A little weekend adventure...

In general, I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who would consider me one of those outdoorsy types. Really - I love the outdoors just not living in them! Spiders, mosquitos and I just do not get along. AT ALL. Well, this weekend we decided that we lived in just too pretty a state to not get out and do some exploring. So out came the fishing gear (I have some total fishy sort of people living in the house) and off they went on a great adventure. Not having caught a single fish on their adventure, they decided to venture out to a more local spot the next day. At least they didn't travel very far for not catching fish.

So, this Sunday we all went to Flaming Geyser park here in the Black Diamond area of Washington. My was it beautiful! Armed with my trusy iPhone and sketchbook, I figured this would be enough entertainment to keep my busy should this turn into an all-day fishing adventure. To my surprise though, there were some lovely wide trails for me to go exploring on and not having my camera on me, my iPhone camera was just going to have to do. Normally, I'm not a big user of the iPhone camera because well frankly, it's just not that great. And no, I haven't upgraded to the 3GS but I'm sorely tempted to shell out the dough.

Here are a couple of pictures I snapped with my phone so I could share my foray into the outdoors with you!

Sometimes, it takes a village to make a quilt.

I have long harbored the notion that in order for a quilt to be truly mine, I had to do every single thing. From designing to binding, it was me against the quilt. Well as may know, I re-entered the workforce full-time at the beginning of the year, and in order to continue making headway on new patterns I had to take a long hard look at things - what do I love to do? What do I not love so much?

One of the things that fell into the "not love so much" category was quilting the quilt. I could do it, I just wasn't great at it, and more than once I made a quilt top I loved into something that also fell into the "not love so much" category. So I went on the hunt for a few good quilters to farm this work out to... and through some connections on Facebook I found Pamela of the Joyful Quilter (here's a link to her Facebook page). A quilting angel to be sure!

{A rose by any other name...}

Now that it's quilted, the name I had all picked out for this new pattern is just working for me - so I'll farm that out too! Anyone want to take a stab at naming this beautifully quilted quilt?

A winner couple of extra prizes... just because!

There were so many funny quilting stories that made me smile - and even a few that made me cover my eyes and gasp! Those rotary cutters are sharp little buggers.... It has been so hard to choose my favorite story as there were so many that I laughed out loud about and shared with  my family. In fact, I couldn't choose just ONE. How could I? :)  So, I will be picking the winner of the quilt, plus drawing two more stories from the comments sent in. Each of these two extra winners will receive one of the following two prizes... a jelly roll featuring the 3 Sisters Aviary Jelly Roll and a layer cake/roll of Sandy Gervais, Objects of my Desire. All of these fabrics are from the fabulous people over at Moda.

{ And the Winners Are... }

For the story that made me laugh the most - how often do you hear the word boobs and quilt in one sentence? - the winner of the Flower Patch Quilt is Lynn:

"I decided to quilt a Halloween table runner with the word "boo" free-motioned quilted on the background. After I finished I realized that I hadn't thought spacing out real well and it looks like I quilted the word "boob" all over it!"

The next two winners, are:
The winner of the Aviary Jelly roll is Amy in Jan...

"...Another little mishap occurred while I was doing one of the things I adore ... applique. I normally do that on the couch in my jammies! Well, I was fixing to stop for the evening, when I realized I had appliqued the entire block to my jammies!!!! A very blonde moment to say the least :)"

And the winner of the Objects of My Desire Layer Cake/Roll is Cheryl

"...The teacher was showing us different tops she had made. She laid the top for the class in the center of the table (wasn't quilted yet). She instructed us all on how to cut out our blocks, leaving her quilt there. One of the students cut right through her quilt top - YIKES!!!! Honestly it wasn't me. The look of horror on her face!!"

Will the winner please send me an email with your name and address? 

Thank you for sharing and for the lovely response to my project.  I feel like I got a ton of "Warm Fuzzies" delivered right to my inbox. Don't know what a warm fuzzy is? Well, it's from a children's book that I loved about being nice to other people and generally being nice, "just because". So, you were sharing warm fuzzies and you didn't even know it!

 

 

As for those looking for the ricrac I used for the project, I am scouring the internet as we speak. This was a purchase from Piper's Quilts in Salt Lake City during the Spring Market held there a couple of years ago. Funny how we remember where we bought these type of things! It is currently still available through United Notions, so hopefully it's out there somewhere... any online shops out there that carry it and want to send me a quick note, please do!

Paying a visit to the Moda Bake Shop... plus a contest!

As I may have mentioned, just because I'm so darned excited to be included, I have a project up at the Moda Bake Shop today. This quick little layer cake quilt features the latest April Cornell collection, Nostalgia! Of course, being the creature of habit that I am, resisting the opportunity to combine applique and rick-rack into the the quilt was futile.

{Contest: Share your funniest quilt mishap}

To make things even a bit more exciting, I am holding a contest! The winner of the contest will receive the quilt I made for this Moda Bake Shop project - complete with all my little goofs that go into any quilt. We'll just call that "adding home made charm"!

To enter the contest, leave a comment telling me your favorite quilt mishap story - be it horrifying to just plain funny! Why a story? Well, personally, I just love hearing other peoples stories because it makes me feel good to know we are all in the same boat... ;) You have until the end of the day Friday to leave your story/comment and I will announce the winner on Saturday.

Happy quilting and story posting... and I hope you enjoy the project!

In The Land of Perfect Points

The last couple of weeks have been chock full of sewing time. Time seems to slip away and I have made a concerted effort to sew daily, or at least most days! This weekend I was in the ZONE - the land of perfect points... or so I thought. Really, everything was going smoothly, too smoothly. Then I put all the pieces of the block together. Perfect points? Not so much.

But, I did get a lot done this weekend! I finished up the binding on my Moda Bake Shop project which will be coming up on the 3rd - so be on the lookout! I'll even be having a giveaway, so make sure to come on back later in the week.... ;)

On the other quilts to finish list, there was a baby quilt for some friends of ours that just became parents in the last month. This is a modified version of a new pattern coming out soon named "Jump Rope". Since our friends are all the way in Texas, we decided a cowboy theme was appropriate. I found a great cowboy print on my adventure to the Wild Rose Quilt Shop in Orting. You'd be surprised how hard it was to find some really cute, not too baby and not too adult, cowboy fabric. Combined with the red, yellow, blue and brown I think it came out pretty spiffy! Lately my quilts have been in the neutral and sort of earthy color hemisphere, so this was a nice break and got my mind on other colors.

{ Jack's Jump Rope }

I also have three quilts going out to the quilter tomorrow. Now, normally, I do my own quilting, but have decided that if I only have a finite amount of hours in the week to sew, that I'm just going to have to concentrate on the designs and farm out the things I'm less capable of doing to people far more talented than I. Machine quilting has never been my forte, although I can do a mean stipple if called upon. But that fancy stuff - not for me!