Giveaway Thank You's

I like to stop and make sure I have publicly thanked those who have sponsored giveaways that I am blessed to have won.  I continue to be amazed at these wins, and hope I haven't missed anybody.  As someone with a budget that doesn't allow for much fabric purchasing, this has been such a huge help.  Here are some of the wins I have had since February:

These are in order from most recent, working backwards.

1. 

Lisa at In the Boon Docks - one of my favorite blogs!  Lisa is a sweetie.  I had joked in my comment that she could send me some of her Backyard Baby scraps if I won - 

and she did just that on top of this:

I will be using that strip pack for a quilt for India!  I hope you will visit Lisa and stay awhile. 

She would love more followers.

2.

Pat Sloan  & Moda - 2 charm packs.  Thank you Pat!  These are outside of my normal color palette, so it will be fun to see what I can come up with.

 

3.

Renee from Sewn With Grace - this wonderful bundle.  

Renee has a lovely vintage style and is a great decorator.  

She has helped with the decorations and window dressing for her friends new coffee shop.  Adorable!

All of this lovely vintage style fabric, a pattern, strawberry pin holders, and a lovely vintage hanky.  I have a lot of hankies from my Grandmothers and a quilt using them is on the "someday" list.  I am planning to make this bag for my big trip to the Minnesota Quilters show in June.  THANK YOU RENEE!

4.

Linda from L&R Designs Quilting: The newest book by one of my all time favorite authors - Jennifer Chiaverini.  It was nice to be able to read at my leisure and not have to request it from the Library!  Thank you Linda!  Linda has some wonderful quilts and lots of eye candy, so I hope you will visit her.

5.

From Vanesa at New Nest Designs - Blogivarsary Giveaway!  Vanesa has some really nice more Modern quilts with really clean lines.  Thank you Vanesa!

A Layer Cake of this:

6.

A $30.00 gift certificate to Fashionable Fabrics from Janet at The Empty Nest.  I won this before the one above and had placed an order for 2 charm packs of Half Moon Modern with this gift certificate on almost the same day I found out I won the Layer Cake.  You should go check out Janet's blog - she does the most amazing furniture painting using some special paint I had not heard of before.  Thank you Janet!

Blessed Sewing!

Karen

Part 2 of the Quilt Show Pics! Enjoy!

All of the following 9 quilts feature the same fabric.  I believe the one in the middle was the first.  After she made these 3, it then became her mission to use up all the fabric, thus all the little quilts.  We were laughing so hard when she showed us these the past 2 months.  When she was done, she had a little ziploc with about 6 scraps in it.  Well done!

Tea Pots!  Need I say more????  Loved both of these.  I voted for the top one for Viewer's choice/wall hangings.  The lower teapot quilt is a Darlene Zimmerman pattern from a Fons & Porder magazine in 2008.  If anyone has that pattern, I would love to borrow it!

Quilts with a center medallion are amazing to me.  A lot of work went into these.  Not my color scheme, but my Sister in Law loved them.

HMMMM......Have I seen something about a Quilt-a-Long using this pattern?  This quilt was King Size and so fresh and modern!

 This one was in my top 3.  I love these graduated Log Cabin Quilts, and this color combo was inspired!

Last but not least, this is the one I would have voted for if my friend hadn't made that Alaska quilt.  I can't even describe it very well.  It could easily be in a judged show.  Black/White/and Gray have never looked so good.  I believe this one may have been the Viewer's Choice winner for bed quilts.


































I loved this show so much.  It was very well organized, the quilts were displayed so nicely, and they were easy to see.  I can hardly wait for the big show in June!

Oh, and here is my only purchase (other than some rotary blades).  I have been in love with Fly a Kite forever and I am so happy to have a little bit of it!  I haven't been able to find this in any of my local quilt shops, so I was happy to find it at one of the vendor's booths at the show.

Blessed Quilting,
Karen

Almost 100!

Welcome to the newest followers!  I hope you will enjoy your visits here.

One more follower, and we hit 100!  

Hmmm...Maybe we will have to do another giveaway to celebrate?  

What do you think?

Feast For the Eyes

Here are some of my favorite quilts from the show last Friday/Saturday.  First are the other challenge quilts:

The Viewer's Choice winner is the one right above with the appliqued flowers.

My favorite was the one with the pansies and hummingbird - paper pieced and very pretty.

