A twisted tale...or a tale of two twisters!!!

About a year ago, Jackie was kind enough to mail me her Lil Twister tool to try.  Since I was going to vacation in her area during the winter, I was able to return it to her in person and we got to meet, which was nice.  This first photo shows the table runner I made using her Lil Twister.

While the use of Jackie's Lil Twister tool went well, I wasn't too happy with the results as my color placement was "off" and the contrasts just weren't there....some of the pinwheels got "lost" in the shuffle. I tried to use all random 5" squares and I should have used ones that were better coordinated.   About a week ago, I saw a demo of the tool at the LQS and decided to buy one of my own and make something with which I'd be more satisfied.  I decided to use a charm pack (so the coordination would be there) and chose colors my daughter likes (black, brown, tan, and lighter neutrals).  This second picture is the result and I'm much  happier with how I did on this runner.  I hope my daughter likes it (once it's quilted and has binding on it, of course).

BUSY days......

First of all, thanks to those of you who voted for one of my two quilt blocks in the AccuQuilt Barn Quilt contest.  I realized after a few days that the contest seemed to turn into a popularity contest, so I laid back on it after that.  I like my blocks and might use them myself in something eventually and it was nice to be selected to be in the 100 finalists.

This is a crazy busy time of year for me.  If any of you are involved in church music, you know what I mean.  Holy Week and Easter are very hectic.  I'll be very tired come Sunday afternoon.  In the meantime, I won't have much chance to read blogs or to post on mine.

Here are two gifts I got recently.  One is a box with lots of fun goodies in it from Jean (aka Lois).  I had responded to her plea for solid scraps and she offered to trade something for them.  I told her no......I'd just be happy to see the scraps go to a good home.  She sent me this nice box of goodies anyway......it was a fun surprise.  I am especially excited about the spool of Invisifil thread as I've heard great things about that. Sorry the photo is turned sideways...guess you'll get some neck exercise when you look at it!

Then....a fairly new neighbor gave me 4 really nice-smelling (and gentle) organic, homemade soaps shaped like Easter eggs that she made. She said it was a thank-you for making her feel welcome as the "new kid on the block".  I love the soaps and think I'll be buying soaps from her now.

After Easter, I'll be sandwiching and quilting the quilt for the guest bedroom.  I showed it in progress a few posts back.  Here is is finished and below that is the crazy-pieced backing for it.  I'm happy with it and hope I can do some simple quilting on it that will look nice.

A giveaway soon and then maybe no more blog.....

You might have noticed a very colorful, floral collage at the top of my blog now.  Thanks to Gene Black who put the collage together for me using some of my floral photos.  I am very happy with the way it looks!

I've not had a giveaway in awhile.  I'm thinking I am going to sort through my patterns in the next few weeks and maybe some books, too, and get REAL about what I will use and what I won't use. Then I think I'll put the unwanted ones (all very nice ones) on here as a giveaway.  The giveaway will only be open to those who make regular comments, though.  As most of you know, I'm not one to ask others to post about my giveaways and then draw folks who never paid attention to the blog until they wanted to win something in a giveaway!!!   So if you are a regular reader, I hope you'll find a chance to comment at some point over the next few weeks.  I'm not sure exactly when this giveaway will take place, but I'm sure it will be sometime in May and I'll look back a bit to see who has made comments recently.

Somewhat akin to this is the fact that I'm considering taking my blog offline.  Initiallly, I thought I'd use the blog as a journal of my quilting, crafting and other travels, but since I take photos of everything I make and everyplace I go, I have that kind of record on my computer already.  It seems that life is busy for everyone and I've had trouble finding time to do much sewing and blog posting lately, so I'm thinking it may be time to disappear from Blogland.  Have any of you felt that way?   I realize people often read and don't make comments, so I have no real way of knowing if it's worthwhile to keep my blog going or maybe if I should just cut back to posting once or twice a month.  (I guess if I had a "counter" on my blog, I could see how many are coming and going and reading the blog..maybe the Blogger stats would show me?  I guess I should try to investigate that feature.)   Some of you have become my friends through the blog and I'd keep in touch with you outside the blog. So...we shall see what happens in the next few weeks.   I just didn't want to disappear without warning, and I will be certain to announce when it's my last blog post if I do make that decision and to get email addresses for those of you with whom I'd wish to stay in touch and share projects and ideas.

