A Few Giveaways 3/31

~ Keurig Single Cup Brewer at Masshole Mommy ends 4/21
~ Eight O’Clock Coffee Vintage Jar at Masshole Mommy ends 4/14
~ Keurig Single Cup Brewer at Our Ordinary Life ends 4/20
~ Keurig Single Cup Brewer at at She Scribes ends 4/15
~ Shangri-La Tea Prize Package at Sweeps4Bloggers ends 4/11
~ Show Me Your Stash Contest ends May 15
~ Blueberry Bali Pops at Katie's Quilting Corner ends 4/14
~ 8 Fat Quarter Pack of Solids at KoolBeenz ends 4/7

8 Adorable Easter bunnies and lambs to knit & crochet #Pinteresting

Easter is just over a week away but there is still plenty of time to whip up one of these super sweet critters for your little one's basket! I am in love with the sweet floppy eared bunny! All of these patterns can be found free on the Lion Brand website!

Just look at this little crocheted cutie! I want one... or a dozen!

Source: lionbrand.com via Henrietta on Pinterest

3 Giveaways

~ My Memories Suite at Happy Quilting ends 4/5
~ 6 yds Fabric at Sew Mama Sew ends 4/1
~ Traveling Stash at Stray Stitches ends 4/1

Friday Finish ~ A Tisket, A Tasket.....

...some Easter Bunny Baskets :)





I know I said no more projects til the WiPs are done, but I had forgotten about Easter Bunny Baskets. They turned out OK, & I swear the Steelers basket is no where near as lumpy & misshapen IRL as it looks in the photo. They're 7" tall with a top diameter of 40", (the size of a dinner plate), so they should be able to hold a fair amount of goodies :) I'm thinking more toys & less candy this year.

Linking up

To Be Fair, I Needed Almost All of It

I had a lovely time shopping with Miss Bea today :) And boy, can the two of us do some fabric shopping. Neither clouds nor rain nor grumpy chauffeurs (thank you, dad) kept us from our appointed spending.


We hit Joann's first. The NFL fabric is the backing for my next quilt. Thank goodness for 50% off coupons. I really really really wanted that fabric, but did not want to pay full price for it. Turns out half of my bobbins didn't work with my new machine, so I picked up some replacements. I didn't actually need the yard of batik or the novelty FQ's, but, um, they were on sale.

A bite of lunch & then on to one of the very few LQS within a fifty mile radius.
Pretty, huh? I think that will just about cover the Pet Quilt as far as the colored fabrics go. I still need a very light cream for the background fabric, & a few shades of rust for one of the dogs. Oh, & some white on white tonal. I think everything else can be "shopped" from my stash.
I'll probably be on a buying moratorium until for a while. At least until I get the Steelers top done, anyway. Well, unless we find another dollar a yard sale like we did last year, then all bets are off :)

Pixelated Angel ~ Only 1,344 Pieces Left

Up at 3:45 this morning. Seems I'm about a week ahead of Daylight Savings Time. Maybe by
Monday or so I'll start keeping normal, human hours again. But waking up uber-early seems to be working very well for me, as far as this quilt goes.
Managed to finish off three & a half more blocks today. Might have managed more, but the next 5 lines I did I seriously messed up. So I'm done with sewing on it for the night. I may set up the pieces for the next few block sets. I've learned from experience not to work too far ahead. For some reason cats & dogs find well ordered little blocks of fabric completely irresistible.



If all goes well, I should have this ready to sandwich by next Friday. Monday is set aside for the Disaster Area Reclamation Project (or *housework*, as the rest of the world calls it), but the rest of the week will be sew, sew, sew :) Any ideas on how to quilt this little lady would be highly appreciated, cuz at this point, I got no clue.

Linking up with Confessions of a Fabric Addict

March Meeting Highlights + a finished project

Today's meeting was so much fun girls! It was nice to sit and visit and chat and talk over each other  and nibble on goodies and try to refrain from shaking a certain someone whom we all love so much ;) I think we did a good job of cheering up a dreary and rainy day, even if you all had to travel through the mud-pit-that-used-to-be-my-road to get here!

