a finish

I finished my Easy Flag this last weekend...

just in time for Labor Day too.

Sewed 'happy'

I just sewed 'happy' this weekend. Go! cutter + Moda Bliss = really cute project...

I am sewing the first border and when I get it to a complete flimsy..

I'll show you...

and maybe provide a tute?

I did a few other things...

pictures will follow over the next days.

Star Stuck Blog Tour & Giveaway

Star Struck Quilts includes complete instructions for 9 wall hangings, which can then be transformed into 27 bed-sized quilts. Barbara shares many valuable life lessons and shows you how to achieve the fine workmanship found in the quilts made in her Mennonite community.

The blog tour participants can be found at these links:

PaulJuliaGraber August 23

Polly Patchworker August 24

Quilter's Corner August 25

Life in the Shoe August 26

Jackie Canton Village Quiltworks August 27

Deb Girottis August 28

Me! August 29

Quilternity's Place August 30

Burgandy Buttons August 31

Little Lady Patchwork September 1

Tazzie Quilts Sept 2

Be sure to visit them all for a chance to win the Star Struck Quilts book and a few other quilt goodies!

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As my part of the blog tour, I was able to ask Barbara a few questions.

First Question: 1. You have included many life lessons in your new book Star Struck Quilts, can you tell me a life lesson that you feel is important but didn't make the 'cut' for the book?

Barbara replied:

Honoring My Husband

I have many happy memories of my family playing a competitive card game, Rook, in my growing up years. When Terry and I dated and then married, I learned that he was a “Rook Pro” who took the competition to another level of being serious about the game.

One evening, Terry and I were among a group gathered at his parent’s home to enjoy the evening with this card game. As I sat by his side and observed the proceedings I realized that he was perturbed because he was losing. This seemed childish to me, since it was only a game. With a few unseasoned words, I let everyone know what I thought of his behavior.

As I sensed a wall growing between us, I scooted closer to Terry supposing this would absolve the tension. This proved to be the wrong maneuver as the wall continued to grow throughout the evening.

Later when we were able to discuss the situation, I realized that I had humiliated my husband in front of his family.

While there may have been lessons in sportsmanship to be learned, the greater

lesson was to honor my commitment to love and respect my husband.

LESSON: Always Honor, love and respect my husband.

Second: Do you have a favorite color?

Barbara:  I can't come up with a favorite. I just love the beauty in colors and how pretty they are when different value, shades and tones are placed together to enhance each other.

Third:  I have many readers that are beginner quilters.

Do you have any advice you could share with a new or beginner quilter?

Barbara:

Take classes, read books and magizines on the subjects of quilting. Try to learn new tecniques. Don't say "that is to hard for me". Keep in mind that you learn by taking little steps with each quilt you piece. After I finish a quilt I still look at it and see where I could have improved on it. I don't look at this as a failure but as a learning step for the next quilt.

I hope you enjoyed Barbara's blog tour!

If you'd like to win a copy of Star Struck by Barbara Cline or the group of her favorite quilting notions, please leave a comment on this post and I will choose a winner on September 2nd using the random number generator.

First place winner will receive a copy of Star Struck Quilts; 2nd place winner will receive a gift set, including the pictured items above: pen-style Chaco-Liner, Flower Head Pins and Mary Ellen's Best Press spray.

Along with the other blogs participating, I will also draw a 3rd name which will be forwarded to Barbara for an opportunity to win some RJR fabric or a $25 gift card to Patchwork Plus (Barbara's local quilt shop), and winners for those prizes will be announced on her blog here.

Good Luck!!

It rained.

Out came the Bendaroos.

First a crabby patty..

then a littlest petshop dog...

She had fun.

By the way, she read all the comments on her Peace project, and asked me to blog these pictures for her :)

Are you Star Struck?

Beginning August 23rd C and T Publishing is sponsoring a blog tour to promote the new book Star Struck by Barbara Cline. 

There will be stops on the tour with a chance to win a copy of the book at each one!

Here's the list of tour participants:

PaulJuliaGraber August 23

Polly Patchworker August 24

Quilter's Corner August 25

Life in the Shoe August 26

Jackie Canton Village Quiltworks August 27

Deb Girottis August 28

Me! August 29

Quilternity's Place August 30

Burgandy Buttons August 31

Little Lady Patchwork September 1

Tazzie Quilts Sept 2

I lost track of the days and it dawned on me today that I had past the 23rd for my announcing post! Work HAS been taking it's toll. whew.

