Fandango Speck

This month, the pattern for Another Year of Schnibbles is an even smaller quilt.  

Carrie Nelson of Rosie's Quilting Company designed a new set of patterns using Moda's new 

Candy packs - 2 1/2" squares.  She is calling them Little Bites.

I happened to have bought a candy bar box on sale at my LQS and had a pack of 

40 - 2 1/2 x 5" rectangles of an older line by Kate Spain called Fandango.  

I present....Fandango Speck:

 I am totally in love with this color combo.  

If you look closely, there is a secondary design of the blues/greens or the reds/yellows.  

Now I see why people have toes in their pictures.  

Almost impossible to miss when you are taking a picture from above.  :)

A special thank you to Sinta of Pink Pincushion and Sherri of A Quilting Life for sponsoring the monthly parade of Schnibbles.  You can go to their blogs tomorrow on October 1st to see the parade of Speck quilts.

Afternoon Tea!

My blog name includes "Tea", but I haven't posted anything about that.  I love going to tea rooms!

  

Last summer, I took my Sister-in-law, Oldest Niece, Aunt and Daughter to the Mad Hatter Tearoom in 

Anoka, MN.   This was before I had my blog.  We had a great time, and visited Millie P's Quilt Shop afterwards.  The only bummer was that the other female in my immediate family, niece Dani, was in the Peace Corps in Burkina Faso (West Africa), so she couldn't join us.

I bought a Groupon for a 4 course tea for 2 last January at the Mad Hatter, and it was going to expire today.  

Life has been busy, but I finally made reservations on the last possible day available.  My daughter and I were going to go, and then she found out she had an extra day of dance practice before Homecoming. 

 I thought of asking my Aunt, then my oldest niece, and then all of a sudden I had a duh moment!

  

Dani just arrived home last week after being gone almost 2 1/2 years, and was available during the day to join me!  I was so excited.  We spent a couple of wonderful hours together, getting reacquainted and talking about her amazing experiences.  I am quiet in a group, but love one on one time with those I care about. 

First course was a wonderful creamy mushroom soup.  We chose a pumpkin flavored black tea and an apple spice flavored black tea.  2nd course was several lovely little sandwiches.  3rd course was scones with lemon curd, cream, and jam.  And 4th course was the cutest little petite desserts. 

I forgot the SD card for my camera, so could only take a few pictures.  

This is Dani and I.  I didn't realize until I saw the picture that our clothes even go together!

A picture of part of the gift shop part.

Look at these great nightlights!

And this is their goldfish bowl - an old sink with a couple of real goldfish in it.

We really had a delightful time together.  I hope to do it again soon!

Today I worked on finishing the "Speck" Little Bite pattern from Carrie Nelson of Schnibbles fame.  

The top is now completed.  I am not going to try to quilt it now - I have too many things to do at home.  

Pictures will be up tomorrow.

Guild Meeting Surprise

Like many guilds, we have a block of the month.  It is great to see what it will be each month and I have had a great time putting them together the months I have done them.  Here are the 2 I made for our meeting last Thursday.  Yep, Great Granny Squares!  We were given the white squares for the edge, and I ended up cutting the bottom one incorrectly.  So I had a note on it to give it back to me and I would fix it.

I won't have to hurry to fix it, because guess what?  I won all of the blocks this month!  

The fabric scheme was 1930's.  Here are the blocks I have so far:

I am so blessed!  I think I will be making 2 quilts from these - one for myself and one to donate.  I might make a runner with the bright ones.  I have been told I will receive more.  The woman sitting across from me said she has some feedsack material from the 1930's with the Tinman on it and is going to fussy cut one into her block.

I hope to work on my monthly "Schnibble" tonight - I bought an Angler 2 and that should help a lot.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend.  

Be back soon with pictures of my Great Granny Squares from the quilt a long at Bee In My Bonnet.  

I am also working on a plan to help drive traffic to my Etsy shop, so stay tuned.

Long Live Cheetos!

I know, funny/strange blog title.  

But that is the subject of the email I shared with Sandy Gervais from Pieces of My Heart.  

Many of you know that Moda just had a blog hop to highlight their new precut - 2.5" squares called Candy.  The designers posted a project and info about their hometown.  

One of Sandy's highlights was that her town of Algona, IA has "The World's Largest Cheeto".  

If you want to read the story, go here

Here is how Sandy announced that I was one of her winners:

I usually have random.org generate numbers to be my winners.

However, because there were some interesting stories that I wanted to share with you, I decided I would hand pick the winners. Here are the winners - all with an interesting story.

And the winners are:

Fourth place winner is a Karen O. who has ties to Cheetos. 

She works for the company that makes the cheese coating. 

Very important job, as without the cheese coating there really would not be a Cheeto.

Karen will win an Everlastings Charm Pack™, a Candy Pack, a bag of caramel corn from The Chocolate Season and a bag of Cheetos.

