Awards!

Jenny at Sew Kind of Wonderful honored me a couple of weeks ago with The Versatile Blogger award.  Thanks, Jenny! If you haven't seen her blog, you really ought to pop over. She's a fabulous longarm quilter who has designed a curve ruler that I am not so patiently waiting for.

 

Along with this award, I've been instructed to tell you seven things about myself. Goodness! Here goes:

1.) I have red hair. I used to hate it when I was growing up, but now it's one of my favorite things about myself.

2.) I was riding horses before I could walk. Really! I have a picture of my dad leading his horse around with me on it.

3.) I grew up with both cats and dogs, but don't really like dogs. That isn't to say I'm mean to them at all, I just would prefer to have a cat as the family pet. My daughter is waiting for the day she moves out to get herself a puppy.

4.) I like wine, but I really enjoy beer. That's right, I'm a beer kind of girl, but we're not talking Coors, Bud, Olympia, or the like. I prefer a lovely hoppy IPA or a malty amber.

5.) I make my own granola. You would, too, if you knew how easy it is and how much more inexpensive than buying that $5-6 box at the store.

6.) I never get enough sleep. Since my teen years, I've had insomnia. I am always tired, even if I've been in bed for 12 hours.

7.) I clean when I'm stressed. Luckily (or maybe not so much), I'm not stressed very often, though my teen-aged daughter tries sometimes.

And now it's my turn! The Versatile Blogger Award is hereby passed to (in no particular order):

completely cauchy
crazy mom quilts
Sukie

I recently found two of these three talented ladies. Whenever I find a new blog, I have to scroll back and read more than just a few of the more recent posts. It's so much fun to see how much they've already done, and sometimes watch their style evolve in reverse. All three of them have inspiring designs and make me laugh. I hope you'll check them out.

An extra special award goes to Leah Day of Day Style Designs and the Free Motion Quilting Project. I have learned so much from her about free motion quilting. This year, as you may know, I challenged myself to finish one quilt a month just to push my boundaries and become a better quilter. My work with this challenge has brought me to the point that I no longer feel I have to sketch everything out and I decided to jump feet first into free-handing some leaves on the quilt I'm trying to finish this month.




Thanks to Jenny, Leah, Amy, Chaucy, and Amanda Jean for their inspirational blogs. I sure do love to see what you ladies create!

Have a happy Halloween, everyone.

Binding clips

I love finding new uses for common items. Take, for instance, the lowly, yet useful binder clip.

I use them for the usual stacks of paper, but also as bag clips, and this particularly pretty set lives in my sewing room. You'll never believe how I use them there.

That's right. They're bindING clips! I got tired of stabbing myself with pins as I attached my binding (I do it all by machine) and got the idea to try this method out. It works like a charm.

I finished up White Wedding tonight. You'll remember I was chosen at random to participate in the Scrap Splat Challenge hosted by Generation Q Magazine. Thomas Knauer provided 42 2" square scraps from his own studio and set us on our merry way with only two rules: 1) use all 42 scraps in some way on the quilt, 2) add only solids. I did a modern interpretation of the very traditional double wedding ring design, then quilted it all with pebbles and here's the lovely finished product:

White Wedding complete front

White Wedding complete back

I couldn't decide which color thread to use on the dark/cool ring (blue, green, purple, or black), so I used them all! It made for a few more starts and stops, but I really like how it looks.

I'm shooting off the email to the judges, now. Wish me luck!

And just for my sweetheart, who says more pictures of The Kitten need to be on the net, here is my quilting companion.

A finish and a couple of challenges

I finished Positivity more than a week ago, but I couldn't seem to get outside during daylight hours to get you a nice shot. Last night, I decided it was just going to have to be inside, so I set it all up, lined up the shot, and got this:

Our cat, Leah, thought it couldn't possibly be a good picture without her sitting on the quilt. She may be right...

I've also been sewing away on a couple of challenge quilts. The first, you may have heard of from your own Modern Quilt Guild. Robert Kaufman challenged any guild that wanted to participate to create a quilt with a charm pack of his Kona squares.

The rules were that we could add only one other solid and the quilt must be made using half square triangles (the second was our own limitation). I went with my favorite Kona; Medium Grey. Now that I'm nearly done with the quilt, my bolt is empty, so I'm going to have to buy another!

The big reveal night was this last Thursday, but since I was sick for so long, try as I might, I could not make it to completion before our meeting. I've set it aside for another challenge, but here's a peak at what I'm working on:

I'll be quilting away on it again very soon, but first, I have another challenge that is due on the 26th! Have you heard of Generation Q? It's a great, free webzine all about modern quilting. Check them out here and tell them Flaun sent you. On September 14, they posted a call for entries to the Scrap Splat Challenge helmed by Thomas Knauer (along with a cute tut for a Drunken Circles pillow). On the 29th, they used a random number generator to pick the 30 who got to play along and I snuck in there at number 30. Whew! Tom sent me 42 2" squares that I had to use in some fashion in a quilt. I could add as many solids as I saw fit, but only solids. Here's what I've come up with:

This will be a wedding gift for friends once it's been judged. I decided to make my own modern take on a double wedding ring. All 42 scraps are in there, plus 4 solids in the rings and the white. Haven't decided what will look good for binding, yet.

Here I am quilting away on it last night (my first pebble quilting ever - not bad if I do say so myself):

I promise to post again soon, now that I'm feeling a bit better.

I'm not dead, yet!

It's been a little quiet around here, and for that I apologize. I've been sick. I'm just starting to feel a little better, but for over two weeks, I've either been going to bed nearly immediately after work, or staying home from work.

There hasn't been much sewing. I did manage to finish a back for Positivity a couple of weeks ago, quilt it, and attach the binding, but now I have to wrap it around and tack it down (via machine, as I always do), sign it, and wash it up.

No pictures today, sadly.

If you liked the Q.S.M.A.S.B.C., though, you should go here for another chuckle!

Trust me.