My Big Barn Quilt

Here is a picture of my big Barn Quilt on my double car garage. It is the Oregon Star. My little town of 600 people is the walking capital of the world. I can sit on my front porch and visit with so many people who walk by daily. I am one of the walking many. What's so funny is only one person knew that this had to do with quilting. Everyone else asks "What is that?"

1Choice4Quilting Giveaway!!

1Choice4Quilting is having a Big Giveaway! Just click on their button on the right of my screen! You can enter 10 different ways. You can win a kit to make a beautiful quilt made by Jamie! You will find out about Jamie by following the 10 different ways to win,
Good luck!!

Giveaway!

Sorry, There is no giveaway at this time! I have to have Rafflecopter help me fix my giveaway before I can do it. It might be a bit.

My Life as a Quilter: My New Friend!!

Barb O. is a new friend of mine. Here is her blog. Check it out! In my next blog I talk about her and what she's done for me. But I wanted everyone the chance to be able to go to her blog. You'll love it! And her!!
http://whisperofrose.blogspot.com/

My New Friend!!

I have a new friend named Barb O. She made me 'Snowflakes'. Beautiful Snowflakes to put on my Christmas tree for next year and every year after!! They are absolutely gorgeous!!

I'm using my cell phone to take the pictures, I just tried using my new 'IPad 4' but I cut off portions of the Snowflakes, so I'll try and use the best pictures. They are prettier than the pictures show.

Aren't they the sweetest 'Snowflakes' you've ever seen? Isn't Barb the nicest friend in the whole wide world? I think I have two of them turned around! Oh no!! I am too tired to go take more pictures.

And this is the second time she has 'made' me something. I showed you the table runner I have on my kitchen table! Well, if you didn't see it, scroll down a ways and you will see it. I won it (plus a bunch of other people) on her blog! I am so lazy. I don't make gifts for people to win. I give fabric. That's the lazy way. She actually takes her time and makes gifts and gives them to complete strangers! What a nice, decent person she is. I love her to death!! I want to be more like  her. When I start sewing again, I will try.

Thanks Barb for the 'Snowflakes'. I will take very good care of them. And since it snowed heavily here today, I couldn't take down the tree, so the 'Snowflakes' will go with my other ornaments for next year.

Now to go read my new quilting books. I received a quilting novel for Christmas from my niece and it is so delicious! I started reading it and loved it, so I ordered the second one and then I ordered about 5 more in the series. They are big paperback books. The size of hardbacks. I'm not using Kindle on these. I love the feel of a book. And these books need to be read the old fashioned way. They are the "Elm Creek Quilt" series. There are 16 books in the set and then there are, I think, three quilt books. Books that have patterns from the novels. I will be purchasing them soon. They talk about the quilts they make, so it would be so cool to make those exact quilts! The second book is called 'Round Robin' and I didn't know what a Round Robin was. Well, now I do. I don't think quilters do that much anymore. Maybe they do. I don't hang around groups of quilters, so I don't know, but it is such a neat idea!

The first book is called 'The Quilter's Apprentice'. Check it out. After you read the first page, you are addicted. The first book is very wholesome. I like that. The second book gets juicy!! The third book (which I am reading now) is even juicier!!! I never thought I would read a quilting novel! Never! But the writer is an excellent writer. She has written other novels, great novels in fact, so don't discount her! Give her a shot. Her name is Jennifer Chiaverini. She has a webpage. It is www.elmcreek.net. Check her out!

Barb said she can't download pictures on her blog anymore. That's why I came to my blog today - to see if I could and report back to her. Well, I can, so I need to tell her this. You should check out her blog. I posted it above in the previous blog. You'll love it and her!  Now to go read my novel!

My New Fabrics and Machine

On Christmas morning, this was sitting under the Christmas tree for me!

And when I finally got the latches opened, here she is - my new 401 Slant-O-Matic Singer Sewing Machine. I learned how to sew on one just like her. When my mom died, my dad gave her to me. I kept her for years, but then traded her in for a very basic mechanical Viking Huskavarna that my daughter has. How stupid I was. It was worth more than the Viking was. I had to fork over $$$ plus the machine to get the Viking. And the Singer had her own stand! Pictures aren't the greatest, sorry!

She's in perfect shape. No scratches or dings. She's been gone through by the best. She's just wonderful. I'm going to use her for retreats and classes.

Now, since there are great sales going on, I've been going a little nuts!  Here are some of my purchases. This first bunch is not really a sale. It's a BOM from 'Fat Quarter Shop'. It's their "Christmas Favorites" BOM. It started in September, so they sent me 4 blocks to catch up. That's not a good sign for me. I get overwhelmed and then I tend to not do it. I don't think that is going to happen with this super cute quilt though. Here is the HUGE box that came Friday for me. I couldn't wait to open it!

