One day til March

Tommorrow is March 1st.....ugh.......I hate March! It is the worst weather month of the year. It's not cold enough for snow (usually) but not warm enough to enjoy going outside. And it's either raining or gloomy clouds.To make it worse, it's a 31 day month.......sigh.

What's your least favorite month of the year? And why?

Last night was the Blue and Gold Dinner for the Cub Scouts. That was fun.....I always enjoy watching the older boys bridge from cub scouts to boy scouts. To me they are taking their first steps towards manhood and it always tears me up to watch them leave childhood behind......

I did win a prize in the silent auction, horray!! It was a Longberger Basket with some baking goodies inside. It has a patriotic liner so I am going to use it when I go to Assateague Island over the 4th of July! I can not wait for that vacation to start!

See my basket?

I helped the tiger cubs make clay cupcakes for their centerpiece. Here's a picture of a few of them. They came out really cute. And they almost look real before you put on the decorations!

Well, that's it for tonight........I quilted the Storm at Sea today with wavy lines and added the binding. Just need to wash it and then get it to the inlaws. Have a fantastic Monday!!

kathy

Super Saturday!

Ok, it's been a while since I posted.....life got busy. Training for work, strep throat kid, back log of events that were rescheduled from all the snow......but I did manage to sneak in a little sewing. First up, I made this purse to donate to the Cub Scout Blue and Gold dinner silent auction. That event is tonight.....I love silent auctions! Maybe I will get to come home with some goodies!

The purse pattern is called the "Rachel Bag" and comes from the book "Bag Boutique". I have made this bag a few times since it is easy to do, roomy, and looks great with large scale prints. For this auction I toned down my normal screaming colors so it would be more acceptable to the masses......what to you think?

If you are thinking that you have seen this fabric before, you're right!!! I used it in my Storm at Sea quilt. Since I orginally planned to make that quilt bed sized, I have lots leftover. And I decided to give the quilt to my inlaws for their anniversary! I think they'll like it, don't you.

I did two more Farmer's Wife blocks too.....they get kind of addicting because they have such cool names. Plus I only have to make one of each block so I can't get bored. That's a problem when you have to make 20 of the same kind of block with the same exact fabric in the same exact places....it becomes boringggggg. Probably explains why I am a scrap quilt junkie.

This one is called "Buckwheat"......interesting huh.......

And this is "Butterfly in the Crossroads", now this one I can visualize better. My butterfly is supposed to be a monarch. I grow milkweek every year in my garden so the monarches will come and lay eggs. Then I get to see the catapillars become butterflies. I love that. I did notice we did not have very many monarches last year compared to in the past. Hope this year there are more of them.

Time to get moving.......have a great day and I will let you know if I win anything at the silent auction.

kathy

More Farmer's Wife Blocks

This week has been getting back to some kind of normal rountine after all the snow days last week. The kids are back to school though it is with a 2 hour delay to start time all week....and today it warmed up to over 40 degrees!! First time in weeks!

I've been busy making more of the blocks from the Farmer's Wife Sampler......here they are!

First up is "Box".......

Then there is "Bowtie"......

Followed by my favorite of this group, "Broken Dishes".......lots of little triangles but I really liked how it came out.

Then there's "Broken Sugar Bowl", don't you just love that name!

Have a fun rest of the week!

kathy

A winner!

And the winner of my Valentine's Day giveaway is.......

Lisa from 9 Patch Nurse!!!!!

Congratulations!!!!

Today I need to get a new iron because this guilty party.....

decided to knock mine over and it fell onto the concrete floor then BAM! It broke the water tank......I loved that iron. It has so much steam.....so much heat......sigh.....now for Valentine's Day I will have to find a new iron to love.

Have a fantastic Valentine's everyone!! And be sure to eat some chocolate and buy some flowers, you deserve it!

kathy

Orange Peel Revisted

One of my goals this year was to make one orang peel block a week as part of a quilt along. Now these blocks are hand appliqued and I am slow at hand applique. But I decided to give it a try and play along. Here's my first block.....

I was pretty pleased with how the block turned out. However it took me a long time to do it and I did not really enjoy the whole process involved with making the petals. One thing I often hear about is how it's important to enjoy the whole process of creating and not dwell on the finished product.

So decided this is going to be my last Orange Peel block since the process was not enjoyable to me. But I still wanted to do something "Orange". So I decided to make an Orange Zinger! Doesn't that like a cocktail?

The Orange Zinger is make from a base fabric and selvages. I had tons of fun picking out which selvages to use and stitching them down. Plus it was a little stroll down memory lane to see some selvages from past quilts.

So I'm swapping out my Orange Peel  for the Orange Zinger! Here's the link to make your own Zinger quilt at the Selvage blog....

I also won this week a selvage needle case from a give away at Scraps n Strings. She has a really cool spiderweb quilt so check it out.

Anyone else done a selvage quilt?

kathy

Snowy Birthday!

Guess what today is???? It's my birthday AND it stopped snowing!!

To celebrate my special day, I made black bottom cupcakes.....I am going to put one on here later.

Now it we have ALOT of snow here.....this is the end of the street.

I wanted to go out for dinner tonight to celebrate but that's not happening....instead I am going to have my very own Beach Party!! The first thing to do was make my cup holder....there is lemonade inside.

Now time to stretch out in the hammock and enjoy the rays....ahhhhh.......

Later on tonight, I am going to fire up the grill, throw on some burger patties and crank up the heat! You gotta let your hair down and live is my motto!

Have a great Thursday and some quilty photos tommorrow.....

kathy

A Snow Day Give Away

Well, its snowing again......ALOT! See??

That white hill? It's my neighbor's car......I'm thinking.....maybe March til it all goes away. In the meantime, I thought I would have a give away!!

I'm doing a Secret Valentine's Day Swap with my group, the Wild Threads. I have my secret person's name, bought them some candy, a fat quarter, a cool book, and some socks. You also had to include a mini quilt in the swap package. I decided to experiment and found a pattern from ArtFabrik that I liked. I got to play around with my wave rotary cutter.

I still need to add the quilting.....and that is going to be lots of fun! Going to add texture to the flowers with thread and some kind of swirly design in the background.

I ended up making two quilts.....one for my secret swap partner and one for the giveaway!

 If you want a chance to win, leave a comment on this post by 9am EST Sunday morning (Valentine's Day). I'll draw a name and post sometime that day who the winner is.

Good luck and have a fantastic day!

kathy