Tomorrow is the day--come back and see! Fall Into Fall Giveaway

This week has just flown by...I've been busy every day and night and just haven't had a chance to sew or blog.  Whew, I'm glad tomorrow is Friday and the start of a new month and the start of the Fall Into Fall Giveaway!!!! How exciting is that! 

Tomorrow, will be the start to some wonderful giveaways.  I am participating and I will post tomorrow what my giveaway will be.  There are a lot of bloggers participating and you will be able to jump from blog to blog and leave comments and enter their giveaways.  Debi of Quilting with Debi is hosting the Fall Into Fall event and so you don't miss any blog's giveaway there is an easy way to play.  Click on the Scarecrow badge on the side of my blog and it will take you to the Fall Into Fall Blogsite. You can see everybody's blog that is participating.  Start at the top one and go to that blog and follow their instructions to enter their giveaways...then you can come back and go to the next one on the list...This is going to be fun.
 So, please come back tomorrow and see what my giveaway will be.  I hope you enjoy it and I'll get to meet some new friends.  Til tomorrow.....happy sewing!     

Tatting Tuesday

Last night was the Tuesday Tatting Meeting.  It's so much fun to be with these wonderful women.  I think there are about 20 of us now.  All different ages....young and not as young...we had cake last night too.  Ummm, it was wonderful!  Sweet Nancy made me a white cake with cherry icing.  OMG, it was so good.  I am a weight watcher and I saved all my points for this piece of cake and believe me, it was worth all of them plus!  Nancy likes to bake but her husband doesn't eat alot of sweets so she brings them and shares with us.  Great cook and a wonderful tatter too.  We chatted and tatted and had a great time.  My friend, Lucille made a beautiful card with tatting on it too and everyone signed it.  Thank you, Lucille.  It is so nice to be with ladies that like what you do, I am so thankful I have such wonderful, caring friends. 

Tonight, I have to get busy and work on a block for a Christmas swap...My friend, Sandra and I are working on it together and I'm behind on my part. I have to hurry up and do it because we're meeting on Friday to work on it. 
  I'll take pictures of my card and the block later tonight and share some pics with you. til next time, happy sewing....
                                

Happy Monday

I hope everyone is doing great.  Just wanted to drop in and say Happy Monday to everyone....

It's been a great day for me...today is my birthday and I've had so many calls and emails, I just feel so loved.  The weather is perfect and I really want to be out in it but it's another work day for me.  I'll get to play later so I hope everyone has a wonderful day. til next time...


..

Saturday mail..some siggy blocks.

I forgot to show you these earlier.  I did get some good mail on Saturday...I love getting mail from other quilters.  It's like getting a gift in the mail. It is a lot of fun to get these signature blocks and I love seeing where they are coming from...

I received two blocks on Saturday.  One was from Helen and the other from Ilene. Both of these ladies are from Australia...

This one is from Helen.

and this one is Ilene's. 

Thank you, ladies. I love the fabric on both of these.....Your blocks will be put in the mail tomorrow.  Thanks for trading with me.  I'm so enjoying this swap.



Saturday Sewing and some finishes! Baked Alaska

This week was so busy for me. I thought I would be able to sew on Thursday night but didn't. I updated or I should say, started updating my blog.  I played around with it and really messed it up.


I got off early on Friday and did some errands. I went to a two great shops too. One was the Stamp Asylum to pick up a rubber stamp but I didn't get it. The one that came in was too small and not the one I wanted...I'm going to use this stamp to do my siggy blocks and it just wasn't the one. It was fun anyway. I'm trying to do some cards and scrapbooks too. I want to incorporate all of my crafts together. Maybe use some tatting on a card or some sewing on a card or whatever. I'm going to experiment and show you when I do...I left there and went to a great quilt shop. Believe it or not, I didn't buy anything. I planned on going back on Saturday...I stopped on the way home and ate as I planned on sewing when I got home. I got home and thought I would check my emails and look at some blogs and got caught up in that. Some new TV shows came on and I watched those too while still at the computer. Sewing time just didn't happen, but I did enjoy my Friday night TV time! Does that ever happen to you? I can get on the computer and totally lose track of my time. Before I know it, I've been there two or three hours!
I have got to stop that or I won't get anything done.