This one was made by my Sister In Law, Chellie.  It is called Farm Girl.  She went to her grandma's farm in Oklahoma a lot in the summers when she was growing up, so made it in honor of grandma Marge.

This is also by my sister in law.  Cute Christmas panel quilt.

I love the buttery yellow in this quilt.

 I normally don't like quilts designed by Judy Niemeyer, but I loved this one.  Look at those Flying Geese!

This was part of the Quilts of Valor display.  It has many wonderful fabrics in it representing wonderful things about our country.

LOVED this quilt with 30's Repro fabrics.

This is the quilt I voted for in the Viewer's Choice for bed quilts.  Not only do I love the whole thing, but it was made by the woman who was our next door neighbor the first 10 years of my life.  It is so sweet to see her again and share our love of quilting.  They were such good friends - I remember snowmobile rides and hiding from all the boys in their basement.  They had 3 boys and I have a brother.

There were some members who went on the same bus trip I took in 2010 - one week earlier.  So they all made black and white quilts using the same fabric I used in my Son's quilt.

I will be back tomorrow with the rest of my favorite quilts!  

Blessed Sewing,

Karen

Quilt Show - Word Heavy!

Yesterday was the long-anticipated quilt show with my local quilt guild - the Memorial Quilters of Forest Lake, MN.  This guild has been around a long time and has many members.  They have their biannual show down to a science, and it was such a joy to attend and participate!

As my followers know, I ended up with 3 quilts in the show.  The first was in the category of "Bed Quilts" and is one I have featured on the blog before.  This is the quilt I made my son and my first bed quilt.  We were encouraged to have props, so I had my little blue Minnesota quilt on display as a prop since the 2 are tied together in my quilting journey.

The next one I entered is the bed quilt I made for my daughter.  I have given glimpses of it through the months, so this is the big reveal of the whole thing.  :)  

As I was working on it, the colors were so wild and the amount of different prints so large, that I had doubts about how it was going to turn out.  It was such a pleasure to get it finished and see that it was lovely in its own way.

Edited to add a picture of me with my quilt!  

The last one I entered was thrown together too fast, so is kind of askew.  But for something I made up out of my own vision and almost entirely freehand, I am pretty happy with it.  I am pretty unsure of myself in a lot of areas of my life, and this new creative thing is no different.  I had a wonderful fabric seller review my blog recently after I volunteered to do a project or giveaway for them, and they told me I had talent.  Truly, that amazed me.  But when I look at this little piece, I can see that it is there - I just need to bring it out.

It was also wonderful to help at the show.  I handed out ballots for Viewer's Choice voting for a couple of hours, and worked in the consignment shop for a couple of hours.  The talent shown everywhere I turned was a treat for the eyes.

And after the show was taken down, we all gathered and found out who won the viewer's choice awards in 5 different categories.  I will have to share the link to our website when they post pictures of the quilts.  Then they drew names for 5 baskets full of FQ's.  I almost forgot to buy some raffle tickets for that - but bought 4 for $2.00 at the end.  And guess what?  My name was one of those drawn!  And the one I liked the best was still available!

96 FQ's!!!!  

And I can see myself using all but about 10 of them (they just aren't my style)!  I am so in shock.  I sat and watched Magnum PI last night, untied the ribbons, looked at the selvages to see if I recognized any names, folded them up and put them in piles by color or theme.  With some that aren't my style, I have a start on being part of the next 'Fugly' Giveaway/Swap.  

Tomorrow I will post the pictures of my favorite quilts of the show.

Blessed Sewing,

Karen



Linking Up with Manic Monday Linky Party at SewHappyGeek.

Life Can Be Too Busy

I feel like I am living in Insanity right now.  This is when it is tough to be a single Mom - when both kids need me to take them places, I need to take care of the house, the yard needs attention, and on top of that - I quilt!  ;)

My "free" time has been spent preparing for the quilt show this Saturday.  Daughter's crazy circle quilt is quilted, binding sewn on, and hand stitching of other side of binding 2/3 done.  I still need to attach a hanging sleeve to this one and Son's quilt.  And somehow I want to finish my challenge quilt.  By Wednesday night.  :)  SIL is going to take the quilts up Thursday morning for set up.

Novelty Fabric for Solid/Novelty Layer Cake swap

Meanwhile, we have had middle school orientation, high school orientation, practice for the Elementary musical at church, dance, end of year dance performance, band info night, and baseball.  Lovely baseball - my attempt to get son away from the video games.  He goes, he is pretty good, but it sure takes up a lot of my time.

