Pick 4 Giveaway and my giveaway.

Hello, today is another great day to go and visit another great blog and register for Sue's book giveaway.  Today, Paulette over at Sweet P Quilting is reviewing the book.  Everything I have seen out of the book looks great.  Paulette is showing a cute table topper quilt she made from Sue's book.  Here's a link for you to go look at it and leave her a comment so you will be in on her drawing.  She's giving away one of Sue's autographed books too.   I have had so much fun this week looking at all the blogs telling about this book.  I think every book published should do this...The authors can advertise their books this way and we get sneak peeks at the book to wet our appetites..  I want to win a book but I plan on purchasing one if I don't win.  Go on over and look at Sweet P's blog and comment. She's a hand quilter and does some lovely work.

Before you go, please enter my (right now it's a surprise but won't be for long) drawing. I'm having a giveaway too.  Yesterday, I reachedd my 200th follower and I was thrilled.  I've been at the 190's for awhile now but Kelli signed up to be #200.  She will win a prize as well as some lucky follower too.  So, go to my post from yesterday (08-30-2011) and leave a comment to enter my drawing. I'm closing the drawing on Saturday, Sept  3rd and I'll announce the winner on Sunday afternoon....I'll show you what I'll be giving away by Friday.  So far, everybody seems excited about a surprise but I know they won't mind me showing what they'll be getting too....so, leave me a comment on yesterday's post and be a follower to enter, also, tell me where you're from...that's it.  Have fun.

I'm having a giveaway to celebrate my 200th follower!!!

Ok, I've told you all week (I know it's just Tuesday, but it feels longer than that!) about giveaways.  Well, I just had my 200th follower sign up,  and I'm going to send her a surprise for doing that but I'm also going to have a giveaway to my faithful followers too.  I haven't decided yet what the surprise will be but I know it will at least be a book and maybe some other goodies too. As soon as I decide what it will be, I'll post it and show you...I'm going to start today to take entries and I will close the deadline out on Saturday night, Sept. 3rd.  Please leave a comment on this post and tell me you are interested in winning a surprise.  I'm not going to make you do anything special, but this drawing is only open to my followers. When you comment, just tell me where you're from. No particular reason, I just wonder where everybody lives.  Ok?  So, have fun and sign up to win a prize!

Book Giveaways!

Hey, I just love blogland!  I have been hopping around looking at all the blogs posting about the new book called Pick 4 by Sue Abry. I love the way Sue tells about where the bloggers are from. I have had so much fun reading her blog entry then hopping over to the blogger reviewing her book for the day.  It's been fun and educational too.  Today's blogger is Lynn over at Sew'n Wild Oaks Quilting Blog.  Here's a quick link to go over and visit her and leave a comment.  She's having fun with a Beatles theme to her review and I loved it.  I'm a big Beatles fan and this was really fun!  Go check her out and leave a comment to be in on her drawing for Sue's new book....

Another giveaway I just found out about is on Meemaw's blog. She's giving away this great book:

Here's a link to her blog. Her drawing happens tomorrow so hurry on over there and enter....(Please tell her I sent you.)  Happy sewing and hopping!

Pick 4 Blog Hop with Bejeweled Quilts

I got up early and couldn't wait...I just had to see what Barb over at Bejeweled Quilts had to say about Sue's new book.  I love Barb. She always has something fun and different on her blog. She made the cutest quilt out of Sue's new book. Go look and see what Barb has to say and leave a comment to be entered in the drawing for the book. Have fun and happy sewing!

Fun times with friends

I went today and sewed with some of my buddies. We met at  a friend's house and sewed together. My buddy, Sharon, has a great big craft room and we got together to cut out a new project.  I didn't take my machine.  We met together to cut out a One Block Wonder quilt.  This is my first on this quilt. I've done a stack and whack and it's very similar.  It was alot of fun to get together and learn the tricks and do the project quicker.  There were four of us that came early to work on this project,  the others came later during the day. They decided to work on other things  besides this project so they brought their sewing machines.  Anyway, my friend Martha, has made four of these (OBW quilts) and she was teaching us to do this.  It went very quickly with her telling us what to do.  I love this...I didn't even have to read the pattern, she just walked us through it....

