Christmas Scrap Exchange

This year I invited my quilty friends to participate in a scrap exchange instead of exchanging gifts with everyone. We each pulled a gallon size bag of scraps together and then I exchanged them among everyone in October and in the middle of December we had a Christmas party at Murphy's to exchange the gifts we had made each other out of the scraps. Mathew got to come because he was only 10 days old and Jenn held him as did others as well.

Emilee received a batik sewing machine apron made by Heather.

Heather received a table topper made by Gaila.

Jenn received a notebook cover and a few other little items made by Nicole B. Gaila received the lime green quilt and table topper I made for her.

In the picture below are Nicole H., Nicole B., Jenn, & Gaila.

Jenn made Nicole B. a scrap sack and some other little bags.

Nicole H. received this wall hanging from Heather.

Heather's husband Tim is holding up the other table runner received by Heather and made by Nicole H.

I received the cutest little bag that I put my most used sewing supplies in from Emilee. It's never far from my sewing table.

Emilee also made the cutest apron for Mikaela and put the churn dash block on it. It was so ironic that she googled mini churn dash block pattern and came across the one my friend Jen B. designed. It's a SMALL world!

She also made me this beautiful doll quilt out of granny squares that is hand quilted. It's absolutely beautiful and found a place right near my sewing table. I love it!

This was one of the best exchanges I have ever participated in! Not only did we get our own scraps used up, but in a way we maybe wouldn't have done ourselves. I love the granny square block, but have never made one myself. We really had a great time visiting and enjoyed our party. We're even thinking about doing it again this summer. It was nice to have all those scraps gone, but yet they were made into something beautiful and we all got a bit of a challenge to step outside our box and maybe work with something we normally would not have used.

Mathew is 2 months old

Mathew turned 2 months old on February 5ht. He's growing up to be such a cute little boy. He's definately got his own personality, but he's a lot like his dad and pretty laid back.

He likes to spend time with his big sister too. She loves to watch him and "play" with him. She's very protective!

Productive weekend

This was a very productive weekend! Saturday Paul and I left the kids with grandma and went ice fishing. Well I should say he went fishing and I kept him company. I spent the day in the warm ice house basting hexie's for our challenge. I finished about 50. When we got home I worked on the binding on Briar Rose and got about one side finished. Sat. night we went to a big mount competition and live auction. While we waited I basted another 30 hexies. I felt very productive for not being home all day!
Sunday we had a snow day, except it forgot to snow and it was just cold and blowing. While the kids slept I quilted this pink flannel animal crackers quilt. It's a big baby size. I also got it trimmed up and the binding cut out.

I also loaded this BQ2 quilt on the frame and quilted it. I ended up with enough backing to quilt the extra block and a small scrap of fabric to make a pillowcase.

The pillow case will be put together and binding added.

Here's a close up of the quilting. I just did a small meandering on it.

Sunday night I started packing for quilt retreat and got a few projects together. I also trimmed up and added binding to the Farmyard Friends quilt and trimmed and put binding on the Let it Snow batik quilt. I got the pieces cut for the pillowcase and hope to get the binding done tomorrow night. I feel like I really got a lot accomplished. Now I hope to get the binding hand sewn down on both of these this week. It's going to be a very busy week!

Friday recap

This week has been very productive! I finished the hand sewing on 4 poinsetta table toppers. I finished the hand sewn binding on a wolf family wall hanging I made several years ago and I started the binding on a snowman wall hanging.
Monday night I worked on the layout for the batik Let it Snow quilt. I sewed it together on Tues. night. It's long and skinny, but will look great on the back of the couch.


Tuesday night I also quilted the barnyard friends quilt for Mathew. It turned out really cute and Mikaela loved helping me. She told me what all the barn animals say.


I also layed out the tumbler quilt I hope to get sewn up this weekend and pulled the backing and batting for the batik quilt. I added the binding to the Briar Rose quilt. I also trimmed and cut binding for barnyard friends.
I've been working really hard to update my quilting journals and get all of the pictures in them. So far I have the list of all I've made in the last year and a half done and most of the pictures printed, so I am off to a good start. I've also made a list of the quilts for the trunk show next weekend and will work on getting them all together this weekend. It's a good thing we don't have much on the agenda for the weekend.
We have my work party tonight and dad is baby sitting the kids, so he'll get to spend some time with them, so Paul and I can enjoy a good meal and entertainment.
Have a great weekend.

Super Bowl Quilting

Yesterday was awesome! I cooked, I cleaned, I shopped, and I quilted! It always feels so good to get so much accomplished. I had prepared 6 quilts for quilting and I got 4 of those done, plus one for Emilee, so I feel great. I love evenings where my family entertains themselves and I can hole up and quilt.
I started by working out the tension issues on this little Beach Balls doll quilt. It's from scraps and will work for something.