Be that as it may..I am here now to announce this blog tour and stop back to my blog on the 29th for my part of the giveaway!

Wordless Wednesday

Your Finishes..and mine :)

I have been meaning to share these Giant Pincushion finishes with all of you for over a week!

Life has sort of gotten in the way.

 I sometimes blog ahead and I had hoped to blog this last week.

Well last week was bonkers. My office was chaos with school starting {everyone needs to get in before school :)}

Plus some other things happening that are just too much to talk about here. Plus I don't think my brother, sister or mother would appreciate it! Yes there are things that involve all of them. It's been wild.

Anyhow.

Here's the awesome finishes that a few of you have sent to me.

This is Lisa's version.

And Heather aka Retro-Fabulous made 2!!

love the 30's prints.

Wilma in NC made this sweet cushion.

I found this on flickr Floselage.

This is Sandy's version. I spy Amy Butler :)

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There's a whole lot of blah blah about how I ended up making 5 for the tutorial.

2 were English Paper Pieced, 3 machine pieced and mostly it involves the need for pictures of each step.

Okay so here's how it went....

When I decided that I should give machine piecing instructions in addition to the english paper piecing, I began my tute with this fabric:

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Pincushion #1

Yes this lovely pillow was suppose to be a pincushion.

I used It's a Hoot by MoMo.

I love it so much that when I layed this out I immediately thought:

1. I can make an entire quilt with this and not get tired of it.

2. I could be lazy and make a pillow,

 take the idea and put it on the back burner behind the other 1000 quilts I want to make.

Option #2 was the winner.

Have I mentioned how much I love It's a Hoot?

I have many projects that I want to make with it. Why oh why can't there be more hours in the day?

Anyhow, if any of you are interested in how I made my pillow..

I can give a Giant Pincushion tutorial extension for it!

Let me know ;)

Now this is pincushion #2.

I somehow shifted the 6 pointed diamond and so when I went to turn it right side out...um lets just say it wasn't the correct shape.

I entertained the idea of un-sewing it and re-making it.

It's still in the pile of orphan blocks. I doubt I will ever fix it.

This is technically my 3rd Giant machine pieced Pincushion.

It sewed up quite nicely but after making 5 of them...I was ready to toss it.
Instead, Pincushion #3 ended up a Barbie chair for my 4th grader...
it's the perfect size for 11" or less dolls.
just thought I'd pass that on :)

If you have finished your pincushion or other SpunSugarQuilt tutorials, please post them to SpunSugarQuilts flickr group HERE.
Yippee I have a functioning flickr group :)
Btw, I have been changing around my blog if you haven't noticed. I am sort of mixed on the background. I may be changing it more in the next days. In the mean time...well I have been feverishly working on Halloween projects.
I know, I know, Halloween?
But seriously, after visiting JEllen's new shop I have been really inspired to create some new tutes for everyone.
Look for them in the next few weeks.
and last but certainly not least...
I will be participating in another Blog Tour for C&T Publishing. Which will mean a giveaway.
Actually I think I am due for a giveaway here...I have almost 600 followers.
Once I hit 600 I am going to do a giveaway...just decide that LOL.
Okay so come back....

Pure & Orange, go together like bread and butter

This is a true story.

I purchased a bundle of Pure at quilt market.

I have no real plans for it.

I was kinda hoping that some super creative quilter designer would make a quilt for my inspiration.

So one day about 3 weeks or so ago, I was blog hopping. One to the next with no real end in site.

I found this blog. This creative quilter Christine paired orange with Pure charms.

I thought "wow, that's a great idea".

I mentally filed it and moved on.

While I was in Amish country with my friend Carol on the 6th, she and I were talking and I said that I wanted to find an orange to pair with Pure.

We were rummaging through a 1 yard for $4 bin and I picked up this orange with red circles.

I told Carol, this is what I think will work.

Okay, flash forward to yesterday...I'm blog hopping again...

and I find this cool quilter that paired orange with Pure.

and low and behold...

her orange...

well it's the exact same as the orange I picked up in Charm.

It must have made quite an impression on me.

I don't think I could pull that off twice, ever!

