Snowy Daisies is Finished

I worked like a fiend last weekend to finish the binding on this one. 

 I am so happy to have it finished and ready to gift next week!  

I will link up to Finish it up Friday over at Crazy Mom Quilts when the link is live 

and I have a minute.

I thought I would just show you the photos I took of the finished quilt.
I designed thus pattern
It us for sale in my ETSY shop

You are seeing it in all of it's crinkly post wash goodness!

My friend Kathy of Thread Bear Quilting did the quilting and I LOVE it!

See those Guising (Lizzy House) ghosts?  Love them too!

I think my favorite added fabric is this block with Sebastian from the Ghastlies! 

 Notice the cat rumps?

I just wrote on the back for the label.  

I used my signature stamp made by my friend Yuki too. 

 If you blow this up really HUGE you can see  teeny tiny Japanese characters 

in the lower left corner of the pinwheel. 

 That spells my name in Japanese.  She carved this out of stone for me! 

 What a wonderful friend!  

The pinwheel is the size of my thumbnail, maybe half an inch square.  

She is amazing.

I used the gluing technique to glue down the binding prior to hand stitching it in place.  

I sure do love that technique.  

Binding is really hard on my holding hand, not the stitching one and when it is all glued in place it is so much easier on my hand. 

 I was able to do all the binding in one 3.5 hour sitting.

 More importantly I was not crippled doing it!

So there you have it.  Snowy Daisies is complete and will be gifted next week.

My daughter is coming home from North Carolina tonight and I am so excited!  

We are going to spend all day Friday together.  I can't wait!  

She has a wedding to go to on Saturday so I will be trying to get that Christmas stocking finished.  Wish me luck with that.

What do you have planned for the weekend?

Looking For Water

I have decided to make a quilt for my daughter's boyfriend.  

He is working on his PhD in fisheries. 

 He LOVES to fish!  

If that guy could make a living fishing I think he would do it!  

So I actually unearthed some fish fabrics that I had collected a LONG time ago and decided I would make one for him and one for my husband (who is actually just as crazy about fishing).  

Next was to think about a pattern or patterns to use to display said fish fabrics. 

 I found a pattern that I really like and think that is what I will use for the one for Carson.  

My issue is that there is a lot of negative space (which I love and will fill with water quilting). 

 I need to find just the right fabric for "water".  

At first I was thinking solid, but I don't want that, too flat I think.  

So I did a LOT of looking around and decided that I want to use fabric from the Moda Grunge line. 

 I have used different Grunges in past quilts and have always been happy with the outcome.  

It is a great neutral fabric without overpowering your design while adding some depth and character.  My issue is which color? 

 I can't see them all in one place and I'n not sure if I can judge them from the photos online. 

 I don't want it too dark or the dark fish fabrics won't show up. 

Daughter tends to the blue/blue-gray pallette.  

Here are the 4 I have it narrowed down to.  

Go here to see Avalanche

Go here to see Blue

Go here to see Ocean

Go here to see Charmed

I am leaning toward Avalanche or Blue but would like some other opinions.

I know it is difficult to decide without seeing the fish fabric, but suffice it to say mostly, greens and browns in all this fishy goodness.  

I will try to get a photo tonight before we have not sun.

I appreciate any and all opinions!

~XOP~

Paper Piecing and Trunk Show with Carolyn Friedlander

Last week on Wednesday I took a paper piecing class, 

at Pink Castle Fabrics, with Carolyn Friedlander. 

 If you don't know who she is 

(not sure which rock you are living under, but whatever, it's your rock) you can find her right here. 

 I pretty much already knew how to paper piece but love her new Outhouse pattern.  

I feel like you can always learn something and this time was no exception. 

 Here are the 2 blocks I finished in our class.  

I actually used Horizon from Kate Spain to make my little houses.  Aren't they adorable?

She gave us a mini charm pack of her newest fabric line Doe.  I had her sign mine!

She was super sweet and very hands on in her teaching style.  It was very nice to meet her.  

Then she did a trunk show and that was amazing! 

 Here are a few of the quilts she showed us and talked about.

She just whipped up this little Outhouse quilt for a sample 

Hey do you see my Daisy Field pattern to the left of her head??  LOL

This quilt was quite stunning.  Those circles were all appliqued!

The colorful quilt above and the calmer one below were the same pattern! 

Carolyn's quilting is what really makes these quilts amazing.  

You don't really realize how much quilting there is on them until you get to see them up close.  

She liked to do a big stitch (her words) using Perle cottons and then fill in with machine quilting.  

This is what she called her Big Houses quilt.  

I am sure (when you were not hiding under your rock) that you have seen this done as a BOM.  

It was just spectacular to see in person.

Carolyn likes to use a LOT of orange in her quilts.  

I loved the totally different color palette of this one.

I wish you could see this up close because the quilting is just stunning!

That certainly was not all of her quilts but 

I hope you enjoyed seeing some of the beauties she brought with her. 

So if you read all the way to the end you deserve what you get with this pic!  