I had been worried about doing this project as I had not been able to find enough fabric for it. I knew we would be doing this project for about two months and I've looked all over.  I found lots of fabric that I liked but there wasn't enough yardage of any of them. I was looking for a blue fabric.   I didn't find any blue but I did find a beautiful black fabric and I am so thrilled with the way my blocks are turning out.  

I got all of my triangles cut  and I'm  able to start playing with the triangles to see how I wanted them to be sewn together.  Martha called it twist and twirl....anyway, I was sitting and pinning my triangles together to sew at home. I told my buddies I felt like I was having withdrawals from not being able to sew.  Sharon had her machine set up already and said, here, sew on mine....ahhh, relief!  Anyway, I twirled the blocks around and put several together while I was there.  I have about 85 more hexagons to put together.  These are so much fun to do. I love seeing how each one is coming together.  This is what I call mindless sewing,  I'll put a tape on tomorrow and just sew these little jewels together quickly.....We will be getting together again in September to sew the quilt top together.  We have to have all of our blocks ready for this and we will play with the arrangements together.

  Did I tell you that we eat at these gatherings too?  Wow, talk about great food!  These ladies can really cook.  Sharon made pickles for this and she's going to teach me how to make her pickles and "can" them too.  I can't wait!  I've wanted to learn how to do this for awhile and she has said she will show me how. 

Judy shared her recipe for Pimento chesse with me today too.  I love her homemade pimento cheese and now I can make my own...It's so nice to have sweet friends like this.  I love getting together with these sweet women. I didn't take any pics today as I had left my camera at home...

Ok, here's the blocks I worked on today.  I have them pinned together.  These will be sewn together in strips and that's why I have not sewn them together all the way. You leave them in this condition and we'll play with the placement, then we sew the strips all together matching your other hexagon side...I'll show you that later when I do that....

I  was also able to put the final border on another quilt today too.  I had put this top together a few months ago and really wanted a border on it.  The problem was I didn't have enough fabric for a border.  I was short about one strip of fabric (I estimated this- I never measured. )I knew one of my buddies had some of this fabric so I begged her for some.  I asked her for a 6 1/2" strip and I thought that would be enough.  She was generous and gave me two strips. Boy, was I glad she did.  It took both strips and I only had a piece of fabric left that was less than 2" wide.  Woo, there for a while I thought I was going to have to beg some more! I am so much happier with this quilt now.  I liked this quilt but I really wanted a border. I had been thinking about this quilt or maybe I should say fretting about it.  I had gone online trying to find more fabric and it was no where to be found. It had really been bothering me not to have the border on that I wanted. I'm so glad I have friends that have the same taste in fabric.  Thanks, Judy, I really owe you big time!!!  Here's my Crazy 8 quilt with the border on it...Now, I can get it quilted and it will be just like I wanted it.

  Ok, don't forget about the Pick 4 Blog Hop.  Kim over at Magnolia Bay Quilts is the book reviewer today.  Go check out her post about the book and leave her a comment to be entered for the book drawing.  This has been alot of fun to see reviews of a new book coming out.  What a great way to bring out a book.  Click on the link above to go to her blog....Hurry up! Go now and enter and see what Kim is working on!

 I hope everyone is taking care of themselves and the people in the path of Hurricane Irene stay safe, our thoughts and prayers are with you!

til next time, happy sewing!

Pick 4 Blog Hop-Day 2 and the Accuquilt Camp Quilt Along

Here's two chances to win great prizes, go check 'em out and enter to win....

Ok guys, it's day 2 of the Pick 4 blog Hop and Quilt Hollow is showing off her lovely quilt made out of Sue's book.  Go check it out and comment to enter for a chance to win her new book. She's signing these for you too...I hope I win but if I don't, I'm planning to buy this new book. The more I see, the more I like and I think it will be a great addition to my quilting library.    You will have 7 or 8 more chances to enter and you can visit (maybe a new to you) a different blog each day. I'm enjoying looking around the blogs to see what they are working on.  I've even learned some state history about North Carolina I didn't know. 