I did get my blog back to where I could find things again.  And, I got to where I understand the new editor system with blogger better.  So, I'm happy with it for now.  I had to play around with the pictures to get them where I wanted them but now I understand it.  At least, until next time...

I woke up Saturday to some much needed rain. I didn't want to get out in the rain so I just went on up to my sewing room. I thought I would whip out the 9 patches and put the quilt together then go to the quilt shop. Well, it kept raining and I just kept on sewing. I put together the big 9 patches, then onto the next step.

Then, I had to make 24 - 5 1/2" blocks of this:   these are a variation of the Log Cabin block....

Once these were done, I put them together with rectangles and squares to make 4 of these blocks:

I used the other blocks in the other steps...I finally put it all together and it is now a finished top.  This is called Baked Alaska:

It is a shop sample.  I'll take it to them on Monday...

I also bound the last one of my finished quilts too.  Table Manners is now finished completely, bound and labeled.  Onto another UFO.  OMG, I just remembered, I have to do my BOM by Amy.  Gotta go, have to get off this computer and do some fast sewing.  til next time, happy sewing!

A Go Giveaway over at Jane's Fabrics

A Go Giveaway....Yeah, I'm so glad The Accuquilt people are so generous. Someone's gotta win, I wish it was me but if not, I hope it's one of my friends. Here's a link to go sign up...Jane's Fabrics blogspot

What I'm working on...

I came home Friday afternoon from the LQS with some fabric and a book that the owner wanted me to make for a shop sample. I started working on it Sunday afternoon. Lots of strips. 98 strips to sew together...These are small strips and I sewed them all together that afternoon.

I came home today and started cutting the strips apart in 1 1/2" increments to make 25 patches. I needed to make 36 of these. Then I needed some other strips to make the other part of the block. All these added together along with a plain square to make up the following 9 Patch Block...



See the 25 Patches in the corner? Each block has 4 for the corners of the block. I have to make 9 blocks. These nine patches finish really big. All of the little blocks, the 25 patch, the striped block and the plain block are 5 1/2" each.

I finished one 9 patch. I'll be sewing on these later in the week. All my pieces are ready to be put together. Now, I just have to find the time to sew. It looks like Thursday will be the first day I have to sew so I'll show you more later. Here's a picture of some of the pieces ready to be put together...






Tomorrow is Tatting Tuesday and I'll be working on my flag. I don't get to work on it except when I go to tatting. I love it and it's going together too but it's slow. It's getting big and heavy and it hurts my hand to hold it so I take alot of breaks as to not hurt myself.

Wednesday night, I'll be going to a friend's house to work on a block for a raffle quilt. It's a busy week but I know it's going to be a fun...til next time...

My Mother would love these.

I really miss my Mom but I see things everyday that remind me of her. My sweet MIL planted these for me earlier in the year. These have really been beautiful the past few weeks and I just had to share these pics with you. These morning glories were my Mom's favorite little flowers. We always had some growing on our fences. She said they made her happy to look at them....Now, when I see these, I think of her and it makes me happy too.

Fall Into Fall Giveaway

Debi is hosting the annual Fall Into Fall Giveaway. She is looking for bloggers to participate in the giveaway. I have decided to be one of them. I just found out about this and I'll be deciding what to giveaway...so stay tuned.

When I first started blogging, this was the first giveaway I ever won. It was so exciting. I won a cute little pumpkin quilt and I still love it. This giveaway is a celebration of fall, my favorite time of year. Cooler weather, school starting, Halloween, Thanksgiving, pumpkin pie, apples, caramel apples, the State Fair, ahhh, I love it. It's going to be great fun!

