What's Been Going On

It has been a crazy week around here. I know all of you have weeks like that too! I was able to send out my PIF (Pay It Forward) gifts. I first talked about it here. I was able to send Julie's gift off to her, but my friend Char was close by. I was able to deliver hers in person. My other friend Jessica is no longer blogging, but her gift is waiting for her. She should be getting hers soon. As you can see the gift was a fabric basket and a little pillow. I will admit that I did not make the pillow - but I did make the basket! I saw the pillows at the store and since they were so cute they just had to be tucked inside the baskets. Thanks girls for being part of my PIF! It was fun!

I haven't had much time lately to sew. Last week I taught a Beginning Machine Quilting class and a Hand Applique class. That was a lot of fun. I really enjoy teaching and I always come away learning something new too! I was able to do a little sewing Sunday afternoon. I started to work on this scrappy quilt, Diamond Dazzler. I talked about this quilt in an earlier post here.

I bought a couple of jelly rolls to make a quilt for a wedding gift but I wanted to try out the pattern before I cut into them. I took some precut 2 1/2" strips that I had and made some of the blocks. I figured I would rather play around with my scrap fabrics and make sure the directions and measurements were correct before I cut into the jelly rolls. I liked the way the blocks are turning out. I am going to make a quilt top with my strips and then cut into the jelly rolls. This quilt doesn't seem like it will be hard to make, but you have to be very careful how you press those seams so they land where they are supposed to.

As I have mentioned in an earlier post I am the Program Committee Chairman for my guild. I have been working hard on lining up speakers & teachers. I am so excited because it looks like my guild will be able to host Bonnie Hunter (from www.quiltville.com ) in 2010. Yippee! I guess you could say I am just a little excited! If you are not familiar with Bonnie and you are a quilter you must go and check out her web site. The wealth of free patterns is amazing and she is so generous with her quilting knowledge.

There will be a lot going on in the next couple of weeks so I don't know how much I will be able to post. I will try to keep up with the blogs I follow. Sheesh! I am already behind in reading them! Big sigh! When I sign off here I am heading over to my Google Reader to see if I can catch up. I will try to post now and again, but if you don't hear from me in the next couple of weeks please know that I am returning soon!

Mmmm Good!

My dear Hubby came home from a business trip to Belgium and brought many goodies home for me.

I had given him two requests. Since he had a layover in London I asked that he bring me something that said London on it. I have always wanted to travel to London and take in the sights and I was a little jealous that I couldn't go. My second request was that he bring me back some Belgium chocolates. What sane chocolate loving gal wouldn't love some Belgium chocolate? This is what was in the packages!
From London (really the airport) he brought me an ink pen that has the flag of England on it and a tin that looks like the red buses that travel around London. The tin "says" London on it so he fulfilled my request! The tin is filled with yummy English Toffees. Someday I hope to really ride in one of those red buses in London. From Belgium he brought me chocolate all right! A box of assorted chocolates, a jar of yummy chocolate sauce and a dark chocolate bar. Yummy does not describe the taste of these beautiful chocolates! I am savoring each one. I have limited myself to one a day. If it is a big piece of wonderful mouth melting chocolate I cut it in half to even make my chocolate bounty last longer. I have been known to share with Hubby too. Honest! I haven't broken into the chocolate bar yet but I have tasted the sauce. Mmmmmm! Are you laughing at me yet? It's really ok if you are. I am! As much as I love the things he brought home to me I love having him back home more!

Look What I Received In The Mail!

Marlene from Stitching By The Lake celebrated her birthday with a giveaway. Look what I received in the mail! Thank you so much Marlene! It is a very special book as it contains her story of her Mother. Of course, I had to read the chapter written by Marlene first! I am looking forward to the reading of the rest of the book. Thanks again Marlene!

The Fall Into Fall Winner!

I used a random number generator to find the winner of my Fall Into Fall Quilter's Blog Giveaway. The winner is......Myra of Gr8dame's Place! Congratulations Myra! This has been a fun giveaway. I have enjoyed visiting many of the commenter's blogs, and I still have many more to visit. Wow! I did not expect this many comments. Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to leave a comment!

Monster Report!