Inside were 5 packages:

This is what the quilt will look like when I am done with it. This is the pattern! I was going to take each month's block out and show you the cute fabric, but I don't want to have to put the fabric back in each package, so I'll show you just the outside of each month. Here is month one:

There are buttons galore! And ribbons and embroidery floss and lots of cute fabric! This is for all the months. They just put all of it in the first month's block.

 This is block 2. It has 6 different fabrics. I should have opened them, dang!
Okay, block 3 now.

It also has 6 different fabrics. They are very cute. You can make them out on the printed paper on the outside of the package. On to the block four.

Block four has 12 different fabrics. I haven't opened the pattern yet, so I don't know what any of the blocks are. This has got to be the big daddy of all the blocks. I still have a big package of batting that looks very similar to this fabric. I love when I get the backing at the beginning of the BOM class.

They are having such awesome sales after Christmas that I've been buying things almost daily. Here are some of the things that have come in. I'm expecting things daily still. I ordered from three places today. I ordered a scarf, not quilting, and two cute winter hats, not quilting either, but I did order from Missouri Star Quilting Co. today. I bought a charm pack for $1 and 3 1/2 yards of fabric to go with this jelly roll. You can't just have a jelly roll...you need sashing and borders! Here's the roll:

It's Fairy Tale Friends. I don't ever buy anything with critters on it. Well, I take that back. I did buy owl fabric. But besides that, I don't buy kids fabric, Halloween fabric, just starting to buy Christmas fabric and wanting to buy Valentine fabric, and have camping fabric and old timey fabric with moms and dads and kids camping. I'm starting to venture out. I don't have flannel except for the raggedy quilt that is cut out and batting is inside each piece and it's all ready to have an 'X' sewed on each sandwich. That's all the flannel I have and I have so much fabric. And I don't have much batik, either. I'm just starting to like that.

Okay, I purchased this tiny tool kit for my sewing machine and love, love, love it!!! It zips shut and tucks away. It's awesome!

It has a flathead screwdriver, a phillips head screwdriver, some kind of rachet (sp?) thingie and another tool I don't really know what it is, but I still love them all equal!! ha

Here's some pink I picked up! I don't have much pink, so I just bought a little bit for 'just in case'.

And behind it is a fat quarter bundle of Kaffe Fassett. It was wrapped in plastic and it had the name of the fabric line on it, but I threw it away without thinking. I don't care for Kaffe Fassett fabric usually. I've talked it over with my LQS owner and she agrees with me. We just don't get him! But somehow, I bought this. I might be having a giveaway!!!

I think his fabric is just too wild for me! I know I didn't know who's fabric line it was that I was buying, because I would never spend that kind of money on his line! I decided his fabric looks like the bedspreads in motels. Sorry Kaffe,

I bought this from Joann's. It has so many uses. You can take it when you go to the quilt store and put whatever you are going to buy into it. You can take it to the store and use it there. I am going to use it to keep my project in. I love it!

It's a nice big size. I could put 2 or 3 quilt kits in there - queen size. And I got it at a ridiculous price! They almost gave it to me!!

I bought this 'Creative Ideas' carryall to hold my scissors and pencils and rotary cutters. I haven't had the time to fill it. I just stuck a few of my scissors in it for effect. I love the purple. It's very heavy duty.

And yes, I want to 'Quilt with the Stars'. So I bought another quilt kit. It's so darling! I pulled out the fabric and barely pulled them apart for you to see them.

Pretty fabric, isn't it?

And look at the HUGE button that comes with it!!! It's going to be cute!!!

And lastly, I ordered this bit of fabric to go with some precut I can't find. I know that is what I did because sometimes I order a jelly roll on sale or a layer cake or charm pack and then when I get it, I look through it and find two fabrics that I want for sashing and borders. Well, it doesn't look like I looked through whatever precut I bought because these are pretty bland fabrics. I need to read what fabric line they are and then go searching for the precut. Usually I leave the precut sitting out until the fabric comes in, and then put it all together. I didn't this time and I figure it's going to be a long time till I find that precut that these two pieces of fabrics go with. It looks like I ordered 2 yards of each. Here they are, bland and all:

Well, it's taken me forever to write this blog, so I won't be writing for a while. I'll wait for a while until I have something to write about. Please read the blog below this one. Go to the link. It is so uplifting! And funny! And I love it! Till next time!!

