Saturday Stitchery

Where did the week go? I think the clock is moving faster every day or am I getting that much slower?

I ordered Miss Millie's Flower Patch book from Australia and it's wonderful. There are projects to keep me busy for many, many hours. One of the things I discovered since starting my blog, besides many new friends, was Brownyn Hayes and Red Brolly. I love the Polka Dot Girls and am delighted whenever someone is stitching one of the patterns. I started stitching 'girl with cat' a few days ago and am really enjoying the process.

Yesterday, Connie, Jane and I went to the Bay Heritage Quilters quilt show. There were about 150 quilts on display with door prizes and a gorgeous raffle quilt. Lots of wonderful quilts and a few vendors. We didn't buy.

Last night we went to The Ring of Fire (tribute to Johnny Cash) show. We sat in the nosebleed seats, but since we only had to listen, they were fine. The only problem was getting to them. By the time we reached row U, I thought I'd pass out. I need to get in shape!

You have until April 1st to sign up for Nanette's terrific give-away on her blog. Don't miss out!

Monday is Opening Day for the Detroit Tigers! My sister, Connie and DBIL, Nick are hosting an Opening Day party for about 35 of our family members and close friends. I am so excited and can't wait to see what they have been planning.

Stash report for last week - gave away about three yards of many repro fabric pieces and bought none. Enjoy the week-end!

Easter Blessings

Wishing everyone a Blessed Easter! He is risen! He is risen indeed!

It's Spring

It's finally arrived - on the calendar, at least. I can even see sprouts of my daffodils and baby iris plants. Since Daylight Savings Time, it is light longer at night so there's the illusion of more time in the day. We've been able to watch a few spring training ballgames on the television to warm us up for Opening Day. Life is good.


Speaking of good, what fun the mail carrier brought me! From Red Geranium Cottage, Sharon sent me two charm packages of the new "Mary Engelbreit" fabric line. (Friends and Flowers) They are happy and cheerful pieces that will make something 'yet to be determined'. I'm going to enjoy sewing them.

From Cathi at Quilt Obsession, beautiful fabrics already printed with Inklingo hexagons, a postcard of the Toronto skyline, a cute kitty bookmark and an adorable little notebook. Cathi also included one completed flower and her work is wonderful! Thank you to both Sharon and Cathi for brightening my day.


Tonight is our Maundy Thursday service at church and the beginning of our singing week-end. We sing tonight, tomorrow night and both sunrise and Festival services on Easter Sunday. Jim also plays in the handbell choir so there's been lots of practicing going on lately.

Jasper, Annie & Stash Report

Stash report for the last two weeks: bought four fat quarters and didn't use enough to blog about. This week will be better, I'm sure.

When there are no projects to photograph, it's good to have cute kitties. See above.

Clothesline Club Year Two

Yesterday we had the first meeting of The Clothesline Club - Year 2 at The Quilted Cottage! Lana is the CC helper for the shop. Here she shows the notebook project for this month and a screen bag bonus project. She embroidered many strips with Clothesline Club for us to use. In the next photo, Stacy, our fearless leader is on the left and explains how many strips we will need.


We brought our machines along so we could get started with the notebooks. I'm almost ready to trim. We also enjoyed a delicious potluck, although this isn't a regular monthly feature of the club. Before we left, Stacy wrapped a beautiful yellow rose for each of use to take home. It was a great day.


There's another fabric giveaway here.
Vicki from Quilts & "Other Stuff" is offering four fat quarters and a porcupine quill. Check it out!

Quilt Giveaway

If you click on over to The Old Red Barn Co., you'll discover a quilt will be given away soon to celebrate her 200th blog post!

March BOTM Stitchery

The little stitcheries from Bea at Capricorn Quilts work up so quickly and are so cute. I just love doing them. I will need to 'do over' the first two months as I realized I won't have enough fabric for the whole year. It looked like enough when I started. Oh, well, I can use the first two for other projects.

Friday night was spent at the quilt shop. We had great table mates and laughed a lot as we sewed on our projects. Scalloped place mats from a Clothesline Club kit is what I worked on for the evening. I even won my first door prize! I am very lucky with the drawings here, but never had my name drawn at Fantastic Friday. I won a Clover rotary cutter with a light attachment. Has anyone used this brand? It's new to me.

Monday was Plan Bee time at Mary's house. Mary and Connie showed their challenge projects and they are both terrific! It was really fun to see what Mary made with the same fabric pack that I was given. Connie had the ugliest fabric grouping to use, but you'd never know it when you see her quilt. It's gorgeous and I'm sure will be very popular in the bidding game. I'll post pictures of all of the challenges when the Habitat Auction begins in April.

Pincushions & FQs

I gathered most of my pincushions together to show Blueberry Lane Designs. She found two copies of Lynette Anderson's wonderful pincushion book which is out of print. The one I use the most is on the left with the little bag attached for strings and scraps. It sits next to my Featherweight and also goes with me to classes.



The lovely FQs came from a drawing at Simplearts. Annie said these are from her own stash. They fit perfectly with MY stash. Thank you!

I'm quilting on the applique quilt, but it is slow going. Machine quilting is not my favorite thing, but I'm too slow at hand quilting to get it finished that way. I'd say I've quilted over half of it, so it will be done soon.

Fabrics Old & New

Here are the fabrics I had to use for my challenge quilt from my previous post. They were a bit dated, but I think I made them work. We could add as many of our own to the quilt which I did. The tan alligator print isn't in the top, but will be used for the label which I think was allowed in the rules.

I received this gorgeous package of prints called S'mores by Moda from Gina Halladay at Quilter's Buzz. Aren't they bright and happy fabrics? I will use them to make a quilt for Habitat in the near future. Thanks so much!

Challenge blocks & Stash Report

Remember those challenge blocks I was appliquing here? I finally decided what sashing strips I was going to use between the blocks after driving my family and friends nuts with options. Yesterday I attached the borders, today I mitered the corners and tonight I just finished basting it. The border color doesn't show well in the picture. It isn't as dark as it looks. Here comes Annie to see what the board is all about. Now I have the rest of March to get it quilted and bound in time for The Habitat for Humanity Auction. Tomorrow I'll post pictures of the fabrics I had to use to make these blocks. (My camera battery is dead tonight.)

So for the stash report - no new fabric bought! The fabrics for the sashing, borders and backing were all from my stash. Not a big amount, but something.

I had planned to join the Quiltathon this week-end, but it didn't work out this time. Looks like people made good use of their time at the sewing machines and finished quite a few projects.