HAPPY 50TH...

...post...50th post...not birthday, haha!  Though today is actually my HALF birthday (I will be 25 later this year)!

Let's get down to business!  To celebrate all you awesome folks who read my nonsense and inspire me with your creativity and beautiful projects, I have two charm packs of the new line Quilt Blocks to give to two lucky people (one each).

I REALLY love the fabrics in here and have already seen some awesome projects popping up using these prints.  The colors are fabulous and the patterns are so great. 

Alls you need to do is leave me ONE COMMENT below.  Tell me something that's your favorite right now!

I'll run this through Sunday night and then pick a winner on Monday.  Sound good?

Ready...


Set...

Go!

Updated : The giveaway is now closed.  Thanks to all who entered to make my first giveaway a success!!

Who has two thumbs and just sewed something with a zipper?!

This guy (girl...lady...)! AND it's a gift.  For a birthday lunch for a friend tomorrow.  And I started it about 2 hours ago making the hexagons.  Nothing like last minute, right?

Yep!  I sewed something with a zipper.  My first one ever!! And it's not half bad if I do say so myself.  It also has my first applied hexagons on it. 

She told me her favorite colors are red and blue so I went with that.  

It's a bag.  About 6ish inches by 6ish inches.  I used DS Quilts fabrics from JoAnn's for the outer and inner parts of the bag, and used some scrap 2.5" squares for the hexagons.

 I really like this fabric.  

It's not at all the prettiest thing I've ever made but I sure am proud of it!  It works too and there are no holes!!  Yay!!

Milestone checked right here.

I am no longer afraid of zippers!



Oh yeah....this means my NEXT POST will be for the GIVEAWAY!!

I bet you can't hardly wait, right?!  Yep, me either.

Giveaway sneak peek...

Told you I'd be back ;) ...

I've got some new projects lined up...literally...

...and you may recognize this beautiful stuff...

I have two of them to give to two of you (one each), to say thanks for reading about my projects and my life.  I enjoy so much hearing your encouragement and advice, your compliments and suggestions!  It's really made this blogging thing fun! 

I will open the giveaway on my 50th post (I believe that this is #48!) and it will run for a few days. 

Happy Mothers Day!!!

Stand by...

I'm running a bit behind on some things this weekend... here's why...

Ben and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary on Friday! 

Since the 5th anniversary is traditionally a gift made of wood, Ben got creative and turned an old desk we were going to throw away into a flower bed!  Now we just need to get some flowers :)

Friday evening, we went to Ihop for dinner (we like breakfast food here) and saw The Avengers (which was awesome!), and left the kids with a friend.  It was really fun to get some time just the two of us and the kids handled their first non-family babysitter really well!!  

However today has been a bit different.  At almost 7am Matthew woke up barfing.  I really don't like barfing...or watching people barf...or anything having to do with stomach contents...Poor little man.

So, I'll be staying home with him today while Ben and Abby go to church.  But, on the bright side that means I get to stay in my pajamas all day, and that's pretty great. 

We're watching Shawn the Sheep (love that show - no talking, and it's adorable) and trying to get his stomach settled.  We might play with Legos too.

They did give me a lovely handmade card this morning and made me breakfast.  So sweet!  I feel so lucky to have this little family and such a wonderful husband!  

Anyway, I'll have some sewing to share later, along with a sneak peek of what I have to giveaway for my upcoming 50th post! 

Stay tuned!

WIP Wednesday - last minute edition!

I went to sleep at 7:45 Monday night. 

I always have too many windows open in my browser and the hubs doesn't like that because it "pulls" at the internet.... (um, what?)....however, they each represent something important I need to make for a swap, or a bee, or I just need to have it open so I don't forget where it is!!  Does anyone else do this?

I also have too many tops sitting on the dryer and I need to do some basting. 

I use my iPhone for pictures so that's mostly why they usually suck.

This was my to-do pile for today.  In here are 2 bee blocks, 2 fabrics to turn into binding for my Made in Cherry quilt, and the rest of the fabrics for the Patchwork Prism QAL ready to cut.  I've already cut the purples and oranges (I got most of this pile taken care of...keep reading).

Here is the May block for Megan of City Stitches in We Bee Modern.  This was a fun one, as I haven't ever sewn with dark solids before.  Here I used Kona Charcoal and I really like it.  It's brighter in person.

I still have a few more bee blocks to make but it was great to get this one checked off.  It looked a lot more complex in the book and I was a little nervous to get started.

I also finished a long waiting WIP!  My Made in Cherry quilt is done!  I experimented with my new FMQ foot on this one and it was really fun.  I doodled all around the solid purple spots and went in wavy lines over the seams in the patchwork star.

I "finished" cutting out fabric for the Patchwork Prism QAL (I have quotes because I realized I miscut and am short a few green triangles...blah...) and laid the fabrics out.  It's a bit of a hot mess...I am pretty sure the second time I make this quilt will be much better.