Okay...enough of that for now......here is a photo of my progress so far on a throw-sized quilt I'm working on for the guest bedroom (a pale lavender color is on the walls...and I'm going with a white chenille bedspread with white chenille shams, so I can change out the accent colors easily by making various small throws like this one).  I bought a pack of coordinated fabrics at a quilt show just because I liked it about two years ago and had no idea what I'd make with it, but I am liking that fabric in this quilt!

A new project.....

Of course I have a nearly uncountable number of unfinished projects, BUT....since my friend, Pat, was kind enough last week in Atlanta to give me the tree skirt pattern she designed, I decided to start work on that. I used the fabrics shown here (8 different ones) and cut them into strips. Soon I will sew them into strip sets and then use a 10 degree wedge ruler to cut the strip sets. Once assembled, it will make a very nice tree skirt.

I have a quilted jacket in progress as part of a "brown bag" quilt challenge online and I think that is supposed to be completed for March, so I better dig that out and resume work on it this week, too.

My break from the medical typing job continues for another couple of weeks, so I hope to get more sewing done during the rest of this month.

Thinking spring and summer!!!

Most of you know I despise cold weather and snow, so......I have been trying to make something that screams spring and summer. A blogging friend, JACKIE, was kind enough to loan me (via the mail) her Lil Twister ruler and I made a small table topper. They tell you to use a bunch of 5" squares and just sew them together in rows. Well....I'm not crazy about the way it turned out. I think I'd be much happier limiting my colors to maybe 2 or 3 fabrics....and trying to get a more "organized" look for the pinwheels that are the end result instead of this rather crazy look I got this time. Oh, well...it was fun to work with that ruler and I'll finish the topper before the summer and use it. Thanks, Jackie, for loaning me the ruler AND I'm still hoping to return it to you in person soon!!!

Isn't this nice???

Look at this quilt...and then read about it below the picture......
About 3 -4 months back, AQS asked on their Facebook page for their FB friends to tell about a special quilt that was given to them. Many told about quilts made for them by relatives (as wedding gifts, housewarming gifts, etc.) I mentioned that up to that time, I'd never received a quilt as a gift. Within 10 minutes, I got a message from Renee (in Louisiana....I don't think she has a blog) and she said she'd like to make me a quilt and give it to me. THIS is the quilt I got from her in the mail late last week. I am so touched that she would do that for a complete stranger. It is very snuggly, too, as it has fleece on the back...and she even quilted some butterfly shapes into it. If you look closely, you can see one on the back where I folded it so you could see the butterfly fleece backing fabric. I really appreciate this gift from the heart. Thanks, Renee!

Updates on a couple of things: I am still struggling with the Curve Master foot. I do well until about the last half-inch. I am using the special tweezers I got with the foot that are to be used at the end, but I am all thumbs with them! I am hoping I can improve or else this foot might be up for grabs for a cheap price for anyone who wants it! LOL I am hoping my friend, Sherry, who bought the same foot at the show, might learn how to master it..and then she can help me. If not, I'll just go back to pinning my drunkard's path blocks when I sew them. Since they are cut on the GO cutter, they go together easily..but I was just hoping to avoid using pins (as everyone else seems to be able to do with the Curve Master foot).

A couple of weeks back I wrote about a packaging error on Kraft cheese cubes in 100-calorie packages. I did contact Kraft and have been advised that they are sending me a check for the cost of the bag of cheese....so that is nice of them. They sent an email explaining how this might have happened. I told all of you I'd let you know their response......and this is certainly a fair response on their behalf.

