GIVEAWAY tomorrow!!! Be sure to check in!

Hi, all!

Just a heads up - tomorrow is the beginning of the Fall Into Fall Quilting Bloggers Giveaway!  I am participating in this, along with about 150 other bloggers and on-line shops - lots of loot is up for grabs!  So be sure and check in tomorrow to see what you can win!

Later!

Sarah

Toddlerless Tuesday #7! Tuesday's Treasures, Too!

Hi, all!




What a day!  It started at 5:15 this morning when I got up and started in on the last of the binding on two quilts.  Then I moved on to laundry (no picture for that) since my hubby started asking if I was EVER going to do laundry again.

Laundry sorted and and a load started, I grab an afghan to put in the living room (hubby got cold this morning!) and head into the kitchen and my computer to pay some bills.   Back to the bedroom to pick up the shoes off the floor of the closet and put them back in the shoe racks.  (More than one pair on the floor confuses my hubby - he can't figure out where to put them!)

Off to pick up Lilli - then back to the house for breakfast.  After breakfast, my favorite little photographer's assistant helped me take pics of the quilts I finished binding earlier......

.....then it's off to preschool!  Back home, I get started on Lilli's princess dress.  She wants to be a princess for Halloween, plus she has a princess birthday party this Saturday, so this is the week!  Here's a pic of the princess in her almost-finished dress...

It just needs a zipper to finish it off, and I'll do that tonight or tomorrow.

I also printed out some info on Amy's Simple Sampler Quilt -Along, which I'm going to use to teach quilting techniques to the ladies in our church's Wednesday night sewing group starting next week.

No wonder I'm tired!!!  Whew!!!!!

Now I want to show you my Tuesday Treasure....

These two photos are some of my favorites!  The one on the left is my daughter, and the one on the right is my granddaughter - don't they look alike?  When I first showed my granddaughter the picture of her mom, she thought it was herself - it took her a while before she believed me that it was her mommy!  But  I just love seeing how things carry from generation to generation....  So these are my very special Tuesday Treasures!

So....... what did you do today?

Later!

Sarah

Make-A-List Monday #14!

Hi, all!

And Monday rolls around again.....  this week my house should be calmer and quieter - the in-laws are gone, the toddler will be back in pre-school for the full time, and my hubby is out of town two days this week.  Good thing - I've got a lot on my plate this week!  But first, let's see how I did on last week's list....

1.  Sew together the flimsy for the Welcome Home quilt.  Partially done - part of this task was my One Thing One Week challenge item - to get the individual blocks put together.  That was done, and I got it laid out in the arrangement I want to make the final quilt.  I actually sewed two rows of blocks together, too, so 1/5 of the flimsy is sewn together....

2.  Plan the design for the back of the quilt, using a paper-pieced house design and possibly siggy blocks for the people who volunteered on the house.  Done!  I made fifty siggy blocks and gave them to the volunteer coordinator at church to get them signed; I also got up at 4:30 Saturday morning and made the house panel.  I really like the way this turned out!

3.  Complete the backing for a sudoku quilt top made by my friend and fellow-ministry-quilter Pam.  Done!  This is also quilted, the binding has been machine sewed on the front, and is ready for me to sew the back by hand.  It should be ready go to its recipient tomorrow!

4.  Cut out the birthday quilt pieces (Boy, I wish I had a GO! Cutter!!!!  Lots of cutting these days.....)  Once again, not done.  I think I'm going to have to bite the bullet and tell the recipient that her birthday present is going to be late!  


I also did the binding on this unexpected project, a quilt for the quilt ministry made by my friend Marsha!  That girl can crank them out - she's already finished another top and is picking up the fabric for another quilt today!

And now, without further ado, this week's list.....


1.  Finish the binding on the sudoku quilt.


2.  Pull fabrics for a boy's quilt for my friend Marsha.


3.  Make a princess dress for my granddaughter for Halloween and an upcoming princess party!


4.  Make two baby quilts for my friend Kathy.


5.  Finish piecing the Welcome Home flimsy.


6.  Cut the pieces for the birthday quilt (OK, hope springs eternal and all that rot, but maybe I can actually get to it this week!