Aimee and Mom arrived a few minutes ahead of Aunt Edith this morning. Aimee immediately pulled out her finished Teddy Bear Quilt and proceeded to pick it apart by pointing out all of her 'errors' {insert sisterly eye roll here}. Pu-leeze! That quilt is totally adorable and quilt-y and beautiful! She gave the finished quilt to Aunt Edith who said she would treasure it forever, lol!

Mom was excited to let us know that the apartment is getting new carpet and a fresh coat of paint this week which means her and Lee will be moving very soon! She's been packing and sorting like crazy trying to get ready to go! This is sad, but I have no idea whether mom was working on a project or not because we were all so busy talking that I didn't even notice what anyone else was working on!

Oops. I think we've all been cooped up in the house for a little too long. Adult conversation with someone other than a kid or a husband is wonderful!

Aunt Edith finished two more knitted squares for the bin. She also passed around a new craft magazine that she subscribed to around and was happy to tell us about the new book she bought called The Tasha Tudor Cookbook.

Aimee added a cute little scrappy patchwork quilt to the bin.

Amanda showed us the camouflage elephant that she started crocheting for her son Michael, who is stationed at Camp Lejeune. He has collected elephants for years. It's going to be so cute when she finishes it up!

I found an old project in the bottom of my tote this morning and decided to work on it today. After a year {possibly a bit longer} I can happily say that my gorgeous shell afghan is finally finished! WooHoo!

Well, mostly finished. I still need to weave all the loose ends in. I'll get to it soon, Promise! Sad to say, I believe this is the first project I've actual finished since the Christmas Doily I made mom for our exchange!

I'm loving how lacy and stretchy this soft and cozy afghan is! The single crochet trim curls up just like a comfy old sweater :). 

This week I'm linking up at:

Henrietta <3

WiP Wednesday ~ Pixelated Angel

Only 1 square done today :( You'd think, having been awoken at 4:30 am, I'd have gotten more done. Unfortunately, no, that's not how my life works. I think the phone rang every single time I sat down at the sewing machine. Oh, well. 100 more pieces closer to finished; it'll get there.



Lookie what came in the mail for me today! A box of pretties I won from Granma's Charms. She's been destashing & cleaning up her sewing room. Looks like she'll be holding another giveaway in the near future :)


Washed 2 finished quilts today. Am I the only one convinced that they'll disintegrate into rags the minute they hit the water? I'm sure (every time) I'm going to pull a shredded, thready, destroyed quilt out of the washer/dryer. Both quilts made it through just fine, I think it's just a paranoid fear of mine.

Linking up with Freshly Pieced WiP Wednesday.

Some Giveaways & A Few Interesting Links

Giveaways
~ Happy Quilting is having a giveaway to celebrate the Grand Opening of The Intrepid Thread's new Website. Up for grabs is a FQ Bundle of Pat Bravo's Poetica, ends 3/11
~ Stitched in Color is hosting a giveaway for 12 ounce Studio Scrap Pack & A FQ Bundle. Sponsored by JAQS fabrics, winner drawn 3/9 (& also, check out the shop, good prices)
~ Enter to win a copy of Bed Runners & More at Spun Sugar Quilts, ends 3/10
~ Samelia's Mom is having a giveaway for a charm pack of Vintage Modern, ends 3/16
~ Confessions of a Fabric Addict is passing on the Passing It On box, winner announced 3/9
~ We Love Quilting March Giveaway is 50 FQ, ends 3/31 (I assume)


Interesting Links
~ Bonnie Hunter has a tip for getting the stinky out of fabric.
~ Piecemeal Quilts is hosting an Ironworks* Quilt Along

~ Patchouli Moon Studio has a tutorial for making cute little books.
~ Stitched in Color is having a Festival of Scrappiness linky party, March 26-28. Any quilt top finished in 2012 and made mostly from scraps is welcome to take part. There will be prizes :)
~ Quilting Gallery (you should check out that blog, seriously) is hosting a blog hop with giveaways, March 16-23