I didn't intend on using the same orange. This one just 'fit'.

I have no idea whether or not I will make a windmill like Christine did,

I'll let you know when I decide LOL.

Peace

There was some non-fabric crafting last weekend by my 4th grader.

She creatively made a Peace sign for every month.

 Holiday themes were important for her.

March is her favorite month..hence the St. Patty's Peace sign.

I am just glad she is making items here and there.

We all start some where.

New shop = new fabric :)

Here's a snippet of the awesomeness I found at JEllen's.

Fandango! lots of Fandago pre-cuts, yardage wasn't in yet.

On top of that I bought 3 different colors of giant rick rack.

I could have bought every color she had but I don't really a plan for them.

Atleast I have a great source now :)

And there was some Wee Woodland. I chose the stripes because I thought they could mix in with so many other lines. So they were stash enhancers.

And my most favorite find was Haunted Mansion by Sanae.

I had seen this line online a couple of months ago and thought 'ehhn' not that great. Then I saw it at JEllen's, I wanted to buy a whole bundle. She didn't have bundles..just charm packs and some yardage. So I picked a few yards and some grey bella solid too.

I have already started working on a design with it.

Oh boy...

Halloween already..

my favorite holiday....

what to do, where to start...

I have a list a mile long of Halloween and Autumn projects.

I just had a jolt of excitement.

With work as hectic as it is and being completely whipped each night, I might not get to sew until Friday.

Only time will tell.

Awesome Saturday @ JEllen's House of Fabric

Ah I finally have the pictures loaded from my fun Saturday!

I had the pleasure of attending a short business meeting in Solon, Ohio.

A bit after that I made my way up to Lyndhurst, Ohio.

There is a brand new quilt shop there called JEllen's House of Fabric.

It was the finale to her Grand Opening week.

If you don't know the story of JEllen or her lovely daughter Sarah, you can read a bit on Sarah's blog, Kate's blog or Joyce herself.

From the outside, the first display was all Frolic.

There was definitely a great deal of time and planning in all the decor. I was floored by the beauty.

A display of Fandango....

The notions and basics room.  Giant rick rack, latest books and simple notions.

The entrance, you can see Fruitcake and 12 Days of Christmas.

Some baby colors and basics in this corner.

Did I mention the decor?

these colorful bowls were everywhere....

cheese anyone?

no, but I'll take a Moda cracker please.

And of course, there was Sarah, and Kate Spain.  Kate Spain is a Moda fabric designer of the Verna, 12 Days of Christmas and Fandango fame!

When Kate arrived everyone flocked to her. She was the celebrity of the day after all.

She had a sweet meeting with Sarah and gave her a cute little Verna bag with goodies.

And of course, I chatted with Kate too.

I have met Kate twice before at quilt market. This was different.

I was fortunate to meet her husband Pete this time.

I quickly realized how awesome our husbands are...my husband stayed with my girls so that I could travel 75 miles for my meeting and go to a quilt shop! Kate's husband traveled to meet everyone and be supportive, and JEllen's hubby and son were on sight for this occasion. You could see the pride and joy that they felt that their mom/wife had opened her own quilt shop.

I just met them and I felt pride too, and joy for them.

The support of their other family and friends was very evident.

With little competion for Kate's attention ( well not as much as market, I should say), we chatted a bit.

She's every bit as sweet as her smile.

She and I chatted about quilting things, the industry and we chatted it up with Moda Mark, the rep for Ohio.

I love to hear his take on the industry.

Yes, I am saying "industry".

Once you go to quilt market...you quickly realize the business side of quilting.

The good, the bad and the ugly.

But that's a deep subject for another blog or maybe never.

Anyhow, the shop owner's landlord brought her this AMAZING cake.

(I can switch topics at the drop of a hat!)

yep, it's cake, with fondont.

A quilt,

thread...and a tomato pincushion...?

adorable.

So while others were chatting with Kate and Pete, I shopped for fabric, ah what else is there?

I have pics of the fabric I picked up.

It's yummy..

cause

1. it's Moda

2. It's all new lines

3. it was on sale $8 a yard

4. I helped a brick and morter shop get started

5. I 'needed' some snuggle for backings

Hopefully I will be able to load pics and show you some tomorrow.

If you are ever in Ohio, I hope you visit JEllen's House of Fabric,

 you won't be disappointed.