Thanks for keeping me accountable!  You have no idea how much I appreciate all of you who read my blog - I work really hard to get stuff done on my list just so I don't have to report back with a "oops - didn't get to this!"


So what are you up to this week?  Please share!


Later!


Sarah

Need a Place to Show Off Your Friday Finish?

Hi, all!

If you are like me and you usually link up with Amy's Show & Tell Friday, 

but just haven't had enough time or energy to make

 an Amy Butler project this week, 

I'm providing a place to link up and share your finishes here!

(Of course, if you want to share an Amy Butler finish, you can join in too!)

For one Friday only, please join me for  

TGIF!  (Thank Goodness It's Finished!)

For those of you who link up, please be kind to your fellow linkers and go check out their finishes and leave lots of good bloggy love, since there might not be as much of that to go around this Friday for each of them!!  You'll find the linky place down at the bottom of this post.  So go on - you know you want to!

  And so - - - here's my finish for the week - well, not quite a finish but considering how much company I had all week, it's pretty good as far as I'm concerned!  Our church is building a house for a family whose home was destroyed in the May flood here in Nashville, and our church quilt ministry is making this quilt as a housewarming gift for them.  It's called Welcome Home!  I managed to get all the 100 blocks sewn together this week, and arranged them so they are ready to be sewn together into a flimsy.  That's my project for this weekend!

I'll also be working on the back for this quilt - we're trying to do something really special, with signature blocks for all the volunteers who worked on the house and a paper-pieced house block.  It will be nice to sit at my sewing machine uninterrupted again!!

So now, please link up and let everyone see what you've finished this week!  And remember - spread around the bloggy love.........  

One more thing - be sure to check out Stash Manicure on Saturday - I'll be guest posting about kitting up your stash!! If you've never seen the Stash Manicure blog, you really ought to spend some time there - lots of fellow-bloggers sharing tips on accumulating, using, storing, and just enjoying your stash!

I'll also be linking up on Andrea's Lush Friday!! Check out all the neat stuff people have linked up there!

Later!

Sarah

Toddlerless Tuesday #6! Tuesday's Treasures, Too!

Hi, all!

I'm so proud of myself - despite the fact that I have a houseful of company, I managed to get something done today!  Lilli went to preschool this morning, but I picked her up at lunchtime so that she could spend some time with her great-grandparents and eat lunch with them.  Apparently, great-grandparents take naps at the same time as toddlers, so while the house was quiet, I did some work!

I was hoping this morning to maybe get all of the blocks made for my Welcome Home quilt - well, see what I did!

All the blocks are assembled, AND I got it laid out in its final order.  Woohoo!!  I've pinned it to the quilt it's laid out on, so I'll be able to lay the quilt on my dining room table, remove a row at a time and sew it up.  

And I also made these siggy blocks:

Each of the people that volunteered to work on the house our church is building for the recipients of this quilt will be signing a block, and I'll work them into the backing for this quilt.  I've been working the backing design up in my head -  I can't wait to actually start working on it!

So, while it's not as much as I would like to accomplish, it's a whole lot more than I thought I'd get done today!

And here's my Tuesday Treasure......

This beautiful hobnail vase was at my grandmother's house the whole time I was growing up.  I used to love to look at the sun shining through it, and to touch the little hand-formed hobnails.  Once upon a time, there were eight glasses to go with it, but over time they got broken, so all that was left when my grandmother died was the pitcher - but I love love love it!  It sits on my mantel all year long, and now I can run my fingers over the little hobnails any time I want to!

I'll be hooking up with Tuesday's Treasures at Claire's Craftroom - be sure to check out all the neat stuff there!

Later!

Sarah


PS - - Check out the AccuQuilt GO! Giveaway on Millie's Quilting!!!  These giveaways are starting to crop up again - hooray!!!

Make-A-List Monday #13!

Hello, all!


Did you have a good week last week?  I did - I feel like I got a lot of stuff done AND I managed to do some house cleaning that had been long overdue!  So let's find out how I did on last week's list.....

