we interrupt our regular blogging

Since I have joined up with the Fall into Fall Giveaway. I'll be posting my giveaway in the morning and that post will be the only one until Monday. Check out the link on the right(the scarecrow) over 130 bloggers have signed up; lots of chances to win!

I do have a little something to show you. I bought this pattern 2 years ago from Quiltopia. Last year I finally got around to enlarging the pattern pieces and shoved it away again. I decided this year I needed some new pumpkin wallhangings and made this.

Isn't it wonderful? I've had the border fabric for years, I think almost back to when I first started quilting. It makes the quilt a little more whimsical I think. I hope to get the binding finished tonight so I can get it hung up tomorrow since it is pumpkin month.

Today was my first day of work this week, we took in 6 quilts today, the Christmas rush is on!! I started on the first of the Christmas present quilts today; here's a sneak peek.



I couldn't be more thrilled with how quickly I went on this one today. 5 hours and almost entirely done! 4 more triangles in the bottom and a quick turn for the borders and she's done.

wordless wednesday

last week

It felt like fall and this week is starting to feel more like summer. Not that I'm complaining.

I've quilted some beautiful fallish quilts lately; all warm snuggly colors and most in cozy flannel.

This first one was pieced by Nada and quilted with New Leaf.



Victoria's quilt; quilted with Random Star.



And Johanna's.
Quilted with Folk Heart.


I love Johanna's backing fabric. Johanna made this quilt for her son and daughter-in-law and wanted the backing to be a little more manly. I think it's perfect!

it's that time of year again

Want to host a giveaway of your own? Details can be found here.

And come back Friday to enter mine!

quilt monday

Hello hello! Hope everyone had a great weekend. I'm enjoying a rare Monday off; I've got the laundry almost done, made some muffins and working on a new quilt. The perfect day off!

Today I have to quilts to show; sort of a matched set. I found the fabrics in my decluttering back in August and knew exactly what I wanted to do with it. And there was enough left to make a super simple wall hanging to match.


All the fabric came from my stash except for the blue print.
Quilted with Folk Heart.

I loved the red bird print so I added some borders to it and made a super simple wall hanging.


I don't understand why the picture is blurry; I retook the pictures and still blurry. Sorry!
Quilted with Cotton.


And just to keep it real because that's the sort of day I'm having, the kitchen table before I took my pictures lol.

And yes, I may have put it all back after the picture ;)

Happy Monday!

day three

Today was our last day of training. Today we finished up the charity quilts with different things we still wanted practice on.



Here is Andrea and my charity quilt; each row is a different stitch/style. I stenciled a cable border on the top and bottom borders than piano keyed in the side borders.



One of my favorite rows that Andrea did; sorry for the blurry picture. Hope you can make it out enough.


Some of the finished quilts. Mom had two more on her machine she was playing with when I left; I'll blog them next week after I go back to work.


It was such a great 3 days; I learned so much and more importantly, I learned(or is that realized?) that I knew more than I thought I did. Sadly, I discovered that I can not do feathers. I can't draw them, I can't quilt them. Can not do them. Isn't that what stencils are for ;)

After I finished with the charity quilts, I pulled out a really old quilt top of mine. If I remember right, this top goes back about 5 years. And now it's quilted. I'm only going to show you a sneak peek; mom kept the quilt to do the binding. I have 5 quilts waiting for me to bind and 7 that I haven't even blogged yet. Opps lol.



So of course I had to finish something tonight. My siggy blocks from Rachel's modern siggy block swap.



And than I cut out another new quilt :p

snack saturday

Peanut Butter Muffins

1 cup All-purpose flour
1/2 cup Whole wheat flour
1/2 cup Sugar
2 tsp. Baking Powder
1/2 tsp. Salt
1/2 cup Crunchy Peanut Butter
1/4 cup margarine
1 cup Skim milk
2 Eggs, beaten

HEAT oven to 375ºF.

MIX flours, sugar, baking powder and salt in large bowl. Cut in peanut butter and margarine with 2 knives or pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add milk and eggs; stir just until dry ingredients are moistened. (Batter will still be lumpy.)

SPOON into 12 paper-lined muffin cups.

BAKE 15 to 18 min. or until toothpick inserted in centres comes out clean. Cool in pan 5 min. Remove to wire rack; cool completely.

SPECIAL EXTRA Stir 1/2 cup raisins or chocolate chips into batter before spooning into prepared muffin cups and baking as directed.

day two

First off, a BIG thank you to Sharon who made 6 baby quilts for us to play with today.



Mom and Carol loaded one on mom's Millie; Andrea and I loaded two on my Millie and away we went. The idea was for us to each try something different.

Poor Andrea almost needed a step-stool to share Millie with me lol.



My free-hand loopy flower.


Continuous curve and I don't know what to call it. The arcs sure gave movement to the block.


My feeble attempt at pebbling. I'm sure it would have looked better if I had switched to red thread. This needs LOTS more practice lol.


Fun with templates


How about my fantastic feathers?? lol!!


My absolute favorite; continuous curve. Love it love it love it.