 I think this will become a picnic quilt.  I've got some really nice blue fabric that I think is decorator weight.  It's heavier and I hope I'll love it more when it's done...

In other totally random news, we've discovered that my son is absolutely terrified of balloons being popped.  He freaks out big time (this was discovered at the birthday party last weekend).  Shaking, crying, screaming...it's terrible and I have no clue how to help him get over it, except by steering clear of balloons, or anything that could be popped.  Packing materials included.

I am still going to the gym and am dead tired but my biceps have grown so that's good (I've never had biceps before!).  I still look baffoon-ish in the classes I take, but it's growing on me :)

Happy (almost) Thursday!!

I'm last minute linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced!!

A Doll Quilt finish

I just wanted to show you all some pictures of a gift I made for a friend's daughter's birthday this past weekend.  Her little girl turned 5 and my children are quite fond of her!  

Whenever she comes to play she lines up all of our stuffed animals and toys in the kid's beds and tucks them in.  So when we heard it was her birthday I thought a doll quilt would be perfect for her!  We also got her a purple sock monkey to go with the quilt. 

 I thought of this idea on Friday afternoon and the party was Saturday afternoon....of course!!

First, I pulled some 5" charm squares from my never-ending stash of those lovelies, and my kids and I messed around with them until we came up with this!  

As you can see, they're quite proud of it!

We ended up with 56 charms, 8 rows of 7 squares...I like the size of it.  It could even pass for a small baby quilt.  I sewed three rows Friday night and did the rest Saturday morning.  The top measured about 33 x 37. 

(isn't my little helper the best?!)

I used a great bright Amy Butler print for the back.  I didn't want to piece it and fortunately had enough of this print to use!

I also got to use my new FMQ foot for my machine on this and it was really fun!

 

I LOVE the hula hooping girl, she's so adorable!

I really like how it turned out (so did the birthday girl and her mom!) 

and I want to make some more of them!  

Is this something you think anyone would be interested in?

(not this very one of course, but something like it)

 I don't need to make 10 doll quilts all for myself :)

Oh, will be getting some goodies in the mail for my upcoming 50th post giveaway this week.

 I'm pretty excited about it and I think you'll like it too! 

Hint: If you like some of the new collections that just came out you're really going to want to stop by for this!

Thanks for sticking around!  

I've got great things to show you this week! My WIP list is getting hacked to pieces!

Hope you all had a great weekend!  My husband is finally done with school for the semester so tomorrow is officially the beginning of our summer break (aka summer job hunting...)!!

WIP Wednesday

Wow what a week.  Just to catch up a bit (Hi to the grandparents - these pictures are for you!)

We're back to a better schedule here, with the little lady taking her naps again.  Husband is taking finals this week and then it's summer jobs for him.  We had a pretty fun weekend though - we went bowling and pitched a new tent in the living room!  We had smores (minus the fire part) and slept in the tent!  The kids thought it was awesome.  And who would have known that they'd both be great at bowling?! I did win the game though :)

I still need to post pictures from Matthew's birthday but we'll save that for later this week.

I got some great mail this week! Along with the wonderful Parisian Star blocks I've been getting from hosting two bee's with the same block in April, plus the lovely house blocks from the ladies of the Bliss circle of do. Good Stitches, I also got my lovely goodies from the ALFALC swap (A Little Fabric A Little Chocolate) all the way from accross the pond!

Oh man that Galaxy bar didn't last long!  Thank you Linda!  This was a fun swap and I'd be doing it again if I didn't have too much already on the list for May.

Ok.  Here's what I got done this week (that I have pictures of).

1 - Made In Cherry Quilt is Quilted!
I received a wonderful new free motion quilting foot from my sister in law, Anna, and put it to good use practicing on my Made in Cherry quilt!  Now I just have to bind it.  I have to say, FMQ-ing is really fun!  It's not as scary as I thought it'd be at all.

I doodled around the solid purple background with loops and stuff.  I like it and am excited to get it finished

2. Zooey goes to the beach! Top finished!
This is a quilt from the Zooey pattern by Lu of For The Love Designs.  I LOVED making this.  It was super easy to put together and I love the way it looks.  The colors didn't quite translate though...the orange parts are actually greens in real life.  I'm calling the quilt Zooey Goes to the Beach because all the colors are sort of sea-foamy greens and remind me of the beach.  I highly recommend this pattern if you're looking for something like this.  You can find all of Lu's pattern's here.

3) I picked and started cutting fabric for the Patchwork Prism QAL (details can be found here)


So...that's what I did!

I also made a list of all the things I have on my WIP list for now.  It's a list of almost 40 things and over half of them have deadlines for this month!  Several swaps for handmade items and bee blocks...lots of bee blocks...so you'll be seeing lots of those from me this month...but they all look fun to make so it will just be another busy month!

I'm linking up to WIP Wednesday with Lee at Freshly Pieced.  Head over and see what everyone's doing!!  And thanks for getting this far too :)