It's a Giveaway!!!

It's Leap Day and you know what that means..... Today I'm hosting my first ever Giveaway!  I'm linking up with Elizabeth at Such a Sew and Sew for her Leap Day Giveaway and Blog Hop.  So when you're finished here, be sure to click the link below to visit and see all the other bloggers' giveaways!


So what am I giving away to one lucky follower?


Drum roll please.......Tada!!!

Yes!  I'm giving away the pattern for Quilts in Progress!  I know a lot of you loved the quilt when I was making it, and since I am sure I will not make it again, I decided to share the pattern with one of my blog friends!  I'm nice like that (at least sometimes!) =^..^=
This is how mine turned out....

To win, all you have to do is leave a comment on this post telling me your favorite quilt pattern.  That's it!  Easy peasy!!!  I want to be sure that anyone can win, so you do not have to be a follower.  However, if you are a follower, you can leave a second post stating that you are a follower and you will get an extra chance to win!


Also, please note:  be sure that I have your email address and can contact you if you win.  If your email is not visible in your blogger profile, you are a no-reply blogger and I cannot contact you.  So check that out and leave your email address if you have any doubts.


Then click HERE to go over to Such a Sew and Sew and see what all the other bloggers are giving away today!  Don't miss out - go NOW!!!

I hope everyone has a lovely Leap Day.  Imagine, something for free!!!!  I'll post the winner of the Quilts in Progress pattern on Thursday morning... be watching!!!


*** Contest & comments are now closed for this Giveaway ****




Hugs & Blessings,
Teresa
=^..^=

February NewFO Challenge!

*** Tomorrow is Leap Day .... come back for a Giveaway!!! ***

I just love Barbara’s NewFOChallenge!  I’ve been keeping my nose to the grindstone getting those UFO’s finished, and that feels great – 2 this month!.  But it’s so nice to have permission to start something new and exciting in between those older, tired projects!

So what did I decide to start this month?  Winter Wonderland by Crabapple Hill.

I know – this is not on the NewFO list I put together earlier in the year… =^..^=  What can I say?  I changed my mind!!!  Isn’t that the prerogative of all quilters?  If not, it should be.  Just sayin’…..

The first time I saw this quilt hanging in a shop I was awestruck!  Even in the traditional redwork it was just stunning.  I, of course, am doing my quilt in blues – surprised anyone?  Since I got hooked on Promises & Borders and found out how relaxing stitchery can be in the evening when I am catching up on my TV shows, I decided I needed another stitchery project to keep me occupied in between the monthly postings of P&B.

When I first thought I'd like to start this for my NewFO, I thought I was going to have to go buy a lot of white fabric for the background, and that kind of stopped me in my tracks.  You may recall the fabric binge spree expedition I went on during my last two retreats?  Well, the last thing I wanted to do was buy more fabric!!!  But then I went to my stash just on the off chance I might have something that would work, and lo and behold!  What did I find but this lovely white with snowflakes that I had bought on sale last year!  And I have about 6 yards of it, so it will be plenty for the project - Whoohoo!!!!

Now THIS is why I buy so much when I find it on sale!  No buying fabric for me for this quilt & I am doing the happy dance!!!!

I am using the Sulky 12wt embroidery thread for the first time and I just love it!  No trying to separate strands and getting them frayed in the process.  No strands twisting up so that it shows up thicker or thinner in places.  No untangling skeins, or rewrapping them on teeny-tiny cards to keep them from tangling.  I'm telling you, this stuff's the bomb!!!  And I love the bright royal blue color of course!

I also wanted to show you a little of the FMQ quilting I’ve done on the March Calendar quilt today.  It's not perfect of course, but I love playing with FMQ!

I realized this morning that I’d better get busy on getting this quilted and bound since tomorrow is the last day of February.  Yikes that flew by pretty quickly!  I’m almost finished with the quilting, just need to quilt around the squares on the sides and then bind it by machine.  I’ll use a decorative stitch to dress up the binding a bit, but I really do not feel the need to hand-stitch this one. 

Here it is before quilting.....

Have a lovely evening & don’t forget to come back tomorrow for the Leap Day Giveaway & Blog Hop!  I have a giveaway planned that I think you’ll like!