The 'finished' quilt.


Now onto one of Donna's charity quilts for us. I wanted to work with some stencils so we put this on the top border. And I totally forgot to line it up in the border before I went for it. At least I realized that on this quilt and not a real customer quilt.



My idea for this quilt was to do each row a different technique; could get interesting lol.
First line is Xs, second is a staircase type, straight lines, a straight-line star, than a really bad swirl.





Can't wait for what tomorrow brings!

And the winner of my fall card, is Sarah! I'll get that in the mail to you tomorrow Sarah.

card friday

day one

What fun we had! Started the day working with Mom's new Hartley Fence gadget.

After a too long laughter-filled lunch break(we had the entire restaurant in laughter at one point lol) it was back to the studio and time for me to learn cross-hatching.

And I love it; which I figured I would. And oh so very fun to do.


I apologize for the pictures, it was late when I got home and didn't get a chance to take the pictures until after it was dark.

I pieced this quilt 5 years ago this coming February. The piecing is horrific; I have really improved my piecing since. And it was the perfect quilt to practice cross-hating on. If I didn't like the end result, I wasn't too attached to the quilt. I feel differently now.



The quilt measures roughly 50 inches square(give or take an inch or two) and is from a long ago magazine. Now I wonder if I still have the binding saved.

Can't wait for day two tomorrow.

sew excited!

Today is the start of training for me. For the next three days, I get hands on custom training from two APQS reps and a third longarmer whose work I love.

And see these? Donna who works for us, made me a bunch of charity quilts(there are ten in total) for me to practice with. Thanx so much Donna!

Now I'm off to work! YAY!

a suggestion to my readers

I try and reply to everyone's comments but occasionally I get a blogger who I am unable to reply too because their blogger settings are set to no-comment reply @ whatever the email blogger is using.

So here's a tip from Allison at Stampin' When I Can


More than once, I have seen posts out there in blog-o-land about some frustration in responding to reader comments. Just in case you didn't know, if you don't set up your profile to display your e-mail address, the blogger cannot answer your question or thank you for your comments. To ensure that bloggers can communicate with you, do the following...

1. From your Blogger dashboard, click Edit Profile.




2. When the Edit User Profile page displays, ensure that the checkbox "Show my email address" is selected.
3. Under the Identity header, in the Email Address field, enter your email address.
4. Click Save Profile (all the way down at the bottom of the page).

happy fall y'all

Because it's the first day of fall, and also J's 13th birthday(we have two teenagers now!), I'm going to give away the fall card on the right, the mustardy/orange one. Just leave a comment telling me what your favorite thing is about fall. I'll announce the winner on Friday.

wordless wednesday

how to sneak out of work early

Find this hanging on your longarm machine!!

here comes baby

Have had quite a few baby quilts in the past few weeks; here are two of my favorites.

Love love love this Inukshuk pattern; so cute!



And this Flying Geese baby quilt. I think this is the best constructed Flying Geese quilt I have ever quilted. It was so flat, so even; perfect!



Both quilted with Cotton.

house hunting

I love this quilt. I've debated back and forth about buying the kit but I'm working really hard on emptying out my bin of guilt(yes the bin of guilt. it holds all the quilt kits I have bought or been given that aren't made).

Toni did a fantastic job on this one.



I quilted popcorn large in the middle of the quilt and popcorn small in the border. I meandered around the houses and trees as well. I think my favorite part is the block inset in the log cabin blocks in the border. The Fleur de Lis matched the popcorn pattern really well.



Maybe the birthday fairy will bring it to me this year.

quilt monday

I apologize in advance for the awful picture. Yesterday's weather was just nasty and this was the best light I was able to find.

recorders

This year, B is taking recorder in school. The night before his first lesson, he asked me if I could make him a bag for the recorder. I had some leftover flannel in my scrap bin and whipped up this.



On the way home from school Friday, B asked if I had more flannel fabric. Turns out, all the girls in his class wanted recorder bags too.

Today I made a quick stop at a fabric store and $9.00 later, I had enough fabric to make 5 more bags(Yes, only 5 girls in his class).



They close drawstring style. And I think they are pretty cute for the 15minutes each they took to put together.



Hope the girls like them.

nothing says a party

More than a trip to the ER.

Thankfully it was Jim and not one of A's friends. An encounter with the waffle-maker resulting in two stitches for Jim.

Guess it's a good thing that the sockeye fishing is closed tomorrow; no fishing for Jim for awhile now.

snack saturday

Mix-in-the-Pan Chocolate Chip Cake

1/3 cup Oil
2 squares Unsweetened Chocolate
1-1/3 cups Flour
1 cup Sugar
3/4 cup Water
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. Salt
1 Egg
1 pkg. (300 g) Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips, divided

HEAT oven to 375°F.

HEAT oil and unsweetened chocolate in 9-inch square pan in oven 4 min. or until chocolate is melted; stir until blended.

ADD next 6 ingredients; beat with fork 2 min. or until well blended. Stir in half the chocolate chips; sprinkle with remaining chips.

BAKE 30 to 35 min. or until toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean.

card friday