To all of you bloggers, Debi is still looking for bloggers to sign up. She is hoping to get to 200 participants with this Blog Giveaway. She has already gotten the Fat Quarter Shop and Electric Quilt to play along! Don't you want to, also? Go to Debi's blog to sign up! Here's a link or you can click on the title of this post and it will take you to Debi's blog to sign up. Let's celebrate Fall together. Hmm, cooler weather and the changing colors of the leaves, doesn't that sound lovely?

Signature Blocks in the mail and Mesquite Quilt Guild

Saturday was a fun day with the Mesquite Quilt Group. We had our annual luncheon so we could sign up for another year. Lots of good food and fellowship. I was so tired when I got home, I just laid on the couch and fell asleep. I was going to come home and sew but...so much for that. I thought I would just rest for a few minutes and the next thing I knew my son was waking me up when he came home from work. Oh well, I guess I needed to rest.

I did have some great mail. I received two siggy blocks. One from Anneleis and the other from Terry. Thanks, girls, I love both of them.






I just started trading signature blocks and whenever Anneleis receives my siggy block I will officially be on the exchange. If you want to exchange blocks with me, please let me know...til next time...

Friday night sewing, a few finishes and a friendship block

I went to the church to sew with my friends on Friday night. There were 7 or 8 of us at the church and we sewed until late into the night. I made the binding for my two little pink quilts and attached it and I also made a block for exchange. Now, all I have to do is sew the bindings down by hand and put labels on and I can call these two finished. Woo hoo, that will actually make me three finishes for the month. Cuz, I finished another little quilt too.

Remember this one? This one is Dear Blanche and it is on my UFO list as number 2. It came back from the quilter a few weeks ago and I just laid it aside so I could work on other things. The binding is now on and ready to be hand sewn down...



This next one is Table Manners and it is ready to have the binding hand sewn down too....



I finished this one earlier in the week. It is on my UFO list as #8, known as Funny Flowers. I don't like the name but I'll think of something cute. I hand quilted this one just because I wanted to. You can't see the hand quilting but it made me feel good to do it. I love this little quilt because it is so happy. This is one of my favorite patterns for quick baby quilts. It is from the book, Easy Baby Quilts (an older book) and the pattern is called Will Work For Fabric. Don't you love that??? I have always liked this fun pattern. It makes up quick and you can hi-lite whatever cute fabric in the middle squares. Anyway, all I have to do to this one is put a label on it and I'll do that when I think of a cute name.



I made this friendship block for one of the girls in my small group. This one is for Rita...

Sew What's and some great quilts to admire!

Thursday night was my Small friendship group meeting, the Sew What's. We have some great quilters in our little group and we always have a good time when we get together. Here's some of the quilts that our group have been working on.

Nona's little quilt. This one is going to be a giveaway.


Nona did this quilt out of her stash. She said this was a pattern out of a current magazine. I found this one in Quilt magazine and I just bought it. I love this scrap quilt...



Ruth won these blocks from our group. She didn't like them too much but she likes the quilt now. Very cute quilt. The edges of the flowers are frayed...


Sharon made this quilt from a kit she bought at the Mesquite Quilt Show last year.



One of Sharon's strip quilts.



The back of the quilt:


A beautiful raffle quilt from the Kaufman Guild.



Bev's cute baby quilt:



Bev's doll quilt:


We all loved Bev's shoes that she got in Florida. Bev always comes up with cute clothes and shoes when she goes to Florida. Way to go Bev!




Judy's beautiful Basket quilt...Judy had hand surgery so Irene hand quilted this for Judy and even bound it for her. That's what friends are for. You rock, Irene!



A close up of Irene's beautiful hand quilting. I know Judy loves this quilt...


Ok, this is just a sample of the talent in our group. Don't you want to come join us? We always have great get togethers!

Til next time...

Friday night sewing with Heidi and Bobbi

Ok guys, it's Friday night sewing tonight with Heidi and Bobbi...go sign up and join us!

(Click on the title of my post and it will take you to the sign up link on Heidi's blog)

Go sign up and post about it tomorrow and your name goes in along with everyone else's for a cool drawing. Plus, you get the pleasure of knowing all of us are sewing right along with you on a wonderful Friday night. Can't get much better than that, right?

