Another give away at Superior Thread's Blog

Check out Mother Superior's Blog - another great gift certificate giveaway!! Entries are being accepted until 3/2!!

Here it is!

You know that I am a horrible photographer so calling this "eye candy" is probably a mistake. I do love this quilt and I love this fabric. You cannot tell from the photograph that it measures roughly 60" square.

From Quilty stuff

From Quilty stuff

From Quilty stuff

From Quilty stuff

Just about everything I used is Moda. I am hoping that you don't think "Christmas" as soon as you look at it. I did some close up shots so that you could see the beauty of the fabric and the wonderful colors. I absolutely ADORE all red tonals from 3 Sisters!

Eye Candy

Well, not now...but later today! Remember the UFO I found when hunting for scraps for my next quilt? The one that I couldn't figure out where each of the fabrics were supposed to go? I had an epiphany and figured it all out. I started sewing Monday morning about 4am and now I just have one last border to attach. I am going to my quilty sister's house after work to let her take a look and see if she thinks the fabric I have chosen for the border will do the trick. I am a little ambiguous about it. On one hand, I know the color is perfect and on the other I think it may make the quilt scream "Christmas!" and that isn't what I want it to do.

Anyway - more later!

Top Done...

Can you believe it? A second post! OK, it's only because I finally have something to show for my efforts. (It makes me a little woozy when I look at the center!)

From Quilty stuff

To photograph the quilt, I had to pin it up to a quilt I have hanging in my dining room. It's larger than my wall quilt so the sides are a little droopy. Now that I actually see it hanging, I can see that some of the colors should have been moved around a little bit but I am ok with how it looks as it is. I am going to make a "twin" to this one for the other bed but not until I finish about 4 other quilting projects.

Speaking of which, I was digging out some fabric for the Sultry quilt and discovered a quilt top I was working on before Christmas. I folded everything up and put it away and I now can't figure out what fabric gets pieced to what. Great...

Still plugging away

I have two pieces of the inside border stitched on my Strip Twist. I will finish all the borders this morning and check that one off my list. I have planned my next quilt which will also be made using scraps and again I am going to use 2-1/2" strips. I am doing the scrap challenge that Anina at Twiddletails organized. (Did you notice the button on my sidebar?) I have so many scraps from projects using Moda fabric - mostly 3 Sisters stuff - so I am going to make the free pattern "Sultry" on the United Notions (Moda) website. It is jelly roll friendly and since jelly rolls are comprised of 2-1/2" strips...well, there you go!

The COO of our company is moving and getting rid of some furniture. Two pieces - a child's chifforobe and a small telephone desk - now reside at my house. They both are "project" pieces. I think I will sew for a while today and then maybe do some painting. The weather folks are predicting some snow so I think this would be a really good day to stay inside, pop in a couple of DVDs and make something pretty!

Shop Therapy

We started at 8:30 this morning and I think I got home around 4:30 this afternoon. First we went to Garden Spot Used Furniture which is my FAVORITE non-fabric place to shop. They have beautiful used furniture at incredible prices. A lot of the stuff comes from estate sales and auctions. I bought a Queen Anne side chair that is in really bad shape but I am going to upholster it and I think it will be beautiful when it is finished. If you want to see a photo, a picture can be found at My Little Nest. My sister found an entire Ethan Allen collection of sewing room furniture so she had to buy it...desk, chair, sewing cabinet with hutch and an additional chest with hutch...all for less than $300! (We are such good shoppers!)

We hit a couple of quilt shops and I found fabric for the borders on my Strip Twist quilt. I am really anxious now to get it all stitched together. I picked up enough fabric to make curtains for the guest room and I will most likely get them finished during the week.

Now - for my quilty bargain of the day. I had coupons from Joann Fabric that needed to be used today. I found this

From Quilty stuff

It is a Value Pak with crib size portions of White & Natural, Warm & Natural, Insul-Bright and Warm & Safe. The "value price" is $19.95. I used my 50% off coupon and got it for $10! Then I used my additional 10% off coupon on the total purchase. Score!!