Hugs & Blessings,

Teresa

=^..^=

Design Wall Monday – Week #9

*** Don't forget to come by for the Leap Day Giveaway on Wednesday! =^..^=

My design wall is bare right now because I finished my Scrappy Bearpaws top!!!

It’s a big quilt and it took some effort to get a good picture of it.  Of course, it still needs to be quilted, but my focus this month was to move it out of the UFO box and onto the To Be Quilted (TBQ)shelf.  So my February UFO is complete for the Patchwork Times UFOChallenge, and before the end of the month too – woohoo!!!

The pattern calls for just a plain neutral outer border, but I wasn't satisfied with that.  I think creamy neutral in big spaces just looks like oatmeal when you stand back from a quilt, even really pretty paisley neutrals like this.  

And I didn't want to just use red cornerstones.  So I decided to carry the bearpaw motif out to the cornerstones.  I really like the effect!

Here it is all lovingly folded up and ready to be moved to the TBQ shelf! 

And here is the empty project box it came out of!   =^..^=

But that’s not all…. I also got a UFO quilted this month! 

Here is Lavender Indulgence.  I made this beauty for my sister several years ago, but it sat on my TBQ shelf until I got to the point where I felt I could do it justice in quilting it.  My friend Joanne told me I could use her longarm to quilt it, so I jumped at the chance.  I knew it would look so much better done with a nice panto than if I tried to FMQ it myself on my home machine.  Not to mention all the time and muscle that would have been involved!  This is also a big quilt, so it took two afternoons, but it is done, and I am very happy with the results.

I sewed on the binding today and will spend several contented evenings hand sewing it down to the quilt.  I'm in no hurry since I our next visit to family in North Carolina will be in April.  If my sister is reading this – This one’s for you Laurie – FINALLY!!!!

So now share what’s on your Design Wall at Patchwork Times.

I’ll also link this post up with BOM’s Away Monday, Can I Geta Whoop Whoop! and Quilting by the River’s Tuesday Linky Party.

Hugs & Blessings,

Teresa

=^..^=

Sunday Stash Report – Week #9

My hard work this past week finally paid off... I've finished up the Scrappy Bearpaws top!!!  I'm hoping to have a sunny day today so I can take a picture to show you.  I'll probably post that during Design Wall Monday tomorrow.

I calculate the quilt top used about 14 yards - hard to tell exactly because it is scrappy and I really did use scraps, even lots of little, bitty scraps :*)  But I added up the fabrics recommended on the pattern the best I could considering it tells you to use scraps too and got 15.25 yards.  Then I added up the square inches in the quilt and multiplied by 2 as recommended by a fellow quilter.  That came to a little over 14 yards.  Since a few of the blocks were BOM's through my LQS, I settled on 14 yards.  How's that for high math?!?

I managed to refrain from buying anything new this week (fabric that is =^..^=), so these are my totals for this week:

Used this week:     14 yards

Used YTD 2012:     36.50 yards

Added this week:   0 yards

Added YTD 2012:    57.00 yards

Net Used for 2012: -20.50 yards

How is your stash coming along?  Head on over to Patchwork Times to see how others are doing with theirs.

Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

=^..^=

ScrapHappy Saturday!

*** FYI - Come visit A Quilt and a Prayer on Leap Day for a Giveaway!!! ***


Linking up today with SoScrappy for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. This is the last Saturday in February and I finally have my green mini Pineapple blocks complete! Nothing like sliding in just under a deadline….Yahoo!!!  These finish at only 3-1/2 inches!

Aren’t they sweet?

I also showed you in an earlier post this Gothic Windows block from a tutorial by Pat at Color Me Quilty. 

I used all scrap strips for this and plan to make at least 4 more blocks out of different fabrics to make a scrappy wall hanging. Lime green is a color I just can’t get enough of lately!


Wonder what the March color will be? It’s going to be fun to see all these little pineapples grow into a rainbow of blocks month after month!  Go HERE to see what others have been working on using their green scraps this month.

Have a great weekend everyone!


Hugs & Blessings!
Teresa
=^..^=

Leap Day Giveaway Blog Hop!

Be sure to visit A Quilt and a Prayer on Leap Day, February 29th!  Why?  Because I will be having my first giveaway!!!  I had been thinking about doing a giveaway for a certain item for about a week now, and this seems to be the perfect opportunity.  Here's the scoop.....