I have an Accuquilt Go Cutter and absolutely love it.  I haven't used it as much as I would like as I've had other obligations lately.  But, I wanted to let you know that Accuquilt, Fabric.com and Fons and Porter have all teamed up for a wonderful giveaway.  It's called  Accuquilt Camp Quilt Along and it's over on Facebook.  If you go to Facebook and Like each one of these, you will get clues to enter the contest.  They are giving away some great prizes and the deadline is coming up quickly.  I think it's August 30th...here's a link to the page for you.  Once you are on the page, click on each little name and it will take you to their site and you can Like them, and get a code to enter....very easy.  Here's the link: http://www.facebook.com/#!/accuquilt?sk=app_10467688569...  Good luck! 

Pick 4 Blog Hop and the chance to win a great book!

Pick 4 Blog Hop started today....A new book by Sue Abry, aka: Quilt Sue, and is being reviewed by several different bloggers with a chance to win a copy of the new book.  Go meet some of these great bloggers and see what they have to say and what they are working on....

Today is Hazel's turn over at Hazel's Quilts. She's a new quilter. Go on over and say hello, leave a  comment and you'll be entered in her drawing for a chance to win this new book....Every day there will be another review with another chance to win.  It will be interesting to see what other quilters have to say and what they are working on.

To see who is on this blog hop and will be posting about this book, you can visit Quilt Sue's blog and she will guide you to the next blogger....Here's a link....Quilt Sue. 

Generation Q Magazine

There is a new online magazine that is pretty interesting.  It's called Generation Q.
 It's a team effort by the editors of Quilter's Home  and  Megan (the Bitchy Stitcher). They've got some great articles.  Go check them out! They've got a great article about irons right now.  It shows what our ancestors had to deal with while still making beautiful quilts.  We are so lucky to live now and have all the great gadgets and good fabric we have today....

Friday night sewing with Heidi and Bobby

I was supposed to go sew at the church last night but I put my hip out of place and just couldn't walk on it.  It's feeling better but I'll be taking it easy for a few days.  I wasn't doing anything special to do this, I just turned wrong and stepped wrong and out it went.  Talk about pain to the brain, or hip in this case.  It's ok and back in place but still sore.  I did still sew last night and got a little top partially together.  I got up early this morning and finished putting it together and it is so cute...


I picked this little kit up last weekend at the Plano Quilt Show.  It is a kit for Project Linus and it was a combination of crayon blocks, marker blocks, hand embroidery blocks and machine embroidery blocks.  This was so much fun to work on.  All the while I was sewing this together I could just imagine some little child coloring some of these blocks.  Two of the blocks have kids names on them and some of the coloring is so sweet and innocent it just had to be a child that did it.  This was fun to put together and I'll quilt this one quickly to get it finished for this worthy charity. The girl I talked to at the booth said she passed out 125 kits at the show! 

The Plano Quilt Show was great and I took pictures of some of my favorite quilts. If I get time, I'll post those later.  Gotta go for now and work on some other stuff while the grandbaby is still asleep.  More to come later,  happy sewing!

Some things I worked on this week

Ok, I have done some things this past week and I haven't showed them. My computer at work doesn't like to upload my pics to blogger anymore so I can't do it at lunch. I've been super busy this week and haven't taken the time to post....here's what I was talking about in my last post.  It's my Row by Row quilt and I finished doing the May or 5th row and added it in.  I redid the top row and took off the first pinwheel row and replaced it with the new one...I think it looks alot better.

See the blocks I took off. I changed my mind about the background color and went with white so this row of pinwheels just didn't work for me.  The pattern calls for a beige or off white background but I found this white fabric I loved and wanted to us it....I'm the only one doing white background and I'm glad I decided to use it.  Mine will be just a little different from everyone else's and I like that.  Who says we have to follow the rules?  Anyway, I like the way it's looking so far and this has been alot of fun. Only 4 more months to go on this little quilt and it will be finished. I can't wait to see how it's gonna look.