Soon I'll tell you about the fabric I got for the brown bag project that many of us bloggers are doing. I have big plans for my fabric, and I have already started working with it....even though our deadline isn't until sometime in March!

A really fun project made with the GO!

I am having a lot of fun with a project I call "Grow as you GO". I spoke of this several posts back. While it can be done without a GO cutter, it is much easier with the cutter. Here is how the project works.

You cut your scraps into various sizes and put them in baggies and label the baggies.......2 1/2 inch HST's, 3 1/2 inch squares, etc. You want to have scraps that will end up (when combined) making 12 1/2 inch blocks.

When you want to have a FUN play day, take those baggies and build your 12 1/2 inch blocks with them. They will be bright and scrappy and....well.....lots of FUN to make and also will make you smile when you look at them. Here are four that I've made:

This first block has 3 rows. The top row consists of six 2 1/2 inch half square triangle (HST) blocks sewn together. The second row is two 6 1/2 inch HST blocks sewn together...and the third row is three 4 1/2 inch HST blocks sewn together. Now...when this block is sewn into a quilt, it will be a nice, 12-inch block.
Here is another block......in this one, the rows are: three 4 1/2 inch HST blocks (not all turned the same way....wanted some variety), then three 4 1/2 inch blocks, then three 4 1/2 inch quarter square blocks. Sew them together and...presto...another block that will sew down to 12 inches in a quilt.The combination used for this next block is: one row of 2 1/2 inch HST blocks (6 of them), then one row of 6 1/2 inch HST blocks (2 of them), then a row of 4 1/2 inch quarter-square blocks (3 of them). Don't you just love how much FUN this is??? One more to show today....

And this 4th Grow as you GO block is made of one row of 3 1/2 inch HST blocks (4 of them), then a row using my 3 1/2 inch x 6 1/2 inch rectangle cutter scraps...I used 4 of those rectangles and made them into two 6 1/2 inch blocks and then turned each block a different way when I sewed them together into a row.Okay...so when you get a lot of these blocks made, you have fun playing with them until you get them arranged as you like. Since they are all made so differently, you can turn them all kinds of ways, too...no pattern restrictions here.....until you find what you like the best. As you can see, this can be made without a GO....simply cutting your scraps into sizes that will allow you to piece them into a big block that will be 12 1/2 inches (and will then become 12 inches when sewn into your quilt). It is fun to find various combinations of scrap pieces to do each of these blocks.....very relaxing. With the GO cutter, of course, they are cut more accurately and a lot more quickly..so that makes it even more fun and that is why my project is called "Grow as you GO!" Here is one last photo showing a possible way for me to arrange the above 4 blocks (click to enlarge), BUT...I think I'll wait until I have about 8 or 12 made before I start to sew them together into quilt rows! This is SOOOOO much fun! Try it... if you enjoy scrappy quilts (which I do), you'll love this fun project, too!!!

It's over.......

It's over......summer (well, not really as it's not officially over for another couple of weeks) but it feels like it's over. The community pool closed yesterday (and I hadn't gone there for about two weeks due to some icky weather and also feeling pretty sick for the past 9 days). The night temps are noticeably cooler all of a sudden. And I am even seeing some leaves on trees start to lose their "green". The kids are back in school most everywhere as of today, too. Our little granddaughter, Jessi, starts 1st grade today...hope to have a couple of 1st day photos to post here in another day or two!
Yesterday, I did the rest of the week's typing (which I wasn't feeling well enough to do last week), so that was a relief to finish it. Then...I dug out two fall runners that I'd pieced together LAST fall. One of them is pictured above (simple squares set on point) and is now sandwiched, "pillowcased" (instead of a binding) and ready for hand-quilting. The other is below here (a Disappearing 9-Patch) and still needs to be sandwiched. I made these before I got my GO cutter and see that both of them can now be made a lot quicker with the GO! Maybe I'll do them in colors for another season of the year soon..having the GO cutter just might be motivation enough to do that!
TODAY my free die from AccuQuilt arrives (earned for doing a YouTube video tutorial with my GO cutter)! I chose the newly-released, small Drunkard's Path die. I have already played around with a design idea in EQ7......and once I get the fabric colors I want for that, I'll show the EQ design here. Can't wait to try out this new die!

