Christmas Fence QAL

I *finally* had a minute to lay out my Christmas fence blocks.  

I didn't end up keeping all the blocks in these positions but moved, and moved them around.  

I think it am done but without a design wall it is difficult to know for sure.  

I am just going to go for it.  

It is really so beautiful all laid out!  

How are you progressing on your quilt?? 

 Have you laid yours out yet? 

 I can hardly wait to begin to sew this together.  

I will be putting sashing between all the blocks and between the rows too.  

I would love to know if anyone else is working on this and how you are coming along!

Happy Sewing

~XOP~

A New Convert

Last night I met a friend (actually my dentist's daughter, who is also my dentist)

 at the local quilt shop.

  Turns out she wants to learn how to quilt. 

 She received a sewing machine for her birthday and wants me to help her.  

She breezed into the shop about 10 minutes before it was going to close.  

I had 2 patterns picked out for her to choose from.  

Yellow Brick Road or Take Five. 

 She chose Take 5 and away we went searching for fabric.  

Just so happens they had the new Perfectly Perched by Laurie Wisburn in the shop, 

or at least a few bolts of it anyway, in the aqua and green color way.

My two favorite colors!!

These are the three prints she chose

We also picked out a green that matched the chairs and 

a gray that matched the birds in the second swatch.  

This is going to be one adorable quilt!  

She chose the green solid for an inner border and the dark birds for the outer border.  

I am hoping she comes tonight so we can cut it out!

Isn't it fun helping a new quilter?  

Do you remember your first quilt?  

Mine was hideous!  

So not me anymore. 

Deep dark Thimbleberries colors.

 

 I hope she will like this one when it's all finished.

~XOP~

A Few More Purchases

I did order a little fabric recently to go with a FQ bundle that I already have. 

 I am deeply infatuated with Mama Said Sew.  

I picked up a few additional prints and think I am going to have to get more of the text prints too, *sigh*

I also scored BiG at the thrift shop in the Vintage Sheet department 

and have my eye on a couple of additional sheets too.

I am hoping to get my Christmas Fence quilt laid out this week on Wednesday and will try to remember to take some photos for you to see my progress. 

 How are you coming along with yours? 

 Have you added your photos to our Flickr group??  

If you have made anything from one of my patterns/tutorials feel free to add them to the group! 

 I love to see what you are up to too!

My hubby is off to NY for a week for flight training so I am all by my lonesome this week. 

 I have LOTS of things planned to do. 

 We will see how that works out for me!

Happy Sewing

~XOP~

Time Well Spent

I want to take a minute and say that I realize I have been MIA lately.  

Many things going on personally that have taken me away, and 

not anything anyone really wants to hear about, trust me! 

 I have also had a really, really bad cold for the past week and

 haven't even turned on my computer at home to blog, so sorry.  

I do have a little trip to share with you though.  

DH and I went to Shipshewana last week.  

We go several times each year and he had the day off so we decided , why not?

First stop was the cheese shop where Mr. Spark was caught acting kind of "cheesy".

He has his silly moments.   

(but seriously I had to swipe that hat off or I wasn't going anywhere with him!!)

The next stop was Jo Jo's Pretzels.

We love these pretzels, so much!

I had popped over to Lolly's while he stood in line.

When I came back he was walking to a table with all this!

Then he smiled sweetly at me and told me he had a surprise coming for me!

 

 It was a pumpkin pie milk shake!

Oh Mr. Spark, you know me all too well!

I am a sucker for pumpkin anything!!!

It makes me so happy that he does little things like this still after 28 years!

 (Although he is still stumped why I take so many photos of everything, LOL)

 

 

Then we went to Lolly's and Yoders.

I decided I didn't really need much in the way of fabric but there were a few things I did buy.

In the downstairs part of the building is a Little Bit of Lolly's

It's like the sale section

I picked up some Moda Bella solid.

We went back upstairs to the full price store and I found this interesting bit of fabric

The Constitution

I eventually want to make Mr. Spark a "Lincoln Log Cabin" quilt.

I thought it would be nice to put in the constitution.

Even though it will be cut up!

Anyone that wants to get rid of any "Lincoln" fabric, send it my way.

I'm collecting for this quilt.

I have been wondering about some of the new Kona colors, especially the new grays.

I found them both at Yoders.

I present to you

Iron and Steel

Oh and some Pale Flesh too

Steel and Iron

I really like both of these grays, very nice!

I needed a few other solids for a few projects so added these to the cart as well

Pale Flesh

Blue Jay

Buttercup

Sprout 

Chartruese

I saw this reindeer fabric and how could I resist when it went so nicely with this embroidery?

Not sure if I couldn't, but I didn't.  Won't this make a darling Christmas quilt??

Those reindeer remind me of fabric from the 50's!

I also bought a pattern that I have been stalking for some time.

I can't say that I am really keen on the BiG doll in the center, 

BUT

I thought the little ones might make nice leader and ender blocks to use scraps with.

I will let you know how that goes.

I have finished all the blocks for my first leader/ender quilt.

Now I need to sew that baby together!

But I digress.

We stopped at Rebecca Haar's place and I found some GREAT new rugs

(sorry no photo)

I asked what the Amish make them from and the woman working there told me

"Oh they use bolt ends"

I said,"Bolt ends of what?" 

She said,"They don't really know"

HiLaRiOuS!!!

But seriously the rugs are GREAT!

I also found these amazing blue bobbins

Mr Spark asked me what was I going to do with so many of them?