Me and Carolyn, just hanging out before class. 

~XOP~

Snowy Daisies

I am going to a class with Carolyn Friedlander tonight.  

There is a trunk show following. 

 I am super excited to meet her and to make her Outhouse pattern.  

It is always good to learn from different people.

I am also excited to pick up my Snowy Daisies quilt from Kathy tonight too.  

When she emailed me that it was finished, I asked for a sneak peek.  

I thought I would share my sneak peek with you too.

I love the quilting and can't wait to see it in person. 

Now comes the binding saga.  

I thought I had made binding but I will be darned if I can find it, sigh, so I will make more.

Don't tell Dan and Amanda it's back yet as I have a LOT of binding to do before I can gift it!

What are you up to?

~XOP~

Polaroid Swap

I was kind of a slouch this weekend.  Looks like I was not the only one!  A

ll of the cats were so stinkin' lazy this weekend.

Every time I walked past my bedroom one of them was laying on my bed sleeping.

I decided to work on my Polaroid swap "pictures".  We are working on pictures of KLMN.

Here is what I came up with.

Some of the "K" blocks were Kangaroo and some Koala bears.

Believe it or not it takes quite a little bit of time to make 7 of each.  There is a LOT of trimming.  

I like to oversize them and trim to the correct final dimensions.  

I also got to work on my Crayon Challenge quilt but I don't want to post it just yet.

I am also hoping to be able to publish this one!  Time will tell I guess.  

How was your weekend?  What did you get to work on?

~XOP~

Halloween

Yes I know it is not Halloween or October any longer but we had a Halloween party and 

I wanted to share a few things with you.  

The BEST part  was when my daughter dressed up her cat, Lenore, as a peacock. 

 I am fairly certain Lenore did not agree!

We did some food prep that turned out pretty cute!  I was loving these pudding cups.

 She made "eyeballs" using Gouda cheese, ketchup and black olives.  

She couldn't make the "veins" very well and ended up using a needle and syringe.  

It worked perfectly!

She had rented a tent and we decorated it. 

 It was so cute, but we couldn't be outside as it was raining and so so cold!

One of my favorite things she got this year was this cat skeleton.  (It was plastic). 

 I think we need to get it a collar and 

a name tag for next year with a sign saying we forgot to feed her!

It turned out to be a small party but it was fun to spend time with my daughter prepping. 

 We used to host a Halloween party every year at our house when the kids were small and

 now she wants to carry on that tradition.  

I have gifted her all my Halloween "stuff".  

Hmmm, I wonder who wants all the Christmas stuff??  LOL

Back to quilty stuff soon, I promise. 

 I am making another chenille blanket and need to get the binding on a quilt.

  I am hoping to make the binding and attach it before quilting tonight so I can have a few hours to hand stitch at quilt group tonight.

I am taking a paper piecing class next week,

 being taught by Carolyn Friedlander at Pink Castle Fabrics.  

The pattern she is teaching is her new one Outhouse. 

 I am very excited to go to the class and also her trunk show!

~XOP~

Secret Stalker Mini Quilt Swap

Last week Wednesday was the Secret Stalker Mini Quilt Swap at the A2MQG meeting. 

(am I really that far behind?) 

I still can't share mine as I have submitted it to a magazine.  

Once I hear back one way or the other I will let you know.  

I will share how I wrapped it, even though I learned that we were not supposed to wrap it! 

 I made the card and used that needle minder in the center of the bow.  

I LOVED how it looked!

My person was Emily.  She loves vintage sheets and cats!  She has 2 cats Odin and Polly.

I made a label using fabric and my ink jet printer.

First I found a great vintage paper site that had free designs.

It is called Free Pretty Things for You.

They have some adorable things on this site if you love vintage designs.

Next I went to Pic Monkey to edit the image.

This is a free photo editing site and you can easily add words, which I did.

I saved the image to a jump drive.

I was able to directly insert the jump drive into my printer.

If you can't do that you can upload to your computer and print from there.

Then I had to prep for the label.  

I had to fiddle with the settings on my printer and did a few test prints on paper until it was right.

Then I ironed Kona cotton to the shiny side of a piece of freezer paper.

I was able to feed this through my printer and print the label directly onto the fabric.

I then trimmed the label and sewed it, rst, to another piece of the white fabric.

I clipped the corners and turned and pressed and voila, a great label with no raw edges!

You can even close the opening when you sew it to the quilt.

I received a BEAUTIFUL mini quilt in return from the amazing Jackie.  

We were supposed to put on our name paper what we liked and 

I forgot all about putting Cocoaland Cats but she did a fantastic job!

She even did some hand quilting on this and it is just so lovely!

I could not be more thrilled over it.  

Over the moon with both what I gave and what I received.

Also, we closed on my dad's house on Wednesday.  

I am so relieved to be done with this!

The new people have already made sweeping changes to the house.

It looks great!!

They took out all the bushes, trimmed the pine tree and took off the ramp.

BEFORE

And after (so far)

More to talk about but I am running out of time!

~XOP~