Rainbows and Winners!

This time of year is always so BUSY!!!  

I know you all know what I mean, right?  Getting ready for loved ones and grandbabies coming to visit.... putting up the tree and decorations.... Christmas parties and pot-luck luncheons with friends and guilds.... shopping for the perfect gifts.... putting the last stitch in this year's newest Christmas quilt... the list is endless.

It's a lot like babysitting the grandbabies - I love it, and it's always fun, but I'm always glad when it's over too :)  Frankly, at my stage of life, fun can be exhausting!

Of course, quilters cannot live by family and responsibilities alone, but by every stitch they can sneak in when no one is looking!  Am I right?  And I seem to remember that I did promise you the 9th Hootie recently, didn't I?

Well, wait no more......

Introducing Rainbow Hootie 

and boy, does he have ATTITUDE!!!!

If the sun ever comes out, I'll get some better pics!

Rainbow Hootie is the Hippee Flower Child of his family LOL!!  I've decided to name this quilt, "Whooooo's Your Daddy?"  I mean, can you see all of the other owls looking anywhere but at Rainbow?  No one wants to claim him as family LOL!!!  Not that it seems to bother him any - he's chillin' and sportin' that whole "Make Love, Not War" attitude :*)  He's just happy to be hanging out with the crowd and doing his own thing!

I'm almost finished sewing all the feathers down, and next I will assemble the "limb" sashing strips and the tree trunk on the left.  I'm having second thoughts about the brown - it makes the whole quilt look dark I think.  I hate to say it, but I just may have to go shopping!!!!  Eeeek!!!!

I have no idea right now how I will quilt it, but I just can't wait to finish it now that I'm this close!  Everyone doing the Rainbow Scrap Challenge over at SoScrappy this year is trying to finish up our projects for the end of the year, and this will be my second finish if I can pull it off.

And speaking of finishes, did you notice my Partridge in a Pear Tree table-topper in the blog header???

Oh, I really love how this turned out!

It dresses up the fireplace area nicely, and adds a pop of color :)

I think the partridge turned out really nice!  The striped batik worked perfectly for his wing.  I re-designed the black striping around his face from the original pattern design (you can see the original pattern picture here if you are interested).

 And the pears cut "broderie perse"-style also worked perfectly.  I used this fabric....

Ironed light fusible on the back, and then cut out the pears and fused them to the background.  Then I just did a simple straight stitch around all the edges.

I even used some of the leaves from the fabric (the ones with gold in them), as well as the ones I cut from my own green scraps.

Don't you just love that red print for the border???  To me, it looks like bright red Christmas bulbs :)

I'm very happy with it and look forward to many years of enjoying it during the holiday season!

♥♥♥♥♥

And now to take care of a little business .... 

I really want to thank everyone who came over to visit during the Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day :)  So many lovely comments!  And I have some new followers too - Yay!!!  Welcome aboard :)

And so, without further ado.....

    ♥  The WINNER of the 100 Blocks Volume 4 issue from my Giveaway Day with Sew Mama Sew is - Cathy who blogs over at A Quilting Chick!!!  You should pop over and visit her blog - she is making Bonnie Hunter's Grand Illusion mystery quilt and I just LOVE her colors and fabrics!!!!


    ♥  and - I realized I have never officially announced the WINNER of the Sew Sweet Simplicity Giveaway (my bad!)  Congratulations to - Kathy E!  Kathy blogs over at Sparkles, Sprinkles and Everyday Crap - cute name huh?!?  She's a fairly new quilter and has challenged herself to make the SSS blocks - and doing a great job of it too!  Kathy has already received her pattern package from Jacquelynne Steves :)

Now don't despair if you didn't win - there will be several more prize packages to come in this fun BOM before it's over!  Be sure to go to Jacquelynne's blog to sign up for the free patterns if you haven't already HERE!

And I know you want to grab a copy of the Christmas Edition of her E-magazine!  I just received mine the other day in my email inbox - wow!!!  Such lovely inspiration!!!!  You don't want to miss out on that either, so while you're there, sign up for the FREE e-magazine too HERE :)

And for those of you who act fast, Jacquelynne is giving away a FREE PATTERN right now on her blog HERE for this oh-so-cute and classic Red and White quilt...

Photo courtesy of Jacquelynne Steves Facebook

Now I'm going to watch some football with My Guy 

and play with my Patchwork of the Crosses blocks for a while.

Today is Slow Sunday Stitching with Kathy's Quilts after all :)

Also linking up with the Tuesday Linky Party at

Wishing everyone a lovely Sunday!!!!

Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

=^..^=

From NewFO to UFO .... and hopefully soon Done!

It's SOOOOO nice to be home again after traveling for well over a week!  Thanksgiving with our family was amazing - it always is!  But My Guy and I both brought home a pretty nasty cold, so we've been taking it pretty easy since we got home.  This is my medicine of choice....

