calling all quilt bloggers

Have you seen this button, do you know about it???

be a part of Debi"s Fall into Fall giveaway group

it's a link button to a HUGE Fall into Fall giveaway that starts October 1,

BUT .................................................in the meantime...

Debi at Debi's quilts blog is looking for 200 or more quilt bloggers, quilt stores,  and suppliers to join in her Fall into Fall giveaway.  Would you like to host a giveaway on your blog yet be a part of this great giveaway endeavour?  she has 40 or so bloggers at the moment and is looking for a bunch more, Do you want to join in?, it'll be GREAT! I joined in,  I am thinking about gving something away very fun but we cannot leak out any sneak peaks or hints until October 1.  So if you want to giveaway something, click on the scarecrow here or on my sidebar and go check out her fall into fall blog and we;ll have a GOOD time!!  Otherwise come back for the giveaway announcement October 1.

Mystery Monday HOW #6

HOW #6 A

I am so far behind, no progress on the CR quilt, but I did get something drawn for Mystery Monday, but have not had time to stitch it out.  I had to make a last minute dress for DD3 on Friday night, and I was swamped with some unexpected last minute work from work, I had to work Saturday at work unexpectedly and then worked rest of weekend getting address labels on 800 postcards from a list of who needed postacards in alpha order by LAST names working with a set labels they sent me in alpha order by FIRST name!! not a fun  job, it should have been a simple job but noooooooo!!  I knew I had to do the postcards, but not that the list and labels were so different, grrrrr.   and it wasn't how I planned to spend my weekend.  I finished at 10:46 last night.  Eyes were tired too to stitch....will do that later today, so here you go. you'll have to guess what I was going to do!! ; )  click on words under any of the pictures for a link to google docs for PDF

Oh and I forgot we had to make a pink tractor cake for GD#2 's 4th Birthday party sat afternoon, daughter baked cakes, and other daughter and I assembled and frosted it. She got a dog that had googles on so she's wearing them.


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HOW #6 B

click here for HOW #6 pdf at google docs.

HAVE FUN! SEE YOU NEXT WEEK IF NOT BEFORE. 

HAVE YOU SIGNED UP FOR THE GIVEAWAY ON MY 1OOTH POST?

Frosty Flakes & CR process

here is block # 6

Here's what I did with Dawn's Frosty Flakes from last week.

I turned them into ornaments, I really like the blue

And then there's the Crown Royal quilt process.  Years ago I saw this handy hint about placing templates on your rulers when cutting funny pieces.  Can't remember if I saw it on TV or in a magazne but I used it on my first kaleidoscope quilt and it works very well.  I made multiple copies of the pattern piece and used a water soluble glue stick to glue them to the bottom of the ruler making sure I got the correct 1/4 in and am not risking trimming the paper pattern or my fingers as I go.  I got both angles and the square corner.  After I'm done, I can remove paper with no harm to ruler and wash glue off.  I measured the shape of the kite keeping fat corner square to ruler, I need 6.75 strips and from those strips I can cut 7 kites.  The kite shape should/must be cut with the fat end cut with the grain in order to keep the outside edges of the completed block on straight of grain.  If you don't cut them that way the stretchy bias edges on the block can cause waves and disaster.  If you want to fussy cut this shape this way and that on fabric and end up with bias edges you need to be SUPER cacerful sewing blocks together.

If you haven't noticed, then I have to tell you this quilt makes me nervous..........I really want to do a good job, but it has taken me out of my comfort zone with all these blacks and the tight value change.  I cut some the kites shapes /pieces and laid them out on the Fairy Frost black fabric she wants to use for the background. I like it and it is better than I expected in regular light, but in low light still  appears mostly all one color. 
Here's a few pictures in regular light

oh and I re-assessed my fabric bag needs........

only have to cut up 40 bags since blocks are bigger and now I only have this many left to cut up.  She'll have a lot left.  at one time she had a pattern picked ou that took 180 bags one that took 300, etc we looked at a lot of options.

off to work in a little while,  more on the CR process later. 

CR process begins

CROWN ROYAL QUILT- the beginning

A few posts ago I told you I had agreed to make a wedding quilt for my youngest daughter's friend's sister. Not just any wedding quilt but one made out of the bags from Crown Royal. First I got a large trash bags full of freshly washed purple flannel bags.  this where we are at the moment.........

.a practice mock up of the blocksome parts are sewn, most are not.

add some alternating kaleidoscope blocks,  a view fron EQ

  The after a hundred emails back and forth between the friend and her sister, she has decided on a pattern

and picked out some fabrics...................

which without a flash looks more like this.............

and so I scanned her fabrics in and changed the star in center and got this

so the journey begins..........

Tonight I sat down and began deconstructing the bags.  After a couple of hours of carefully cutting them apart,  I felt like I had done a lot..................................... but after counting, 17 bags cut into all the pieces/parts.

12 of the large bags and 5 of the med size, wow only 17?????