REBA concert......

Saturday night we went to the Reba concert. This is what it looked like from our seats. Not too bad for the $25 we paid when a special was run on tickets for a couple of hours one night last week. I sat in the higher-priced seats that you can see down there when I saw Toby Keith, but...they are all on the same level and when people in front of you stand, you need to do that, too...or you can only see on the big screens...and that seems silly, to me, when you are paying the highest ticket price, so I prefer being a bit further away and being able to sit comfortably throughout the show.

While the seats were just fine for me, they were too far, though, to get any really good pictures as my camera doesn't have a really good zoom on it. This is about the best we could get with my zoom.....
We were very happy, though, to hear the music and enjoy Reba's fun personality and we could see well on the jumbo-tron screen to see her "up-close". As an "opening act" she had the gal who played Barbara Jean on the Reba TV show (which I never watched, but many at the concert seemed to know her well). Her name is Melissa Peterman and she was quite funny. Reba's musicians and vocalists in her group are exceptionally talented, and it was a joy to see how well they worked together!

On the quilting front, I have nearly finished the binding on a quilt that has been a few years in the making...worked on it a bit last week when I couldn't do much sewing with the family here. I will show it in my next post, I'm sure. I am going to cut out some sashing strips with my GO cutter today and try to get the jelly roll quilt-along blocks turned into a quilt. Since I don't really like my blocks, it's proving to be difficult to proceed with the quilt, but......I don't want to let them sit in a drawer forever, so...I'll plod ahead on the project!!! LOL

I also made more pillowcases for ConKerr Cancer. I think I will also make holiday pillowcases for my granddaughters for Christmas as they enjoyed seeing the ones I made so far.

Today my husband and I are meeting Stephanie (click HERE for her blog) and her husband for lunch...should be fun! (Steph and I have met already but our husbands are meeting for the first time today.)

WOW....impressive......

I have had many entries already on the giveaway of an AccuQuilt GO! cutter on my blog. (If you missed the post about that, look on the sidebar for it and click there to get the information you need so you can enter the drawing...even if you already HAVE a GO!, you can still participate.) I have been very impressed with the charity projects so many of you already do...and the ones you promise to do if you are a lucky winner!!!

I have had a huge amount of non-fun (read that: non-quilty) stuff that has been taking up my time recently, but I did finish Jelly Roll Block # 10....I varied it a bit and made it to my own style. Here is a picture of it. You can see it better if you click to enlarge it. (It's not been squared yet.)There are 2 more blocks to go. I don't like a few of them so far....so I may look very carefully at the 12 blocks when they are completed and cut it down to my favorite 9 and be done with it. The remaining 3 blocks can then go in my bag of "orphan blocks". NOW......I need a favor from you. Please go to the brand-new blog of my friend (and neighbor), Sherry, and sign on as a follower and make a comment there. Click HERE to get to the blog. She is an awesome quilter......self-taught, but very productive. I once showed you a huge, custom California king quilt she made as a wedding gift (will get that picture out again and have her post it, I think, on her new blog.) So....go there and check her out...okay?

GO! ing "scrap-happy"......

Do you have baskets (or boxes or bins) like these???

Believe me, I have a few more just like those shown above. They seem to have a way of multiplying. I always have good intentions of using the scraps, but only rarely do I pull out an odd piece and use it. So....I decided I need to get GO! ing. I got out my AccuQuilt GO! cutter and some of my dies and cut away for about 90 minutes all totaled (let myself have a snack break in between!!!) The above mess was transformed into this.....

(squares and strips of assorted sizes)
and this.......

(half-square and quarter-square triangles of various sizes for which I have a fun plan...which is explained to you below)
AND this...

(circles of various sizes, rectangles and tumblers that are already pinned into rows to be sewn as the start for a fun little girl's quilt).
So....here is my plan for the half-square and quarter-square triangles...

