Slug Bug!

Completed VW Quilt, a photo by Janice Quilts on Flickr.

Be still my heart.

A quilted cover for a VW Beetle = perfection

Lucky Week

It must be my lucky week...

On Monday I got a phone call from the owner of my favorite local quilt shop, Hannah Johnson Fabrics.  She was calling to let me know I had won first prize in a drawing the held over the weekend.  I'm now the proud winner of a $50 gift certificate... it's burning a hole in my pocket already!

Then yesterday a messaged popped up in my inbox from Rachel at Stitched in Color.  She had hosted the Festival of Scrappiness for anyone who had completed a quilt top in 2012 that used at least 60% of scraps. (By the way, be sure to check out that link and see all the amazingness that scraps can produce!  Wow!) Since I had made two quilt tops in 2012 using up a bunch of scraps, I thought I'd add mine to the mix.  She had a drawing for all those that had entered and she sent me an email that I had won an Amy Butler 12 pack of Lark fat quarters from Tammy at Marmalade Fabrics! Thank you so much!

I'm on a roll!

Now the joke is I should go buy a Mega Million Lottery ticket since it's up to 500-some million dollars.  I never ever play the lottery, but I may have to buy one today - as someone said, third time's the charm!

Haven't had much time behind the sewing machine this week... was busy at work and at home, plus really, really tired in the evenings.  Like falling asleep on the couch at 7:30pm tired.

On Sunday I had some crafty time though  and made these Tie-Dyed Mickey Mouse shirts.  I've made them before and family friend was heading off to WDW.  Wanted to do something special for them so I got out the dye and made these up.




(The little one is for my niece for when we take her on her first WDW experience on a big family trip next January.  The one on the far right is for a friend who thought her son would get a kick out of them.)

All it takes is some waxed dental floss, a needle, a t-shirt, some rubber bands and some tie dye (I got mine online Dharma Trading Company - it's amazing dye!  The color is so bright and intense.  Plus it lasts.  Way better than the stuff you can get at Michael's and not even in the same league as RIT dye.)

If you're wondering how to do it, here are some directions.  It's messy, but a fun result!  I love me some Mickey Mouse!

About half the blocks done

About half the blocks done, a photo by Life on the Selvage Edge on Flickr.

Flea Market Hopscotch

Time to join up on another Quilt Along... Haven't quite finished the Granny Square, but I'm plugging away on the hand stitching.

New fabric showed up in the mail today.  Flea Market Fancy and some Amy Butler. (The grey with white dots is from my stash)

There's some missing, I now realize.  And that's because there it was, sitting there, staring in my face, just begging to be cut up and some made its way to the cutting mat.  Because I had the pattern I wanted to use it in... Hopscotch by Camille Roskelley.  And it's another quilt along pattern so I jumped on the bandwagon over on  the Swooning on a Hop Along.  Love the name!  What I love even more?  All the quilts popping up in this Flickr group.  Nothing like beautiful inspiration to get you quilting!

I worked on some blocks tonight - I'm loving on they're coming together.  Never have sewn triangle blocks before, and all the tips on the Flickr group gave me confidence to tackle it.

- Be careful with all the bias edges

- Cut accurately.  Yeah, I'm not always the best at this and have to do lots of, um, convincing.

- Use starch (LOVE, LOVE, LOVE my Best Press)

- Leave the dog ears and use them to match up seams


So far so good!  My points are matching up!

Another snowy day? Alrighty then... I think that's Mother Nature's wayof saying keep quilting!!

Another snowy day? Alrighty then... I think that's Mother Nature's way of saying keep quilting!!, a photo by Life on the Selvage Edge on Flickr.

Last weekend it was decided another "Crafty Day" was needed at church. After looking at the church calendar, it was realized that this weekend was the only open dates for quite some time. And a nice bunch of people had the weekend open. Let the crafting commence!

It couldn't have come at a better time - I had been suffering sewing machine withdrawals... it had been nearly a month since I had sat down behind my machine. The horrors! A work conference in New Orleans happened at the beginning of the month... it was a great time! I am very fortunate to have colleagues that are awesome friends. We all work at different churches in the area and while we get together once a month to meet and see each other at other events, this conference is our time each year to re-connect, learn, and we always have lots of fun!

And with it being in New Orleans, we ate awesome food -Muffaletta from Johnny's, a lunch at Emeril's NOLA (I wanted to lick my plate it was so good!), pralines, beignets (I always forget and wear black!), and I tried my first grits! This northern girl liked them!