Then I quilted Emilee's quilt since I had the thread already on there. It turned out beautiful and I love how the white thread just works with it.

Then I quilted Briar Rose. This is one of my favorite quilts so far, both in piecing and quilting, although I noticed more issues when I was quilting than I was aware of. I still love how it turned out and I love the jewel toned batik scraps I used.

Next it was on to a baby quilt for my cousin's baby due in the next few weeks. I don't think I'll be gifting it any time soon, but wanted to have it done. It's a Frolic charm pack and yardage.

Then I quilted the Frolic panel quilt. It's another baby quilt I'll have on hand for gifting. I also loaded the farmyard quilt and hopefully I can quilt it tonight. I didn't get to the flannel pink quilt, but that's okay because I still feel very accomplished. Now to get bindings on all of these!

It's also time to start preparing for retreat. Only 2 weeks until the Shriner's retreat and I'm doing the trunk show. I'm excited and nervous at the same time. Does anyone have any advice? How many quilts? How much info? What do you like to hear? Do I do them in chronological order or easiest to most difficult? Do you like to see the same pattern in different fabrics? Inquiring minds want to know!
I'm also planning a retreat for the first weekend in May and if anyone would like to join me, let me know. It's sure to be tons of fun since I already have 3 friends going with me.

January in Review

January was a very productive month! I got a lot completed and feel great about where I'm going with my UFO's.
I participated in this group quilt with a gift box for Gaila's birthday quilt.

I worked on using up the Let it Snow Batik. I made the Twister quilt top for me. and I quilted it on my DSM.

I cut the centers wrong on the first one, so they became borders for a second one. This will be a silent auction item for a quilt retreat I am attending. Hard to believe but these only take 4 fqs.

I am working on a BQ2 quilt with some more Let it Snow. I still have a lot left to use or give away! All the blocks for this one are done.

I am working hard on my hexie's. This is how they travel. I get about 10-15 done a day.

Here are the cream ones I have done so far.

This is the pile of quilt tops I have to quilt. There are six and they are all large baby or throw size. I made two of the Frolic tops this month. The rest were tops that were done and last night I made backings, cut battings, and pulled thread so when i get the frame out (hopefully this weekend), I can just quilt!

I made two tablerunners start to finish with the 60* ruler. Both are burped and quilted on my JN6600.

I made Mikaela's Poky Little Puppy book.

I finished up 2 diaper clutches, one with baby sign language for a gift, and the other with camo for us.

I also finished the binding on Mocha Meriengue, and made two fabric bowls for a total of 10 UFO's finished this month! I made a quilt top with Noah's Ark for the shop and I started a Tumbler quilt which is new. Overall I'm really pleased with all I accomplished in 78 hours.

UFO's 2013

This is the year of the UFO! At work we are doing a UFO incentive program and I took the time to develop a list of all my UFO's. There were over 50 which is a small number compared to some, but I didn't list any that are packed away in the crawl space, so I consider myself to have a lot! It's time to get them under control since I am having a hard time buying new fabric or patterns. So I made the list and then decided to see what my priorities are. I need deadlines and without them I am not so good at getting things done.
Last week I made up this deer diaper clutch for use in our Camo colored diaper bag. I love how it turned out and am so excited to have it finished. I made my brother and his fiancé one for their baby back in Dec. but in my rush to get theirs done before the shower I didn't make ours. I have had these ready since Sept. 2012.


I cut out this sign language diaper clutch back in July or Aug. of 2012 and although they only take a couple hours to make, I just never made it. I finished it up this past week as well. Check 2 off my list!



This Poky Little Puppy book I embroidered back in 2011, yet I never got it made. I had everything and just never took the hour or so to make it. It is done! Number 3!

This is the inside cover of the book.

In Nov. I made up a baby quilt top using this border fabric and finally got to use up the rest of it making 2 table runners. They are identical fabrics, but they are the opposite cuts, so they look totally different. I didn't have any motivation to finish, but did decide to gift one after I finished them. I love how they turned out and I just did the burp method with a bit of quilting. Two more off the list!
This is the one I am giving away as a baby gift. It will kind of go with the baby room theme so she can use it however she likes.

Saturday night I got together with a group of my quilting friends. We celebrated with a sewing surprise party for Gaila's 40th birthday. She just knew she was sewing at this friends house, so was completely surprised and it was so much fun! I haven't laughed that much for a very long time. I also got a lot of sewing accomplished which was great.

We all made blocks for this "Gift" quilt for Gaila's sewing room. Her room is hot pinks and lime greens. She loved it and was completely surprised that we made her a quilt. Jenn put the entire quilt together and had us over to her new home for the party.

Gaila is pictured with the label Tammy embroidered and sewed on the quilt. We all signed it.


I love spending time with my quilting friends. They completely revitalize me and I get back in the groove of sewing. I've been doing a bit more now that I have a little area set up to sew in again. 5 UFO's completed, now on to finish a few more!