Picked this up yesterday at Tuesday Mornings - I love it!!!!!

So, I'm taking it a little easy on the sewing front.  Just a little light prepping and stitching as I feel like it.  I came across an old UFO yesterday - looking for something else of course! - This was a NewFO Challenge project linking up with Cat Patches waaaaaayyyyyyy back in October 2012!

The pattern is from Pearl P Pereira's Baltimore Christmas - Partridge in a Pear Tree.

A local quilt shop, The Quilter's Path, featured this cute little block as a standalone quilt, using that wonderful pear fabric above for the pears - and it turns out SO cute!!!  Well, it did for her anyway.  I haven't touched it since then :(  I consider this one of my Dinosaur UFO's, even though it's not listed over there in the sidebar - I had actually forgotten it, that's how neglected it was!!!

I decided it needed to be worked up quickly and displayed this Christmas on my hanging Ackfeld Wire table stand frame.

Somehow, the Cottontail Bunny quilt seems a little out of season LOL!!!  I think my little partridge has waited in the "wings" long enough - like that pun, did you?

I love using my scraps for applique - all those small pieces of lovely leftovers are simply perfect for this type of project!  I pulled out my greens and chose a nice range for the leaves.

Then I took quite some time choosing the right gray-browns for the partridge.  I don't believe I've ever seen one in real life, and I had to pull up some pictures from the web.  Apparently they come in all kinds of colors - from grays to browns and everything in between.

I decided these were the most common coloring.  The example in PPP's cover is very gray with no stripes on the wing, but I felt these pictures indicate some brown in there and a definite striping design in the wings, so finally I pulled these fabrics ....

The soft brown is a scrap that I think will be perfect for the body, and I still need to choose between the two striped ones for wings.  Of course that little black scrap in the upper right from my crumb jar is perfect for the black stripe on it's face.  On the left is the fat quarter of dark brown I pulled for the tree stems.

All the pieces are drawn on fusible, so I just need to spend this evening finishing up with the fusing, cutting and placement.  I doubt I'll actually get to stitch them down tonight, but hopefully it will be done by the weekend.  Like I said, I'm taking things a little slow :*)

I'll be linking up with SoScrappy for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge this week - we have Angela's full permission to play with whatever color scraps we like this month - woohoo!!!!

And as promised, I am steadily working on my other RSC project - Hooties!!!

These are all getting their feathers stitched down so I can begin letting them nest comfortably on their limbs :)  Come back in a few days to see my progress!

Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

=^..^=

What's Up?

Fun stuff, that's what!!!  
                   Mysteries and NewFO's and Giveaways... 

                      ____________________________________________________________

***  Looking for my Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks Vol 6 GIVEAWAY?  Click HERE! ***

____________________________________________________________

First of all, Bonnie Hunter's new 2012 Mystery starts today!!!

Fabric requirements for Easy Street are published on Bonnie's blog today and I've printed out my copy.  Have you?  How many of you are Bonnie fans?  Yep, me too!  I haven't yet decided whether I'll join the craziness of doing it on the Mystery schedule, but I will definitely save the instructions.  The colors in this year's mystery are absolutely YUMMY!!!  They tempt me, yes they do!!!

I love her mysteries, but I'm having a hard time justifying the start of another project right now, you know what I mean?  Although, she DOES promise that this quilt will be less intensive than the last couple were.  That's good to know, right?  Tempted.......

Bonnie is coming to our Music City guild in April 2013, so our program for November will be all about her and her quilts to give everyone a chance to learn to love her like we do :*)  I'm heading up the program, so not a lot of sewing has gone on in my house this week.  I did manage to get some prep work done on my current handwork project The Blue Collection and the tracing done for a little Christmas table topper, Partridge in a Pear Tree...

Won't this make a gorgeous bowl???  YUM!!!  This is the bowl for those infamous PEACHES!!!

Doesn't look like much yet, does it?  Hehehe.....

And don't forget that today is the day to link up with Barbara at Cat Patches for her 2012 NewFO Challenge party!


I started several projects in October.  First was the Partridge in a Pear Tree that you see in it's infant stages above.  I also joined up with Sew Kind of Wonderful's Curve It Up QAL and made my first block for that, a curved up Churndash .....

+++++++++++++++

I want to thank you all for responding to my question of whether you work on all one section of a quilt at a time or put blocks together as you go.  It seems a lot of you work the same way I do - I was surprised since most of my sew buddies are in the "one section at a time" camp.  It's nice to find out that so many of you like to see your blocks come to life as you go, just like me :*)

++++++++++++++++

And since I always like to leave you wanting more..... 

Lookie what turned up in my mailbox the other day!  

Two copies of the newest Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks - Collector's edition Vol 6!!!  