I am going to start sewing them together into squares...just at random...very scrappy (which I love). I have some that will finish into 2" squares, some that will finish into 4" squares, and some that will finish into 6" squares. I will then put them into rows and vary it....maybe 3 rows of 2" squares....then a row of 4" squares...then a single row of 2" squares...then a row of 6" squares and on and on until it gets as big as I like. I will call it "GROW as you GO!
Get it???? Grow as you GO! (pretty cute name, huh?)
I know it will be an ongoing project, but I also know that I'll now use these scraps and would not have been using them if they'd stayed in all those baskets!
Thanks, AccuQuilt, for helping me to be SCRAP-HAPPY!!!

Tiny pieces.......

These 4 photos are tiny pieces of projects I am working on but can't show here yet. I don't want any of you to think I've been a slug and sitting around doing NOTHING....because I have been VERY busy....I just can't talk about any of it quite yet! So...for now, here are some "sneak peeks". Two are finished already and two are in progress (and about 3 others are barely begun)....and SOMEDAY I will be able to show them all to you here! Also....on a serious note, please keep good thoughts for us as we helplessly watch our dog going through some health issues that I think are signaling the beginning of the end for him. He is over 12 years old and has been losing control of his legs.......falling over even when standing still (but otherwise trying to run and play as usual). All his labwork came back "okay" ($354 worth of "okay") and they have no clue what is happening. We can't justify putting him through all kinds of other tests at his age and if they found it is a tumor or a neurological problem, we'd not subject him to surgery anyway. So....we wait and see what happens. As long as he isn't in pain and is eating and drinking, we can do that. If, however, he stops eating or drinking or is in pain, we will have to make the big decision...the one every pet owner dreads.

Another table runner.....

I love table runners and I use them in places other than a tabletop....so I can use a lot of them. Good thing since I enjoy making them. I also like them since I enjoy hand-quilting and can do that quite easily on a runner. I am also enjoying learning my EQ7 and designing things that I can cut entirely with my AccuQuilt GO! cutter. This is a runner design I did on EQ7 Thursday night...

I decided to use fabrics from my stash to see if the pattern worked the way I expected it to work. I'm not crazy about the fabrics I used (and like the ones in my EQ design better) but I think this one will perk up a bit when I put the binding on it as I have enough of a bright blue to use for the binding. Here is the runner I made yesterday using my EQ design. It worked out perfectly....and everything was cut accurately and easily with my GO! Lots of fun....that's for sure! (It should enlarge if you click on the picture.)Shortly after this posts on my blog, I will be heading into Lewes to work at the 44th annual art show run by my church. I choose the early shift (starting at 6:30 a.m.) as I can get a parking space at that time......and I then get done around 9:30 and can go look at the work done by the 140 artists who are in the show. It's a juried art show and is quite fantastic. Very rarely does an artist give up his or her spot....so there is a waiting list of folks to get into the show. Much of the artwork is too expensive for me, but I do enjoy looking! I will try to get some pictures.

A little bit of red, white, and blue.....

Yesterday I was trying to clean up my sewing space (at least somewhat). I happened upon 4 paper-pieced squares that needed to be joined together to form a larger square....so I allowed myself to stop cleaning things in that room and I sewed them together! They had been in an unsewn state for about a year...maybe two....so it was time to get them a step closer to a finish. I suppose they will just be a small little topper for a small table or to put on the bathroom vanity on patriotic holidays. Here is how they look now...still needing to be sandwiched and quilted and bound, but...better than they looked yesterday!
I also decided to stay in the red, white, and blue "mood" and put together a pineapple block in that color scheme. A gal I know is collecting them as a surprise for a friend of hers who is about to move....so this will be sent in the mail for that person. (We were asked to put our name and state in the center.) This uses 1 1/2 inch strips, so....it was easy to cut a whole bunch of them on the GO! cutter....and I have some leftovers if I want to do more R/W/B pineapple blocks someday.

