Happy Mail Goes Both Ways

I received a wonderful gift yesterday. 

 My dear friends Yuki and Hiro were visiting here with their son. 

 I taught Yuki how to quilt when they lived in Michigan.  

She brought me these really neat covered button kits and even showed me how to use it, 

(she thought I might not understand the instructions since they were written in Japanese!).  

So adorable!

I'm not sure what I will add them to but they sure are cute!!

I also received a book that I ordered in the mail yesterday.  

There are some stunning quilts in this one!  

If you don't have it you should as the photos alone are awe inspiring!  

This was my happy mail.

I also was able to help out someone in need on Instagram that was looking for 5" squares of 

Katie Jump Rope fabric for a quilt.  

I was gifted almost all the KJR that I have so I felt I should pay it forward from what I had received.  Here is what I was able to send to her.

I don't have the whole line so this is what I had large enough pieces to cut a 5" square from.

I was also gifted a fabric many consider the "Holy Grail" of fabrics from a friend. 

 I didn't have a 5" square of it to send, most of the bits I have are not that large.  

I did however have a 4" square so sent it along as a total "surprise" for her!!  

I can't wait for her to receive the package!!

Would you be excited if you received this in your mail box?

Paying it forward is almost as much fun as receiving such a gift isn't it??

I hope it makes her day!!

~XOP~

Doctor Who?

Yes, that's right, Doctor Who!  My son was wanting a Tardis quilt.  I had no clue.  A what? 

 He showed me exactly what he wanted and then I had to hunt for a pattern.  

"Dear God, please let there be a Tardis pattern so I don't have to design one.  

Thanks in advance. " ~Pam

As proof that He does answer your prayers I was able to find a great one on Craftsy!

Relatively Dimensional by Hunter's Studio.

This pattern was easy to follow and easy to make!

Sam (the designer) designed the words into a FQ on Spoonflower.

Far be it from me to do more work then necessary!!

I bought the panel. 

Actually I bought a yard's worth. 

One would have thought that they would print 4 on a yard.

NOPE

They printed 1 in the middle of the yard of fabric  *sigh*

Epic fail.

So I live chatted them up and guess what?  

They reprinted it with 4 on a yard AND let me keep the original one.

Gotta love Spoonflower!

I ordered my background fabric from them for this.

It was a Dr Who Gallifreyan print and you can find it here.

Now I will show you what I did with this pattern and how things came out so far.

On Friday I got the lantern done.  

Saturday I began working on adding to things and by lunch time had this done.

I did have a few interruptions though.

"No mom, pay attention to meeeee"

I pushed on and got the entire top finished!

I added another 10 inches to the width to make the finished quilt size 60" x 80"

Sunday was on to the back.  

Some IG friends had given or sold me some left overs of their Spoonflower Dr. Who prints 

so I decided to incorporate them into the back.  

This pieced back took me all day!!!  

Now it is ready to go off to the quilter.  

I have some ideas of how I want it quilted so will be chatting with Kathy about that soon!

Close up of the bottom row

And the top row

My goal for September is to get this quilted and bound so it is ready to gift to my son.

I am linking up to ALYOF over at Fiber of All Sorts to help with this goal.

Next up is working on my Secret Stalker swap project for the A2MQG.

What are you working on?

~XOP~

WIP Wednesday

I decided that I wanted to work on my Kitty Mini quilt over the weekend. 

 I made significant progress.  

I thought I would share that with you.  

I just need to hand turn the binding and label it and it will be ready to send to my swap partner.  

I sure hope she loves it too!!

I had LOTS of help!

I spent  part of one day doing the quilting. 

 I opted for straight lines at varying distances.  

I used masking tape to guide me with the lines.  

Then I did a free motion heart around the heart in the center. 

 I had to cover up the names of my partner and her cat (that's what the white bits are in the cats)

I used a Cotton and Steel tiger print for the back.  

The quilting shows up much better in this photo.

I just have the binding and labeling left to go now and this one will be ready to go!

This swap was a lot of fun and I hope we can do another one down the road.

Linking up to WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced.

~XOP~

The End Of the Weekend

Sunday was our last day at the lake.  

Oh but don't you worry, we packed some fun into this day too!

First up was a trip to a wonderful breakfast place called Toast and Jams.  

YUM!  

They even had homemade strawberry jam for your toast!    

Aren't these lights fun?  

I had the seafood scrambler and it was awesome!

Then we drove back to the cottage. 

 Every time we were there we saw deer at some point too.  

On Friday morning this was in the front yard.  

There was a mom and dad and 2 babies.

After we got home I started stitching.  

I really wanted to finish this part so I could begin the actual making of the mini quilt.  

Pardon the wrinkles. 

 It is now pressed and I will show you that tomorrow.

I had to cover up the names to protect the innocent 

(or at least to keep my secret partner a secret!)

My friend, Anne Neville challenged me to do the Ice Bucket Challenge. 

 So I put on my swim suit and Ann and I headed to the beach.  

She gleefully (maybe a little too gleefully) filled the bucket up with ALL THE ICE in her freezer and then volunteered to go into the lake and fill it up with water for me too!!  

Gee thanks.  

As you can see the ice all over the sand I did indeed take the challenge. 

 I challenged three other people too.  

My Friends, Cori Jones, Jacquie Gering and Windy Sibberson.  

If you want to see the actual pouring of cold water all over myself you can view it on my FB page.

