Opening Day at Maklmerica

Okay, so we've lost the first three games of the season. I'm not worried, just really anxious to get some cheering in for a winning game. Opening Day was perfect in every way except for the outcome of the game. Nick and Connie went all out for the party including Tiger give-aways between innings and take home bags of peanuts and crackerjacks. There were Kogel hot dogs, brats, and a wonderful buffet of salads and snacks. We had baseball cookies, baseball candies and a baseball basket holding chips. Connie embroidered towels with the English D and made coasters using Tigers wrapping paper. Nick and Connie both made the valances in the Tigers Room. Blue is for Home and orange for the Visitors. Abe, the official mascot for the day wore a very impressive Tigers tie. Here are a FEW pictures from the day.

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.

Equal Time & Fun Mail

Annie pointed out to me today that Jasper has had much more blog space than she has been given. So in the interest of harmony among the felines here is a picture of Annie sleeping on Jim's legs. This is a common scene in our living room if we are watching television together. Annie with Jim and Jasper with me.

Today's mail brought the lovely batik butterfly fabric from Holly. It is gorgeous. I've been looking at it all afternoon wondering what to make with it. Thanks, Holly.


Tomorrow the Detroit Tigers' spring training game will be on the radio! Can't wait to hear those familiar sounds of spring even if the snow is still covering the ground outside.

Ironing Board

Libby asked to see pictures of our ironing boards. Jasper loves to sleep on mine and looks like he is saying, "What do you mean this is YOUR ironing board?" Luckily, I have a small board I can use for pressing blocks. It's usually quite an ordeal to convince Jasper that I need the ironing board for a quilt.

Niki's 'Ventures is having a giveaway if you comment on her post and link to it on your blog. I had promised to do this and just noticed I hadn't linked.

Playing

Our UGRR group is now meeting at The Quilted Cottage to sew quilts for the UGRR shelter. Their set-up is wonderful and we can shop when we take a break. We layered and birthed and tied several quilts on Friday from 10-3. I turned in the kitty top. Then at 6:00 I was back at the shop for another Fantastic Friday. We were each given a cute Valentine fabric fat quarter and the dinner was grilled white fish, baked potato, salad and peach cobbler. Connie won the first drawing of the evening which was a coordinating fabric to the Valentine FQ. I continue my no win streak for FF.


Stashbusting - I cut five yards of assorted fabrics (mostly novelty prints) to make Bonnie's Scrappy Trips quilt. I worked on a few blocks Friday night, but they seem too busy to me. Maybe the novelties weren't a good idea for this pattern or I need to stand way back when I look at them. What do you think? I made the photo small to protect your eyes.

Jasper likes to sleep on my legs or lap when I'm sitting in my chair. He really stretched himself out today while I was trying to do the stitchery on the applique blocks from several posts ago. At one point, he almost fell through, but he caught himself just in time.

Another Day

So I switched just two of the blocks so that the dark ones weren't all on the right side of the quilt. I also added sashing and cornerstones around the outside edges. I think it's big enough now so I won't add a border. There is probably enough kitty fabric left to make another one. However, I'm usually not a fan of doing anything more than once. Maybe I'll try a Disappearing Nine Patch with the leftovers?



There are several bloggers working on the blocks from The Civil War Diary books by Rosemary Youngs. It's fun seeing the fabrics chosen by everyone for each block. I'm so tempted to start, too, but I have so many UFOs to finish first.

Frog Stitching

Yesterday I sewed the blocks to make a quilt for the UGRR. Good thing I took a digital picture before I sewed them together. Somehow in the row assembly, something was switched around and now there are too many dark blocks on the right side. I didn't notice until I went to take a picture this evening. So tomorrow I'll be doing a bit of frog stitching - rip it, rip it, rip it.

The kitty fabric was bought at JoAnn's several years ago, but I never knew how to use it. The other day I saw a charity quilt pictured on somebody's blog (can't remember where) and I thought the setting would work for my kitty fabric. I also found the sashing pieces in a pile of fabric that was waiting to be folded and put in its proper place so it just seemed like the right time to sew this quilt. I think the bottom two rows are in the correct position, but the other rows are a jumbled mess. Where's Mr. Seam Ripper?

We Have A Winner & Stash Report

Well, there's nothing like a giveaway to increase your comments! It took six pages to get all of the names printed for the drawing. I wish I had more than one bundle of fat quarters. Jim drew out the slip of paper with the name of "Ruthie". So if Ruthie will contact me with your snail mail address, I'll get those hearts on the way to your house.



Stash Busting Report - I made a top for the UGRR and also cut fabrics for a strip quilt. I'd estimate about 4 yards of fabric was used this week and none bought. I'm back on track, although I did enjoy the slip last week.

Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone! I hope you get enough good chocolate today. This morning was Closeline Club at my LQS and they had some Moda Valentine fabric packs right by the check out counter. So I decided to give one of those away for my one year blogiversary. I tried to fan the fabrics a bit so you can see what's in there. If you'd like a chance to receive the fabrics, please leave a comment on this post. I will draw a name on Sunday.

Three more giveaways

If you're looking to win some quilting books, Studio-259 is having a giveaway on her blog.

Jill from Ramblings of a Quilt Obsessor has several offerings in her giveaway to celebrate her 200th blog post/

Karen at Yellow Farmhosue is giving away a quilt and a pattern in celebration of her birthday.

Aren't quilting bloggers generous people?

More Fabric

Today was Bee day at Jane's house. Connie and I swapped the other half of our Fantastic Friday purchases. Oh, I love those repros. Connie has her Carolina Crossroads quilt top together now. It is made from reproduction pinks and browns and is simply gorgeous.
I finished a little quilt today that was made of leftover pieces from a siggie swap on the Jo Morton Yahoo list. My siggies aren't put together yet, but the extras are now a bonus quilt. I love Jo Morton's fabrics and patterns.

Stash Report

I didn't post the last two Sundays about my stash busting. No fabric entered my house during that time and I did finish the little winter swap quilt all from my stash. But this week...my quilt shop is now carrying repros! What could I do? I need to support my LQS and they looked so nice together on the shelves. Connie and I were at Fantastic Friday at the shop and each chose four bolts of lights and four bolts of darks. We had one yard cut of the darks and a half yard of the lights. We are cutting both sets in half and sharing tomorrow at Bee. Before we left, they had cut a couple of containers full of FQs. A few of them jumped into our bags, too. And since I had already fallen off of the wagon, I also got a yard of a nice background and 2 1/2 yards of a red and green checked which were both half price. I'll try again this week.

Seven More Random Things About Me

Referring back to my last post, I had to really think to come up with seven additional random things about me since Jan tagged me.

THE RULES:
1. Once you are tagged, link back to the person who tagged you.
2. Post THE RULES on your blog.
3. Post 7 weird or random facts about yourself on your blog.
4. Tag 7 people and link to them.
5. Comment on their blog to let them know they have been tagged.

1. I am the oldest of five children.
2. In grade school, I was a cheerleader.
3. I love to make miniatures and small blocks, both pieced and applique.
4. I have never had a traffic ticket. (that will probably come back to haunt me)
5. I enjoy doing jigsaw puzzles and playing card games.
6. I have never broken any bones in my body.
7. I am horizontally surface challenged.

I will tag Anne from Quiltoholic Wendy from Snippets of a Quilter, Wenche from Wenche's Pieces of Time, Dot at Rantala Rags, Carol from Brown Quilts, Veronica at Hairdresser by day, quilter by night, and last but not least, Karen from Sew Primitive Quilter.

This is how Jasper expected me to sew this afternoon. When he wants attention, he'll do anything to get noticed.

Missed Blogiversary

I can't believe I missed my one year blogiversary! I knew my first post was in February, but didn't remember it being as early in the month. May Britt encouraged me to start a blog after I commented how much I enjoyed reading hers and others. I need a giveaway to celebrate the occasion. Stay tuned for more info.

Tonight is Fantastic Friday at the local quilt shop. I have nothing ready yet to work on. There are so many choices. It's just a matter of what kind of mood I'm in tonight. They are forecasting more snow tonight which we really don't need. I'm thankful, though, that snow is all we have. The tornado damage in the south was just terrible with so many lives lost.

I've been working on some applique blocks using fabrics from a challenge that is due
by April. The fabrics were packs from Keepsake Quilting several years ago. It was difficult to get inspired, but I finally tried making some blocks from "Applique Designs - My Mother Taught Me To Sew" by Faye Anderson. The blocks aren't trimmed or pressed and still need embroidery added, but they are growing on me. Now what to do as far as setting them. I want to do two more blocks so I'll have nine in all.

Jan has tagged me for 7 Random Things About Me.
THE RULES:
1. Once you are tagged, link back to the person who tagged you.
2. Post THE RULES on your blog.
3. Post 7 weird or random facts about yourself on your blog.
4. Tag 7 people and link to them.
5. Comment on their blog to let them know they have been tagged.
I will answer this in my next post as it will take some thinking on my part.

Answering the questions for which Jane Austen heroine I am most like, it says I'm Elinor Dashwood.

Take the Quiz here!

The Calico Cat

The Calico Cat (Amy) had my name for the Four Seasons Quilt Swap! Her sweeet, little quilt of snowmen squares arrived along with some extra fabric all tied up in a ribbon with bells. Amy said I was seeing some of her cat collection fabric! Thanks so much, Amy. I really enjoyed participating in the swap.

February BOM

Bea posted her BOM stitchery for February. I stitched it yesterday and am really enjoying these blocks.