1.  Make at least one reversible dress for a friend; she's ordered two dresses and a t-shirt, all with really cute appliques!  I actually finished both dresses!  The t-shirt can wait for a while, as she doesn't need it until November, so it's going on the back burner until I get some things finished that need to be done by early October.

2.  Finish the Louisiana quilt.  Done!  This block is so simple, but it makes a very dramatic quilt.  I think we'll be making several of these in the future, as it lends itself to being made scrappy!

3.  Cut out the pieces for the Welcome Home quilt.  All the pieces have been cut out, and the flying geese blocks have been sewn together!  A friend came over today and helped me sew them up during the Titans' football game - the Titans lost, but I feel like a winner now that those are done!


4.  Cut out the pieces for a birthday quilt.  I haven't cut them out yet, but I have figured the quilt on paper (to make sure I have enough fabric before I start cutting) and know exactly what I need to cut from each fabric.  




So what's on tap for this week?


Well, my in-laws will be in town this week, so I don't know how much sewing I'll actually have time to do, but here's what I hope to accomplish...


1.  Sew together the flimsy for the Welcome Home quilt.


2.  Plan the design for the back of the quilt, using a paper-pieced house design and possibly siggy blocks for the people who volunteered on the house.


3.  Complete the backing for a sudoku quilt top made by my friend and fellow-ministry-quilter Pam.


4.  Cut out the birthday quilt pieces (Boy, I wish I had a GO! Cutter!!!!  Lots of cutting these days.....)


That's enough for now.  Maybe too much.  But what's a week without goals???


So the question now is, what will you be doing this week??


Later!


Sarah




PS - check out the great giveaway going on at JayBird Quilts!

Sew&Tell Friday - Lots to Share!!

Hi, all!!

Wow, it's been quite a week, hasn't it?  I've got lots of things to share with you today, but first I want to show you a quilt my friend Pam finished this week!

Pam is a very lucky lady - her mother-in-law is a clown, and in the past had bought bolts of fabrics that she made her costumes out of.  Well, she let Pam dig around in the fabric closet, and Pam found the wonderful clown print fabric in this quilt.

The balloons and balls in the print made the choice of quilt pattern easy - Circle Around by Julie Herman of Jaybird Quilts!  I think Pam did a fabulous job on this quilt - and she pieced her back, too, which was a new experience for her.   And it looks great!

I managed to completely finish both of the little reversible dresses I was making for a friend.  I think they came out really nice!

And I quilted and bound the ministry quilt for the boy in Louisiana today!  I think I'm going to call this one Bayou Dreams.

It's made by the block design that Fat Quarterly is doing a quilt-along with right now - it's a great block and works up really easy!

 Our version is scrappy, and I actually made up kits and gave them out to some of the ladies in our sewing group to make blocks; then I used their blocks and some of my own to make this top.

It's about 60" square, my go-to size for these ministry quilts.

Then I ended my day with some heavy-duty cleaning - yuck!!  When my husband called to tell me he was on his way home, I told him what I was doing and he actually asked me when my evil twin, the one who doesn't clean, would be home!  But at least he took me out to dinner - Five Guys burgers and fries - yumm!!

I'm going to be linking up to Amy's Sew & Tell Friday, and Andrea's Lush Friday.  I'm going to miss out on Amy's link-up next week, because I don't have an Amy Butler project that I'll be able to post - too many things that have to get done to take time out to make anything else.  Is anyone else in that predicament?  If you'd be interested in a one-time linky party for those of us who haven't gotten in on the Amy Butler party, let me know in your comment - if there's enough of us, I'll try to set something up on my blog!


So what have you done this week?

Later!

Sarah

Toddlerless Tuesday #5! Tuesday's Treasures, Too!

Hi, all!

Well, I was toddler-less - and yet focused on toddlers anyway today!  I got a commission to make two reversible dresses and a t-shirt for a two-year old for the holidays - so I worked to see how much I could knock out on those today.

These little dresses are fairly simple to make, but so useful - if one side gets dirty you just flip it over! 