It's nice to be missed!!!

Many of you know I used to post every day and then scaled back to about every other day. Today would have been a day I'd post, but I didn't have an early-morning post here and one of my good blogging pals emailed me to ask where I was. She gets up and looks at blogs in the morning and noticed mine wasn't updated today. Thanks for missing me, Tonya!!! :)

I got home very late from guild last night and there had been bad storms...traffic lights out along the route home....some areas with no power....and still SO hot and humid, so I didn't do a post to show up early today. Anyway....here it is now. (Probably not worth the wait for you, Tonya.....LOL)

This is block # 9 of the Jelly Roll quilt-along. I am still not pleased with how all of these blocks are looking. While I do like a couple of them as patterns, I'm not happy with the colors I am having left in my jelly roll. I sure hope I can figure out a sashing color that ties them all together nicely OR they might be added to my "orphan" blocks and become parts of various other projects!!!

Almost finished......

A few days back, I posted an EQ7 image of a red, white and blue quilt I designed to use the GO! cutter dies I have. I will probably finish the top today. These are the last 5 blocks....finished them last night and will add them to the other 15 blocks this morning and then finish the sashing and the border and then it will be ready for quilting. I hope to have a photo of that to show you tomorrow. This top also went incredibly fast because the cutting was done quickly and so accurately with the new cutter. Check out AccuQuilt on Facebook (if you've not already done so).

AccuQuilt Bloggers......

SewCalGal is setting up a group of bloggers who own AccuQuilt Cutters (the Go or the Studio). It will be a great network in which to share tips and ideas and to show what we make using the cutters. There is a button on my sidebar that will link you to her post telling about this. I think it will be a fun group...and even if you don't yet have an AccuQuilt cutter, you might want to check out the information that will be shared by the members of this group.

Here is an update on my quilt that I showed in my last post....the one designed in EQ7 with the intent to cut it entirely with dies from the AccuQuilt GO cutter. I had to vary, ever so slightly, the colors as it was a struggle to find 5 blues that looked okay together. I have made 6 of the non-blue blocks and here is a photo of them just laid out on the floor and also of just one of them close-up. (Of course, they will have sashing and cornerstones added to them.) I cannot begin to tell you what a savings in time the cutter has made.....and to have the half-square triangles make up so easily with NO "rabbit ears" to snip off is absolutely WONDERFUL!!! I hope to get some of the blue blocks done today. Thanks, AccuQuilt for a great product!!!And thanks to so many of you who are on Facebook and saw it was my birthday yesterday and wished me a Happy Birthday. It was fun to see all those messages posted there throughout the day!!!

GO!!!!!! (and then GO some more!!!)

HOORAY......the GO! cutter I won from AccuQuilt arrived yesterday. I was doing a little sewing in the morning with my neighborhood group (The Lakeside Ladies) at Kaye's house, and the cutter arrived. Hubby had the box waiting for me when I got home and I did the happy dance! Of course, I wasted no time in opening the box.....
And taking out the cutter....And the extra dies I'd purchased.....In no time at all, I was happily cutting tumbler blocks.....did my first 50 in less than a half hour and laid them out for a lap quilt. That one is not shown here as I want to change out some of the colors. Then I cut over 80 more blocks in about 20 minutes. They are used in the layout shown below. The blocks aren't yet sewn together and, of course, there will also be borders on it. It is AMAZING how quickly I was able to cut these blocks out....and there are no "bunny ears" to be trimmed after sewing....and all the blocks are perfectly uniform in size!!! Yippee...I LOVE it!!! Of course, the cutter does have one BAD feature......it is so much fun to use that you want to cut everything in sight and don't want to stop cutting to get your fanny over to the sewing machine and sew!!! LOL NOTE: I am adding this information in reply to a question asked below about the amount of waste after cutting fabric. There is only a TINY bit of waste if you use the free fabric reference chart AccuQuilt has kindly provided on their website. They tell you how to cut your fabric to minimize waste....and the little that is wasted, to me, is worth it for the savings in time AND the savings in aggravation to my carpal tunnel wrist!!!I also took the scraps I created and cut them into 2" squares and 2" HST's and 5" charm squares and put them in baggies. I think I will build a nice collection of them in no time at all. I'm sure I will be showing you much more as I cut more projects using the GO! cutter. For now, though, take a quick side trip to Rae Ann's STASH MANICURE blog where I am the guest blogger today. (Click on her blog name to get there.)