Elizabeth at Such a Sew and Sew is sponsoring a linky party for a Leap Day Giveaway:  A Blog Hop.  You can click HERE to read more on her blog post.  If you have a blog, you can participate in the Leap Day Giveaway too!  Doesn't it sound like fun?  It's a one-day event, so I will post my Giveaway details on Leap Day morning, draw a winner from the day's entries at the end of the day, and then post the winner the next day, March 1st.


If you want to join in the fun, here's the rules:
• Choose something to give away on Leap Day. Keep it simple. You can make something, give away a bit of your stash, offer a service, buy your favorite gadget to give away or offer something completely non-crafty. Your blog, you choose.
• To participate in the blog hop, your giveaway must start and end on Leap Day {February 29, 2012}. You can open it at 10:00 am and close it at 10:00 pm, or go midnight to midnight, or anything in between. Your blog, your rules.
• Post your giveaway and then link up here. Please include the Leap Day Giveaway button somewhere in your post. The linky will open at noon MST on February 28^th and close at 10:00 am MST on March 1^st, to allow for people in different time zones to participate.
• If you want to include the linky on your giveaway post so that others can link up from your blog the code is available below the button. If you choose to add the linky to your post, you MUST include the above rules so that it is fair play for all.


So there you go! Hope to see you on Leap Day when I plan to give away something many of you have admired & would love to have!!!


Hugs & Blessings,
Teresa
=^..^=

What is Pinterest?

Like so many others, I have discovered Pinterest!  But often when I mention Pinterest, people ask me what it is.  Some people say, "It is an amazing time consumer!!"  And that can be true, of course!  But it doesn't have to be.  I usually only check it once a day or so and spend maybe 15 minutes just browsing to see what others have pinned and then pin a few for my own boards.  For the most part, I find it to be a great inspiration to my own creativity.  Not to mention some of the most yummy recipes!  So I thought I'd share a little about it here and let you decide whether you might like to discover it too.

Pinterest is this wonderful virtual bulletin board where I can pin ideas, colors, tutorials….. you name it!  It’s kind of like the Bookmarks feature on your computer, but with pictures so you can find things really easily.  This is a snapshot of what my Pinterest boards look like.  You should be able to click on the picture to see a close-up view if you want.

So say, for instance, I want to put a piano key border on my quilt and I’m just not sure how I want to do the corner…. Cornerstones?  Miter the keys?  Hmmmm….. let’s see…. I remember pinning a tutorial on that!  All I have to do is go to my Quilting board, click on the pin, and it takes me right straight to the tutorial that shows me how to do what I want to do!  Neat huh?

“So,” you ask, “how do I get started with Pinterest?”  First, you need to go to www.Pinterest.com (or click HERE) and request an invite.  I don't know why they do things that way, but they do.  =^..^=  


Then once you get signed up, Pinterest will suggest some people for you to follow, usually from your contacts list.  When you "follow" someone, that means that anything they pin will show up in the feed you see when you go to Pinterest.  Then you can choose to "repin" their pin if it is something you would like to have on your boards.  Setting up your boards is easy and fun - I had a ball choosing names for mine!  If you have a blog, you can "pin" pictures to Pinterest from there too.


To learn how to "pin" and "repin", the best advice I can give you is to go visit my friend Karen at Sew Many Ways.  To get to her blog you can click on her button at the right side of my blog, or HERE to get directly to the Pinterest post.  Karen has put together a wonderful tutorial on how to pin and repin and she will get you started.  And while you’re there, be sure check out her other “how to tutorials” – she specializes in showing us how to make something amazing out of everyday household things – she’s very inspirational!  You should see what she can do with a bucket, a roll of tape and some paint!

So if you’re interested in joining Pinterest but didn’t know how to get started, go visit Karen, and tell her you found her at A Quilt and A Prayer!!!

Hugs & Blessings,
Teresa
=^..^=

Retreat at St. Mary’s Sewanee!!!

I had hoped to get this post showing some of these pictures yesterday, but I was just a walking ZOMBIE!!!  I hope all my retreat buddies were not as exhausted as I was.  I did go to my Monday sit-n-sew group, but no machine.  I worked some more on my little Promises andBorders BOM #2.  