So I did manage to get one dress done except for a little hand-embroidery and the buttonholes and buttons, and the other dress's applique is fused on, ready for the satin stitch!  A good start....

I also did a test block for an upcoming quilting bee.  Our church is building a house for a family whose house was essentially destroyed in the May flood here in Nashville, and we want to make a quilt for them.  But finding a good pattern that a group of women, all at different skill levels in sewing, can make look good can sometimes be challenging!  When I saw Vickie Eapen's Flight of Geese quilt in the Fall issue of Quilts and More, I thought it might be a good candidate.  Today I did a test block, and I cannot praise this pattern enough!

The flying geese blocks are super simple - you don't even have to have a 1/4 inch foot to make them!  (Of course, it would be handy for putting the rest of the quilt together!)  If you can sew straight down a drawn line, you can make these flying geese!  So thanks, Vickie, I love this pattern and can't wait to see how it turns out!!  Be sure to check out her blog, Spun Sugar Quilts. She's always got something interesting going on and is a great teacher - check out her tutorials!


and now for Tuesday's Treasures.......

Lilli wanted to participate today, so she gave me Forsie to put in the picture!  My sister found this wonderful stuffed animal in an antique store in Birmingham.  He used to have a cute felt bridle and reins but Lilli carried him around by the reins one day and they went bye-bye!  So I have some red grosgrain ribbon to replace them with; just haven't gotten around to it yet!  Besides, I think Forsie likes to run free....   Lilli asked if she could take him to Target the other day; I said he could go in the car, but couldn't go inside the store.  She looked at me and said, "It's OK, Nana, I'll make sure he doesn't bite anyone!"  So of course, Forsie got to go in - - - how can you refuse that logic?  And I must say, he didn't bite anyone!

And underneath Forsie, you can see the wedding ring quilt that my great-grandmother made for me when I was born.  This has been a well-loved quilt, and it shows - some of the patches are very thin - so I'm really careful with it now.  Somewhere, I have a patch for the back that my great-grandmother typed on fabric that tells all of the great-aunts and other relatives that helped piece and quilt it, too!  I never met this great-grandmother, even though she was alive until I was about seven - she lived in Kansas, which always seemed like a very exotic place to me (probably because of the Wizard of Oz!)  But she wrote really good letters and between those and the quilt, I felt like I knew her.

So all in all, I think it's been a good, productive Toddlerless Tuesday!  What did you do today?

Later!

Sarah

Make-A-List Monday #12!

Good morning, all!!

First of all, if you were entered in the giveaway, you can find the winner here.

It's been a busy week - can you feel the holiday season coming on?  I certainly can!  I'm trying to stay calm and not stress out, but I've noticed a serious increase in my workload and things I know need to be done this week.  So let's see how I did on last week's list:

1.  Sew up blocks and finish a flimsy for the fourth ministry quilt.  (This one is for a young man in Louisiana, so we'll call it the Louisiana quilt for now!)  Done!  I'm liking the way this is turning out - see the purple and gold blocks for LSU?

2.  Organize fabrics received last week through donations into the stash.  Done!  It's really nice to have fabric on the shelves instead of in bags.....


3.  Pull fabrics for the fifth ministry quilt.  (This one is for a family moving into a house our church is building, so we'll call this one Welcome Home!)  Done!  Now on to the cutting....

4.  Lay out my Bee Splendid blocks and number for sewing into a flimsy. (I think I may go roll up the living room rug and do this right after I finish this post - hubby is out running and I might have just enough time to do it!)  Yahoo!!!  Finally Done!!!!  And look how gorgeous this is going to look when I get it sewn together......

5.  Prepare for my 100th post GIVEAWAY!   (I guess that means I've got to figure out how that Random Number Generator works!)  Also done - and the winner was announced this morning!  It was really fun and I've made lots of new bloggy friends - so here's hoping my next milestone rolls around soon for another one!!




So now.....what's up for this week???


1.  Make at least one reversible dress for a friend; she's ordered two dresses and a t-shirt, all with really cute appliques!


