Saturday, October 31, 2009

October Schnibbles: Roo Who?



Here's my October Schnibbles Cindy Lou Who, I call it Roo Who?. I think I need to explain. My cat's name, Cinabella, is a blend of her parents' names, Bell Hop and Cinderella. I think I've mentioned before she's a Tonkinese. Well, right after we got her somehow we started calling her a Tonker-Roo and that evolved to Roo which became her nickname and, believe it or not she responds to her name and nickname. Vets are always amazed by this fact. I think it kind of stuck cause my daughter at the time was 4 years old and goofy was in! Anyway, when people visit our house and they hear her nickname invariably they say, Roo who?



I think this guy really exemplifies what cats think of Christmas morning and all that crinkly wrapping paper.



Be sure to check out the Schnibbles Parade tomorrow on Sherri's and Sinta's blogs.





Leave a comment and I'll enter your name in the drawing for this kit to make a Christmas pillowcase, complete with instructions. There wasn't enough left of the border fabric for a pillowcase but I can throw in a fat quarter of it. And...



a box of the cutest tissues you have ever seen! Look at those cats! Would this not make the sweetest fabric? I stumbled across it at Bed, Bath, and Beyond and just had to have it. The clerk looked at me strangely when I told her at checkout I was buying the tissues solely for the boxes.







And there were owls too! Although I'm more partial to the cats.




Enjoy your Halloween,
Thanks for stopping by.
Oh, and entries close midnight Nov. 2.

Friday, October 30, 2009

Anticipation



I'm doing the Happy Dance!!! And it's all because of the picture below from Sherri's blog. I love Joanna Figueroa's fabric and patterns. The picture of Fig Tree & Company's booth, well, even though I promised myself to cut back on expenses, I simply could not resist and ordered some patterns. I just got confirmation, they are on their way! Oh the anticipation! I only ordered three, sanity popped in after the third click. I am anxious to make the bag. I haven't made many but it seems every time I take a trip lately I have been wishing I had a carryon bag like this one.










How 'bout you? Do you have a favorite designer with whom you're smitten?
Talk to you later, have an enjoyable Friday.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Nine Patch Wonder


I finished the Nine Patch Wonder I started last week after first cleaning our garage. No, it wasn't this bad but close. No basements and small closets in Florida houses can lead to this! And the creatures I had to deal with! Skinks, mice, cockroaches, tiny tree frogs, yuck! I gotta admit the tree frogs were cute, would fit on a quarter, I just had to round them up to make sure they'd be okay. After 3 Goodwill trips it was onto my Nine Patch Wonder.
I have mixed feelings about how it turned out. I think it's too small scale-y. Look, the blue I used for the hourglass blocks "reads" solid it's so small scale. How I missed this fact before I started cutting it out is beyond me. The LQS sample quilt used a darker, medium scaled fabric but they were sold out of it.

It's from the Flag Day Farm line. I looked in all the area quilt shops but no one had any left. I guess in retrospect I should have bought it online.

Anyway, it's done. What do you think?

This is the fourth quilt I've made out of the Jelly Roll Quilts book. I have to admit without the LQS sample I would never have made this one as the one in the book is rather, um, unappealing. How about you, have you made any of the quilts in this book? I'd love to hear about it!
Talk to you later, and remember the Year of Schnibbles Parade brought to you by Sinta and Sherri is coming soon!

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

A Few Favorite Things


Just to let you know the very talented and generous Jackie over at Canton Village Quilt Works has a giveaway going on and it's all neat stuff from Quilt Market! Head over and check it out!

Wednesday, Already?

My LQS had an After Market Moda Preview on Saturday complete with two Moda reps on hand for show-and-tell, and woo hoo there are some really nice new fabrics coming out in the next few months!

There were close to 100 quilters on hand and after the show were treated to a free lunch. The husband of the shop's owner is a chef so the food was delicious! I had no idea when I signed up that a lunch was included, talk about being pleasantly surprised.

This is Verna by a new designer, Kate Spain. Really soft and pretty.

This egg fabric part of Cherish by Deb Strain was very popular. The reps had brought quilts that had been displayed at Quilt Market featuring the new fabrics. The Cherish quilt used this egg fabric as an inner border one egg width wide giving the appearance of scallops. Hope that makes sense.

This was my favorite, Eden by Lila Tueller. It is so pretty in person.

Attitude Girls by Mary Engelbreit, love it! This is only a glimpse of what was shown. It was really neat to see and touch all the new fabric. One of the reps had met and been to many of the designers' homes so we were treated to descriptions of their studios and design process, such as the fact that Sandy Gervais paints her designs. And her studio is a vacated Carnegie Library built in around the turn of the 20th century.

There were giveaways, a few harvest-colored fat eighths, and a Moda decal for my car!

