Stunning Stitchin Sunday

1. Geta's Quilting Studio, 2. Tamarack Shack, 3. she can quilt,

4. Quilting is My Bliss, 5. Green Fairy Quilts, 6. Piece N Quilt,

7. Pumpkin Patch Quilter, 8. Tamarack Shack, 9. tallgrass prairie studio,

10. she can quilt, 11. Sue Dario's Quilting Adventure, 12. Tanderwen Quilts,

13. addicted-to-fabric, 14. Tamarack Shack, 15. Quilting is My Bliss,

16. Piece N Quilt

Rainbow Scrap Challenge, H2H Challenge and a Winner!

It feels really fantastic to get so much sewing done lately! It makes me one very happy person.

On Friday I pieced together the light Teal block for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2014. The dark version was also laid out on the table but due to the evening lack of decent light, I wanted to wait until morning to see how it looked and if I liked it the way it was. I found this a really tough color to work with, some bits look more blue and some look more green. Here are my completed blocks for March. I love being all caught up.

The sashing and backing fabrics for the 2 baby Hands2Help Charity Quilt Challenge quilts arrived on Thursday so I was able to also complete those tops on Friday.

Sorry for the not great indoor pictures. It was late and it is pouring rain right now.
Here is the girl version. I chose Bella Hyacinth to coordinate with the charms and I love the look.

And this is the boy version in which I used Bella Clover.

This a great pattern for quickly whipping up a top and I'll definitely use it again.
Then the border fabric for the 3rd H2H quilt arrived yesterday and after attending a birthday party for Sunshine's classmate I completed this top too.

Now all 3 tops are ready to be quilted on my Penelope longarm machine. They will be the 1st quilts that I will complete with her.

The only other things on my To Do list today is to get the clean laundry put away so I'm hoping to get a bunch more sewing time in. Sunshine wants to get her Primary Bee block done and Jammer needs to get his done too. Sunshine is the Bee Princess this month so they don't need to get mailed anywhere. A few of the blocks from her bee mates have arrived and we need to take pictures so that we can show them to you.

The next quilt up on the list is the EMS/Fire raffle quilt. It should go together fairly quickly which will be great since it needs to be done by mid June. Plus I have another commission quilt on the schedule. It will be another kids' art quilt, this one for Sunshine's school. We are doing things a little differently this time but it is going to be equally fun putting it all together.

And last but not least, it is time to announce the winner of my Follower Giveaway for the half yard cuts of Petal Pushers by Whistler Studios for Windham Fabrics.

The magic winner selector chose

Cynthia Brunz DesignsMarch 26, 2014 at 12:53 PM

Nothing stocked in my sewingroom. But the kitchen is just a few steps away!

Congratulations Cynthia! I have sent you an email. She blogs over at Quilting is More Fun Than Housework and is a frequent showcased quilter in my Stunning Stitchin Sunday series. What I also didn't realize previously is that she is also involved in Quilts are for Giving. It is a great charity dedicated to putting quilters and those that need them together.

Go check it out. If you have a quilt that needs a home, they have a whole list of charities that you can donate it to. I love this idea and will most definitely be helping out in the future.

I hope you have a great quilty day!

Follower Giveaway!

The sun is shining, the weather is warmer and spring is on it's way.
Well...so the weather hasn't been that much warmer but to me 30 degrees is a lot better than 4 below zero.

It's been a while since I've done a giveaway and since I've been feeling really good lately, I think it would be fun to make someone else feel good too. Besides the other day I noticed that my follower count through Google Friend Connect finally reached 400. Whoo hoo! Now I know that I actually have more followers than that through all the other various means but I can use it as a reason to celebrate if I want to. 

This pretty half yard bundle of fabrics is looking for a new home and that new home just might be yours.

They are from the Petal Pushers collection by Whistler Studios for Windham Fabrics.

Don't they just evoke thoughts of nice spring breezes and warm sunshine? Truth be told...I've been really tempted to keep these beauties for myself. They are very me but I've got more than enough pretty fabric to keep me happy for quite a while so I'm willing to sacrifice my wants and let you have them instead. 

To enter the giveaway:

1) Leave me a comment telling me the ONE treat you keep stocked in your sewing space to nibble at while you stitch. For some reason, I've been pondering this lately and although I've kept nothing in my studio, I'm thinking about what I might want to stock in there.

2) My followers get a 2nd entry. Tell me how you follow and if you aren't also a follower through Google Friend Connect (over there on my sidebar) go ahead and join that way too. Who knows...I just might have a need to celebrate the next milestone number that reaches.

Entries will close at Midnight on Friday, March 29th and the winner will be notified over the weekend. I do love to read all of your comments and will try to reply to everyone. If you don't get a reply from me, you should make sure you aren't a No Reply Blogger. You want to have your chance to win, don't you? To fix this problem for regular Google users, go to this tutorial and for you Google+ folks, use this tutorial.

Good luck and have a very happy Wednesday!

It was a great weekend!

The kidlets had off of school on Friday for Superintendents Day so hubs took the day off too and we went for a little road trip. We headed south and treated the junior ones to a visit to the Legoland Discovery Center in Yonkers.