Anyway, enough whining.  Sorry!  I wanted you to know where I have been.  I hope to have a lot of quilt show pictures for you on Saturday night.  Until then,

Blessed Sewing

Karen

Wild and Crazy Circle Quilt!

I am linking up to Amy's One Week, One Thing Challenge.   

I committed to finishing the circle quilt top and back so I could get Nikki's quilt to the quilter.  I actually accomplished both on Wednesday - it helped that I was home with a sick child!

I don't have the greatest picture of this yet, and the pictures were taken before the final orange border was added.  But this will give you a general idea.  I will post another picture after it comes back from the quilter.  My daughter helped choose many of the fabrics - there is some Sandy Gervais, Jeneen Morrison California Dreamin' (I think that is correct, and various others.   It is brighter that shown in the picture.  :)

I am pretty excited to have finished 2 bed sized quilts now - one for each child.

Blessed Sewing, Karen

Quilt Show Challenge Quilt

I joined a local quilt guild in January.  They have a big show every 2 years.  It is 2 weeks from now - yikes.  My daughter's quilt is with the quilter and I hope to have it back soon to bind.  Son's quilt is done.  Both will be in the show.

That leaves quilt #3 - the challenge quilt.  In February one of the ladies said they had one more packet to make a challenge quilt.  Not really knowing what that meant, I took it.  Since I am home today with the boy because he is sick, I thought it was a good chance to try to put my vision into fabric.  The perimeter could be no more than 96 inches - so this is 18x30.  The fabric on the bottom and the leaves is the challenge fabric. 

The theme is 'My Favorite Things About Spring".  The fabric at the bottom represents a lake - I live in the Land of 10,000 Lakes after all.  And I love them.  Those green bits are supposed to be ferns - the fern pattern was in some FQ.   I think they look more like Pine Trees.  :)  The light blue background is the sky - and of course the birds and branch are part of spring also - the green appearing, the birds singing.

The butterfly is probably too much.  They aren't really around in the spring.  I will use that another time.  Here is my question - do the 'ferns' look silly?  Would it be better to have some flowers around the lake instead?  I know it is all out of proportion - that is deliberate due to the size limitation.  Also, would it be cheesy to have the sun in the corner?  I am going to fuse the pieces down when I am ready, and then do some decorative outlining and such like I have seen out there.

Any feedback and ideas are welcome.  I don't it to look like an amateur made it - even though I am one.

Thank you everyone! 

Blessed Sewing, Karen

Linking up to Try New Things Thursday at Happy Quilting.

Wednesday Weigh in

I am so happy that Wednesday is here again and I can see the tangible results of the changes I am making.  This past week I did well with my eating, and the habitual reaching for certain foods happened less and less.  I believe the Lord is truly giving me a new mindset with this.

Without further ado, here are the results:

Weight last week: 247.5
Weight this week: 243.5

- 4 pounds!!!  

I am so happy with that number.  I knew why the scale didn't go down last week and I just kept with it.

I also am becoming more active.  When you are as overweight as I am and have developed joint pain from arthritis, it can be very painful.  I can now 'run' down stairs again rather than two footing them.   The secret for me is walking - and to push myself a little more each time.

My next goal is to begin riding my bike and build up my endurance.  I really want to ride my bike to work - which is 10 miles each way.

Thank you to everyone for your encouragement to me on this journey.

Blessed Everything,
Karen

March Schnibbles - Bibelot

I am hoping that I make it into the Schnibbles parade!  I finished past midnight Central time.  :)  I was working very hard all week on my daughter's quilt top so I can get it measured and the paperwork filled out for submission to the quilt show next month.  Here is a glimpse of that:

And then I turned to my Schnibbles for the month.  I used Fairytale Friends by American Jane - including part of the panel.  The original plan was to use the panel on the back, but some of the scenes were kind of scary.  

To fit it all together, I used the charms that had the tickets to widen the scenes to fit the blocks that would be attached to them.  I am not sure if I am going to do an outer border yet.  

So, here it is.

I have submitted this to "Another Year of Schnibbles" at A Quilting Life and Pink Pincushion. 

I am looking forward to seeing the parade tomorrow, 

and learning what the April Schnibbles will be!

I pray blessings for all of you.  

For those that believe, tomorrow is Palm Sunday!