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".

Sunday Applique

What a relaxing day.  Watched TV and appliqued 23 flower petals.  I've started basting some of the leaves.  Out of the picture is the first of 12 hearts on this left panel.  If I can stitch a little each evening this week, perhaps I'll be ready to put the panels together and figure out the vines that will pull it all together.

Saturday

A comment that Julie left, helped me to appreciate the process of a big project rather than just the finale.  Can I just point out how much I love the lower, right 2 leaves?

I did actually finish the lower panel of these flowers and started a 3 flower panel that will grow from the motif on the left, upwards.

I am still madly in love with the crazy orange flowers I bought last night at the grocery store.  This morning I snipped some cotoneaster seeds from the back yard and actually arranged these flowers.  It could use some fill still, but the orange just makes me smile.  I forgot how much I love the color orange.

Simply Irresistible Flowers

When I was a starving college student, I always promised myself that when I had a real job, I'd buy myself flowers on a regular basis.  23 years later, I finally did it.  The screaming orange gerbera daisies and mini roses at the grocery store were, as Robert Palmer stated,  Simply Irresistible.  I bought some hot pink mini roses too...which is really funny because I remembered the black dresses but didn't realize until I re-watched the video that there were dresses were hot pink, orange and purple. (Hey, isn't that Katherine Zeta Jones?)

OH NO!!! YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS????  I may have to make a Simply Irresistible quilt that will only make sense to people who have watched the video.

November Overview

The problem with big projects is that finishes are few and far between.

I continue to work on Esther's Hearts Desire applique.

 As beautiful as her original design is, I'm afraid I lost momentum after month 2 of the mystery quilt.  And what drew me in originally was the sneak peak of this flower.

So I took the original bits and rearranged stuff, using all her design elements but in different ways.  The plan is more vines up the left side, more hearts on the top and right, and a sawtooth border outside.

I made an AMAZING turkey for a small Thanksgiving gathering.

Then spent the rest of the week making the QR code quilt. The code takes you to this blog.  I thought I was being so clever, particularly since I don't have a smart phone and have never used the app that works with it.

After I finished, I found out that a bunch of other people have made these.  Poppyprint has a fantastic tutorial if you want to make one for yourself.

What I learned from my version is a) it works with colors and batik prints as well as solids b) the scan seems to be pretty forgiving of less than perfect points and wrinkles where it's hung.  That gives me hope that whatever I do to quilt it won't keep it from working.

My goals for December?  Keep working on the HD applique.  Get the Double Wedding ring basted and start the hand quilting.  Keep practicing my free motion quilting on the pink & green baby quilt.

Whoo Hoo!!! Success!!!

I'm not sure what I'm more excited about...being finished with the piecing, or the fact that when you scan the quilt live with the phone apps that do such things, it really does take you to my blog!!!  I was worried that the color selection, the fact that the points aren't perfect and/or not being completely flat might make a difference.

A huge thanks to Linda & John for letting me show up at their house on a Sunday afternoon with a weird request to test-drive my QR code. John also made his neighbor stop doing yard work to try it on his phone. Success twice! It was very cool to see the computer geeks as excited about this idea as I was.  Huge thanks also to my daughter who helped me double check the placement of all the squares.  We did find one incorrect one (right in the middle), which probably would have taken you to a porn site instead of my quilt blog had I not fixed it.

I am going to save the quilting for some other weekend and get back to some lovely, relaxing applique for the final afternoon of my vacation.

Post Thanksgiving Projects

The only things that I dislike more than I dislike piecing are 1) waking up early 2) shopping.  Guess who was up at 3 am for my first, last, and only foray into Black Friday shopping.  We've been looking for a new TV for about a year.  Bought the grand-daddy of huge TVs for 1/2 price.  Merry Christmas & Happy Birthday Harley Dude.  Our daughter-who-wins-everything was with us which probably explains why we were in and out of Sears in 30 minutes despite the crowd.

Meanwhile, back at the sewing machine, I'm about 1/2 way finished with the mystery project.  The grand prize winner is:

 Lynne said...

One of those code things for mobile phones. Not being up with technology, I don't know what they're called but I know what I mean! They're rectangles made up of black and white patches. Ah, maybe "mobile template"? If you press settings on Blogger then the "email and mobile tab", you'll see one!

November 22, 2011 6:29 AM

The code takes you to this blog!  

Runners up who win some batik charm squares include Ethne and Sallie who correctly guessed, (although days after Lynne). Other winners include Julie's guess of a drunken panda, Salley's Greens-eating Pterodactyl, Celeste's Crossword of Cross Words, and Amy's multiple guesses involving Atari, Wii and Micky Mouse. 

Send me an email with your address.  These are the main colors in my stash.  Let me know if you have color preferences and I'll do my best to pull together some of your favorites.

I'm a little over half-way finished with the piecing.  Unfortunately, I'm not sure that I have enough of the dark fabrics so I may have to start counting squares remaining and dip into fabrics set aside for other projects.