Welcome all of you who are visiting here from the the weekly Let's Go Visiting Blog Hop thought up by the wonderful Marlene from Stitching By the Lake. It was fun to see my name listed for this week's neighborly meet up. Grab a cuppa Joe and enjoy checking out my humble little place in the quilt blogisphere.

For a little info about myself, I am a mom to 2 kidlets....Jammer who is 6, was born in Vietnam and we became his forever parents in May 2007 and Sunshine who is 4, was born in China and who joined her forever family in March 2010. Being a mom to these beautiful babies is the most rewarding thing in my life.

I started quilting 3 1/2 years ago when I decided that I didn't want someone else to make my childrens' 100 Good Wishes Quilts. I wanted to do it myself. You can read all about my Journey to Quilting here and if you are wondering just what is a 100 Good Wishes Quilt, you can learn about this centuries old tradition here.

Those that have been long time readers know that I like to organize things and last spring I started doing that here on my blog with the 1st annual Modern Mini Mystery Round Robin. It was a total blast and in the end there were 32 awesome mini quilts created by folks from litterly around the world. If you click on the link in my sidebar you can read all the posts about that event and find the links to all the final reveals. 

Last year I also hosted the Halloween See Saw Swap around the same time. I love, love, love Halloween fabrics and luckily found a few other quilters who do too and we had so much fun adding to the mini quilts each month. Of course a link to all the posts about that even can be found on my sidebar.

Currently we are finishing up the Quilt U Be Mine Mini Mystery Round Robin. It is a Valentine's Day themed round robin and you won't want to miss the big reveal day on February 14th.

And last, but certainly not The Last event that I will host, the Modern Mini Mystery 2013 has just gotten underway. This year we have 18 mini quilts being worked on by ladies all over the US, in Canada and the Yukon Territory and as far away as Finland. I can't wait to receive the 1st block that I will add to next month and then to see all the final results in July.

 

In my rather short quilting journey so far, I have learned SO much, have "met" a ton of great quilters and have found some fabulous shops, both brick and mortar and online to give my business to. I have accumulated a large "To Make" list complete with the majority of the fabrics purchased already and a decent size stash for a relative newbie. I feel that I have truly found part of my soul and have so many ideas that I want to work on in the coming months including a bunch of patterns that I am developing that I hope to eventually market to shops and online to all of you. The journey is so exciting and every day I can't wait to get into my studio to just create.

 

So I hope you enjoy peaking around my blog, check out the pictures of all the quilts that I have made so far and find this a fun place to follow. I so love my followers and since I'm inching ever so closer to the big 300, as soon as that happens I'll celebrate with a giveaway.

 

Thank you Marlene for hosting this fun little neighborly get-to-know-you and I look forward to "meeting" all the other quilters that have been a part of this weekly hop. Have a great day! For me, I'm off to work now. It is a balmy 4 degrees here and I'm so looking forward to getting out in that ultra chilly temperature to freeze my entire being off. NOT! Where ever you live, I do hope you are warmer than it is here. 

Do you remember that long-ish ago saying? I sure do and unfortunately I really felt like that last night. I finished up the binding yesterday afternoon on a quilt and during the process Sunshine kept checking on me in my studio and asking if I was going to sew her "kwilt". Poor little thing has been practically begging me to finish it for her. I promised that if it wasn't too late after I completed the binding, I would definitely do it. Here are a couple of the pictures from when we pieced it together last March! This has been hanging on my design wall ever since waiting for me to find make the time to complete it. (Note to self....don't wait this long to make my baby girl happy ever again!)
The binding task on the other quilt was completed before 5pm so I picked out a backing fabric, cut a layer of batting from my scraps, put in some basting pins to hold it all together (way too cold and damp outside to use the spray), selected thread and set to work.

With my newly gained knowledge learned at Free Motion Quilting class last weekend, I figured this would be a perfect little piece to practice on. She certainly wouldn't care one iota if the quilting was perfect or not. Since I love swirls and it would blend well with the fabrics, I briefly thought of doing that but instead I decided to do something simpler, an easier meander with loops.



Well.........once I snuggled in the chair an hour later with my little missy while she ate her typical pre-bed snack of grapes and drank her milk, I read through the instructions for my new Supreme Slider. Yes I got one for Christmas and No I didn't use it this time as I hadn't even opened the package before then. So lets see...it says to use a large table to support your quilt (check!), be sure your chair is at the right height for me (check), lower the feed dogs and attach the free motion foot, etc.

Whoa! Hold it right there! That it was. Right there in front of me in Black and White. That smack-me-upside-the head moment. That was the problem with this mini quilt. I had totally forgotten to LOWER THE FEED DOGS! Duh! Double and Triple DUH! I had quilted her entire little piece with the feed dogs raised. No wonder why it was all jerky feeling and not smooth at all.

I felt like a real jerk. A huge (though not catastrophic) rookie mistake that I probably might not have made if I had actually taken a moment to read back through the booklet from class and mentally checked off the "To Do" list before I started. But let me tell you it is one that I'll definitely never make again. This gal only needs to learn a lesson like this once.

So there you have it...a true story and my confession to the Quilting Gods that be. Could I have kept this little secret to myself and have no one the wiser? Sure I could have. But not everything or everyone is perfect and that is one thing that I love about the quilting community. Most people aren't afraid of showing their mishaps, even the professionals some times, and it helps us to realize that we are all human and as long as we learn from our mistakes, it is ok to share with others and hopefully keep them from making the same boo-boos. Now go ahead and have a chuckle on my behalf and then double check that you remembered to lower your feed dogs. We wouldn't want the quilting world barraged with loads of similar confessions in the coming weeks.

And on a side note....the sign ups for the Modern Mini Mystery Round Robin 2013 are still open for a few more days so submit your name before time runs out....plus I'm inching ever closer to having 300 followers and when that happens I'll have a little giveaway. I'm off this afternoon for my 2nd Free Motion Quilting class and I promise to report on that hopefully later today or at least by tomorrow morning.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to join a quilt Round Robin?

Have you ever wanted to join a Round Robin but didn't have the time or desire to work on a full sized version?

Have you ever wondered just what it would be like to add whatever blocks/borders and fabric you wanted to someone else's quilt? To take it where ever your inspiration led you?

Do you like to work on mini quilts?

Do you love keeping secrets?

Well then the Modern Mini Mystery Round Robin 2013 is for you!

Update: I have to sincerely thank everyone for all the terrific idea. My mind was a blank this morning trying to come up with a possibility, especially I don't know much about pre-teen girls. I truly appreciate all of your suggestions. I promise to share pictures of what I come up with.

My cousin just called and invited to her daughter's birthday party in a couple of weeks. They recently moved back to New York and we haven't yet had a chance to get together. It has been a really long time since we've seen them and I can't wait.