Isn’t it coming along nicely?  Finally a better picture - we have some sun today!  Can you see the lovely variegation from blue to purple in the flowers?  Have I said how much I’m loving this BOM?  =^..^=

Then I went home and took an old-fashioned, curl-up-on-the-sofa-with-a-quilt nap!!!  It felt wonderful & very refreshing.

So, today I’m feeling much more like my usual self and finally managed to get busy putting together all the pictures from retreat.  Wow!  Do we have a lot of talented ladies in our Piecemaker’s Guild!!!  My only regret is that I waited until the last day to take pictures, and some of our friends left before I thought to get pictures of their work :(    My apologies to Sue, Mary Lou, Brenda and Sisy!!!  Here's our group photo - SAY CHEESE!!!  We had to work on getting Joanne to smile!

A special Badge of Courage goes to Belinda who had surgery on her hand the morning of our first day - full anesthesia no less! - got up out of the hospital bed, got in her friend's car and came straight to retreat!  She had some pretty good drugs because she said it never hurt - wow!

Several of the girls were working on their Girls Just Want to Have Fun quilts.  This was a Guild class, so many of us are making it.  By now, it has been renamed, "Girls Just Want to Have it Done!"  Don't you just LOVE this one in purple batiks?

Below is Jan's Girls Just Want to Have Fun in Brights

Here is the cutest little dragon quilt you ever saw!

  

Carla worked on the border blocks for her Civil War Chronicles.  And worked on them.  And worked on them.....  But boy did her effort pay off, because they look wonderful!

Then, because she was sad when all those borders were done, she jumped right into her Lady of the Lake in civil war fabrics.  This girl is a glutton for punishment, I tell ya!

If you saw my March Calendar Quilt, this will look familiar - it is Joanne's masterpiece.  She also got a good start on her Quilts in Progress wall-hanging.

Julie is making an adorable little quilt from this panel.  She is adding some pinwheels to make it a little wider, and has the perfect stripe for her binding!

Donna used some of the decorative stitches on her Viking to sparkle up her Snowbound quilt all in soft cuddly flannels!

Lonna does wonderful Crazy Quilting!  This is a piece she is making for her mother since her father died.  It has some of her father's ties, and there on the upper left corner is one of her mother's hankies.  How sweet is that?

This is the center of another piece she is working on..... 

Sheryl made this cute little folded Prairie Points quilt from her sister Susan Cleveland's newest book - just too dang cute!!!

She also made this - perfectly mitered! - little quilt for her daughter.  She is a very new quilter, so she was understandably very happy with her results!

Lara is making this stunning McKenna Ryan quilt - wow!  Look at all the amazing details!

Katherine worked on this sweet Rail Fence.

And Pat showed off her Bargello wall-hanging - this is a lot harder than it looks!!!  Some of these rows are only 1/4" wide!

Teresa is tackling Bonnie Hunter's latest mystery, Orca Bay, and doing a great job of it too!  I just love this quilt and I think it's going to have to go on my "Want to Do Soon" list! =^..^=

Rhonda finished up this scrappy beauty that I understand has come to several retreats with her.  I just love the sparkle of scrappy quilts and this one is a real beauty!  I know she is glad to have it done!

Maggie used left-over half-square triangles to make this cute little wall-hanging - way to use 'em up Maggie!  Then she entertained us with her beautiful Cathedral Windows in progress!

Kim is peeking over the top of her happy spring-colors quilt with a whimsical rickrack sewn into the borders.  She had a "fun" time figuring out how to get that to work out nicely :)

She also made this Twin Sisters quilt out of civil war fabrics and gave us all a tutorial on how to make the blocks.  Of course, we couldn't keep the name straight and it became known as "Twisted Sisters" pretty quickly! =^..^=

Whew!  That's a lot of quilt projects!!!  And of course it's only a sampling of all the creating that was going on at St. Mary's.  Hopefully more ladies from our Guild will be able to join in all the fun next year.  And speaking of sampling, we really needed more ladies to finish up all the goodies on the snack table!  This is just what was left after we grazed all week!!!

So as you can see, a fun time was had by all!!!  Have a Happy Tuesday everyone!

Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

=^..^=