A bit of black and red :)

I showed you the pics of my new bedroom quilt in progress

and it has plenty of black in it.

I wanted to highlight our black wrought iron bed frame

with pops of black in the bedding.

Of course I also have to include red :)

I changed the color of the flower pot to black

and used heavy weight black linen to make this pillow.

Come to think of it, 

I changed all the colors of this chart :)

It's called Love and Be Loved by

Thy Needle and Thread.

I stitched it on 36ct Country Mocha Edinburgh linen over 2 threads.

I just started stitching "Son of Chickens" the night before last.

I might have a small addiction to roosters.....just sayin'.

This will be a pillow for our living room when it's done.

I just love it!

Apparently the black and red theme 

has worked it's way into my sewing as well.

I made this apron yesterday using the 

 free apron pattern on Sew4home.

It's pretty awesome that you only need

5 fat quarters to make this.

I think it turned out cute :)

I'll be listing it in my shop today or tomorrow.

And speaking of tomorrow......

Don't forget to check back here 

for the Blog Hop Party with Giveaways!!!

I promise it will be fun!

I haven't done a giveaway in a while.

Will you be my winner?

Sweet Baby Girl :)

I spent the day yesterday sewing up these 7 pacifier leash sets

and matching drawstring bags.

I love the pink twill tape that reads "Sweet Baby Girl" on it.

Apparently I only had the ones for boys left in my shop.

Well that is just not fair, right?

These will be the last ones I make this year,

because I have lots of fun ideas for holiday stuff

coming up in the next few weeks.

I also have to get serious about Christmas gifts too.

When I went to M & L yardage today 

to pick up some more snap fasteners,

I stumbled across this fabric collection

that I tried very hard to walk away from.

*sigh*

I gave into temptation and brought some home.

The name of our Women's Ministry at church is Son Flowers.

How could I not buy this?

It says Son Flowers on it!

It must be a gift from above :)

I'll just keep telling myself that while

I stitch this into a lovely lap quilt for myself

one day in the very near future :)

August FNSI :)

Last night was the Friday Night Sew In again.

How did August go flying past me?

Anyhoo....

I spent the evening making the 25 blocks

 for my new bedroom quilt.

Today I spent a few hours piecing the first part

of the quilt top.

I still need to decide how I want the borders to look.

There will be red in the borders of course :)

I love love love this fabric.

It's soooo much prettier in person.

We have a black wrought iron bed frame so I wanted

fabric with red, blue, yellow and black. 

It's not easy to find so when I stumbled across

"Shades of Blue" by Moda I knew I had to have it.

I bought the only remaining layer cake, jelly roll and charm pack

that I could find and a bit of yardage.

I added the red from the "Ruby" fabric collection.
I have to say, I'm likin it so far :)

so.....whatcha doin?

I should be working on an apron and potholders.....

but I'm not.

I'm doing a bit of quilt piecing :)

and a bit of cross stitch.....

So....

what are YOU doing?

20 Saturdays left.......

20 Saturdays left until what?

Until Christmas of course!

Time to start thinking about the holidays 

and get those projects started!

I ordered this darling table topper pattern 

from the Fat Quarter Shop

and was hoping to use Phenomenal Fall by Moda

but apparently when USPS said my fabric 

 was "out for delivery" on Friday...

they were only kidding.

Seems that no one really knows 

where my package is at the moment.

I didn't want to wait

 so I decided to bust out some of the random

Christmas charms I received last year when I took part

in a Christmas charm swap.

I grabbed 15 charms that looked good together

and cut them into 2 1/2" squares.

You can also use those darling little 

"mini" charm packs available now on etsy and ebay.

This pattern takes 60 squares.

I'm glad I made this one today as a trial run,

because the pattern doesn't specify what size binding

to use and I used 2 1/2".

I'll try 2" on the next one.

Because my binding was a bit wide, 

the scallops don't show as well as I'd like.

It was FTS (fun to sew) until I got to 

the binding of the little scallops.

Not so much fun as it turns out.

Pretty darn cute though when it's done right.

You can see that my binding is sadly lacking.......

I'm not throwing in the towel just yet.

I have 60 more squares cut out and ready

for round 2 of my little scallop binding adventure.

Wish me luck!

A bit of quiltie goodness :)

So for my Friday night sewing I ended up making theses blocks

from "another Bite of Schnibbles".

 I decided to make the "Tag-along" quilt.

On Saturday morning I worked on piecing the quilt top

and adding the sashing and outer borders.

Sometimes I buy fabric and it lingers in my home

for months or years.

But the minute I had my hands on "Give Thanks"

I just had to start quilting!

I love every print in the stack

except the Indian corn........

what were they thinking?

Oh well.....

I had to use it because with Schnibbles patterns

you pretty much use every tiny piece of 2 charm packs

to make one small quilt.

I  ended up going through my stash

to find a co-ordinating fabric because I didn't 

fully understand the cutting directions

and mis-cut some charms.

Luckily for me I had that fun brown with

polka dots that blended in well :)

I'm not saying that the directions were difficult to understand,

but maybe the glass of wine I drank while cutting played a small part?

After I had the quilt top assembled,

I decided that I didn't like the Oyster Kona I used

for the sashing and now I'm going to replace it with 

a sunflower yellow. 

It's actually a deeper yellow than it looks

in the photo.