If you haven't read my blog before, no the monster isn't a Halloween monster. I had a ivory, pink and green monster in my living room for 18 months. Yep, that is a looooong time. My second post when I entered the blogging world was about the Monster. You can read about it here if you wish. I won't go into great detail again on this post. In a nut shell, it is a reproduction of a Marie Webster quilt. The era is 1930's. I hand appliqued it, and am in the process of hand quilting it.



Well...guess what!





This is what my living room looks like now!!! Yippee! I have to admit that I did a little happy dance when I was able to take the quilt out of the frame last Friday night at 12:30 a.m. I even yelled Yippee a couple of times. Not only was I excited that the Monster was out of the living room but that my Hubby was coming home after a two week business trip the next day. Getting the Monster out of the living room before he came home had been a goal of mine. I thought that it would make a perfect surprise welcome home present for him, and it was! He was not only happy to be home, but to be able to sit down on the couch was an added bonus. I had quilted my "fingers to the bone" to get the quilt out of the frame and it paid off. Now I just have to finish up some of the cross hatching lines at the edge and then quilt around the applique motifs. This can be done in front of the television, not in the middle of the living room. Can I say it again? Yippee!!

I will be posting soon about the goodies that hubby brought home for me and the neat giveaway prize that I received in the mail recently. So much fun!

A Giveaway!

Michelle at "Michelle's Quilts and Stuff" is having a giveaway to celebrate her birthday. Happy Birthday Michelle! Check out her blog and wish her a Happy Birthday. Tell her I sent you!

How Does He Do That?

Today I took a little trip over to Shipshewana, IN. Talk about great quilt stores! Hubby is out of town on a business trip (he will be home soon - Yippee!). He told me to do something fun while he was gone. Was that a wrong thing for him to tell me? Not in my book! I really needed some popcorn. There is a great bulk food store there that has great popcorn. I can't buy popcorn like that in the local grocery store... honest! I also like to stock up on frozen meat from Yoder's Meat Market too. My ground beef was running low. Why do I like to buy it there and then put it in a cooler to keep it from thawing before I can get it home? It is hormone free and the price and quality is great. Besides, it is much more fun to do a popcorn/meat run to Shipshewana then the local grocery stores. The local grocery store does not have a quilt stores near it! I have posted before about Shipshewana. You can find one of my posts here if you would like to read it.

I found a lot of neat fabrics today! There were many new fabrics in the reproduction section at Yoder's Department Store. I found most of what I bought today there. My dear Hubby is always very patient when he goes to a quilt store with me on our trips. He will wait in the car and sleep or read a book. At Yoder's Dept. Store there is a big hallway between the different stores with rockers that hubbys can sit in a wait for their wives. My Hubby can be there snoozing or in the car but the minute I take the credit card out of my purse he appears right by my side. How does that happen? How does he know I am ready to leave? I have often wondered. In the post I mentioned earlier I wondered if there was an alarm that goes ding ding when the credit card is removed. When I walked up to the register today I thought, "Ha! Hubby can't come up and see how much I have spent today!" With a smile on my face I handed the sales clerk my credit card. Ring! Ring! My cell phone starts ringing. I open it up. It was Hubby! How does he do that????? To make matters even more funny, he is in Belgium. There is a 7 hour time difference! When I told him where I was he said, "I figured!" He knew I was going to Shipshewana, but of course he didn't know when I was going to be ready to pay for my fabric. Or did he? How does he do that?

This is the fabric I bought for my stash today.

Of course I took this photo when I got home tonight on my diningroom table so the colors don't show to their true beauty.

I also found a pattern and fabric today that I will be using to make a wedding present with. I had been looking for the right quilt to make the happy couple but hadn't found it. Today I found it and the fabrics. I am using two different jelly roll fabric lines for the quilt. I haven't used jelly rolls before. I was worried that I didn't have enough lights or browns so I bought a little bit of yardage just to make sure.
The pattern is called "Diamond Dazzler" and it is from the book "On A Roll Again" by Heather Mulder Peterson. I have a project that needs attention before I start a new quilt. I sure want to start it though!

I have been working and working on "The Monster In The Livingroom". I will be posting about that soon!