I was a block tester for this issue and had great fun with the blocks that came my way!  It was fun seeing the blocks in the published magazine too, I almost felt maternal toward them :*)

Since I was gifted with 2 of them, I think it's time for a GIVEAWAY here very soon!  We've got lots to celebrate, you know.....  I just realized the other day that I'm very near 300 followers - woohoo!!!  And I'm right on the verge of 40,000 post views - I never dreamed I'd reach even close to that when I started A Quilt and A Prayer last December.  And last, but not least, it will be my birthday this weekend!  So.... how about I give YOU a gift on my birthday?  Come back to visit this Saturday and we'll see if I can add any more goodies to this giveaway, what do you say?  Fun, right?!?

And speaking of FUN, I'm also linking this post up with Kathy's Slow Sunday Quilting and Angie's Applique Thursday :*D

Okay, I'm off and running - lots to accomplish today.  

I'm sending prayers out for all those in Sandy's wake. My heart breaks to think of the suffering she has caused.   Please join me in prayer for them!

Hugs & Blessings!
Teresa
=^..^=

Peace is Restored =^..^=

What makes you happy?

I mean, creatively HAPPY?  Besides the usual things necessary to our happiness like love, family, home, etc, what needs to be in place in order for your creative juices to leap for joy?  What sets your feet firmly in the direction of Creative HAPPY-ness?

An orderliness in your studio?  The privacy to create uninterrupted?  New tools and fabrics to play with?  A new pattern calling your name?  Retreating with a group of great friends?

For me, as I imagine for a lot of you, it is a combination of many things that makes me feel HAPPY in my own little quilting universe.   Probably foremost for me is the need to be IN LOVE with my current project!  But when I get too many things going - all of which I may be hopelessly IN LOVE with - I also need to have a definite sense of direction or I begin to feel like I'll spin off my wheels and out into never-never land!

After all of my moaning and groaning directional soul searching on Monday's post (click HERE if you missed it), I decided that I definitely need a better way to organize my work in the sewing studio.  So I put together a very thorough prioritized list of the projects I would like to have done in the next few months, and then I broke them down into 3 categories - Machine Projects, Applique/Stitcheries, and Quick Projects.

Pretty simple plan, but I began to feel better immediately!

What was my #1 Project?  

Hawaii Sunset!!!

I didn't have to think very long about which project I really, really wanted to work on, so needless to say I've been busily, happily, working away on this wonderful, colorful project all day today :*)  I'm hoping to add lots more of these blocks to my design wall by the end of the week :*)

I printed all the paper patterns for the flying geese and prepared the pieces for all the pink goose "wings" by cutting 2-1/2" squares and then cutting the squares diagonally.

I have to have 1,200 of these little suckers pieces!!!  Which means that I also need 600 "body" pieces, so I dug into my scrap bins of blue, red, yellow, green and brown and cut some rectangles for those :*)

I find that paper-piecing goes much more quickly for me if the pieces are cut to size before I start.  I also like to chain piece them two at a time, which saves time and thread.  These geese sections go together in no time flat!!!

Then I cut some 2" strips for the inner parts of the blocks.  I used my new Sizzix Big Shot Pro to do this job - it's the first time I've actually used it for a project!  I was nervous.... I held my breath..... but the strips turned out GREAT!!!

Here are my little red strips and geese "body" sections, all ready for my next session of Hawaii Sunset fun!!!

I put The Blue Collection at the top of my Applique list even though I have no hope of finishing it anytime soon.  It is a HUGE project and all hand done, so it will take quite a while yet.  But I'm really enjoying it right now and that's enough for me. =^..^=  Once I prep the pieces for the next block I can work on that in the evenings.  Also on that list are Vintage Valentines and Promises & Borders - both of them could potentially be done by the end of the year and will get some love in the next few months :*)

As for the Quick Projects, I have a few table toppers and other little miscellaneous projects I want to work into the schedule here and there. ....
Marita at The Quilter's Path got in this gorgeous gilded pear fabric and matching background and made the cutest little Partridge in a Pear Tree quilt - of course I have to make one!

And I've decided to join Jenny over at Sew Kind Of Wonderful in her "Curve It Up" Quilt Along.


I bought her Quick Curve Ruler several months ago because I just LOVE the exciting original designs she is putting out.  You really should go over to her site and check out her patterns - gorgeous!!!  The idea for the QAL is that Jenny will take traditional quilt blocks and "Curve" them up.  Here is her first block - a churndash....

Block by Jenny Pedigo from Sew Kind of Wonderful Blog

I think this will be the perfect opportunity for me to play with the ruler and have fun with it!  I'm still trying to decide what fabrics/colors to use so I haven't begun to make the block yet.  This is another project that has my HAPPY meter going off the charts :*)

So.... what makes YOU happy????  

I'm headed back to the Ivory Tower now to have some more fun....

Linking up with ....

Hugs & Blessings!
Teresa
=^..^=