2.  Finish the Louisiana quilt.


3.  Cut out the pieces for the Welcome Home quilt.


4.  Cut out the pieces for a birthday quilt.


That should keep me busy.....




And here are pictures of our newest ministry quilt, called Autumn Days - this one was made from donated fabrics (thank you, ladies!) by my friend Marsha.  It's a sudoku pattern, again - this such an easy go-to pattern, but it looks so nice when it's done!  Marsha did everything but the binding - she hates to bind, and I love it, so she handed it off to me for the finishing touches.  It's being delivered today to a lady who's going to have surgery tomorrow.  I sure hope it makes her feel loved!

Later!


Sarah


PS There's a new GIVEAWAY from Sew Fresh Fabrics on Stitched in Color - go check it out!!!


And another GIVEAWAY on JaybirdQuilts - don't miss that one either!!

And the Winner Is.....

Hi, all!

The time has arrived, and so I've called on my good friend "Random" to work her magic..... (Unfortunately, when I came back to Random after counting down the list, the numbers had disappeared! I haven't figured out how to run it and make a pic of the results to post on here, so in the interests of letting you all know who won as quickly as possible, I'm going to ask you to take my word for the fact that the winner is....)



The Winner is Comment #113 - 


CMEH said...

I move your blog... thanks for the great giveaway

September 11, 2010 9:22 AM 

Congratulations!!! And thanks to all of you who entered, and became new followers, and blogged about this giveaway - it was lots of fun, and hopefully there'll be lots more in the future!!


Come back later today to see what's going on with Make-A-List Monday.....


Later!


Sarah

Don't Miss The Giveaway!

Hi, all!

It's been a gorgeous day in Tennessee!!

Just a quick reminder, if you haven't entered already, I'm having a giveaway 

for my 100th blogpost - entries will close tonight at midnight CST - 

so come on over and throw your name in the hat!!

Later!

Sarah

GIVEAWAY! I've Hit A Milestone!!

Hi, all!!

First off, let's take care of my Friday finish - a flimsy for a quilt ministry quilt going to a 15-year old boy in Louisiana who was in a car accident and has been in a coma.  The young man is a huge LSU fan, but I couldn't see making a purple quilt for a teenage boy - so this quilt has ten blocks scattered across it in the purple ad gold colors of LSU!  A very scrappy top, it uses the block pattern that Fat Quarterly is using in their current quilt-along.  I just pulled fabrics from my 2 1/2" bin instead of using a jelly roll.  All of the blocks except the LSU blocks have a light blue oxford cloth center to tie the quilt together.  I'll be linking this to Amy's Sew & Tell Friday and Andrea's Lush Friday, so be sure to check out all the beautiful finishes on each of their blogs!!

And now.....


Well, it's finally here - my 100th blog post!!  When I started this blog back in January, I had no idea how much fun this would be - and certainly didn't anticipate this day!  I wasn't part of a thriving quilt ministry back then, either - something else I didn't anticipate!  Blogging has been lots of fun, and I've made so many great friends - and I've found out that quilting bloggers are very generous people!  I try to be as generous to all my bloggy friends as they have been to me - - - - and on that note,

Let's get to the giveaway!!!

First up on the giveaway train is Heather Ross's Far Far Away 2 Fat Quarter Bundle in Aqua!!  I finally gave up trying to win some of this for myself, and bought it when Hawthorne Threads had it in stock (after missing the first batch that came back in!) then realized it would be the perfect giveaway item - - - so I went back and ordered the last bundle for you guys!!  If you haven't had a chance to see it in person, it really is yummy - a beautiful linen-y looking fabric, slightly heavier than regular quilting fabric, but still a great weight to quilt with.

But wait, there's more!!!!

The next car on the giveaway train is loaded with seven half-yard cuts of some beautiful vintage fabrics that came my way recently!  All of these fabrics are 36" wide.  If I had to date them, I'd say they are probably from the late 1950's to mid 1960's.  Personally, I've not seen American-made fabrics in 36" widths since the late 60's.  The prints on the fabrics would appear to fit that era.  These fabrics are in great condition, too!

