Taking a Break

Reality has hit me full force.  Nothing creative is getting done on my end.  I just need to face it.

I hung a few items on the walls in my new studio, and

moved some of my fabric over.  That's about it.  

The movers are scheduled for Monday and Tuesday.  I hope to get back into a routine by the middle of next week.

Until then, enjoy your holiday weekend.  Don't forget to head over to Amy's for Sew and Tell Friday.  This is another Friday I'll be missing but hope I can find some time to peek in on what others have been working on.

One last thing,  Jodie was nice enough to let me know I was a winner at JayBird Quilts!!!  I can't believe it.  I really didn't have a chance to enter more than a few giveaways during Sew, Mama, Sew's Giveaway Day, so I am really excited to win the purple Robert Kaufman Siggy Swap supplies.  Thanks Julie for the giveaway, and thanks Jodie for letting me know I won.  I've been negligent in my blog reading and email responses.  Hope to rectify that soon.  Thanks for your patience.

Have an amazing weekend!!!  See you soon!

Wonderful Wednesday!

School's out for Summer!

I'm taking a break from packing today to enjoy time with the kids!

Have an amazing day!!

Making Do

Even though most of my sewing supplies are packed, I managed to set a few items aside in case I needed a break from packing.

I pulled my light weight Janome out of the closet and set it up next to my computer.  It doesn't allow for much maneuvering room, but I'll take it for now.

I sewed these leftover batik strips together for some future project.

I only allowed myself a ten minute play time but managed to add borders to my little embroidery block. 

Well, that's it for now....back to packing.

Have an amazing day!!! 

Packing Up

Absolutely no sewing was done this weekend.  The entire weekend was spent packing up my studio.

It was so hard for me to put my fabric away!  I had to remind myself we are only moving across town and the moving vans will deliver everything next week.  I can wait that long....can't I?  While sorting fabric, I found these leftover orphan blocks.  I guess they will be fine boxed up for a week or so.

The big blue plastic bin on the bottom holds my Christmas fabric.  The other big blue bin holds quilt kits I have accumulated.  WIPs have their own flat, scrapbook size plastic container.  I have a special bin for my Hope Valley fabric that I haven't had the courage to cut into... there's a bin for batiks... leftover fat quarters by fabric line are in their own plastic container...of course whites need their own special place.  I can't trust anyone else to move these fabrics.  They deserve door to door service...too bad I got rid of my big Suburban!  I may will definitely be making several trips.

This basket holds my solids and my Amy Butler LOVE WIP.  The movers will not be touching this!

I did finally reach the conclusion that some boxes of fabric will have to go with the movers.  This process has made me realize that I have too much quite a bit of fabric. 

I can't be blamed for this jelly roll showing up at my front door.  I ordered this in OCTOBER from Hancock's of Paducah.  It has been backordered, and I just forgot about it.  Really.  Truly, I did;-)

Have an amazing day!!!

Sew & Tell Friday #30

I am so behind on just about everything, but I do have a giveaway winner to announce, a completed project for Sew and Tell Friday! and my quilt for the Blogger's Quilt Festival (in another post - two for one)!

Out of 440 comments, the magic Random Number Generator picked #297 which is Michele Bilyeu!!!

Michele Bilyeu said...

Throw my number into the mix. I love batiks and have almost none right now. I've checked out Karla's 'Color Shuffle' from the library and it's fabulous. I would love to own it especially since Karla belongs to my Guild! The book is awesome...as are you!

Yeah Michele! I will be contacting you for your mailing address and putting your goodies in the mail to you Monday.  Now on to Sew and Tell.

A while back I celebrated my 100th post with a giveaway and a charity quilt.  Originally the charity quilt was going to Craft Hope for Haiti, but their Etsy shop closed before I could finish the quilt.  So it sat for a while ignored under a pile of other WIPs.

Later, I pulled it out, decided I didn't like it, trimmed it up some, basted it, and then put it back in another pile of WIPs.

Thanks to Victoria's newest project, this crib sized quilt has been rescued from the forgotten and lonely stack of unfinished quilts and is completely quilted and bound!  I am so glad it is headed to another very worthy cause Basics Inc.  Want to make one?  You might even win a sewing machine!  Go here to learn how.

