Can I Get A Whoop Whoop? Bonus Pillows!!

Hi, all!

It's Friday, and that means it's time to get our whoop whoop on!  Are you ready?  I am - it's been an exciting week!

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This week, while I was working on this quilt - just a sneak peek now, because it will be the feature of this coming Sunday's Nifty Nines Quilt Along...

... I ended up with 72 "bonus" HSTs to work with! I started playing around with them...

...and ended up with two "negative image" layouts that used up all of the HSTs.  Score!  Measuring about 14.5" assembled, they were perfect to make two pillow covers - and I had two 14" pillow forms in my stash (which I found when I cleaned up earlier this year!)

So I sewed them together, then used some scrap batting from the stash and did some straight line echo quilting around the design.  

I found a print in my stash to make envelope enclosures for the back, and found a darker green fat quarter in the stash and managed to get enough strips from it to bind both pillows.

Look how pretty they turned out!  And they look so nice in my husband's chair - he may end up getting to keep them!  Here's a shot that shows the backing fabric...

I love it when a plan comes together - two pillows made basically from scraps that would have been thrown away, finished with things from stash - all part of my Sew My Stash 2016 plan!  

So - - - can I get a whoop whoop?

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And I've got another huge whoop whoop that affects all of you!   I wrote potential sponsors for Hands2Help earlier this week, and got a response that I'm really excited about!  We have a new sponsor this year - InspiredLED, where I got the LED lights I use on my sewing machine and long arm machine.

And guess what?  InspiredLed is donating TEN sets of LED sewing machine light kits as prizes for this year's Hands2Help Challenge!! Whoop whoop whoop!!!!  I'm super-excited!!!

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And now it's your turn!

What's got you whooping it up this week?

What's making you dance the happy dance?

Share - we want to dance right along with you - 

And it's always more fun to dance with friends!

The party will stay open until Sunday midnight - 

Hope to see you there!

Hugs!

Sarah

What's On The Bookshelf Wednesday - Some Serious Inspiration!

Hi, all!

It's Wednesday, and time to take a look at the bookshelf again!  This week, I want to share a book that a friend of mine found in the library - full of wonderful inspiration!

You may be familiar with the Quilts of Gees Bend - quilts made by women in southern Alabama out of what they had on hand, that are beautifully primitive and artistic.  The quilts in this book will remind you of those quilts, but with much greater variety.

Unconventional and Unexpected shares American quilts that have flown below the radar, made between 1950 and 2000.  There is so much creativity in these quilts!  I particularly love the colors in this beauty...

It is called "Circles" and was made sometime between 1950 and 1970.

Spiderweb quilts are so popular now - take a look at these two, made respectively between 1975-2000 and 1940-1970.  The one on the right was actually made very near me, in the Hard Bargain community of Franklin, TN, a predominately African American community dating back to the 1870's.

And oh, isn't this striped quilt, made between 1950-1975, wonderful?  The movement in this quilt makes me smile!

And this quilt uses prairie points in a way I've never seen before -the entire quilt was covered with rows of them!  It was made between 1960-1985.

This quilt looks like something that could have been made just recently, but it dates from 1940-1970.  It's called Rattlesnake/Snake Trail.

Another feature that I really liked about this book was that occasionally they would show the back of a quilt or flimsy.  The quilt shown above was one of those.  An unfinished top, dating from 1950-1975, it was foundation pieced on pages from the Sears, Roebuck & Co. catalog.  Fortunately, those paper pieces were never taken off, and this quilt is quite a treasure!

I don't think I would ever quilt this top - the papers on the back are such a wonderful conversation starter!  I can remember poring over the pages of the Sears catalog when I was little - you could literally buy anything there!

This isn't an inexpensive book, so it may be one you want to check out from your local library or put on your Christmas wish list (it's on mine!) but it's definitely worth reading!  There are wonderful essays about the quilts and quilting lore interspersed between the photographs, and a whole lot of inspiration in this coffee table book.

That's what's on my bookshelf this week - or at least, what I WISH was on my bookshelf instead of the library's!  Have you taken a look at yours lately?

Hugs!

Sarah

Make-A-List Monday - Where Did January Go??

Hi, all!

It's Monday again - and the first day of February!  Can you believe it?  January flew by in a flurry of strange weather, housekeeping and lots of quilting projects, at least for me.  I hope yours went well too!  

Last week was a busy one, too - so let's see how the list went!

1.  Continue working on the special secret gift quilt.

This is an ongoing project, and unfortunately one I can't show off, but I can say that I have done a whole lot of preliminary work, including making a sample block so I know how it will go together.  I should be able to start sewing on this one in the next week!

2.  Continue working on the My Small World quilts.

Done!  I've completed all the hourglass blocks and pinwheel blocks for all three quilts, and I'm ready to move on to the next step.

3.  Start working on another quilt top for the Nifty Nines quilt along.

Done!  I finished this top...

...and started this one!

4.  Contact possible sponsors for Hands2Help, and finalize the charities.

Done!  The email has gone out to the first batch of potential sponsors, and you can read about this year's charities by clicking on  the Hands2Help tab under my blog header.  The schedule's there, too!

5.  Keep up with any quilt ministry needs that come up.

Done!  

This quilt went to a little boy with pancreatitis...

This one went to a young mom who suffered a stroke and then was diagnosed with ovarian cancer...

And this quilt is now comforting a woman whose father died very suddenly from prostate cancer.

Also, eight baby quilts and four adult quilts were donated to a local hospital's NICU and cancer wards (but unfortunately no pictures...)

I also quilted and bound this pretty little quilt, which will go into the stash of quilts ready to be gifted at church.

OK, so last week's list is finished, and I think finished well!  Here's what's on the horizon for this week...

1.  Keep working on the secret gift quilt.

2.  Bind these six quilts for the quilt ministry...

3.  Finish the fourth Nifty Nines quilt top.

4.  Write up an estimate for a t-shirt quilt for a friend.

5.  Start working on the fifth Nifty Nines quilt top.

6.  Keep working on the My Small World quilts.

7.  Keep up with any quilt ministry needs that come up.

I feel like it's just a repetition of the previous week, but at least for this month, that's probably what it's going to be like.  At least I don't have to think hard about what I've got to do!  

So now the question is - - - what are YOU working on this week?

Hugs!

Sarah

PS  Just a reminder - there's still time to send socks for Savannah's Sweet 16 Sock Drive - they've already received over 3,000 socks, they're getting some national attention as part of the 29 Days of Giving Challenge, and I know there are collection boxes up in lots of places!  It is amazing to see how many lives this little girl touched during her time here on this earth, and how many more will be touched as a result of others giving in her memory.  You can read more about the Sock Drive by clicking here.