I made these two little blocks this week for the leaders of my quilting group.  I couldn't show them before now as the blocks were a surprise for them.  Everyone in our group made a heart block and gave to them.  Our party was Thursday night and it was alot of fun and the heart blocks were great.  I didn't take pics of all of the different blocks but I'll show you those when they put their quilts together.  Here's my blocks.  These were just simple little hearts with a few different stitches from my machine but I added some of my tatting around the blocks.  We were asked to do one in pastels and one in brighter colors....

Diane and Judy loved all of their blocks!

I did show the girls at Tatting on Tuesday night and they liked the blocks too.  I had done the tatting a while back and didn't have any purpose for it except to put it on something like a pillow or maybe a hankie so this worked out really well.  I have a little bit left and I'll make something else with the leftover lace.  I guess I could have put more tatting on it too but I ran out of time....

Weekend sewing and cooking

I sewed yesterday afternoon and worked on my Row by Row quilt.  I had made the rows but had not put them together. I started putting them together and found out I was missing a row.  I had not done the May flower row...I also didn't like the January row so I took it off and am re-doing that row.  I thought I could live with it and decided I didn't want to live with it....it would bother me too much so I un-sewed it.  I'll be re-doing that row and put it back on tonight or this week. I'll show you the finished rows later. I still haven't taken pictures of this but will this week.   I didn't get finished with the flower row as I had to stop and go to the grocery store. I wanted to try out a new recipe and do something different for supper. 

We like the Chipotle restaurant and I decided to try to do a take-off on their burrito bowl....I made spanish rice, Fajita chicken and red beans. I bought hot sauce from Chili's.  I cut up tomotoes, lettuce, onions and bell peppers.  My family liked it alot and so did I. My DH loved it and said he liked my version better than Chipotle...Hm, easy to fix and he liked it too.  Not bad, I think I'll do this again.

I made a recipe from a blog I read...Becoming Betty.  She had a recipe for White Chocolate Popcorn.  I popped popcorn and made her recipe.  Here's a link. I made this and was letting it "set up". (You know what I mean by that, right?  It's like Rice Crispie squares, you have to let them harden... I started reading blogs trying to catch up on the people I follow. I turned around to ask my husband if he wanted some and he was already munching down on it. He said it was his third helping...He loved this stuff.  This was also very easy to make...I can't wait to share this with my grandkids....
It was fun to cook tonight. Normally, it's a chore for me but I enjoyed making both of these.  Now, I'm doing an easy dinner tonight and sewing some more.  Hopefully, you will see pictures. I hope you get to sew today, til next time....

Creative Grid Ruler video

I saw this video on You tube the other day and went out and bought this ruler.  I want to make a One Block Wonder quilt and thought this would help. I have a 60 degree ruler but just had to have this one after I saw the video.  I've been working on other things yesterday and today and haven't tried it out yet but I'll let you know. Has anyone else used this ruler?

Saturday sewing

I got the little block from Friday night finished.  It's the block on the left with the pink star in the middle and blue around the outside.  I finished it differently than the pattern called for because the pattern measurements were wrong and I didn't want to take the time to figure out the correct measurement, I just put the rectangle around it and called it finished.  The other two little blocks went together just fine.  These are all 6 1/2" blocks.  They are  alot of fun to do but they take more time to do for me than bigger blocks.  I worked on these during the day yesterday while watching the grandbaby and doing a little housework too.  The pinwheel and 4 patch on the bottom were leftovers from the blocks and I didn't want to waste them. I'll put them in with all my other orphan blocks and one of these days I'll put together an orphan quilt.  That might be coming up pretty soon as I think I have enough blocks now to do it..I'll have to put those on my design wall soon and play some. Here are the little blocks I made:

Doesn't look like much work for a whole day, huh?  Oh well, it was fun and I'm this much closer to a finished quilt too.  These go in one of my UFO's (the 30's Sampler- Number 1 on my UFO list) and I only have about 12 more blocks to do, so I'm slowly whittling them down. 

