AQS Purchases

I could NOT walk away from all the cute children's quilt patterns I saw at the AQS show.  

I snagged just a few (gross understatement, LOL)

I thought about trying to embroider some dish towels for hubby for Christmas.  

I bought two different patterns.  

I thought some would be cute in the camper too.

I love this book and can't wait to make things from here too.

 I bought some cute cat fabric and found some awesome Petosky stone fabric too.

The rock hound in me could not walk away.  I used to hunt for these every summer up north.

I hope to start on a new baby quilt soon that will be using these colors.  

I need 1/2" and 1" rick rack for the quilt as well. 

I found some half inch so bought that.  Now to look for the 1".  

Anyone got a source for that??

By far the BEST find of the show is this original Heather Ross Mendocino!!  

I could not believe my eyes when I spotted this. 

It is the original NOT the reprinted stuff! 

 Could it get any better?  

You bet, it was on the clearance table too!

Stopped at Stitched Studio and found these beauties.

VERY productive trip.

I can't wait to dig in and sew.

I really need my "have to" projects to be done, LOL.

~XOP~

AQS Grand Rapids

On Wednesday I went to AQS with my SIL in Grand Rapids.  

We had such a great time!  

I took a few photos of some of the quilts I really loved so thought I would share.  

There was a guild challenge and it was to use the Bow Tie block in your quilt somehow.  

I took pics of a couple I really liked.   

The Mary Poppins quilt was pretty sweet.

I loved the geometric hide and seek of this one.

By FAR my favorite was this one using the Bow Ties for the body and heads of the black cats!

I LOVED seeing this quilt that featured Tula Pink's Neptune line

P is for Pokemon!

I thought this was stunning.

I found this interesting as I have considered making a quilt along this line.  

THIS was my favorite quilt of the whole show.  My photos do NOT do it justice.  A giant flowering snowball with Ohio stars inside.  The quilting was amazing too.  LOVED THIS!

The Cherry Wood fabric challenge had all these gorgeous blues.

I fell in love with the cat.

Big surprise right?

This was in a fairy tale challenge quilt.

I love how they pieced this cat face!

I bought a few things and will share about that tomorrow.

Hope you enjoyed the peek into the show!

~XOP~

My Mouse Block and My Life

I've been doing some pattern testing for Quilt Genius for her Mad Scientist quilt.  

The latest block was done at my suggestion and inspiration.  

I sent her a photo of what I thought it should be and she worked her magic to make it happen. 

I absolutely LOVE this block.  

My favorite of the entire series so far.  

Her pattern for this should be available in the near future 

(September, I think, if you need to make one too).

We work with C57B/6 mice and they are a super dark brown with black eyes.

I decided to try to re-create that mouse for my block.  

If you look close the fabric looks like swirls of fur!

Cole was in my room "helping"

Then Melissa from Weird Cats painted my Finny with Hallie creeping in the background and Jack hanging out.  It is so cute!  I, of course, had to buy it.  I plan on getting it framed and giving it to my husband for Christmas.

Speaking of him, guess who bought himself a brand spankin new fishing kayak?

Happy Thursday!

~XOP~

Happy 35th Anniversary to Us!

I was so busy lately on here and in life that I forgot to tell you about our 35th wedding anniversary!

On the weekend before we were so busy with the wedding and stuff that I forgot to post about it.

We were married on August 13, 1983.  

We got a gift certificate to a great restaurant, Joe Muers.  

We decided that we would go there to celebrate.  

My husband's cousin is the pastry chef and her boyfriend is the chef.  So, off we went.

I had the fillet and it was perfect!

The pastry chef did a great job with our perfect ending to a perfect meal!

I have more to catch up with but this is a start.  

I can't believe this amazing man has put up with my shenanigans for the past 35 years!

Here's to 35 more!

~XOP~

Finish It Up Friday

I showed you photos of the wedding from last Saturday.  I will show you the quilt I made.  

I used the Newport Fantasy pattern (found on Craftsy).

 It was an easy pattern to make and went together pretty quickly for such a large quilt.

 This is the block, basically.    

Didn't that multi-color sashing work so well with these colors?