I'm also planning on embroidering some

of the things I'm thankful for in the sashing.

We'll see how long it takes me to actually 

get this thing done!

Who's on first?

Today I get to sew just for the fun of it.

I love days like this :)

I decided to piece the table runner made from

the "friendship star" blocks that I told you about.

I used a pattern I've used once before here.

It looks so different in these fabrics.

I just love the way it's coming together

and I love the fact that the blocks were

made by my dear friends that I met online.

How awesome is that?

I know we'll be friends for life

and this runner will always remind me of our time together:)

I'm not quite sure yet how I want to quilt it.

Maybe some big stitch hand quilting?

We'll see :)

My wonderful mail carrier brought me some goodies 

these past 2 days.

I received by Old Fashioned Calicoes jelly roll

and 2 charm packs of Give Thanks.

I'm in love with both fabric lines!

And the fall charms are perfect for my home

because of all the reds in there!

Do you see that hounds-tooth?

Don't you just love it?

And did I mention polka dots?

Nuf' said :)

I have to decide on which Schnibbles pattern to use for the charm packs.

It's between these 2.

For the Calicoes jelly roll I have the pattern already picked out.

Now the only question is.........

Who's "on" first??????

Good Times, Great Friends!

I can't believe a year has gone by since Regena and Denise

came down to So Cal to spend the weekend and go to the 

International Quilt Festival in Long Beach with Amy and I.

We had a few more ladies join the fun this year,

Sam, Marcia and my Mom :)

Here are a few of my favorite quilts.

(There were many more, but most didn't allow photos)

This one was my absolute fav!

The tulips look like they are coming right out of the quilt.

My Mom was a big fan too!

The photos don't do it justice.

Amazing!

This next photo is one of the one of the fun booths that caught my eye.

It's a company called Reets Rags To Stitches.

They have cute apron patterns and bag patterns and 

fun primitive stuff :)

Check it out at www.reetsragstostitches.com

This next photo is American Jane........*sigh*

It's my happy place.

I wanted everything in there!!!

You can check out their website here:

AmericanJane.com

Gena gave the "Sweet 16" machine a run for it's money.

Pretty "Sweet" indeed!

Last year at the Quilt Festival the 4 of us all purchased the 

same charm pack with the intention of making a 

"Friendship" tablerunner,

with one star block made by each of us.

So on Saturday we got together and worked on our blocks.

After we finished making 4 blocks each

we chose one from each set to make up our 4 blocks.

I can't wait to make my runner with

one block from each of my friends.

It's something I will cherish :)

We had a great weekend and it went by 

way to quickly again.

Now we have 12 months to get ready for the next one!

Spring 2012 Bloggers Quilt Festival

Today is opening day of Spring 2012 Bloggers Quilt Festival!

If you've never heard of it,

swing on over to Amy's Creative Side

and check out all the details

and drool over all the amazing quilts!!!

I've only been quilting for about a year now

and I'm loving every minute of it!

I've decided to enter my "Tia Helena's" quilt into the competition.

This quilt really began 41 years ago

when my grandparents

were visiting us from Germany.

My "Oma" was an avid stitcher,

both cross stitch and embroidery.

She taught me to stitch that summer.

Fast forward to 2011 when I was looking

through my craft supplies in the garage

and came across these 3 partially completed

Hummel embroideries.

These were the pieces I was working on

with my "Oma" that summer.

I was planning on stitching them to represent

my 3 cousins, Maika, Norma and Sonny.

A few years ago, my cousin Sonny was killed

in a car accident on the Autobahn at age 39.

He left behind his wife and 2 teenage children.

I felt immediately compelled to finish these

pieces and incorporate them into a quilt for my aunt.

(We affectionately call her Tia Helena)

So this is what I came up with.

I used colorful fabrics by Robert Kaufman

to really make the embroideries pop :)

And I really wanted it to be bright and happy!

I hand quilted it using Perle cotton size 8.

My mother just left to Germany on vacation

3 weeks ago and hand delivered it to her sister.

It makes my heart happy to know

that this handwork that was started

by her own mother and finished by her niece

is finally in it's rightful home with her :)

I think that's what I love most about any kind of handwork

is that the love and care that goes into every stitch

will be cherished long after we are gone :)

I have my 2 little granddaughters that were just

born last year and I'm hoping that one day

they will sit with me in the backyard

on a sunny afternoon

and discover a love for handwork

from their Nana....

just like I did :)

Maika

Norma

Sonny

Happy Monday!

I had such a lovely weekend with my family :)

I hope you all did too!

I finished the mug rug for my swap partner

and it's on it's way to Australia now.

I hope she likes it!

I also finished up a fun little cross stitch pillow.

"Support our Troops" by Erica Michaels

Stitched on 28ct linen over 2 threads.

I found this backing fabric out in the garage

along with some other patriotic fabrics

that I used a lot

when I was making raggedy ann dolls years ago.

This is the needle book I stitched for my Mom.

I know she'll love the Delft tile look :)

I found this needlebook kit on ebay.

It made me laugh to think

that this pattern was designed in Scotland

and it's a classic Delft tile pattern from Holland

being stitched by a woman born in Holland

who now lives in California

and it's being mailed to a woman in Germany

who married a man from Holland

that now lives in California

but is on vacation in Germany where she was born.

Makes perfect sense right?