I then took the opportunity to go swimming in Lake Michigan.  

After all this excitement, we packed up and headed out.  

The drive should have taken us just under 3 hours and it took over 6!!!  

Thank you bridge construction at Lowell. 

 It took us over an hour to drive less than 6 miles. 

 I can honestly say I was happy to be home after that long, long car ride!

Thanks to Ann for a GREAT weekend!!!  I hope we get to do it again sometime.

~XOP~

More Weekend Fun

The fun of my weekend continued on Saturday.  

First thing in the morning Ann and I hit up the Farmer's Market.  

If you ever get a chance to go to this in Muskegon you should.  

It was one of the nicest Farmer's Markets I have been to.

My friend, Windy, met up with Ann and I at the quilt shop in Holland, Pressing Matters.  

What a nice shop!  

Ann was collecting the Row By Row patterns so I got them too. 

 Plan on passing them along to another friend.  

I probably spent the most money at this shop filling out my Scrumptious stash.

I also picked up some Marmalade and Miss Kate

 More Miss Kate

I ended up with this pattern as well.  

I thought it was so neat!  

It kind of reads like the Yellow Brick Road pattern. 

 I'm not sure what fabric I will use in this but I definitely want to make it and soon!

Then we headed off to a shop in Allegan, called Sharon's Quilts and More. 

 I picked up some of my favorite needles, some Best Press and some Full Moon Forest!!!

The next stop was a shop called Dancing Dogs quilt shop in Plainwell.  

This is the shop that Ann wanted to get the lighthouse Row By Row pattern at.

Windy regaled us with stories of Plainwell as we were driving along.  

Next stop was in Kalamazoo at the Bernina Sewing Center.  

I think Windy bought some backing fabric here and Ann got a Michigan Tech pattern.  

We were pretty hungry so we decided to stop for lunch at Bilbos.  

Lunch was good and Windy had both of us laughing so hard with her bra fitting stories.  

I think the other folks in the place were traumatized, LOL!!!

The final stop on our shop hop was in South Haven at So South Haven.  

I believe they are only open seasonally.  

Cute shop and the owner was super friendly!

On the way back we saw this crazy blue cow ice cream place and 

decided that we needed to stop in and have some ice cream.  

It was the Sherman Dairy Bar and the ice cream was fantastic!

We were all pooped with our big travels of the day.  

We headed back to Holland and dropped Windy off and proceeded home to the cottage.  

I did pull out my stitchery and got quite a bit done for the Kitty Mini Quilt Swap project.

I will finish up the rest of the story tomorrow.  

~XOP~

A Wonderful Weekend Starting With Friday

I don't know about you but my weekend was fantastic!  (except for the drive home anyway)  

I got to spend the weekend with a friend at her cottage in Muskegon.  

She is right on lake Michigan!  

No kidding, you can see the lake from her house!!  

The house sits on a bluff and you have to take some pretty steep steps down to the lake 

but it is well worth it!

We went to the AQS show in Grand Rapids on Friday.  

I think we spent more time shopping at the show then looking at the quilts. 

 Quite honestly I found the show a little disappointing.  

There didn't seem to be as many quilts that stood out to me as at other shows.  

My favorites were not the judges favorites either (big surprise).  

I did enjoy the challenge section, especially the birds from a group of quilters in Ann Arbor.  

I especially loved this duck quilt.

My very favorite quilt from the show was one of fancy birds.  

It was called Fantasy Fowl by Jerre Reese of SC.

Here are some close ups too.

I think this purple one was my favorite!

I did take photos of lots of other quilts and will have them up on my Flickr account 

if you want to see them.

While at the vendors I found a few things.  A new iron.  Freestyle by Panasonic.  

The AQS booth had them for around half price!  

Too good a deal to pass up especially with the glowing recommendation of my good friend Debbie!  

I bought a new ironing board cover too but no pictures to share of that!

I got to demo the new Bernina long arm! 

 I really, really want this!!! 

 There are only 2 right now, one at Bernina USA and one at the show.  

It came with the table you see it sitting on.  

You can also get it with handles and the frame, but I don't have room for that right now.  

There was a show special and I was sorely tempted.  

All they were asking was for a deposit and the machines are not even out until April of next year.  

I told hubby that I bought it and it did not even faze him!!  

I think I need to keep him!!

In the end, with all the house expenses, I left it at the show. 

 I do see this in my future though.

DD2 and I were talking about rings recently and she informed me that she would like an emerald with diamonds surrounding it rather than a plain diamond someday, when she gets engaged. 

 I found this beauty while at the show too, it was an estate ring. 

 GORGEOUS! 

 It also stayed at the show.

This was the only fabric I purchased while at the show.  

I needed some more royals for my Kitty mini quilt swap quilt.  

These were just what I had in mind!

After all the walking around we were starving so went to the Blue Water Grill. 

 I had this lobster sandwich and some root chips with their dipping sauces.  

I would highly recommend this place for a great meal!

And because my friend Rebekah said so, we checked out Stitched-Studio  

A new quilt shop in Grand Rapids.

Cute shop and friendly people inside!

Lots of great modern fabrics too.

I was able to complete my Fox Field collection from this shop!

We then headed home and walked down to the beach. 

 It was kind of a gray day but lake Michigan is always beautiful!

I just had to dip my toes in the water!!

 We watched the sun set and it was a good reminder that life is good!

More about the weekend later!

~XOP~