I free pieced the 100 into the quilt top to commemorate my 100th post....the idea being if you look closely you will see the 100...but if you don't know it is there it just looks like a rectangle and two squares.  I'm not sure if you can see the quilting lines in these pictures, but I played around some with this quilt.  Most of the lines are wonky random straight lines, but here and there are a few surprises.  Inside the "zeroes" is one example.

These pictures are before the washing so you may see a few stray pencil marks.  I quilted a star in this block in addition to the random straight lines.

There is a little wonky swirl in this pink block.   I used a new machine for the quilting which probably wasn't the best idea.  The walking foot didn't play nice ;-)

There is always something creative to see during Sew and Tell Fridays.  Make sure you see them all.  Also, don't forget about the Blogger's Quilt Festival.  See you there!

Have an amazing weekend!

Blogger's Quilt Festival

I am so excited to participate in my second Blogger's Quilt Festival!  I had just started blogging right before the fall festival, and I discovered so many fabulous blogs.  I can't wait to see what this year holds!  Thank you Amy and your sponsors for coordinating this awesome event.

All quilts have stories behind them....some are happy or silly...some may be touching or nostalgic...some are longer than others...some are more meaningful than others...but they all have stories.

I chose Got Pink? as the quilt to share during the Festival because of the story behind the quilt.  I have shown this quilt before on my blog, but never really explained the meaning behind it.

About five years ago, I signed up for a Block of the Month at my LQS.  A few months into it, I realized that the included fabrics were hideous.  Around that same time, I spotted the Pink Ribbon Signature Collection by Karen Neuburger for Quilting Treasures and loved it.

My Mom had just been diagnosed with breast cancer.  I decided to make a second set of the BOM with the pink ribbon fabrics into a quilt for her.  Of course I had no idea how much fabric to buy since the patterns were distributed monthly and we were only three months into it, so I erred on the side of caution and bought a ton of each fabric in the line.

As you can tell by the completed quilt, I only made three of these blocks.  I started to worry that what seemed like a good idea at the time, would actually be a really horrible, insensitive, painful reminder to my mom of this awful disease she was battling.

So the three orphan blocks got put aside but never quite forgotten.  Occasionally I would try and think of a way to incorporate the blocks into a quilt without it screaming breast cancer.  I would pull the blocks out, play with them and then put them away again.  Until the time I won this Flutterby fabric and saw how the butterflies in the Flutterby complimented the butterflies in the pink ribbon blocks, and as they say, the rest is history.  [The original post goes more into the design of the quilt rather than the story if you are interested.]

Over the last five years, I never asked my mom her opinion on the subject or even told her I had purchased this fabric and planned to make her a quilt....not even when I gave her this finished quilt for Valentine's Day this year.  I didn't want to make her feel uncomfortable.  I just told her I called it Got Pink? (she had seen the progression of the quilt on my blog and loved it...but my blog posts didn't go into detail) and hoped she wouldn't notice the pink ribbons or other references to breast cancer.  Silly, huh?  [I did get her permission to tell the story today.  She said she is interested in reading it herself ;-)]  

After all this, I planned to give the Got Pink? to my mom this past Christmas.  It didn't work out that way....too many quilts to make...too little time.  Instead, she received it for Valentine's Day.  You know, after all this, I actually think it is good timing....February marks five years of my mom being cancer free!!!!  I love you so much Mom!!!!!  You're the best!

Thank you for allowing me to share my story and quilt.  Enjoy all the quilts on display at the Blogger's Quilt Festival.

Have an amazing day!!

One More...

...day to enter Sew, Mama, Sew's Giveaway Day!  Click here to leave a comment for my giveaway.  I am thrilled at the response I have had!  Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to look at all the great blogs and giveaways out there...other than the blogs I follow that are participating.  Don't think my odds are that great of winning ;-(

...house we are moving to....which explains why I haven't had time to click on the participating giveaway blogs.  I don't even have any cool pictures of our house to share.  I only took pictures of walls for furniture planning purposes.  The above pictures show where I will put a TV in my new studio and the pretty flower you can see looking out the window.

...birthday!  Tuesday was oldest son's birthday.  Twenty-two years ago, my college roommate made this adorable Peter Rabbit quilt for the birth of my first child.  So sweet.  At the time, I didn't fully appreciate the love and work that went into such a gift, not being a quilter waaaaaay back then.  I'm so glad I still have this quilt.