Why put trims around them and put them in a basket, of course!

Cute?

I think so!

Now what is Shipshewana without this shot?

And if any of you need a laugh for the day (like I did yesterday)

We were in E & S Sales when I spotted this

I busted out laughing right in the aisle!

I hope it makes you chuckle too!!

Happy Sewing

~XOP~

Nominations and Voting Begin Today

You have all seen the quilt I entered in the Blogger's Quilt Festival, Charmalade.  

Nominations are open beginning today for each of the categories.  

You can go HERE to make your nominations for each category. 

 I am hoping to get some nominations for best throw. 

 My quilt is #532.  

Please make choices for each category!  

Voting for Viewer's Choice are open also.  

You can go directly HERE  and vote for your favorite. 

 Be sure to click on the star directly ABOVE the quilt you want to vote for!! 

 Is it 532?? 

 LOL

So go and look at all the BEAUTIFUL eye candy, make your nominations and vote for your favorite!

Have a wonderful day everyone and happy quilting!

~XOP~

Blogger's Quilt Festival Quilt #532

I have been trying to decide which quilt to enter into the Blogger's Quilt Festival and 

finally settled on Charmalade.   

Many of you have seen this quilt over at the Moda Bake Shop, 

where I did a tutorial on how to make it.

Funny story, I took this quilt with me on vacation to Petosky, MI and had to apply the binding.  

I got the binding all done and thought it would be fun to photograph it 

in a beautiful setting near Lake Michigan. 

 It rained almost the entire time we were there and was incredibly windy.  

For the above photo I hopped out of the car, flung the quilt over the fence, quickly snapped 2 pictures and wadded the quilt back up and threw it in the trunk. 

 I was frantically hoping one of the 2 pictures would be "the one".  

This is the one I used and I love how it came out.

 I quilted feathers in the snow portion.  

I'm not sure you can tell but I used light aqua thread.

 I quilted straight lines down the colored lines and out into the border.  

My LAQ, Liz did the circles in the colored border.

If you know me you know that I have 5 cats, so everything has to be "cat approved".

 I think if Jack felt he could nap on it it must be good enough to stay!

 I love this photo as it looks like he is claiming it all for himself!

 

So this is Charmalade

A charm pack friendly quilt made using Marmalade.

If you want to make one too, please check out my post on the Moda Bake Shop.

If you stop over to the MBS, leave me a comment over there and let me know!

 

Bloggers Quilt Festival Stats:

Size is 56" X 68"

Technique: Pieced

Quilted by me on my friends long arm machine and my domestic machine, 

and one border by Liz Bowman

Quilt # for voting is 532

Best Category:  Best Lap size quit, best pieced, or Viewer's Choice

Happy Halloween!!

I LOVE Halloween and usually have a Halloween party. 

 I didn't really feel like celebrating but thought I would do a post anyway.

 I have been working on a few things and of course I can't share just yet. 

 I did take a few photos I can share however.

 First up is my cat Halloween, Hallie for short! 

 She is king of the mountain! 

(of sewing crap, LOL)

I was sitting in my sewing room, in the big green, comfy chair.  

Aiden LOVES it when I sit in this chair.  

She always sits on the arm part on my left and 

in this photo you can see her actually giving my arm a big ole HUG!!!

All week at the gym has been Halloween Zumba too.

This is my instructor and friend the Zumba teacher, Marsha.

Not to be left out of the "Happy Fall" theme is our silly dog!  

Hey there Abbey!!

She came outside with me when I was taking photos of my son's Halloween quilt.

 

I hope everyone enjoys a safe and candy filled Halloween!!

~XOP~

 

BFF's and Keeping Busy

I want to thank all of my great blogging friends for all of your kind words and stories and prayers.  

I'm sorry if I have not responded to each of them but I read them all.

I was talking about Jack to someone and told them I was going to take him on Friday

 but I decided I wanted one more night. 

 He slept in his usual place, with my arm around him with his purring us both to sleep. 

 He got up in the night to potty and only made it just off the bed so I carried him in to the bathtub.  

On Sat he couldn't even get on to the couch by himself. 

 You can see how peaceful he was here.

 

 And how thin here

It was the right thing to do but oh so difficult.

My two BFF's Cori and Pauline tried to cheer me up on Friday night.  

Cori called saying that Pauline offered us to go over to her house and sew.  

I thought we should bake some cookies.  

Everyone feels better with warm cookies right?  

So Cori and I stopped by the store and got some pre formed cookies and baked them up.  

See that pan?  

It's a Woopie pie pan and it is GREAT for making "deep dish" cookies!!

These are some pretty special friends, I tell ya!  

It was Cori's anniversary and she spent it with us. 

 I can tell you right now I was NOT very good company.  

I guess your friends grieve with you. 

 I am blessed to have you both as my friends.  

Thank you!

I did manage to finish the binding on my son's Halloween Quilt. 

 This is the third one of these I have done and now have used up all my Halloween flannels!

 You can see the Halloween quilting on the back!

  I did bring the quilt inside and folded it up and went to get some paper towel to have with me for cleaning up my stamp. 

 This is what I found when I returned.

Little Miss Autumn all snuggled under the quilt!

I just stamped it and wrote on it with her underneath!

 

The four cats remaining at home rallied around me for the weekend, but it will just take time.

~XOP~

RIP Jack: World's BEST cat

I love you more than anything and will miss you forever!

Please wait for me on the Rainbow bridge and please don't forget me!!

Love mom xoxo