Stacked Squares

Am trying to put my Stacked Squares quilt together.  Still have more blocks to finish but I was getting too excited to wait any longer so today I pulled out my design wall and started putting the blocks up on it.  I am using almost all of the AdornIt fabric that I had left over from making the granddaughter's outfits from their photo shoot back in August.  I LOVE that fabric so much!  Have you checked out the AdornIt website?  From fabric to scrapbooking to clothing.....just wish I could find their fabric in my LQS!  I bought what I have while on the Utah Shop Hop this past summer.

I will probably be changing up some of the blocks but for now will keep them up until I get the other blocks finished.  The pattern is free from Moda Bake Shop.  You can find it here. 

Back to sewing!

More from our retreat

I wasn't able to get alot of pictures of what the other ladies were working on but here are a few:

This one will have the bears in the center of the quilt with all the little 6" bear paw blocks surrounding it.  Going to be beautiful when it is done.

Layer cake with the large twister ruler.  I need to make one of these!

I didn't get a picture of this finished but it is so much cuter in person than the picture on the pattern package!  You use a very tiny twister ruler to make the pumpkin.  It was interesting that 3 of us had twister rulers to use on projects we brought!

Notice the nice design wall we had that went across both sides of the room by our sewing stations.

I'm still working on my Grandma's Apron quilt.  I don't know why I have such a time embroidering.  It is my take along project for trips.

Rain and flash floods took over while we were gone.

Near Name's Hill, LaBarge, Wyoming.  This road was closed for a while so the mud could be moved off the highway.  That hill in the picture has pioneer names on it.  One is supposedly Jim Bridger's.  Interesting, since he was suppose to have been illiterate.  :)

The sky was crazy beautiful all the way home!

 

Fons and Porter Freebies!

About a week ago and I was contacted by the Online Media Coordinator from Fons and Porter.  Am I the only one that didn't know F & P had FREE booklets to share with the world?!!!  I was asked if I would review their Log Cabin booklet for them and share what I thought on my blog.

Ok.......sure!!!

I printed the 24 pages out so I could really look at each page.  Can I just say right now that I have always loved Fons and Porter?!  I have even traveled to their store in Winterset, Iowa.  Such a CUTE town!  But this was such a nice treat.....a booklet that is really worth the color ink it takes to print it out!
The booklet tells a bit of history on Log Cabin quilts in the first couple of pages but them quickly turns into a pattern book.  All for FREE!

I count 6 FREE patterns in this little booklet!
This one has really caught my eye and is on my "someday I need to make this" calendar!

All directions are included.  The last few pages talk about binding with piping and Liz' lumpless binding.
So many pictures and great patterns!
This is a wonderful booklet for any quilter.  My daughter has been wanting to make her own Log Cabin quilt for several years now.  I am going to have to share this link with her!  You also can click on the link and sign up to get the free booklet!
http://www.fonsandporter.com/landing/free-log-cabin-quilt-patterns
Enjoy!

You can also go to http://www.mccallsquilting.com/free-modern-quilt-patterns and receive their Modern Quilt Pattern booklet too!

We Started a Quilt Guild!

Here's the youngest member of our new Quilt Guild, Rippin' Stitchers!



After living in this valley for many years, several women got together in November to organize a quilt guild.  We have a wonderful fabric store in our midst so it was about time we got the many quilters together around here and formed a club.

I volunteered to make a blog so you are welcome to have a look at it!
http://rippinstitchers.blogspot.com/

I am so excited for our new adventure in our lil' Valley!  Any suggestions are much appreciated on how/what to do at our meetings!

My darling daughter-in-law has caught the bug!

My daughter in law joined my daughter and myself this past year in making the BOM at our LQS.  She got so excited about sewing that she bought a couple of panels and made them into floor quilts for her boys.  I am so proud of her!


She had a wonderful quilter quilt them.  Click the picture to see the detail.

Emily wasn't satisfied in just a plain black border.  She appliqued every yellow piece of fabric on that inner border so it looked like a road!  Notice the face of that cute lil' recipient of that quilt!

Again, some great quilting! 

Emily is now working on finishing her BOM to get it to the quilter next week.  I can hardly wait to see how she put it all together.

LOVE the quilting!

Got my baby quilt back from my quilter and am so SO happy with the quilting she did on it!


As you can see, she quilted every inch on it.  Just what I love. 

Here's the front.  Baby Boy will be here December 29th.  I can hardly wait to hold him!  One of my favorite blocks in this quilt is the little suit in the middle.  My oldest sons wore similar suits one year for Easter Sunday.  