Come on, you know you want to....

Friday night sewing-Christmas Fabric Basket

I finished this little fabric basket. I have had the Christmas fabric since last year and I had started the little stitcheries a few months ago. I just decided it was time to finish this. The fabric basket pattern is from the Pink Penguin, here's a link to her tutorial. I got the little stitcheries from another site known as Willowberry Designs, Chery Goss furnished those. They were perfect for this little bag...Here's a link to her site. I have been wanting to make this since I saw it last year and finally had the time to do it. I am going to make some more. I put the designs too close together when I was stitching them and couldn't use all of them. I learned from this one. You have to allow enough space so you can cut a 2" block for each. My next one will be better but I'm ok with this one. I just had to do some hand stitching this week. I don't know what it was but I was really needing it. Anyway, I enjoyed making this and finishing it and I'm ready to do it again...

September 11,2001

To all the families and friends transformed from 9-11, we still remember. I hope everyone is doing well and my prayers are with you.

I am proud to be an American and am thankful I live in a free nation.


We will never forget...

A Blogaversary and a giveaway!

Hey, look at this cute bag!



Stephanie over at A-ditchin-time-quilts is celebrating her 1 year anniversary of blogging and she's giving away that cute little bag to celebrate. Go on over and tell her happy blogaversary and enter her giveaway...

ASG Meeting night and Kumihimo

Last night I went to my ASG meeting. We had a great time and had some new ladies come to our meeting too. We meet at a Joann's store each month and we are able to shop before or after the meeting. It makes it very convenient, sometimes too much so. I don't know if you have ever heard of this before but we had a class on Kumihimo. It is the Japanese Art of Crafting Cords and Ribbons. I had never heard of it but it seems to be getting pretty popular. One of our ladies, Rheba, bought some supplies at the Houston Quilt show last year and took a mini-class or demo down there and she was hooked. She's made all kinds of things. Bracelets, necklaces, lanyards for her glasses and name tag, key chains, etc. She taught the class last night and we had so much fun. This cord is worn by Japanese women to tie their kimonos. She made us a kit with a disk in the kit and we all sat and make keychains last night. I even finished mine. I'll take a picture and show you what it looks like. It was very interesting and would be fun for kids to do too. If you go on the web and google this, it brings up all kinds of info on it. I cannot give you any links because alot of them are copyrighted....Go check it out.

Sewing on Labor Day

I pulled out my Pfaff machine and starting sewing on the pink pinwheels again. My Pfaff is so dependable and easy to sew on. I bought it last year off of Craigslist and it has done me well. When I get Ms. Bernina back, I'll reward my Pfaff with a trip to the Pfaff dealer for a cleaning and oiling. But, I digress...I was sewing along on the pink pinwheels and my husband yelled up at me. Hey, we're hungry, can you fix some lunch? Now, doesn't he know this is a holiday? Holidays are supposed to be relaxing and doing what you want, right? Well, I want to sew. But, the guys have to be fed too and my DH only cooks easy stuff. You know, breakfast items and anything in a box with directions, like a box cakemix. He's gotten really good at making cakes. So, I went downstairs and fixed lunch for some hungry guys. There were 4 guys ready to eat. My two boys, my husband and a friend of my youngest son was here too. They were all working outside on cars. Both sons have just purchased cars that they wanted to repair, excuse me, restore is the right word, so they could drive. They were hot and sweaty and smelled like boys but they were hungry. I made lunch, made more iced tea for them, visited with them awhile and sent them back outside. Now, back to my sewing....