26 Moments That Restored Our Faith In Humanity This Year

My dear little niecy put this up on her Facebook page. Please look at this. It is wonderful. And at the very bottom there are three pictures. Click on them. The one with the model in a bathing suit in the ocean is a video, so click on that, but I don't think the other two are videos, but check them out also...they are great!! http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/moments-that-restored-our-faith-in-humanity-this-y

I found an awesome blog!

Rachael Wetzler loves yellow! She is such a great quilter. Check out her blog site.
www.rachelwetzlerquilts.blogspot.com

I picked up my 6 quilts from the LQS yesterday. The owner did the binding on all six of them for $190. Way less than she told me it would cost me. Here are some pictures of the machine binding she did. They are awesome. She wanted to hand bind them, but I told her I needed them in a hurry and they were never going to be judged, so just machine bind them. Here they are:

This is my Civil war block of the month quilt. It is king size. She did a flange on the binding. You can see the blue with red spots on the binding and then the red strip just inside it? That's the flange, the red stripe. That's her binding. I love it. This is going to my husband for Christmas. It has wool batting. It will keep him "oh so warm!"

Scallops!! She did scallops!! Isn't it cute? You kind of have to look hard to see it. When I get my Ipad with Retina for Christmas, my pictures will be 100 times better, but for now, this is what you've got. I'm giving this quilt, which is huge, to my 16 year old niece instead of $50 cash.

This one is awesome! I love that word. I know they used it in the 90s. Overused it. But it says what I mean. And the long arm stitching on this matches what she did to her machine binding. It looks like dashes ----- like that!!

This is for my 13 year old niece for Christmas. It has sheep, chicken, swans, and calves on it. She did a flange on it, also. The green gingham at the edge is the binding and then there is a red color that is the flange, right before the brown and white checkered fabric. I think she will like this. My husband wanted to give his niece's each a $50 bill, but I am giving them each a twin size quilt that was long armed. Worth so much more than the $50.







This is one of my favorite quilts. I am not giving it away. I am keeping it. I don't know why, but I love the colors and the boxes. It was easy to make and the fabric just speaks to me.

I know, not great pictures, but what can I do? I decided I wanted an Ipad for Christmas instead of a Nikon camera. But the Ipad with Retina is suppose to take great pictures, so we'll see if it does. I need to take pictures of all of my quilts I've made.

There is only one that I can't take a picture of and that is one I gave to my ex-older brother. He refuses to believe I am even alive. The day my dad died, he thinks I died also. He won't take my calls or reply to my letters. So I am dead to him and I can't get a shot of the quilt I gave him - he probably donated it to Goodwill anyway. Oh well, such is family life.

So, I'm busy with Christmas and my son coming home, so I won't be writing for a bit. I received one email from a participant from the quilt kit giveaway saying she received my kit. One gal wrote and said she hadn't received her's yet. Oh, the postal office. I hope you all get yours today. Merry Christmas!

My Awesome Table Runner I Won!!!!

Barb of http://whisperofrose.blogspot.com/ had a Giveaway a little bit back and I won! Well, quite a few people won. And she made Table runners as prizes!! She actually did the hard work! She sewed a bunch of Table runners and gave them all away. I saw pictures of some of them and they were all awesome but I think mine was the best!

I found a website where this gal made some fabric that was shoes and I wanted the fabric so much! It was expensive and I couldn't really afford it. I wrote her. She wrote me back. Last night she offered me a deal of a lifetime on two Shoe Panels. I took it!! I'm getting my shoe fabric. It's close to the fabric that Barb put in this table runner.

Here is a close up of the table runner so you can see how nice and cute it is.

She couldn't have picked a better runner for me. I love dots. I love black and white! I love the green in the shoes. I see now that my shoe panels that are coming that the shoes are different colors. Looks similar. Funny how I found that site and wanted the fabric and then Barb sends me a runner with shoes! Thank you Barb! It fits perfectly in my kitchen on my oak table!! One last picture!

Those two letters are Christmas cards with Visa cards for my kids. It's so they can buy Christmas gifts (my daughter can buy something for her husband and he can buy something for her) (my son can buy his girlfriend a gift and maybe someone else or himself something. I did that last year because I remembered when my kids were little how I had no extra money for Christmas presents and we had to figure which bills didn't get paid in December so the kids received presents. I figured I wanted my kids to have money to splurge and buy presents at Christmas time. When they have kids, I'll make sure they have loads of cash for their kids. Christmas is so important for kids. And my kids are still my kids...even though they are adults! I still remember them as 8 and 10 years old. I always will remember them at that age and younger.

Thank you Barb for the Table runner! I absolutely love it!!