...anniversary!!!  Yesterday, my husband and I celebrated our wedding anniversary.  Last year, for our twenty-fifth anniversary, I made this quilt for him which I "entered" into the Blogger's Quilt Festival in the fall.  No such gift this year...we gave each other a house!  {grins}  [You can go here if you want to read the story behind the quilt...and see how young I looked when I got married ;-)]

Have you decided what you quilt you are featuring in this Blogger's Quilt Festival?  If not, you better get cracking!  It starts tomorrow!  I've got mine picked out.  I spent so many hours last time at the computer discovering new and wonderful blogs.  I sure hope I can squeeze some time in between packing boxes to look around.  Also, hoping to enter at least a couple of giveaways today before it is too late ;-)

Have an amazing day!!!

Wonderful Wednesday!

It's something about Wednesdays that I just love!  Can't say exactly what or why that is, I just do.  Usually, for me, it is a relaxing, regrouping and reenergizing kind of a day (and usually I keep my Wonderful Wednesday posts very short), but not today.  It's still wonderful, but not relaxing.  I will spend the day organizing, measuring, making lists and phone calls.  After much debate back and forth (and lots of drama), we closed on our new house.  I guess that means I have to face reality and actually start packing now!  No worries...I have two whole weeks {gulp} before moving day!!!

[I almost forgot...click here to enter  Sew, Mama, Sew!'s giveaway.]

Can you tell what this picture is?  It was taken with my cell phone this morning.  We may be leaving our ducks behind, but this cute little turtle was at our new house to greet us!

Here's a better turtle picture.  My daughter took this recently during her class trip to Tallahassee.

Have an amazing day!!!

Art Collection

I am thrilled to read all the lovely comments left yesterday for my giveaway.  Some of you have even become followers!  Thank you!!!  The giveaway is open until Thursday.  Click here if you haven't entered yet for a chance to win these batik fat quarters and Color Shuffle quilt book by Karla Alexander.

It has been difficult finding time to spend in my studio.  I am supposed to be packing for our move across town which makes it tough to justify playing with fabric.

I did some embroidery while watching 24 with my husband, and that's about it.  I have an idea of incorporating this little piece into a quilt mini.

Do you ever think of quilts as pieces of art?  I do, and I have a small art collection that I hope will grow.  I'd like to share pictures of three art quilts I have purchased from AAQI.

This piece is titled Memories and is made by Nellie Bass Durand, an incredible artist.  She explains her technique for this postcard here.  I am delighted to own an original Nellie Bass Durand!  You really need to check out her blog and see some of her amazing work.

Michele Bilyeu made this incredible Transitioning Between Polarities art quilt which I was lucky enough to win in the May auction.  Michele heads the Liberated Quilting Challenge which encourages its members to make art quilts for AAQI.  Michele recently wrote a touching blog post about caring for her mother who suffers from Alzheimers.  I really admire Michele and other care givers.

I fell in love with Blue Ocean while browsing the Quilts for Sale page.  When I realized Beth made this fabulous quilt, I snatched it right up.  I have been a Follower of hers for a while, and absolutely love her quilts!!!  Now I have one!

I have a few others in my growing art collection, but I'll save those for another day.  Don't forget, if you want to enter the giveaway, go here.

Have an amazing day!!

Giveaway Day!

GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED!!! 

Welcome to my regular visitors and all new ones here for Sew, Mama, Sew!'s Giveaway Day!  So glad you stopped by.  I am happy to be participating in this giveaway with many others all over blogland!  

I ran out of time and creative juices for making a really cool handmade item, so I am giving away stuff to help YOU make an awesomely creative something.

One lucky winner will receive an Island Bundle of 18 Summer Splash batik fat quarters

and the book Color Shuffle new quilts from karla alexander just in case you need a little inspiration to along with those batiks ;-)

The giveaway will stay open through this Thursday, and I will announce the winner on Friday the 21st.  To enter just leave a comment on this post.  The random number generator will do its thing and pick the winning number.  Make sure I have your email address to contact you.  I will ship internationally. 

Speaking of creative inspiration, these ladies got it goin on!! The Orlando Modern Quilt Guild had its third Sew Day on Saturday.  This group is so much fun!  If you are in our area, you should look us up.  We'd love for you to join us.

Michele worked on all kinds of projects including this fabulous doll quilt. She makes me feel like such a slacker!

It was great meeting Julie who worked on this stunning quilt!  I was envious to hear she learned first hand from Kaffe Fassett himself.  You can tell by her work that she paid attention in class!

More pictures can be found on our Flickr page.

Have an amazing day!!