I was working away and almost had all the rows together and my DIL called. She and the grands were coming over, was that ok? Of course, I said ok, have to see the grandbabies. So, I stopped sewing again and went downstairs to see what all was needed for supper. She brought steaks with her and I made salad and baked potatoes. We chatted and I played with the grandbabies and it was finally time for them to leave. I went back upstairs to my sewing room and was able to finish this quilt. It wouldn't have taken long at all to do if I had not had so many interruptions or machine failures. But, at long last, here is the pink pinwheel quilt top I have been working on. It is now ready to go to Carolyn. It is for her. She is a long-arm quilter. She has so much business she doesn't have time to do her sewing. We are bartering. I'm sewing for her, she's quiting for me....this is the first one. I'll have more to come later when I take this one to her. The is called Sweet Summer Breezes by Common Threads Quilting in Waxahachie, Tx. This was a kit that she bought. I don't know how long ago it was so I don't know if it's still available. I love the pink toile nursery rhyme fabric, it was really cute.

Here's a close-up of some of the images on the fabric:

Humpty-Dumpty:



The Old Woman that lived in the shoe:


Here's the quilt top:

I'm sorry about the pictures, this turned out to be pretty large and I only had one person around to hold it....It is 87" X 87" square quilt.

Signature Blocks

I received some signature blocks this past week in the mail and I did not post them. These are from Mary and Tom from Pittsburg, Kansas. Thanks guys, I love them...

Mary's Sunbonnet Sue block:



Tom's block:

Judy and her surgery

I went over and saw my friend, Judy, Sunday afternoon. She just had surgery on her thumb and she has a cast on and has to hold her hand up to prevent swelling. She likes to embroider and applique and she's already going crazy cause she wants to sew. She had surgery last Monday and she already wants to use her hand. I told her to just let it rest so she wouldn't hurt it. This is just a bump in the road but I think she's pretty hard headed and is going to do whatever she wants. I cut some 2" strips for her on her Go Cutter. Hmm, I'm still not convinced about the Go. I can cut just as fast without it. She has trouble cutting because she has bad hands so this will help her. I guess if I was cutting certain shapes it would be faster. Anyway, I cut her strips for her and she's ready to do her next project. We then ran to Joann's and this was her first official outing since her surgery. I think she was just going stir crazy so it was good for her to get out. Time will heal her hand and she'll be back to her embroidery work soon.

Saturday Sewing

I got my 50 squares out and cut them apart. I pressed them and squared them up and sewed them together to make 25 pinwheels. These are big pinwheels, they finished at 9 1/2"! These are the biggest pinwheels I've ever made but they were fun to make. (I used to not like pinwheels but I think they've grown on me.)

After that, I cut 16 fussy cuts from the Nursery Rhyme fabric and I then cut the rest of the fabric out for my pattern. I laid out the pattern and started sewing it together. I just knew I would finish this really quickly as the pieces were big and easy to sew. But no...as soon as I thought that, something went wrong. Ms. Bernina started acting out and decided she did not want to sew today. She just froze up and quit working! Argggh! I hate it when she's stubborn. I'm so mad at her, this is not the first time she's done this and she's going to have to go to see Mr. Repairman AGAIN. I'm afraid this visit will be alot longer than the last because I'm going to insist Mr. Repairman call in some help and see what's causing her to do this over and over. I am not happy about this one little bit. More to come on this once I take her in.

I had to stop sewing and do some cleaning so I could burn off some of my madness. I hope everyone has a great weekend and gets family time too for this long holiday.

Friday night sewing

Last week was crazy. I had something going every night and it wasn't quilt related. :-( I was so busy I really didn't have any time to blog...

Friday night changed all of that. I went over and visited with my quilting buddies at the church. We had a great time and ate, sewed and chatted. I got done what I had set out to do and was able to sit and visit too. Swooze and her daughter, Darcy even came for a visit. It's always nice to see her. I met her on-line a few years ago (I can't believe it's been that long!) and we've tried to get together several times and it just hasn't worked out. She's a busy lady too. Anyway, her and her sweet daughter came and sat in on our little group. We had alot of fun. I worked on sewing together 50 solid pink and 50 toile squares. I marked them diagonally and sewed on both sides of the line. I got those done at the group, ready for the next step. I left them together so I didn't lose any and started working on some little hexagons for a small project. I went home happy from seeing all of my quilting buddies.