Really appreciate it!

Note: Voting continues through Monday night. Thanks for all the support!
Do you check out the wonderful quilts submitted each week to the Quilting Gallery's weekly themed contest? 

This week the theme is wall hangings and I submitted my 'A field of daisies' quilt. 

It measures 30" x 23" and hangs in my sewing room. 

I made this quilt in 2002 at a retreat to learn Landscape quilting. We were to bring a picture to inspire us. Here is my inspiration. Photo taken by my daughter for her HS photo class.

I tried to capture the field of daisies.

All the pieces were fussy cut and glued to the blue background fabric. It was FMQ with monofilament and some additional decorative threads. Click on photos to see a close up. I let the daisies spill over the frame to give it a 3D feel. I sure would really appreciate your vote. You can vote over at Quilting Gallery here from Friday through Sunday.

Can I please have a few more hours in my day?

It has been tough finding time to post about what I've been doing. It seems that since I packed up my sewing room for its redo, I just haven't found enough hours in a day. 

The spring finds my work very busy which limits my free time. I love my job and summer will be here soon enough. 

Enough whining...first up I must send out some Thanks! While I was in Austin visiting by daughter, I was notified by Michele over at Quilting Gallery that I was the winner of The Cutting Edge ruler. 

Sorry about the poor picture quality.

Thank you Michele!

Then last week, I was notified by Pat Sloan at the Learning Center that I was the winner of a copy of Quilt Album! 

I have always documented my quilts by taking pictures and then on a word document, typing up a few pieces of information about the quilt. When I first starting quilting, I had hard copy pictures that I would put in an album and make a copy of the 'blurb' about the quilt and keep it with the picture. As digital photos became my method of photographing, I rarely made hard copy pictures of my quilts. I would keep them in a folder on my computer. Now the word document and picture were no longer together. 

 Needless to say, I was excited about using Quilt Album. I can now keep everything about my quilts in one place!  Quilt Album is extremely easy to use!  I have actually been working on transferring all my quilts (nearly 80) into Quilt Album. It will take some time but I think it will be well worth it. There are other things like making cards from pictures of your quilts that I can't wait to explore. I've only touched the surface of this program.  

Thank you, Pat!

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Before I left for Austin, I packed up my sewing room. This is what it looked like in our family room.

and that isn't all of it...Yikes!

Work in progress ~ the face lift....

Mostly moved back in but with a little more organizing to do.

and a few thing in progress on my design wall!

The blocks on the left are from the Craftsy BOM...I'm a little behind. Those are January and February blocks! On the top right are the first 2 blocks from the BOM with Quilt Story. And the bottom right is a baby quilt in progress. I actually finished this quilt {no pictures yet} and also this little baby rag quilt.

Baby Rag quilt is made from flannel and was inspired by this quilt. It is super soft and cuddly.

I've been up to more but it will wait for another post as this one is getting long. Thanks for reading...I really appreciate you!

Something for the kitchen...

Tomorrow I will be a guest blogger over at Sew We Quilt! I am so thrilled to be back. Thank you Madame Samm for inviting me! 

The tutorials featured throughout the month of April will all be about the kitchen. 

Now I am not the expert when it comes to the kitchen. I much prefer to spend my days/nights in my sewing room. So if something for the kitchen can be made simply, I am all for it! 

I had this idea mulling around my head for a while. I decided to go ahead and prepare this tutorial for all of you. Pot holder covers are very simple and quick to make, inexpensive and can be sewn together without the usual need for Insul-brite heat resistant batting. 

If you want to learn more, stop over at Sew We Quilt tomorrow, April 11th for my tutorial. I would love to hear what you think.

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On another note, I finished the 5th book in the book challenge. This book was to have a topographical feature in the title. I chose to read the book The Angels of Morgan Hill by Donna Van Liere. 

 It is set in the small town of Morgan Hill, Tennessee. It is the story of the life of Jane and her brother John during the year 1947. After the death of their alcoholic father, Jane dreams of the possibility of a 'real' father.  That same day, Jane and John see for the first time a black boy, named Milo Turner, who recently moved to Morgan Hill with his family. This brings many challenges to this small community and tragedy soon strikes.  The story holds onto a promise, hope for a better life, friendship and understanding in the midst of change. 

This novel is an easy and enjoyable read. If you want to read other books with a topographical feature you can find some here. 

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I am almost completely moved back into my sewing room. I have a few things to organize before I am settled in. I'll post a few pictures soon.

I'm back...

from Austin, Texas!  I had a wonderful visit with my daughter and son-in-law. Austin is a beautiful city and the weather was perfect. We didn't make any big plans because the purpose of my trip was to just spend time together. 

One of the unique things in Austin are the trailers. Now coming from Chicago, trailers don't exactly have a great connotation but these trailers are places to get  very yummy food and then eat at the picnic tables. 