Karen O said...

Although this isn't directly about my hometown,

I do work for the company that makes the cheese coating for Cheetos. :)  

And here is a picture of my fabulous prize pack, which got here very quickly!  

The caramel corn is long gone...and my son claimed the Cheetos.

The card is so pretty!  You can click on the pictures to get a better look.

It was fun to tell Sandy in my email to her that one of my first wall hanging tops was 

from her fabric and her pattern (which was one of my first giveaway wins):

I also told her how happy I was to win the charm pack and candy pack.  

They will be perfect for one of the upcoming Schnibbles, I am sure.

Tonight was Quilt Guild.  I had a huge, exciting surprise there.   I will tell you about it tomorrow or Saturday.  Meanwhile,

P.S.  I just posted that vintage fabric in my Etsy Shop.  Please tell me your honest opinion of my pricing in an email if you have time.  

Vintage Fabric Finds!

As I said in my previous post, I need to do some research before listing these on Etsy.  

But I thought I would share my finds here first.  

I did a search on Craigslist for Quilting Fabric hoping for an Estate Sale.  

Instead I came upon an ad for vintage fabric.  

The fabric is from an estate of unmarried sisters and is in great condition.  

It was advertised as 1960's, but I think most of it is more likely from the 1940's!!!

And here is the best find of all - this is brighter in person.  

The woman I was buying from is very experienced and she didn't realize what it was.  

When I picked it up, she said she didn't know what this would be used for because of the border.  

As soon as I saw it, I told her it was a feedsack!  And the price was great.

It might be the full original feedsack with the stitching removed.  

I had been dreaming I would find one someday for a price I could afford, and it happened!

Now to decide what to sell and what to keep.   

I think I will list it really high to start in case my friend comes by again.  Hee hee.

Blessed Sewing,

Karen

A Caution for Selling on Etsy

I just learned a lesson a very hard way, and wanted to pass what I learned on to others.  

I just started selling fabric I have found on Etsy. 

I listed this adorable fabric for $4.00 a half yard and had 1.5 yards available. 

I found it in a thrift shop and probably doubled my price - so 50% profit.

Based on the buyers's name, I was able to find their eBay store.  I made the mistake of going there today to see what they listed my item for.  I had seen other vintage fabrics on their site that were listed for significant money ($30.00 - $50.00) , but imagine my shock when my 1.5 yards were listed for

$225.00.   

Now I don't know if she will really get that price, but I feel kind of sick to my stomach.  I know I am going to do my research next time if I find something like this!  This is business..buying and selling for profit.  I wanted to share my extreme case so other little shop owners can learn through my experience.
Definitely a case of Live and Learn!

Be back later today with my latest efforts with my Great Granny squares.

Meanwhile

Blessed Sewing

Karen

Finally, Our Winners!

Better late than never!  I finally have our winners from the Back to School Blog hop.  

First, for the book Quilting Modern is:

Richard blogs at Richard and Tanya Quilts.

For the Lately Arrived From London Charms and 3 FQ's that go with them:

Pam blogs at Just Me.  I took a look today and the quilts she has posted are really lovely!

And last, but certainly not least, is the winner of the Half Moon Modern Charm Pack:

Sweet Cherie who blogs at I Be's Cheraldine.  I bet Cheri has commented on almost every one of my blog posts since we connected earlier this year soon after she started blogging in February.  This young lady is truly amazing and prolific - both blog posts and the way she has grown in her quilting/sewing.   

It is fun to have giveaways and meet new friends, but it is extra special when 

one of your blogging buddies is the winner!

Over the weekend I worked on one more Great Granny square and the next AYOS project - Speck. 

I had the perfect fabric for this (you need 2 of the new 2.5" Moda Candy 

packs - a Candy Bar of Fandango by Kate Spain, which is 2.5 x 5.   Pics to come soon!

Blessed Sewing,

Karen

Sorry for the delay...

In picking the winners of the Blog Hop Party giveaway.  I have been dealing with some health issues that came to a head this past week with a visit to the Dr. and lots of blood tests.  I will be seeing a Rheumatologist in mid-October to go over the results.  Probable diagnosis is Psoriatic Arthritis - an Auto Immune Disease.  (There are ads on the TV with Phil Mickelson, who has this disease). I have had aches and pains in various joints for a while now, and they were getting worse and in more joints.  The biggest bummer is my left hand - the one that holds the rulers for rotary cutting.  The lowest joint of my index finger is in major pain after doing just a little bit of cutting the past few days.

If you pray, I would appreciate your prayers as I face this disease.  I want to deal with it with 

grace, and without allowing it to interrupt my life too much.  I am already looking for a

different job that is less stressful and would appreciate prayers for that also. 

I will be back tomorrow with the winners.

Blessed Sewing,

Karen

P.S.  Gratuitous pictures of some items I added to my Etsy shop....