Trippin’

Today my third set of designs are

posted at the Moda Bake Shop!!  It’s a five piece set for vacationing!

I named it “Trippin’!”  They are made with the “Oh, My” collection by Sanae… truly luscious fabric!!

The set includes a hanging bag

a large weekender sized tote bag,

a laptop case,

a cosmetic bag,

and a small day tripper bag.

Go to the Moda Bake Shop to see the post and please leave a comment there so Moda knows what you think and then come back here and leave me a comment and tell me what you REALLY think!!

 

And the winner issssss…..

Thank you to everyone who entered my May 23rd Giveaway!!  I loved reading your comments and especially which quilt patterns are your favorites!!  Got some new ones to try now!!

So, the winner of the zippy bag with some fun stuff inside is-----------

Lizzie who said-

“My favorite quilt pattern is the Granny's flower garden. My mother and I made that quilt together and I will forever treasure it. “

Congrats!!  Email me your snail mail addy!!

Don’t be strangers!!  Come back real soon!!

Givaway Day!!

Thanks to those busy bees over at

Sew, Mama, Sew!,

today begins the May 23rd Givaway Day!

I am giving away this hand made zippy bag

and maybe a bit of fabric and a little pattern inside, too!  :-)

To be entered in the drawing,

       there are two requirements! 

1.  Already be or become a follower and

2.  Leave a comment telling me that (above)

AND your all-time favorite quilt pattern you have made… maybe the one you have made the most??

The Givaway is open until 9pm on May 25th when I’ll draw a random winner and post it!

Make sure you come back and check to see if you won!!  Yogi’s got his “paws crossed” for you!!  Good luck!!

Getting There…

My trigger thumb surgery went well.  It was really debilitating to have your  dominant hand bandaged up so you can’t use it and also can’t get it wet for 8 days after surgery …sigh…  those were the l o n g e s t   8 days EVER!!

But I got the stitches out finally and am healing nicely and can use my hand again.  It’s still swollen and can’t do allot of firm grasping with it and no cutting with scissors… so still not sewing.

  

But I have been keeping busy, though!  Do you have lots of quilting magazine subscriptions like me?  What do you do with all the quilting magazines you collect?  I have about 8 magazine subscriptions which adds up to stacks of magazines laying around taking up valuable fabric storage space, right?

So, I go through all my magazines about every 6 months and rip out quilt and project patterns I want to make one day.

I slide them into clear plastic sleeves, then file them in three ring binder notebooks divided into categories like

easy, medium/hard, appliqué, scrap, paper pieced, modern, pre-cuts, decor, wearables, etc…

So, although I can’t cut and sew yet, Yogi and I have done a bit of cleaning out and reorganizing in the sewing room…

well, at least I have!! 

(Zzzzzzzz says Yogi!!)

Bloggers Quilt Festival

Welcome to the Spring 2011

Bloggers Quilt Festival!

I designed this quilt as my first honey bun project.  I really LOVE precuts of all kinds!  What a genius idea for us busy quilters!  I am the first to admit, the absolutely worst part of quilting for me is cutting!  I hate cutting all the quilt parts…  it takes me f o r e v e r , too, as I measure like twenty times before I cut so I don’t make a mistake and waste fabric…sigh…

So, designing and sewing quilts with pre-cuts sure does get you past the yucky cutting part quicker and into the fun piecing and quilting part!  YAY!

So, this is my first version of my “Counting By Fives” quilt made with a Mary Engelbreit “Attitude Girls” honey bun.  I used one of my favorite Moda fabrics for the background… “Make Life” fabric with all the fun words on it!!

I am a Mary Engelbreit freak and have been for years…  love her whimsical art and her use of bright colors and black and white…  so really love this quilt!!  I made this one in August and with my mind on having to go back to school (I’m a teacher) in a few weeks, I thought of “Counting by Fives” for the name.

I remade the quilt in “Charlevoix” collection for the Moda Bake Shop.

(Go here to see the directions!)

The beautiful summery crisp colors of this collection just begs for a warm summer day, a picnic basket, friends and family gathered, a great bottle of red wine…

IF YOU SPILL ONE DROP ON THIS QUILT… grrrrrrrrr!! 

There are so many great quilts being shown in this awesome online quilt festival!  Go here to see them all!

Yogi and I hope you like the quilts and please come back soon!  We’d love for you to become followers, too! Happy Quilting!!

 

Tomorrow, finally!!

Tomorrow is the day I’m having surgery to fix my thumb!!  It’s been stiff, clicking and hurting for over 8 weeks now.  I am sooooooo ready for it to be fixed!  I go in at 10:00am and surgery is at 11:30 and should take like 15 minutes, total, so they say !!  I hope I hope I hope…

Because I’m not sure how they will bandage me up, I’m not sure how functional my right hand will be for a while… so you may not hear from me on my blog for a while… I’m right handed so it will affect so much that I do…sigh…but will fix the problem forever!!  YAY!

I did  finish a door quilt that I started at retreat, yesterday.  It’s hanging on my  front door!  It was a panel that I just pieced some simple squares around using stash scraps!

I really like it and it looks awesome on my red front door!  I’m hoping to find a pretty summer flag with a floral/bike theme to put out with it!!

Yogi slept in his bed on my sewing table

as I quilted it on Saturday morning.

Man, I wish I could sleep like that…sigh… maybe tomorrow after the surgery…with drugs!!  LOL!! 

Keep your fingers crossed for me, OK?

 

Happy Mother's Day!!

Meet my Mother!

This is Gladys!

The best Mom

E.V.E.R.!!

Love you, Mother!!

Your baby girl,

Polly

Quilt Retreat with Little Stinkers

This weekend was our annual Centreville Quilter’s Unlimited guild spring retreat. 

We changed locations this time.  We’ve been going to a Baptist retreat center out in Winchester, VA for years.  This time we were at a Methodist camp in the wilds of Middleburg, VA.  Both sites were pretty similar in the degree of “rustic-ness”…shared rooms with wooden slatted bunk beds with crackly plastic covered hard-as-cement mattresses, bathrooms down the hall with toilet stalls and showers, a big room for sewing and meals prepared, served and cleaned up by very nice ladies on the staff there.

There was, however, a reallllly big difference in the retreat at this new venue…  STINK BUGS!

They were EVERY-FREAKING-WHERE!! 

And although they don’t bite and are not aggressive, they are GROSS and CREEPY and just everywhere!!  Some of the other quilters were not surprised as they had the little stinkers showing up around their own homes lately.  I guess I am lucky, as we’ve not had but a few ever at my house.

So, although I really enjoy our retreats for the cutting, designing, sewing and quilting,

( I spent many hours tracing, fusing, and cutting out these zillions of flower pieces for this art quilt wall hanging)

of course, but also more for the socializing

and wonderfully delightful story-telling

and tear producing belly laughter

and sharing of expertise,

those darn little stinkers realllllllly creeped me out BIG TIME!!  I am sooooo glad to be home and bug –free!!