Winner!

The winner of the Charming Travelers Giveaway is

Congratulations Tiffany! I will be emailing you shortly to get your mailing address. Tiffany blogs over at Pink Sweet Treats if you are following the charms to win them.

Speaking of winning. I won this fat quarter bundle from Katy at monkey do sponsored by Pink Castle Fabrics.

She has a fabulous selection of fabrics and has a sale going on right now on all SALE fabrics!

Sale Fabrics

SALE50 = 15% off over $50
SALE100 = 20% off over 100
SALE150 = 25% off over 150
SALE200 = 30% off over 200

Just enter the corresponding code at checkout.

I've been busy making bee blocks for July.

NuBee block for Kelli who asked for Florida Gator colors for a quilt for her husband.

NuBee block for Beth who asked for black, white, and red with gray background.

NuBee block for Laura who wanted pastel rainbow colors.

NuBee block for Peggy who asked for bright rainbow colors.


I decided to sit out the NuBees Bee for August. I have a few quilts to finish by the end of September for the DMAQG quilt show, my parents are going to be here for a week, school is starting back up, and we are going on vacation. That is the nice thing about that Bee, it is month to month and you can decide if you have time or not. I'll probably start back up in October after it slows down a little over here.

I need to catch up on the Tetris QAL. I've got blocks 2 and 3 to do, I don't want to fall way behind!

I'm linking up with and

Retreat!!

This past weekend I went on a three day retreat with some of my quilt buddies. We had a great time sewing, talking, and eating way too much!(Fred, our hostesses husband is a wonderful cook and baker!) I got four Running With Scissors Bee blocks done.

For the pewter acorn for July

For crafty shenanigans for July

For shimmy blisster for August. She was really on the ball and got her fabric out to us last week!

I also got two more Farmers Wife blocks done. I had to stop because I kept putting the fabric on upside down!

I've had these fabrics in my stash awhile and they seemed just perfect for a lap quilt for our babysitter Suzanne who LOVES yellow. She just got her Doctorate of Chemistry this month, and I think that deserves a quilt. I looked through many books and magazines for a great pattern for these fabrics. Then I got this quilt all cut out! I love having so much uninterupted time when I'm at retreats!

Here is the first block all done. 1 down, 29 to go!

I signed up for the over at Happy Quilting. This game is so very addicting to me. I will not download it because I have to get something done! I got my first weeks block done at retreat too. She is having prizes every week and then at the end for the finished quilts, so check it out if you love the game, or just love working with rainbow colored charms. :-)

I have also joined Lazy Bums. It is a group of people working on finishing some of our UFOs over the next year by challenging each other. You can read more about it on Confessions of A Fabraholic's blog.

Here is my July NuBees block from Laura. I love it!

Now I just have to finish the binding on a quilt to take to the state fair drop off on Saturday morning. I can't wait to go see all the quilts in a couple weeks!

Charming Travelers Giveaway!

I have won this traveling charm pack and taken out the fabrics for me to keep and added some new ones from my stash.

Now it's your turn! Here are the rules:

1. Leave me one comment telling me what your favorite fabric line is at the moment.
2. Open to US residents ONLY(sorry).
3. You must be an active blogger to participate.

I will leave this open until noon CST on Monday July 30th. Then I will let Mr. Random Generator do his thing! If you are a no reply blogger please leave me an email so I can reach you, or I will have to draw again.

If you would like to learn more about it and see where it has been visit from blank pages blog.

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED

Happy Mail!

There has not been much sewing going on here in the last month, but in the last week I've gotten some great things in the mail. Last Friday I received this cute bag that I won on Sew Mama Sew's giveaway week from Craftzilla Conquers the World.

I also won a giveaway from Quiltstoy sponsored by Pink Castle Fabrics. I love this fabric line!

I have 4 bee blocks to finish up for the NuBees Block swap. I'll post some pictures of them when I'm done. I'm also hoping to get a few of my Farmer's Wife blocks done this week.

Pillow swap and Quilt Retreat!

So, I know it has been awhile since I posted. I've even had a few friends ask me about it. I guess the time has just got away from me. I am going to try to post much more regularly in the future.

The  DSMMQG arranged a pillow swap challenge. We exchanged out completed pillows at the April meeting. Here is the pillow that I made for Veronica.

She is in my small group and has been involved in several bees where she asked for aqua, red, and gray. So I knew she loved this color combination.

This was the first time I ever made a pillow. It was very fun and I can see why some people make loads of them! Now I just need to try a zipper. Emma was great at retreat and walked me through installing one in a little bag she was making.

I received this cute little pillow from Etta. I just love the colors!

I also went to a retreat this month with my small group, except for Dawn who was at guard. We had a great time sewing and socializing. It is always so great to hang out with a bunch of people who have the same love for quilts as you!

Back row L-R Teresa, Veronica, Me
Front row L-R Emma and Lisa

I made this Berenstein Bear pillow case for my little guy. He picked out all the fabric and made sure I brought it along. We took the front rails off his crib the day after I got back and he wanted a new big pillow and case for his big guy bed. Now the challenge is keeping him in bed every night. Him and big brother now think that bedtime is party time!

My small group is doing the Farmer's Wife quilt along this year. So, I worked on some more blocks. All I got made was five. The green and yellow one took me at least 3 hours! All the little pieces and sewing backwards and flipping the pices the wrong way under the paper. Thankfully I had good company to talk me through it.

These are the Farmer's Wife blocks that I made last month.

Sorry about the light in these block pictures. I had to take them fast because they kept blowing away. I am trying to do one a week. I'm not sure how many I will do yet. I'll have to figure out what size quilt I want to end up with. I think 50 is a good lap size. I'll see how long the project keeps my interest. I am loving choosing the fabric and color combinations for each block. The fabrics are mainly Art Gallery and Mark Lipinski with some Kate Spain and others thrown in.

I am linking up to  

and

Progress from my 1st Friday Night Sew-In

As promised, here is what I did last night for my 1st Friday Night Sew-In.






As I mentioned in a prior post, my small groups', Seams Sew Easy, challenge for September was to try something new. I was thinking about doing curves, but then I remembered that I had purchased a Christmas embroidery pattern about a year ago. I have been wanting to learn for awhile now, and since Christmas is creeping up on us, I figured "why not".  I watched a couple how to videos at We Love French Knots. On Sunday night I put on stabilizer and traced the pattern on my light box. This was extremely difficult. I came to find out at our meeting on Wednesday night that I had used the stabilizer for machine embroidery. So, for my next project I will be buying some much thinner stabilizer!

Here is the pattern that I am working on. I am hoping to finish it by Christmas. (Yes 2011)

The pattern shows a pillow, but I am thinking a wall hanging will work much better in this household with the two little guys and all.

Here is my progress from Monday and Friday nights. Not too bad for a newbie, heh?

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Hopefully I can make this a regular thing and get some WIPs done.

Our November group challenge is to have a Christmas present all finished! I have been working on designing the Brown Bear quilt for my little guy tonight. I have a pattern worked up. I'll see if I still like it tomorrow, and if so I will start cutting!

In other news, I quit my job on Tuesday and after training someone on my accounts for the next month or so, I will be a stay at home mom! No more crazy tax seasons! I will have time to sew between December and April 15th!

Check out all the cool projects at

Friday Night Sew In

This is what I am doing tonight as soon as the little guys are in bed!

Check back tomorrow to see what I worked on!