect for this, along with stitching a large 'X' in the corner nine-patch blocks.  The blocks can be found at a link here to Old America Antiques, the company that makes the set I used and many, many more. (I am not associated with, nor am I sponsored by, this company...just trying to let people know where to find these fun blocks if you are not near a National Park and are interested).

MY FINISHED WINTER HOUSE QUILT

I did it!!! I finished my Winter House quilt a few days ago and am soooooooo happy with it!!!  The pics above show where we 'pinned' it to the wall above the table that holds the matching runner. The third pic is the back of the quilt tossed over my quilt rack (with one my rag quilts 'peeking' out from underneath lol!!!)  I pieced the back using another fabric from the same line (love the little red birds) that I found on the internet and used the house block as my label so I'd have a place to 'record' all the info about it.  I quilted clouds and smoke from the chimneys, squares inside the tree fabric along with free hand hearts; 'x'd' the doors and windows and did connecting circles with hearts in the corners on the border. The binding is a red 'snow' fabric I purchased from the same line for a little 'pop' of color.  I'm sorry I forgot to mention in previous posts that the pattern is called Snow Days by Janet Locey. Now off to work on some smaller projects!