And I won some fabric from the Happy Campers line!

And we all received a free pattern. All in all, a fun day was had by all!
Talk to you later.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Winners


Sorry this is a day late, spent yesterday unpacking and running errands I should have done before leaving for the weekend. Simply wrote the commenters' names on pieces of paper and drew:
Mel
Andee
Kim

If all three would email me your addresses I'll send your gifts today! Mel you need to tell me what you'd like, and Andee you need to give me your first and second choices. And Kim gets what's left. I'm also adding a little extra surprise to each gift. Thank you all for entering. I love reading your comments!

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

It Was Love At First Sight


Went to my LQS and they had a quilt hanging up using red and blue reproduction fabrics with vintage looking shirtings made up using this pattern from the Jelly Roll Quilts book. Oh it was just so wonderful! I love the Jelly Roll book but I have to tell you, I had no interest in making the 9-patch wonder quilt from the picture they have in the book.

Here's the jelly roll and ack! my picture does not show how wonderful the Jelly Roll is! You'll have to trust me on this one.

And then I was one of the lucky winners on October first's Year of Schnibbles Parade! Yay, I won a Santorini charm pack and a Schnibbles pattern, I chose Picnic,from Quilt Taffy.

I just realized my 100th posting came and went with no recognition from me so I thought I'd have some giveaways.

First up is a little kit to make a fabric pumpkin. It looks better than the picture shows. The kit only makes one but if you can use your own fabric to make more.

Next up, 8 fat quarters by Free Spirit from a line called Celebrate, have no idea when it was out.


And last up, a doll sized quilt of leftover Japanese fabrics from a prior project. Sorry the picture is so bad. Anyway, leave a comment on this post by midnight Monday (October 19), make sure I have a way of getting in contact with you, and I'll chose 3 winners on Tuesday.



Meanwhile I am off to Washington University in St. Louis tomorrow for a long weekend.
Talk to you later.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Quilt Festival, Fall 2009


I'm late! I totally forgot that I was supposed to have this up yesterday, sorry about that. Anyway, welcome to all! Amy over at Park City Girl is sponsoring this online Quilt Festival. Participants are to post a picture of a quilt and the story that goes with it.
My quilt to share is this bow tie quilt. I was working on it the morning of September 11, 2001. I had just got out of the shower after having driven my daughter to school. We had talked on the way about the streets closed for President Bush who was in town not 2 miles from our rental house. He was visiting an elementary school. We were so glad that the closures were not directly on our route. Little did I know how scary it would become just a little while later, the fact that the President was so close to our house.

This is the block I was working on when I flipped the a.m. radio on to catch the morning news at 8:45. I always thought it odd that it was this block that I was working on when I heard the news that a plane had crashed into one of the World Trade Center Towers. I had precut all the fabric for the blocks but this was the only one that had patriotic fabric in it. I put the blocks aside that morning and ended up finishing the quilt in late 2003.



Thanks for stopping by.

Monday, October 5, 2009

A Weekend Made for Sewing


A big thank you to all visiting Year of Schnibblers even if you didn't leave a comment! And a reminder if you don't have your email set to "show my email address" in your Profile it makes it difficult for me to respond to you! And please do leave a comment, I love receiving them.
Laurie over at A Yankee Quilter is collecting 9.5 inch (unfinished) quilt blocks to make a quilt for her friend Terry who is going through some difficult times. There are some Jelly Rolls and gift certificate giveaways involved, so check it out if you can. This is the block I made.

Whenever I need a block for something like this I always go to this book. It's great if you're looking for a certain size block.

The only thing that would make it complete would be pressing directions.

Did more sewing on Saturday as I got my aqua/red 9-patches done for Jane's swap. They turned out great.

Made the 9-patches "disappear" on Sunday when I cut them apart. This was my first foray into the Disappearing 9-Patch so I couldn't wait to see what developed.

Here's my stack of 100 blocks. To recap, I made 25 9-patches, half with red in 5 of the blocks and half with aqua in 5 of the blocks and then cut them all in half lengthwise and crosswise to get the 100 blocks. It's a lot of fun and would be great for a beginner.

I love this machine!!! We had a new post office open nearby this year and they put one of these babies in the lobby, woo hoo! You can buy stamps, mail packages, and all sorts of neat things. I particularly like to use it when there's a long line for counter service or like I did yesterday, on Sundays!

Time for a new project and what better place to look, the shelves where I store my quilt kits. I have a bit of an addiction to these and like many quilters am so optimistic about making them.

Grabbed the easiest one. This kit came from a quilt featured in Quilt Sampler magazine Spring/Summer 2006 and the fabric line was called Garden Maze by Free Spirit.

The fabric is so cheery and summery, I love it!


And here's a picture of the finished quilt, Springtime in Oklahoma.
Talk to you later!