A touch of summer........

I love some of the flowers I have right now. My one hydrangea bush has pretty pinkish flowers and one of them is now at the top of my blog page....did you notice it yet? If not, go back and look! Isn't it GORGEOUS?

I have another hydrangea bush...called Endless Summer as it blooms all summer long., which I LOVE. It isn't as big yet as my pink hydrangea, as it's only about 2 years old, but it got a lot of flowers this year and I'm happy since I worried it would be lost during the extreme winter we had. Here it is with some of the flowers blooming.
I'm not sure what these next flowers are....I planted a couple of bulbs of them a few years back and each year they multiply. Too bad they don't bloom all season long. (And too bad I didn't write down the name of these when I planted them, so I'd know what they are!!!)

I love my gardenia bush. The smell of the flowers is incredible....which you might already know if you've had the chance to smell them. I was really fearful this bush wouldn't survive the ice and snow we had in the winter, but it did and I am really enjoying it. Someone told me to float some of the flowers on top of water in a dish in the house....and I did that and it is really a treat! Again...another one I wish flowered for a longer period of time. There are about 150 flowers opened on it right now with at least that many more buds that will open within the next few days! Oh...how I wish you could smell these flowers...they are heavenly.This next one isn't such a great photo of the bush, but if you look closely you can see many of the yet-unopened flower buds.I did work on a reversible runner that matches two sets of kitchen valances I made recently, and I'll show a photo of that when the binding is completed (which I may do later today). Tomorrow I hope to get out to buy a prize to celebrate getting over 200 followers....and it will go to one of my lucky, regular followers!!!

Bits and pieces.......

Actually, I should have said "Pieces and Bits" in the title of this post. First...the pieces.....pieces of fabric! Remember Amy's recent online Quilt Festival? Many of you also showed quilts in it. I was lucky enough to win one of the many prizes she was offering at the end of the festival. I won these Essex fat quarters (a linen/cotton blend) from Jackie at Canton Village Quilt Works. Aren't the colors BEAUTIFUL? And don't you think I should wait until I have a GO! cutter so I can cut them out crisply and cleanly?????? Thanks, Jackie and Amy, for this fun prize!!! You can find Jackie by clicking on her name above. AND.....if you don't know what a GO! cutter is, you need to do a search for AccuQuilt OR go to this link (and PLEASE mention to Barb that I sent you...gets me extra entries) and maybe you can WIN a GO! cutter (and if you don't want a cutter, please go there and mention I sent you anyway, okay?) If you go to AccuQuilt's Facebook page and join... they give away a cutter every once in awhile when they reach another 1,000 fans, so you'd have a chance to win there, too!!! Of course, if you win and then decide you don't WANT the cutter, you could simply give it to me.......LOL.....hehehehe.....I'm pretty funny, aren't I???And now for the "Bits".......tiny BITS of 4 projects I've done recently (the pink one isn't quite finished). I am sorry I can't show you anymore of the projects than these little bits, but they are part of a technique my friend, Kathy, and I have developed that we might try to take somewhere......so we can't show them just yet. I will show them to you someday, though. For now, I just wanted you to know that I have been working very hard lately....just not on things that can be shown yet. Wish us luck...okay? (Sorry to be mysterious....you know I don't usually do that....but it's necessary right now!)SOMEHOW...while I wasn't paying attention, I went over 200 followers, so I will be getting to one of the LQS soon and buying a prize to give away to one of my followers...so keep watching and commenting here. You know I give my prizes just to my followers, in particular those who comment regularly!!!