So since there were at least two sizes I decided to get them out of the trash bag to see what was there...........bedsides the 17, she also has 4 mini bags, and after stacking in piles of 10 discovered she had 120 more of the middle size I thought she had 115, but she has 137 of usable sizes and 4 minis. 

 Although this is just part of the packaging and considered trash.  If you had to go out and buy all the whiskey to get this number of bags it would cost between $3000.00 US and 5000.00.  So after adding quilt shop fabric front and back it's going to one expensive quilt.   Back to cutting/deconstructing...........more later.

Mystery Monday HOW #5

Mystery Monday Hexagon Ornaments of the Week (HOW #5)

see below for link

skinny legged reindeer

reindeer with hexagon ornaments and a button nose

click HERE for link to google docs for a PDF of stitch patterns. and don't forget to register on my 100th post giveaway if you'd like to recevie a set of the HOW ornaments in reds or blues along with a set of Frosty Flakes blocks.  Sorry I was late, just got stuck trying to think of something to draw.  Nothing looked cute, new and fun out of the 30 something sketches I did.  I finally just picked a couple and stitched them........ have fun!! I am going to go work on the crown royal quilt for other daughters friend.  Black with purple, black and even more black!

ornies and a quilt

These are some of the things I've worked on in the past week.

I made some of the Frosty Flakes #5 from this week
 into Frosty ornaments!
They are designed by Dawn Hay of As Sweet as Cinnamon, her newest project a BOW(block of the week), she's only on week 5 plenty of time to catch up!!

and I finished the quilt below........... but I had to roust out Cami from her reading chair before I took quilt pictures......I painted the tree on the wall of my granddaughter's toy room the same day we painted the walls a different color other than construction "cream" that was 20 years old ( the former owners never painted the room just used it for storage.)

amazingly enough the tree is only one color of brown paint.  one brown.............what?  no I am not lying........... I drew on the wall with the big sidewalk chalk so I would basically know where to paint the base color.......but there was some sort of chemical reaction with the wet paint and the chalk and this is the result........Once I realized what was going on added some extra chalk on top of the wet paint figuring if it didn't look okay when dry, I could paint over it with more paint.  once it was dry looked  good enough for a toy room so I added the leaves in green.  Has not come off and that was 7-8 years ago.

the baby quilt my daughter needed for good friends of theirs.

here's the back

I have to go back to stitching now or I won't have any thing ready for tomorrow...............

first I need to go draw something and then stitch it out lol!!!!!

plus I still have to do my Daisy Do block from Jenny of Elefantz and Flowers of Love-Free BOM by Fiona from Mother's Cupboard..

until tomorrow.......or later tonight maybe............have a good one!

more patterns uploaded

I just added the individual patterns to buy to my sidebar.  These are the advent quilt patterns, all available as instant downloads except for one (not shown) which is the center part but it should be ready soon. This quilt has never been assembled because the quilt store owner took the blocks and hung them up as is. A lot of people only do pillows, etc with them. so I only have the picture of what it’s supposed to look like!!  I think it's somweere down below.  So is the picture of the tree center with the ornaments.  been a long nite, going to go sleep a couple!! 

more Crown Royal

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AND MAYBE SOLID BLACK FOR BACKGROUND

okay I showed you the bag of bags I received last week, got the fabrics to go with this past weekend.............'so a sneak peak, does anyone see a potential problem?  I do!  I'm  of to bed too tired to think about it anymore tonight, clock is stiking midnight and with too many late nights already this week am needing some shut eye, lol!!   

after scanning fabrics in EQ this is what happened

 or

couldn't remember which star she chose.    back tomorrow!

FIONA's BOM

I don't know about you but I only do a few big projects now and then.  But what I really like to do is small projects. things that I can get done quickly, or work on in bits and pieces of stolen time, lunch hours, waiting for people, and at meetings etc.  Things that I can FINISH, with out getting bored.

 So look at what popped into my reader box late last night............

Another free fun small project from Fiona at Mother's Cupboard!!!!!

Only 40" square, 10 month BOM, and cute on top of all that. 

For you american readers,  the only downfall is measurements.  It is in cm instead of inches,  get over it they have to adjust to our measurements too!!

Dig out your scraps, buy 1.25 yd for the back and you'll be fine

hop over there and check out all the other wonderful things she has on her blog too!

GO! RYAN GO!

HAPPY SEWING MONTH!!!!

Ryan Walsh over at I'm just a Guy Who Quilts is hosting the MOST FANTASTIC week long GO! event, He's got some great tutorials, and gathered great prizes.  The Grand Prize is an AccuQuilt GO! cutter and 3 dies of your choice donated by wonderful AccuQuilt people from the little town of Fremont, NE.  (Born Lincoln and being a native Husker,but living in MO, I am so proud of the wonderful things going on in Fremont., You're on the cutting edge!! :)  

So if you need a GO! cutter and who doesn't????? Hop over to Ryans for a chance at this or at the many other prizes he will be reveaaling later this week.

here's a peek at some die sets they have!.

more GO! FUN over at Ryan's!!