Friday night sewing with friends

I go to this group on Friday nights every other week.  It is for a few hours and sometimes I get some things done and lately I just can't get anything done here.  I visit more than I get done. I think I'm just going to start taking hand sewing with me instead of lugging my machine and my projects with me.  This just made me decide to do this the next Friday I go.
Every thing I tried to work on just didn't work.  The little block I was working on didn't fit together correctly.  There was a mistake in the pattern and it was about 1/4" wrong on the outside edge...I put it aside to finish up later. 

I pulled out another project and didn't have the  right fabric I needed for the next round. I decided it just wasn't meant for me to finish anything so I just put everything up and sat there and visited.  I was getting flustered and that was not how I wanted to feel.

My ASG Meeting and Kumihimo

Last night was tatting night but I had an ASG(American Sewing Guild)  meeting too, so I had to decide which one to go to...I decided I'd go to ASG and skip tatting. I hate to do this but I don't like driving like a mad woman and going to both places.  Anyway, our meeting was fun and we did Kumihimo again.  We worked on making bracelets with beads.  It was alot of fun watching all the other ladies do it. I didn't do it as I didn't bring any beads with me.  We had some young visitors to our meeting last night too. Two ladies brought their granddaughters to the meeting and they could do this alot better than us.  They had a great time showing up their Grandmas!  Lots of fun but nobody finished their bracelet so I have no pictures yet. I will take pics next month and show you what they look like.   Crafts are definitely addictive and it was so cool where we were.  Joann's had the A/C on and it was very comfortable compared to outside at 108 degrees. I'll be glad when we get some cooler weather!  til next time, happy sewing!

Catching up, feeling better and a finished top

I haven't posted in a few weeks.  I haven't felt good and haven't done any sewing.  I have had a terrible tooth ache.  My dentist fixed this tooth back in January but it didn't work. I finally had to give up and go to the endodontist and they drilled through the crown to do a root canal.  After two weeks of tooth  and jaw pain, I finally got some relief on Thursday and started feeling lots better.  My mouth is still tender but no pain..Woo hoo, you can only imagine the relief!  Anyway, I'm not on any more drugs and I finally felt like doing something besides going to bed... 

I worked on several things this weekend.  I made a quick little quilt top out of some Brown Bear fabric I've had in my stash.  I haven't had this in my stash very long, maybe a year or two...anyway, I already did one Brown Bear top a few months ago but I really liked this one when I saw it in another magazine. I fussy cut the animals out and the fabric I have left is really holey...(I hate fussy cutting only because of the waste of the fabric) I'm going to cut up the rest of the animals and use them on my last Brown Bear panel  that I have. I'm going to keep the panel all together on this last one  and just add borders around it. I'll use the left over animals in the border or maybe on the back of the quilt. Here's the Brown Bear top I made this weekend:

Brown Bear, Brown Bear what do you see?

I finished this little quilt top for community service. This is a little top I started at my small group at our last meeting. I couldn't finish it at the meeting as the kit was short two blue cornerstones and I had to cut those out of my stash.  I cut those and finished sewing up the little top.  I'll give this back to the  group and we have long arm quilters that will do the quilting for us...

Here's a close-up of the blocks, this fabric is all different kinds of mocassins.  The fabric was pretty cute and I didn't like the border at first but it grew on me as I was putting it on.  I think it turned out ok and I hope some little kid will like it.

I also worked on catching up on my row by row quilt.  I made three rows and I'll add these to the other rows I  have already done. Now,  my little row by row is all caught up.. I didn't take a picture of those but I will and I'll show you later.

I didn't do this over the weekend but I wanted to show you this cute pincushion that I made at my last ASG meeting.  It is made out of wool and he turned out so cute. It's a little porcupine.

 I planned on working on the Barbara Brackman blocks but didn't get to them .  I have fallen behind and need to catch up on these too. I'll try to work on them this week.  I did all of my sewing while watching the youngest grandchild and she demanded my time too...so, these were on my list but she took priority. I'll have to catch up on them another time.