A Lovely Favorite Schnibble Finish

Just under the wire, I have finished my favorite Schnibbles of 2012 to go into the 

February parade at Sherri's (A Quilting Life) and Sinta's (Pink Pincushion) blog.  

Mine will actually be in Sinta's parade since my name begins with a K.  

I have now finished off my first Schnibble - Full House.  

I sewed 2,5 inch strips leftover from the project to make my binding.  

I quilted just inside the border of each house, and both sides of the narrow sashing.  

I used one of the fancy stitches on my new machine for the binding.  I am not able to do

 any hand sewing without major pain later, so I am happy with my solution.  

The back is a piece of seersucker I had found in a thrift shop that didn't sell in my Etsy shop.

This is also the project I committed to finishing for Melissa's (Sew Bittersweet Designs)

A Lovely Year of Finishes. 

I am so happy to have one of the Schnibbles finished off.  

I just wish the quilting had turned out better so I could try to sell it as a baby quilt.  

I will be a little lost without a new Schnibbles to make in February 

(they are taking a break until April).  But this will force me to finish off all of the tops from last year.  Now I just have to go buy a walking foot so my quilting isn't all puckered!  

Or maybe, just maybe I will attempt FMQ!!

Stay Warm (it is -6° F here right now and dropping)

AND

;

I Made a Quilt Block!

That sounds silly, but that is about how I feel.  I have not spent much time piecing for a couple of months now.  However, when I saw that Cindy from Quilt Doodle Doodles was having a BoM, I decided I needed to join in and support a fellow Minnesotan.  Nah, that is not the main reason.  Instead, I know she is going to design/share great blocks, and I love the setting she has designed.

I won a group of batik FQ's from Connecting Threads through Bea from Beaquilter.  
Thank you Bea and Connecting Threads!
I am going to use them for this BoM.  I have a special friend who has loved me no matter what is going on in my life, so this quilt will be her Christmas present.

January Block - Monkey Wrench:

The group of batiks in this pack are so pretty!  

I am looking forward to figuring out which to use for each block.

If you want to join us, you can click on the Icon on the left.

I started my new job yesterday!  

I have so much to learn about all of the systems used to sell seed and other agricultural products, as well as those that assist growers so they get the maximum yield.  

It is going to be wonderful and a great challenge.

Before I go, I wanted to post some pictures that I took quite a while ago and never shared.

I don't want to have a huge teapot collection, but I have found these 3 cute ones at various thrift shops:

Left to Right - Thatched English Cottage, Tea Shop, and the most recent - a sewing machine!

I spent Sunday afternoon quilting my "Lovely Year of Finishes" project.  

The binding is ready to sew together, and then attach.

Take care everybody, and 

Oh Oh, Trouble!

After a wonderful day with my daughter watching her H.S. Dance Team, I went to our local fabric outlet store - S.R. Harris.  I thought I would be there about an hour, but I was there the entire remaining hour and a half until they closed.  I thought I was done, but started moving farther back in the store, and found the recent bolts of quilting cotton.  Quilting Treasures, Andover, Dear Stella, and Riley Blake, among others.  It is a good thing they were closing soon.  I still did quite a bit of damage.  At least I can justify the purchase by stating I used my "Christmas Money". :)

Fox Trails, Fly a Kite, and Daisy Cottage by Riley Blake.  I saw one bolt of Farm Fresh, a couple from Mod Tod, one of the stripe prints from Sew Cherry, and some older lines I didn't recognize.

Michael Miller novelty prints.

Aunt Grace and a unique fabric that had 4 different designs running the length of the bolt

to add to my 30's reproduction collection.  

More Michael Miller, Going Coastal Bottle Caps, and a cute strawberry print.

All quilting cottons are 1/2 price, so these were all $5-$6 a yard.  I do plan to go back soon and search for more Riley Blake.   It is hard to find something in particular.  The bolts are stacked on top of each other, about 10 high.  It is hard to pull out anything more than 3 bolts down.  And it is hard to see the prints since they are flat with the bolt end facing out.  Since I knew I was running out of time, I finally just started looking at labels first.  There was a LOT of Dear Stella.  Riley Blake was harder to find.  

Oh yeah, they also had a LOT of full bolts of Rowan Liberty Art fabric.  $6.00 a yard. 

Did you have a great shopping weekend?  If you would be interested in buying a FQ of any of these, 

I would charge $3.25 each, U.S. postage included.  

Arianna Rachelle

We spent the most amazing and fun time with my niece, nephew-in-law, and lovely Arianna.  

It was so precious to hold that tiny little bundle and just gaze at her.  I am in love!

I praise God that she arrived safely after a difficult labor where she gave Mom and Dad

a scare quite often due to her heart rate dropping, and made Mom really uncomfortable.

This is my daughter Nikki holding a baby for the first time.

Son Richard.  