 

Instead of boring you with tons of photos of what the kids did the entire time we were there, I'll just give you a little taste of what was inside. I'm always amazed by what can be created with those little bricks.

Any of you a football fan?

A few billboards on the sides of the buildings caught my attention. This one was about 3" x 4". I just might have to recreate this one for my own house.

Don't you love this one?

There were a few different areas for the kids to explore including this Lego City Fire Academy play area.

It is where Sunshine spent the majority of her time.

Jammer was happiest continuing to make different cars and racing them down the track.

Even the Daddy-o spent a bunch of time creating his various race cars.

Once we got home Saturday late afternoon, I spent some time in my studio and I was able to complete the next two blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

Granted they are Pink which was the color for February but at least I got them both done.

Then I started on the quilts for the Hands2Help Charity Quilt Challenge. Knowing what else is on my plate for the coming months, I purposely chose patterns that are very quick and easy to complete.

You'll remember that I'm using 2 charm packs of Moda's Grow With Me.

I picked the adorable and very popular Charm Pack Baby Quilt patten by Elizabeth of Oh Franson! I split up the charms because I want one of the quilts to be decidedly girly and the other to be definitely boyish. This is how far I got with the girl version that evening. Now I'm just waiting for the sashing/binding and backing yardage to arrive to finish this up.

Sunday morning, after a relaxed breakfast and some catching up on emails, I quickly pieced the rows together for the boy version. Sewing these up took no time at all. It actually took longer to decide which piece would go where.

We had no plans to go anywhere so right after lunch I started on the 3rd quilt for the challenge. I'm using this fat quarter stack of Pat Bravo's Spellbound by Art Gallery Fabrics.

I'm using the Yellow Brick Road pattern from Atkinson Designs. Now I totally understand why so many people say that this is a great 1st quilt pattern for new quilters. It is so simple and fast and it produces great results.

I was able to put together all of the blocks in a matter of a couple of hours. Now all I need to do is to lay them out in rows and sew them all together. Of course I'm waiting on another package to arrive with this quilt's coordinating border/binding and backing fabric so once it arrives these all will be on their way to completion.

I hope you too had a great weekend. It felt so good to get so much accomplished. I'm linking up today with

Stunning Stitchin Sunday

 Everyone is obviously quilting up a storm lately. I have so many pictures of quilters' gorgeous work to showcase this week that there is not 1 but 2 collages. 

Enjoy, enjoy!

 1. Ahhh Quilting, 2. addicted-to-fabric, 3. Ivory Spring, 4. Darling Jill Quilts,

5. Mandalei, 6. The Nifty Stitcher, 7. Piece N Quilt, 8. Quilting is My Bliss,

9. Kathy's Quilting Blog, 10. Quilting Lodge, 11. Pumpkin Patch Quilter,

12. Quilting by Dawn, 13. Quilting is My Bliss, 14. The Quilted Pineapple,

15. Confessions of a Fabric Addict, 16. Darling Jill Quilts

1. Quilting is My Bliss, 2. Quilter in the Closet , 3.  Stitches n Stories Quilting,

4. Tamarack Shack, 5. Treadlemusic, 6. Piece N Quilt, 7. Darling Jill Quilts,

8. She Can Quilt, 9. Quilts of Love, 10. Val's Quilting Studio, 11. Tamarack Shack, 12. Stitches N Stories Quilting, 13. Sue Dario's Quilting Adventure,

14. Sew'n Wild Oaks, 15. Quilting is My Bliss, 16. Tamarack Shack

My Just Right bag - A finish

This finish calls for a huge Whoop Whoop because not only did I finish this but it is the very 1st purse/tote/bag that I have ever made and it turned out great!

I started with the pattern and these 2 Kate Spain Terrain fabrics. If you want your own copy of Bobbi's Just Right bag pattern, it can be found here.

Trust me...I was nervous almost every step of the way, worrying about screwing up and not having the next part work. Here is the outside of the bag all sewn together, just inside out. This is actually the lining.

It is tough to see in this picture but here I split this panel into the pockets for the interior. The only adjustment I made to their pocket recommendations was to adjust the cell phone pocket to accommodate my phone.

Ta Da! Here it is. All done and ready for MQX East next month. I'm stoked and really excited to have it completed. The bright fun fabrics are so me.

The pattern was awesome and I highly recommend it. There we absolutely no issues with cut pieces not fitting well and each step was so well written that I had no problem following along. The only mistake I made was at the very end when sewing the lining and the outer bag together and that was my own fault for not understanding the 1st time what I read.

I wanted this done quickly so I just quilted some straight lines using my walking foot. I cheated and drew a line with my air erase marker from one corner of the rectangular piece to the next corner and then I quilted subsequent lines in both directions. I really ove the final effect.

There is a great sized front zippered pocket and an nice pouch pocket. I had never put in a zipper before either and I was happily surprised when it actually worked.

Inside are 5 nice sized pockets and a nice center that will fit everything I need for a day at a quilt show or a day of quilt shop hopping.

This bag has given me the confidence to try another bag/purse/tote. I already have the pattern and the fabrics (that I'm crazy about btw) so I can't wait to get started on that one.

There is no doubt that this Just Right bag is wild and bright and it is just the way I like it.
I'm linking up today to a few other parties.