I had the label hand embroidered long before I had the quilt finished, LOL.  

I sewed it into the back.

I don't think I even took a photo of the back!

My good friend, Robin took some photos of the quilt once it was finished and this was me being silly, which she captured, haha.

Close up of the beautiful quilting done by Elizabeth Bowman.  Thanks, Liz!

I am sooo happy with the finished quilt!!!!

I was told her colors were "gray".  I added in some blues and blue grays.

I found the perfect gray print for the border.  It was different from the sashing multi.

All the triangles were different gray and blue solids.

I hope that they love it as much as I do!  I would make this pattern again too. 

 It would be a cute baby quilt.  

The triangles are large enough to put some cute fussy cut things in them.

One parting shot of Nicole and Jerry as they opened the quilt.

Have a great weekend and hope you all get some time to sew!

~XOP~

WIPs With Friends

I have been sewing when I get a minute, but it has been sporatic things. 

 I need to get my butt in gear and work on my pattern testing stuff and my kitty swap project.  

I started on the pattern test block only to realize she needed to make some changes 

( or I should say, I wanted her to make some changes).

This is the block, designed by Quilt Genius.  I can't wait to get started now that I have her changes.

I'm going to use the science words for the background.  

Those peach fabrics will be the paws, tail, ears and nose.

I guess Finn thought he should help too.

At least I got all my fabric choices done.

While I was waiting I decided to work on my Tula Granny Square Challenge blocks.

In the Tula Pink group I belong to on FB a woman asked if anyone would be up for a challenge.

She would send each of us 12 babies (center of a granny square)

of OOP Tula fabric.

Each month she would issue a particular challenge to sew with a particular square.

Here are my blocks for July, August and September

July's challenge was to use fabric with circles.  I used some Neptune, and also Flutterby.

August was to use a blue print or solid.  I used Slow and Steady and Nest.

September was to use fabric from the Eden line.

I am really happy with how my blocks turned out!  

I need to finish the October one now so I can be ahead and have time to work on other things. 

 Next up is the pattern testing and then the kitty swap projects.

What are you working on?  Link up and share with all of us!

~XOP~

An InLinkz Link-up

Sometimes You Just Have To

I have a friend that I work with that recently asked me an innocent enough question. 

 "Do you have any fabric scraps I could have to make a tooth fairy bag for my daughter?" 

 Do I have scraps?  pfffffttt.  Ahhh, just a few, LOL!  

I gave this some thought, asked questions regarding favorite color etc. 

 It was determined she loves lots of colors and unicorns.  

OK, don't worry, I can help you with this.  

BUT...you know I could not just let her hand stitch a bag, right?  

I researched on the internets (all of them) and found this!

Is this not the cutest tooth fairy pillow ever??  

It was machine embroidered and then hand stitched together.  

I don't have the ability to machine embroider, so what to do, what to do? 

 I decided I could try to embroider this by hand.  

So I drew up my own pattern and tried.  Here is what I came up with.

I did all the stitching by hand, and bought the aqua flower and sewed that onto the unicorn.

I put a string on it too, so it could hang from a dresser or bed post.

I could not be happier with how it turned out!  

It was pretty time consuming, but maybe that's because I had no actual pattern and was making it up as I went along, eh?  

It took me about 3 hours from start to finish to make, so not casual.  

The one in the ETSY shop was about $22 and I feel, with labor and materials, this was a more than fair price for it.  

I would have to charge more if I was selling mine for the time alone.

When my friend gave it to her daughter this was her response.  

I'm told that she was telling everyone all about her amazing unicorn all weekend long too.

It's certainly nice to know your gifts are so well appreciated!

I scanned in my template for the unicorn that I drew if anyone is interested.

You can find the link to the template here

I traced the pattern on to sparkly felt and cut on my drawn line.  

It should be about 3.75"- 4" across when you print it.

I am NO expert on this linking to Google docs, so hopefully you can print it correctly.

If not, email me and I can send it to you via email.

I satin stitched the ears and the horn.  

I outlined the horn in gold floss and crossed it over the horn in a zig zag pattern. 

 I just did some improv lazy daisy flowers and leaves on stems and a few other embroidered flowers.  You could add whatever you like.