Sneak Peek and gardening

I am working on a placemat for the placemat swap sponsored by Krommama at House of Krom. Here is a sneak peek of my project:

I am having a lot of fun with this one! I hope my partner loves it. More pictures of placemats are here on flickr.

Our garden has been taking up a lot of my other time. Here's how it's been growing:

First: Potatoes in tires! This is my husbands experiment. I think it is working but I guess we'll find out later! It is fun to watch, though not a pretty garden picture.

And next are green beans. We always have good luck with those!

Now, I am off to work!

3 x 3 swap blocks

I am participating in Twiddletails 3 x 3 swap. We need to make 16 blocks for May and 16 for June, maybe 16 more for July. I made my May blocks from this cute purse fabric. I paired it with a deep orange dot that looks like an animal print with the purses.

I also used a simple aqua blue floral.

The blocks posted on flickr really look cute and I can't wait to get my blocks. I am not sure how I will use mine but I am looking forward to playing with them. This is my first online swap!

WIP's

Amandajean @ crazymomquilts is celebrating her 500th blog post with a giveaway. To enter you have to comment on your favorite WIP. I have many WIP. I often speculate that if I stayed away from fabric stores, websites, ebay for a year, I would not run out of things to sew. So why do I keep buying? It is definitely my addiction. At least it doesn't hurt anyone, just occasionally my wallet. Ok, anyway, I decided to blog about my favorite here. I actually have two that I will share because both need to be finished and if I were to get these completed I would feel GREAT!

The first is this Patriotic Sampler that I started about 5 years ago. The top has been done awhile now and I need to get it quilted. I am proud of this one. It was a block of the month and I modified it a bit because it was going to be too big. I always look at it when I need to remind myself that I can do applique.

The eagle and the circles with stars are all machine appliqued.

I love house blocks and stars anyway, so there were lots of these in this quilt. I was going to put this on my son's bed at the time and it can still go there. It is even more appropriate for him now because he has become very patriotic and wants to join the military in some way after college. I think he would just be pleased that I actually finished it for him.

The next WIP is definitely more recent. It is my Project Improv quilt top. I will probably quilt this one first and get myself used to quilting a bigger quilt on my machine again. These two quilts couldn't be more different, could they? I don't know what I am going to do with this one. Probably love it awhile and then donate it somewhere.

I had fun with the Project Improv quilt. Unlike the Patriotic Sampler, there were no patterns, no rules, just sewing and cutting anyway I wanted. I love the pieced border and sashing. It doesn't make a lot of sense but that was the fun part.

I want to end today by thanking blogland, especially the two blogs that I have highlighted today, for getting me sewing on a regular basis again. I love to sew and don't know what I would do without it, but it is much more fun to share it with those who love it as much as I do. Reading about everyone else's projects has just lit a spark in me that hasn't flickered quite that brightly in a long time! Thanks everyone!

Bloggers Quilt Festival

I decided to join the Bloggers Quilt Festival sponsored by Amy at Park City Girl after seeing so many other quilters show their favorite quilts on their blogs. I chose this cat quilt because it makes me smile. It is definitely a quirky quilt. I don't remember where the pattern came from but I do know that I purchased it at a quilt shop probably 8 or so years ago. (I apologize to the designer for not being able to give them credit here.) The fabric is a mix of cottons and flannels and the quilting is very simple machine stitching in the ditch. What I love about it is the random use of color and the combination of different materials like flannel for the cats' faces and buttons for embellishment. There is a little bit of handwork on the dress collars. This was a fun quilt to make because it used all sorts of techniques to keep me interested it it to the very end. I sometimes get bored with a quilt and have to put it down for a while. I guess that is why I have so many UFO's and WIP's!

Thanks for coming by for a look at my part of the quilt festival. Please let me know that you were here!

Purses on Ebay

I haven't had time to sew yet this week but I did spend sometime yesterday listing some purses on ebay. These pretty bags are from my inventory at Really Great Finds in Purcellville. I have too many and they need to be sold. They are a great deal so check them out! All are listed below my cost. This green and black one is a taffeta fabric and has a very pretty braided handle that you can't see in the picture.

This pretty pink one is made from a leather like material. It is very soft and has such a beautiful Spring and Summer look. It is Very Roomy inside.

This black trimmed Bohemian Floral is a great bag for travel or it would make an awesome diaper bag. It could just be a fabulous big purse too.

I have this cute cherrie and polka dots bag too. It is a vinyl like fabric and is just adorable! Perfect for your Easter outfit or tea with a friend.

I just love purses! I wish I could keep them all but unfortunately that is not how it works. So, to ebay they must go! Check them out here. I love to sew too, so I am off to the sewing room and laundry....

Improv quilt

I haven't written on my blog forever! I love to read other blogs though and check to see if there are any new posts on my favorites probably as much as my son tries to play on his x-box. That's alot!

In my daily, blog reading I have been learning about Improvisational quilts here, at Tall Grass Prairie Studio and here at crazymomquilts by Amanda Jean. Amanda Jean, who I just know through her fun blog, is a prolific quilter and she has really motivated me to try her style of quilting with lots of fun color on white backgrounds in an improv style.

Jacquie at Tall Grass Prairie Studio, who I also know only from her blog, is another prolific quilter, and she is sponsoring a charity quilt project called Project Improv. You can check that out at the link above. Talk about motivation! So, I gave it a try and here is what I created. These are all of my blocks and I am figuring out how I will arrange them in a quilt.


It was so much fun. I love the puzzle part of quilting so I felt like this style was just made for me. I didn't get too crazy but I definitely got outside the box but took my rotary cutter, cutting mat and ruler with me! The crazier block in the middle here is for the back of the quilt. I actually realized I had too many blocks to work with so I sewed it and the little one next to it with the polka dot center together and will put them in a strip on the back.

So hopefully next time I post, which WILL be this week, I will have pictures of my finished quilt top. Happy sewing!

Dear Jane Motivation & My Sampler Quilt

I have been reading about Dear Jane Quilts in my Real Women Quilt yahoo group this week. I had been mildly interested in them before but after reading about them and seeing all kinds of finished baby Janes, I am hooked on making one for myself. I think it will be a long work in progress but what an accomplishment it will be to finish one. Check out the raffle quilt at the Empire Quilters website. It is one fantastic quilt that is two quilts in one. Unbelievable!

If you have read my other blog posts here, you know that I am working on the Patchwork Times Block of the Month by Judy Laquidara. This has really motivated me to sew, sew, sew. I was kind of in a slump but it has jump started me again and now my project list is growing. I am trying to finish some WIP/UFO's as well. One of my nearly finished quilts is this sampler quilt

that I made with purple Batiks, Kaffe Fasset's paperweights, and Laurel Burch cats.

It is a whirlwind of purple and red and lots of other colors in between. I wanted to do something different with this sampler by taking a regular block and using it four times in one block to make a bigger block. At one time, I was going to teach a sampler class and I thought this would be a way to show how you can turn a simple block into something different. I never taught the class but I have almost finished the quilting. I quilted in the ditch first and then kept adding more quilting here and there. One of these days I will get it done.

Happy sewing everyone, I am off to the sewing machine. Debbie