Since we were there right before Mardi Gras, we were able to catch a couple parades that went right by our hotel. Came home with a nice haul of beads! It was a fun experience!  

Oh, yeah we saw Morgan Freeman.  Yup.  For reals.  He was filming a movie that's coming out next year called "Now You See Me."  We stumbled upon the filming one evening while we were out exploring the French Quarter.  There he was, filming a scene right in front of us.  Uh, cool!  We stood around quite awhile watching them film. They filmed the same scene over and over the whole time we watched.  There's Morgan Freeman walking through a crowd.  He stops to talk to the crowd/press and enters the theater.  Repeat.  Repeat.  Repeat.  Repeat....   It was an eye-opener to see how it was done.  While it was a crowd scene that was jockeying for Freeman's attention, there was absolutely no noise.  It was so weird.  They must dub the crowd noise in post-production.  I never knew.  Anyhow, it sounds like it should be a fun movie though.  I can't wait to watch it!

On the way home, during a long layover, I felt "it": the dreaded tickle in the back of my throat. Within 24 hours, a cold invaded my body that left me sneezing, coughing, runny nose, and out of commission on the couch for a week.

Anyway, all the travel and then sickness meant for a long absence from my machine.

But all that was solved this past week... Mondays are my day off and that afternoon we got reaquainted while I started working on the granny square quilt. I saw this pop up in my Google Reader from Blue Elephant Stitches in January and knew I would be making this!  Then Old Red Barn was going to host a quilt along... combine that with all the leftover 2.5" squares I had from the Bust Yo Scraps quilt along, and I was sold!

Then on Wednesday our grassy yard (in Northern Minnesota.  In February. ) finally got some snow.  And not just a dusting.  A full on blizzard.  The wind was blowing, the snow was falling, and there was no school for two days.  I was told to stay home from work on Wednesday so I sewed a bunch that day!  Got a bunch of squares done.  Then Friday and Saturday I was at Crafty Day and got the Granny Square quilt all pieced and sandwiched together while another 10 inches of snow fell outside. Also got the binding ready to go.  I've decided to handstitch it with an orange perle cotton 8.  It's going to take me a bit, but I think it's just what it needs.

What do you do during a blizzard?

What do you do during a blizzard?, a photo by Life on the Selvage Edge on Flickr.

Quilt! Got lots of granny squares done during the last two snow days.

Completed Quilt!

Completed Quilt, a photo by Life on the Selvage Edge on Flickr.

It's done!  And I'm loving it... the bright colors, using up scraps, the fun binding, how the quilting turned out, the flannel on the back, the fact that it stretches from one end of the couch to the other... This quilt makes me happy!  It's gotten lots of use in its first days.  Our shih tzu loves it, it's made a long car trip with our son curled up under it, and my husband and I have snuggled under it while watching tv in the evenings.


Last weekend I put together a Crafting Day at church.  Women showed up with different projects in hand... there was quilting, beading, and scrapbooking going on.  It was a fun weekend... we started at 9am on Friday and people came when they were able to.  Three of us stuck around until 11pm!  Then I went back over to church at 9am to open up and a group of us headed out at 8:30pm that evening!  Two great days of sewing, hanging out with an awesome group of women, eating soup/chili/snacks, and leaving with an almost complete project.  I got the borders added, it all sandwiched together, quilted, and binding machine stitched on.  Finished up the handstitching of the binding at home.


Here are some photos of projects that everyone was working on...

 This was Diane's first quilt!  YAY!

 Deb worked on beading and made some cool jewelry

 Kathy worked on getting some scrapbooks caught up.  Plus she was experimenting with free motion quilting (she made her first quilt - a t-shirt quilt for her son - for Christmas this year.  She's caught the bug too!)

 Tracy was doing some paper piecing.

 Kelly cut out fabric for something like 7 quilts!  She's going to be busy piecing things together in the days/weeks/months to come!

 Samn working on her first quilt, too!  It was fun helping her pick out fabric.  It's so her - she loves orange big time and teal and purple are right up there too.  She's making a Disappearing Nine Patch. She got all her blocks done... can't wait to see the top all pieced.

 Nancy's quilt - all the fabrics are paisleys.  Love it!

Here are all of us with Nancy's quilt!

The weekend was nothing but two thumbs up from everyone and there's requests to do this on a regular basis.  I'm game!  


ETA:  Forgot to add this earlier... Linking up at Crazy Mom Quilts - Finish it Up Fridays