Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day Wins

Man!  I will definitely need to pay it forward in December as I scored some great prizes in Sew, Mama, Sew! 's Giveaway Day...

I won a cute cupcake pincushion here:
from Caitlin at the blog i don't do dishes

And a gorgeous group of rainbow colored fq's with some Aurifil thread here:
from Terri at the blog Sew Fantastic 

Then, I won a Jelly Roll from a special May birthday giveaway from Sharon at
the blog Vroomans Quilts
 
And a book and a charm square pack from Pauline at Quilt n Queen

How lucky can a girl get?  Very, in my case :)

Be sure to visit these ladies blogs, they all have great content and I have really enjoyed their most recent posts.  Caitlin has great recent quilt market posts, Terri  has a great Granny Square quilt top, and Sharon has a neutral Twister quilt posted that makes me want to get my templates back out!  Pauline has been working on her Birdie Stitches top which reminds me, I need to quilt mine!

On another note, I have finished my pile of 130 HST's for the center of my quilt for the Sliced Apples QAL, I am using the Objects of Desire line by Sandy Gervais for Moda.  There's still time for you to join us...go to Mama Spark's blog here.  I am piecing the center now and trying to keep my cat from pulling the pins out of the blocks on my design board before I get to them...I believe she thinks I need to speed up my piecing.

June Bee Block...Christmastime is Here...

I am way early for my Sew.Bee.Create bee block for June because the fabric arrived last week and she posted a tutorial a few days ago...and, I got right on it!  :)  Let me explain...

So Melissa asked for a block from Sweetwater's Countdown to Christmas line in a block design that she put together for the Accuquilt Barn Quilt competition this year.  She calls it the Spinning or Spiraling Block.

I will say, it has many pieces...and points...hopefully I did it up to her expectations.  If you would like to make some of these beauties for yourself you can find her post with the tutorial here.

I love the text prints in this but was driven a bit batty trying to keep them all right-side-up...I failed at that!  Statistically, they are mostly right-side-up...

Anyone in for a Granny Swap?

   Not Your Granny's Bee  hosted by Anna at Around the Quilt Block

I just joined another swap...this one is for 24 Granny Square blocks...take a look here on Flickr if you'd like to join us, group 1 is about full but they've already started a group 2...

I am going to do Blue and Orange colors paired with a Kona Snow background.

Here are my choices of fabrics

The orange is Terrain by Kate Spain, Moda
The solid blue is a Bella Solid by Moda
The cross-hatch print is Spin- Whistler Studios,Windham
And the boxes print is Happy-Me &My Sister, Moda (this one is slightly washed out in the pic and is a bit richer blue)

Silhouette Challenge and Bee Blocks

I participated in a challenge from Edyta Sitar of Laundry Basket Quilts to use a group of her new Silhouette shapes (laser cut shapes of batik fabrics already backed with fusible web) to create something...

This is the before...

And this is the after...

She has a blog post with a slideshow of the many wonderful entries here.  I believe these are making their debut at quilt stores later this month.

I also have my Sew.Bee.Create Bee blocks finished for May, Toni asked for "wonky" blocks and sent us each 4 solids to play with.  This is what I came up with...



 Sort of a wonky cross...my engineer background struggles with this wonky stuff and I end up doing wonky in an "ordered" way, lol...

 This one above is a wonky uneven 3/4 log cabin with a "reflection"...I would not have paired these particular colors together myself but I like the finished effect.  This Bee has been a good experience trying new things :)

Wool BOM Progress and some Peony blooms

With all the great weather I have been doing more gardening than quilting so I haven't much in the way of finished projects to show...

This is block 2 of the Merry Merry Snowmen BOM, I am absolutely having a tough time not putting on all the tiny button embellishments (like eyeballs) but I know I should wait until it's quilted!

 And this is April's Adventures of Harrington & Hannah BOM

And here are some shots of my garden blooms...

Peonies signify spring in Indiana for me :) but I also love a good poppy!

Happy Mail - Happy Drawing from Ed Emberley

Ok, I received the most wonderful package in the mail today that I must share...

First though, are you all familiar with this book?  Mine is an older copy but the link goes to the new edition sold on Amazon.

 This book was a favorite of my sister and I growing up, the characters were so fun to draw and the author made it easy for young fingers to create masterpieces!  My son has gone through most of these books now too and has been a devoted Emberley fan.

So imagine my delight when I saw that Cloud 9 Fabrics came out with Happy Drawing...I refrained myself from ordering the whole line but pre-ordered several of my favorite prints from Hawthorne Threads...

The selvedge is so fun!  It shows the shapes used to "build" the animals, just like you'd find in the book.

I am crushing on this fabric!  Not sure what I'm going to make yet but I am just enjoying looking at it :).

Craftsy BOM May

The Craftsy Free Block of the Month May blocks were very easy, improvisational piecing and thankfully used up a good portion of the scraps I had been accumulating from doing this BOM...

the first is called Modern Log Cabin

 and this second is Wonky 5-sided Log Cabin

You can find these patterns along with the ones from earlier this year here.

May Sun Block

This is my version of the May block for the Hello Sun BOM QAL by April at Making Ends Meet.  I didn't let any moss grow under this pattern, lol...just came out yesterday.  If you haven't started this one, it goes fast and we are only 5 in so you could easily catch up if you wanted to join us. 

She has a Flickr group here where we all share our versions, there has been a lot of creativity even though most are following the pattern pretty closely. 

Now I need to get going on all those other projects I have unfinished!