Here is a picture of my little ones with my mom wearing their suits.  She was battling cancer at the time and we had flown back and forth from Texas to California to visit with her as much as we could that year.  She would lose her battle early the next year in February.  The boys are 3 1/2 and 1 1/2 in this picture.  I love these little suits!  It's funny to look at this picture and notice a bean bag chair....I certainly don't remember growing up with that and am now wondering why in the world my parents would have one!

Have to also mention that the daddy of this newest grandbaby is my oldest son in this picture!  Yes...they do grow up!

The pattern is Benji's Pockets by Acorn Quilt & Gift Company.  You can find it here.  It's on sale!

Halloween at our LQS

Yesterday was our monthly BOM at the LQS.  The shop is getting ready for next week's big Fall party and had several items hanging out in the classroom.  I got a few pictures to show but no names or patterns yet.

This is a darling quilt.


I should have peeked to see what the witch's leg table topper said.  "It's all about the....."   Going to be bugging me now!  The owl is a panel and made into a table runner.

Very cute small wall hanging with lots of fun details!


Another table runner.

 And darling placemats!


I know the shop is working on a few other pieces so will be fun to see what they come up with next week!

Quilt in a Day

Before Thanksgiving last year, I received an email from Linda at Quilt in a Day.  She asked if I would like to review a book from Eleanor Burns.  I knew that I wouldn't have alot of time with the holidays coming up but I told her that I would love to do so.

I was even able to pick which book I wanted to review.  I have already made or bought several of Eleanor's more recent patterns so I choose Egg Money Quilts.  Linda was kind enough to send me not only the book but a ruler from the book that I didn't already have.  I love this company!

Before Christmas came, I was able to make a couple of the blocks.  Eleanor's books come with A LOT of information on how to make her quilts.  

What is also wonderful is that if you still don't understand the instructions from the book, you can find each block from each book online in Eleanor's Media Theater!  Talk about awesome!!!

Time to sew!

Addiction!

I've been busy!

I LOVE FABRIC!  Oh yes!  I thoroughly enjoy visiting fabric stores and petting all the fabric but....because of that love, my fabric stash at home was getting a little bit (okay...alot) out of hand.  When I saw fabric in a store that caught my eye, I usually would buy a bit to take home for those "future projects".

My cupboards were getting a bit reckless!  I usually stacked like fabrics together or fabrics from the same line all together and tied them up with a cloth ribbon.  It worked fine until I would pull something out to use and then somehow it never got put back nicely in the same spot.  This is how messy it was becoming when I finally decided to do something about it.

I now can't remember where I first saw this idea of how to wrap your fabric.  But you can google "comic board fabric wrap", then click on "images" to see other pics of the same idea.  It's very easy and a very efficient way of storing your fabric.  I can now see ALL the fabric I have instead of pretending to know what is in that cupboard!

I bought my comic book backing boards off of http://www.amazon.com.  The size I bought were 7 1/2" x 10 1/2".  I ran out of boards and had to order some more and found that size was harder to come by the second time around.  I ended up not buying the same brand but it really did not make a difference.  To wrap the fabric, I just folded it in half length-wise and then placed the board on one end of the fabric and wrapped it up.  To secure the fabric, I used old straight pins.  

Here is a picture right after I finished wrapping most of the fabric.  I still could not bring myself to switch from fabric lines to just colors.  I left it like this for a few days and just looked at how pretty it was.

Finally I gave myself permission to sort the fabric into colorways.  Doesn't it look better?  I do miss not knowing exactly which fabric went together with a certain designer.  But I know that this way of sorting will make pulling fabric to use in my future quilts so much easier!  Isn't it beautiful?!  It makes me want to sew!

Thank YOU!!! and BOM

First off....I have to say "Thank you" to those of you that read my blog and then voted for my Welcome Fall quilt!  I won!!!  Thank you thank you thank you!!!!  It is just not something that I would usually do (enter a contest), so thank you for supporting me!

Now on to the request I just received....my daughter and I, along with half of the quilters in this valley, are busy working on the LQS's BOM this year.

We are almost there!  I can hardly wait to be able to put all my blocks together!  Here are several of our past month's blocks.

Here's a pic of the almost finished quilt from the designer, Geralyn Powers.  She is amazing!!!  The empty spaces are where the last few blocks will go. 

I'm excited to get mine finished....hopefully that will be in just a few short weeks!