I love days like today - spending time with my quilty sister and finding lots of bargains!!

Thread Give Away!

I use ONLY Superior Thread when I am quilting. I love the colors, the quality and the company has lots of great information. Check out their blog site Mother Superior's Blog. They are having a gift certificate give away. I wouldn't have told you except I want to get extra votes!!

Caution signs should be erected!

I have been digging through my scraps, cutting more 2-1/2" strips and working diligently on my Strip Twist quilt. There is fabric EVERYWHERE in the studio. I really wish I could be one of those women who are organized enough to sort fabric (put away the rejects), cut strips (organize by color, put in a container and throw away unusable scraps), sit at the machine and make strip sets (sort into groups), etc.

Instead - my strategy is to dig a little, cut a little, sew a little and then leave the room. I would be embarrassed if anyone saw it but since the studio is on the third floor it really is an "out of sight, out of mind" kind of place. I LOVE my studio!

Anyway, 3 more block sets and I am ready to start the layout. (Actually, I started the layout but Gracie thought it would be fun to tear through them and wreak havoc.) Because I don't know how to function without having a couple of on going projects, I am going shopping on Saturday for fabric to make a table topper for my DIL.

Photos coming soon!!

Great Weekend

My oldest son, Chad, came to Pennsylvania this weekend to do a "Noodle Games" presentation for the APHERD Eastern District Conference at the conference center in Lancaster. This was my first opportunity to see him present. I was totally blown away. He is informative, engaging and is a wonderful public speaker. His Mama was so proud...can you tell?

I quilted Alex's quilt on Thursday night and finished the hand sewing on the binding last night. Because I think this quilt will get a lot of use, I decided to top stitch in the ditch by machine to be sure that the binding was secure. Chad arrived back in Virginia early this afternoon and I have been waiting patiently for a photo and video download of Alex's reaction to the quilt. As I mentioned before, I chose to not cut up fabric for the body of the quilt. I did not want to lose the fabric design. Here are a couple of photos that I took before he left this morning.

From Quilty stuff

I know the photo is horrible but here is a close up of the quilting. I used a large meander to sort of replicate the train track design.

From Quilty stuff

Tonight for supper I decided to make a quiche with turkey leftovers in the freezer. Doesn't it look good?

From Quilty stuff

From Quilty stuff

It was pretty darned tasty! I love making up quiche recipes. One of my "secret" ingredients is sour cream. I rarely have half & half or even whole milk in my fridge but I always have sour cream. I use about 3/4 cup of 1 or 2 percent milk and 3/4 of a cup of sour cream. Works like a dream and the sour cream just adds a little something to the quiche flavor.

I think I may actually get the "Strip Twist" quilt top finished this week. I am really in the mood to sew and I never know how long that will last!

Busy bee

I have been sewing like a house on fire but have nothing I can show you! I have two quilts that need to be put on the LA frame and I will do that sometime this week. I took them both over to my sister's yesterday so that I can stop on my way home from work to quilt them. (And I forgot to take photos first!) My grandson's quilt is very simple but I think it is really cute. I am really pleased with the quilt for my youngest son and his wife. I love working with batiks. They would look totally inappropriate in my decor but they surely call my name when I attempt to walk past them in quilt shops!

I also made 24 blocks for a "Strip Twist" quilt. I love mindless sewing and what could be more mindless than sewing together 2-1/2" strips of light and dark scrap fabrics? Bonnie Hunter gives a great suggestion on sewing the strips together so that when you cut them they snuggle together so no pins and perfect (or nearly perfect) points when you sew the blocks.

Sewing plans for this week include quilting the two quilts mentioned above, making a pillowcase to match Alex's quilt, make another 14 blocks for the Strip Twist and if I have the time and energy, I would like to work on the quilt for my bed. It has been in a block box since just before I moved. Time to get that one back out because the quilt on my bed has seen better days!

Have a great week!!