And finally, riding along in the caboose.....

Check out the cool vintage button on this side!

Here's the other side -
It's like two for one!

....is this sweet hand-pieced pin cushion made from Spun Sugar Quilts' great pattern!  I have really enjoyed playing around with English Paper Piecing, something I never would have known about if I hadn't started blogging - so someone is going to be the beneficiary of my new skill set!

So how can you win this great loot??  Easy....


1.  Leave a comment!  I'd love to know what you'd do with the fabric that's up for grabs....


2.  Become a follower and leave a comment saying you have, or leave a comment letting me know you already are one!


3.  Blog about this giveaway on your blog, and leave a separate comment with the link to where you blogged about it!


4.  And finally, because generosity has its rewards, if you've made a fabric donation to our quilt ministry, please leave a comment saying so for one additional entry!

So - - - you can leave up to four separate comments for this giveaway!!  Four chances to win!! Woohoo!!  

Random.org will be the one picking the winners. It's a tough job. I don't envy her!

Entries will close no earlier than 5:00 p.m. on Sunday afternoon, September 12th, Central Standard Time. You have a few days to enter, so get to it! I'll announce the winners sometime Sunday evening.


Good luck!!!


Sarah


One reminder - if you are set to "no reply", you will need to check back to my blog Sunday night to see if you won the giveaway.  If a "no reply" entry wins, and they don't contact me by Monday evening, I'll run Ms. Random again......                


In Blogger, if you want to change your setting, go into your profile, choose Edit Profile, and click the box marked "Show E-Mail Address".                              Sarah


UPDATE:  There's another great giveaway going on at Chasing Cottons - go check it out!!

Toddlerless Tuesday #4! Tuesday's Treasures, Too!

Hi, all!

It's starting to feel normal not to have a toddler around two extra days a week - but I am still really glad to see her at 2:00!  It's a lot of fun to see her face light up when she sees me at the classroom door....

OK - so today, I mailed my Bee Splendid blocks that I made for Carrie - she wanted variations on string blocks, incorporating the Kona Snow and the bright blue square in each block.

I also now have sixty-two blocks for the Louisiana quilt done; there's another twenty-four out in other people's hands; and I've started cutting out the last fourteen to sew up.  Hopefully on Thursday I can finish up that flimsy!

I organized this week's new fabric donations, too - all folded and put away in the stash cabinet!

And - - - I finally found a pattern I like for a special quilt for someone's birthday, plus I stopped by my LQS (local quilt shop for those of you who don't have all the acronyms down yet!) and found two more fabrics to add to the mix for this quilt.

Plus - I cleaned out another silver dollar-sized lump of lint from my sewing machine - much to my granddaughter's amazement!  She wants to try cleaning it out now!!

So I think all in all, it was a productive Tuesday!!

And now...... Tuesday's Treasures!

This lovely little sofa was a part of my great-grandfather's law office furniture when he was a young lawyer just starting out in Smithfield, North Carolina in the early 1900's!  He became a pretty well known name in North Carolina politics, and served as chairman of the board for Nationwide Insurance.  I got to know him pretty well as a child; he died the summer I was twelve.  But I remember him as a very loving man who played a mean game of double solitaire (and I mean "mean" - he would slap your hand if you played on his cards!); he loved to fish and would always start a competition for who could catch the biggest fish, and almost always seemed to lose.  He played the organ and loved his family.  When he was with Nationwide Insurance, we got to fly on the company jet with him - I remember how cool that was, because the plane had tables and seats that faced directions other than towards the front!  So anyway, this sofa reminds me of all the great times I had with my great-grandfather.

Apparently, Lilli likes it too - she and her entourage play on it a lot!!  So I tell her about her great-great-great-grandfather and hope she remembers stories about him when she gets older......

I'm going to hook up with Tuesday Treasures over at Clare's Craftroom - be sure to go by there and see all the neat treasures!!

And don't forget - This is post #99 for my blog - come back Friday for my 100th post and a GIVEAWAY!!


Later!

Sarah