The Short Bus serves sub sandwiches.

And this place serves cajun food.

Another night that we ate at a different trailer area, we had tasty tacos and then walked to the next trailer, Gourdough's, which serve amazing doughnut desserts. 

 The greatest part is that they can stay open all year long!

We took a drive up to Mount Bonnell, looking down onto Lake Austin. 

Beautiful wildflowers are in bloom.

We also visited Mayfield Park. 

And worked on a few sewing projects. A new dust ruffle for their bed, a quilted camera case, some bags from recycled t-shirts and a pencil skirt for my daughter. I visited TreeHouse the 'green' building store where DD2 & SIL work. I found many things I liked but could only bring home what could fit in my suitcase. 

And I finished another book on my challenge list. 

The 4th challenge was to read a book with a creepy crawly in the title. 

I chose to read The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. 

 This book is set in South Carolina in 1964 during the civil rights movement. The main character is Lily Owens, a 14-year-old girl whose mother was killed when she was 4 years old. She is raised by her African American nanny, Rosaleen, and her hateful father, T. Ray. When Rosaleen gets in trouble with some local racists for trying to exercise her right to vote, Lily and Rosaleen escape and run away to Tiburon, South Carolina in search for the secret to her mother’s past. Kidd uses the complex life of bees to paralleled Lily’s complicated life since losing her mother. In her search for answers, Lily finds healing, friendship, love and a new meaning for mother and home. 

I enjoyed this book and its compelling story of injustice during this time in history. You can find what others have read on this topic here.

My sewing room is still getting a facelift so most everything is packed away. I'll  be posting some pictures later.

Quick post

Spring Break has officially started in the School District I work. I don't typically go away over break but this year is different and I am so excited! I will be visiting my DD2 and SIL in Austin, TX. 

I am traveling there alone leaving my DH home. To keep him busy so he won't miss me too much (hehe), he is going to be giving my sewing room a fresh coat of paint and some other updates. 

This past week I have been packing up everything {boy do I have a lot of stuff.} I left a few things to the last minute because I really couldn't see not sewing for very long.  So you ask, what did you work on? 

A couple of new pin cushions! 

I am aware that there has been much written and discussed about Pinterest among bloggers lately. I admit that I do enjoy it and have gotten a lot of inspiration from the site. I will not be making any judgements yet and will try to keep calm. I only pin if I have made sure the link to the original site is working and the proper credit is given. To be honest, I have been so busy lately that I haven't had much time to spend on this time consuming addition. 

Sew until further notice...I will be working on my hexies.

For those of you interested, I also added a subscribe to button so you can now get notice of when I post. Look on my left sidebar. 

You are sew very appreciated!

What did I work on...

for the Friday Night Sew In? 

After a very unexpected dinner invite and fun evening with our very close friends, I came home and started sewing. I already planned on working on a tutorial that I will be sharing soon. So I got to work sewing and taking pictures of the process for the tutorial. (I like tutorials with lots of pictures). I will only share some peeks today so stay tuned for the whole process. 

some strip piecing and scrap busting...

finished....

I also stated working on another vintage dresden. 

before removing from the soiled backing fabric

ready for a new project ♥

Now off to see what others have worked on...won't you join me here?

A couple of finishes...

...another mini quilt finish. 

I have been having fun creating some mini quilts thanks to Jennifer over at Ellison Lane Quilts.  Although my quilt did not win in her recent challenge, I feel that I have won as I have been challenged to try some 'new to me' techniques. Minis are a great way to 'give it a try'.  

This quilt's challenge was combining red, yellow and white together. Madame Samm sent out a request for quilts using these 3 colors. Unfortunately, this isn't a color combination that I often see so I dug through my stash and this is all I found. The red fabric has roses with some being yellow and the yellow fabric has little tiny pinpoint dots in red. I took out my graph paper and using the chunky chevron idea that Amy Gibson showed on Craftsy in February, 

I designed this mini.

This is the first time that I tried a chevron. The tutorial on Craftsy by Amy Gibson is great. I made it a little different, extending the chevrons, but used her technique for the chunky chevron block. 

I also big stitched quilted the mini using Finca Perle 8 in Cranberry.  

I love the results!

I also finished my 3rd personnel stash challenge quilt.  I had finished the flimsy back in January but a few other projects were waiting for some attention so it took its turn in line. I finally managed to sandwich the quilt in February and set out to get it quilted. 

During this time, we got some sad news that our daughter's good friend, Jenny, was diagnosed with breast cancer. So as I quilted, many prayers were said for Jenny and she was kept in my thoughts.

I will be taking this quilt down to Austin, TX in a little over a week for Jenny when I visit my DD2 & SIL. I am very excited!

Jenny's surgery was today and the results are successful! 

The cancer had not spread! Praise God!

Until next time...