Neither of them wanted to hold her, but I warned them their cousin would demand that they do so, 

and sure enough she did.  So they each took a turn.  

I know they are going to have a lot of fun with her when she gets a little bit older.

I am hoping to get to my project for January and do some quilting tomorrow!

Enbrel should arrive next week, so I am hopeful that my hand will be much better soon and I can

cut some fabric!  We know what the priority is.

Proud Great Aunt here!

My first Great niece arrived today!  Arianna is just beautiful.

This is as close as I will get to Grandma for quite a few more years, so I am pretty excited.

My kids and I will go visit her and her Mommy (my oldest Niece Courtney) and Daddy tomorrow.  

This picture of Ari holding Daddy's finger soon after birth is just precious.

We are so thankful that she arrived safely.  6 lbs even, 18 3/4 inches.  Almost the same size her Great Aunt was at birth, almost the same time of day for her birth as mine, and close to my birthday!  :)

Can you tell I am excited?

January Lovely Finish Plan

My friend Melissa over at Bittersweet Designs and Shanna at Fiber of All Sorts
are sponsoring a great monthly link party they are calling "A Lovely Year of Finishes".
I had already decided that quilting and binding my Schnibbles tops would be my main goal
for the new year.  I have at least 10 tops to turn into wall hangings, table toppers, or lap quilts.
This is a perfect goal for me since I am not able to do much cutting.

Serendipitously, the Schnibble for January is to be our favorite one - either one already made or a new one.
So I can use this as my finish and as my favorite Schnibble for the February parade.
Sinta and Sherri are then going to take a break from the Schnibbles until May.

I loved most of the Schnibbles I made last year, but I would have to say my favorite
was the first one I made.  It is called Full House.  You can see my original post about this top here.
Believe it or not, it was only my 18th blog entry.  I was a newbie quilter at the time.



Not only did I make flying geese for the first time for this quilt, but I hadn't made anything like the checkerboard borders before.  It was a great chance to practice matching seams and balancing colors.
(And I learned that I really love bright colors!).
The Schnibbles patterns use 2 charm packs for the most part.

So my January Love Year of Finishes goal is to quilt and bind this.
Do you have any January goals?  I would love to hear about them, and I would love to have you join us.
There are even prizes!  ;)

P.S.  My quilt top matches the Link Button!  Yep, little things make me happy.

A Little Bite of a Morsel & Happy New Year!

Wow, 2013.  It is hard to believe that 2012 is over with!

I love the promise of a New Year.

This is the year of better health for me.

I will be going on a diet with no sugar, no lactose, and gluten free.

I am hopeful that I will be able to reduce swelling and improve my overall health with these changes.

It is the last month of the 2012 "Another Year of Schnibbles".  

The pattern chosen was one of Carrie Nelson's new Little Bites - Morsel.  

Morsel is a wonderful pattern with several different shapes of pincushions.

A little over a year ago when I started my blog, it was partly to log my progress as a quilter, 

and partly because I read about bloggers becoming friends.  I now have several bloggers that I consider friends.  Izzy from Dizzy Quilts is one of those.  I liked her style when I found her blog, and we both expressed interest in doing Another Year of Schnibbles.  So we did it.  And we have done a swap with our Morsel pincushions!  

I had a great time designing Izzy's Morsel.

For the front, I used little bits of many of my favorite fabrics from last year, a cute 

Riley Blake Fly a Kite print on top, and a little bit of Pure by Sweetwater.

On the back, I used 3 of the prints from Quilt Minnesota 2012.

I already received my pincushion from Izzy.  Here are the 2 of them together the day I mailed mine out. 

I love Marmalade so much so I was pretty excited to have that on my pincushion.

Izzy also sent me some little treats to go along with the pincushion:

A Cape Ann charm pack, some really cute buttons, 

and the most perfect Christmas card.  LOVE IT!

Quilting!  and Tea!

I hope Izzy receives her package soon.  It was a struggle for me to complete with my swollen hand, 

so it was delayed more than I wanted it to be.  I had to post this for the parade, but at least the rest of the goodies in the package will be a surprise!

I would like to thank Sinta and Sherri for hosting the wonderful projects each month and the parades.  

The parades with Morsel will be on their blogs on January 2.  

I would also like to thank Carrie Nelson of Miss Rosie's Quilt Company for the wonderful patterns, and her generosity each month.  Carrie gives a prize pack to someone each month on each of the 2 blogs.  I was fortunate to have my name drawn 3 times for this!  January the big prize was a fat 1/8 pack of Reunion.  July it was 2 Layer Cakes.  The 3rd time I asked that they draw a different name.  And guess who won?  Izzy!

Here is to the promise of a New Year!

P.S.  My blogging friend Kristen at Meadowbrook made a block each day this year.  366!  

You can see her post about the end of this fabulous project here.