Blog Hop Party

It really is better to give than receive, so I jumped at a chance to join the Blog Hop Party Give Away!  If you haven't heard, there are 240 bloggers signed up so you can see what others are doing and maybe win something as well.

If you're here for the first time because of the hop, I hope you'll take the time to check out my older posts on my applique projects...

as well as some of the crazy piecing things I've been doing lately.

I'm also learning how to free motion quilt on my home machine.

If any of those things interest you, I hope you'll stick around and become a follower.

If you're just here with the hopes to win something that's OK too.  I put together some 5" charms from my (embarrassingly large) stash of batiks.

Can I interest you in some green?

Blue?

Purple?

No one who really knows me will be able to believe that I bought pastels.

And there's the orangy-pinks...

and the bluey-pinks.

I'll be sending out these sets of charms to 6 different people.   For a chance to win, just leave a comment and include which of these would be your 1st, 2nd and 3rd choice.  No-reply bloggers who don't leave an email with the comment will not qualify to win.

On Dec 17th  I'll use a random number generator to pick the winners.
The winners have been chosen!  See the Dec 17th Post. 

Meanwhile, back at Mid-Century-Suburban Ranch [house], we've pulled out the Christmas decorations.  I'm sure none of you will be surprised to learn that I have a delightfully tacky fuchsia metalic tree as well as a green one with lots of hot pink and lime green decorations.  Anna made the tree skirt on the right.  I had given Mitzi a bunch of stack & whack hexies to finish into donation quilts.  Turns out so did someone else.  She thought these were the ones I gave her and she made a little table topper.  I like them better than the ones I gave her, so I gracefully accepted and use it as the tree skirt on the left.  The rectangle was a round robin that I did when I was in a quilt guild in Idaho Falls.  Everyone else's center grew to a bed size quilt.  Mine came back a mere 6" larger than it started.  It sat in the UFO bin until I bought the tree, then decided it  coordinated.  I think of it as one of those really useless sizes for a project, much the same way I think of Mug Rugs.  Because of that, when we saw the cat claiming it as hers it earned the title "The Butt Rug".

200th Post Give Away

If Oprah can give away her favorite things...so can I.
I have 2 stacks of goodies - one for appliquers and one for piecers.

I started "collecting" yellows in the early 1990's when my guild-friend Celeste convinced me that "good yellows are hard to find - buy them when you find them".  At first I thought she was crazy, but then discovered she's right!  (I just reconnected with her today via Facebook!  Hi Celeste!!!) This is a stack of a dozen of 9" pieces in yellow/orange that are perfect flower centers and petals.  There's a spool of YLI silk thread that makes the hand stitches vanish.  Plus some Thread Heaven thread conditioner for tangle-free stitching. This is my favorite thimble, but after I snapped the picture, I remembered that I have 2 other styles of thimbles that I'll throw in so you can find YOUR favorite.  I also need to pop by the LQS and buy some applique needles to include.

But I know that some of my quilty friends wouldn't be caught dead hand-stitching.  So here's another collection from my stash.  There are 80 charm squares (5") in assorted lime and fuschia print fabrics.  I have those bundled up with some fat quarters.  I like making Half-Square-Triangles with charms, so I'm including my favorite tool for marking those diagonal marking lines.  And a tool for un-piecing...(maybe I'm the only one who makes mistakes...perhaps you don't need this.)  The adorable tape measure is just because it's cute and matches the fabric.

Basic give-away rules apply:  1 entry for leaving any comment.  A second entry if you are a follower (and post a comment that you are).  Third entry for blogging about it.  If you are only interested in one of the combos, be sure to note that in your comment. And finally, I need to be able to contact you so make sure that you are NOT a "no-reply blogger" or that you include an email in your comment.  I'll draw the winners on Sunday, May 8th.

Persian Rug Quilt

    Since I'm not making much progress on other things...how about some recent pictures of old projects?  This is the Persian Rug Quilt.  It's all detailed piecing with no applique...just to prove that I can piece after all.   If you click on the top picture you can look at it up close and see that there are 3 unrelated fabrics fussy cut to make the design.

    I had purchased yards of lush dark blues, when I finally got a reply back from the recipient about the fabric swatches I'd emailed and she replied that the colors were lovely, but a bit dark.  I bought a new batch of tans to lighten things up and the lovely blues ended up on back.  

     I also machine quilted this one.  Unfortunately, one bobbin worth of thread had tension problems and I didn't notice it until I was home.  I can see it in the photo...can you?  Being as how I'm not inherantly a perfectionist, it was clear that I wouldn't be ripping that out since it's only noticable on the back.  It keeps it from ever being in a jurried show...but the purpose was to please the recipient, not some judges.