~ Sew Many Ways... has a tutorial for making an ironing board out of an old table. So need to do this :)
~ Have something crafty you'd like to share? Quilting by the River has a Linky Party Tuesdays :)

~ Or link up at SewHappyGeek's Manic Monday Linky
~ Or even Sew Many Ways... Sew Darn Crafty linky :)
~ Finish up a project in March? Add it to the linky at Such a Sew and Sew A Stitch In Time: March Finishes Linky Party


That's all for now :)

Pixelated :)

I was going to save this til the top was all done, but....OMG! FACE!!! She has a face! Yes, I'm excited. I was concerned that even at 1" square, the face wouldn't show well. It does, yay!

(& obviously, this is not the the Green X quilt. I added a row to it, & the more I add, the more the pattern disappears. So I put it up for now. I'll finish it someday. )

Bea...Bea...Hey, Bea....

A Few Giveaways

~ Annie's Ruby Slippers is having a giveaway for 5 Fat Quarters, ends 3/19
~ Sew Happy Geek is also giving away 5 FQ, ends 3/8
~ Sew Fabulous Quilt Shop is having a giveaway for a 14 piece Breeze Fat Quarter Bundle, ends 3/7
~ $200 Visa GC at A Mom's Take, ends 3/26

My New Machine & This Week's Plans

Sewing machine shopping yesterday. You'd think that would be fun, but with a cranky 6 year old & an even crankier 18 year old along for the ride, not so much. 150 mile round trip, 6 or 7 stops, & I ended up with the sewing machine I originally wanted in the first place. Yeah, it's a beast :) And $50 off, so bonus. Total pass for The Husband for the next week or so, since it was his birthday. Yuppers, gotta love a man that will take you sewing machine shopping on his birthday




















I'm pretty happy with this machine. It's heavy duty, & I *think* even I won't be able to destroy this one for a while ;) I wish the throat were bigger (it's actually a bit smaller than my old one) but I'm pretty sure I can still muscle most of my quilts through there. The other ones I looked at all looked like children's toys; no thank you.



















Gonna spend most of this week working on the Green X Quilt. 8 squares down, 40 to go. I've actually thought of a better way to do this, & likely will use the massive quantity of blue fabric I have in a similarly constructed quilt.




















I hope to be done with this top by the end of this week. Shouldn't be that hard, if I don't get distracted ;) Hopefully I'll also have time to work on the corner blocks for The Pink Quilt, too. Gonna do a Lady of the Lake Feathered Star block, a Bargello & Round the World blocks, & a Lone Star block, all at about 15".

And I haven't forgotten your quilt, Bea. It's next on the to-do list; I just needed a break from those one inch squares.

Hertford County Cub Quilt Done

I'm a little bit, let's say, particular.



So the quilt I've been trying to finish off this past week has got me feeling a bit stressed.

























At first, I tried to do the right thing. I pulled stitches, I remeasured. My seam ripper got a work-out.

















The I gave up being picky, & decided I could make a few adjustments & make things line up properly.















I developed a case of Quilter's Tourettes,


























but I finished the top.



I wasn't thrilled with it, so I sat it aside for a while :( Trying to finish up UFO's before starting anymore, so I pulled this out last week & started on the quilting & binding. Well, it's finished. It's a disaster, but it IS finished.
This is a simple pattern, using basic techniques. I ought to be able to do this, no worries. However, this is the 3rd (!) time I've tried to make it. The first 2 attempts ended up in the trash halfway through. I began to wonder if the Universe was trying to teach me something. And this is what I came up with :

Sometimes, no matter how precisely we plan or how hard we try, things don't always fit together the way they should. But if we push on through to the end, we may just end up with something functional. It might not be perfect, it might not even be pretty, but it will warm someone's life just the same.



Linking this up to Richard Quilts Link A Finish Friday & Such A Sew & Sew A Stitch In Time: March Finishes Linky Party.