One More Time

I said I would, so here we go.

It is officially fall, and it is time to swap.

Yep once again I am hosting a rainbow swap.

Here are the basics

Go to the store and buy 10 different fabrics of one color.

(1/4 of a yard or a fat quarter)

Go home and cut each fabric into twenty, four inch squares.

If you love me you will then sort those fabrics

into twenty piles of each one of the ten fabrics.

(because it is not fun for me to sort 2000 pieces of fabric)

(allthough I do love you and I guess if you don't have time I could do it)
Then I will send you back 200 different fabrics.

This swap is a fall swap, so we are looking for warm fall colors.

These are your choices.

There are two spots per color.

Burgundy

Orange

Gold

Sage Green

Forrest (dark) Green

Navy

Plum

Cream

Tan

Brown

I am not going to lie to you, I had an early bird special for those who swapped before.

So for swap one, we still have spots open and those spots are...

Burgundy, sage green, cream, tan. 

All spots are available for the second swap, and if we are lucky we might just get to a third swap.

so with out further ado...

Let's get swapping.

And the Winner Is...

 

I know I am late, but it was a crazy weekend.

Friday we met Grandma Kath and Papa Bill for raspberry picking.

They were driving up from Arizona and we met them along their way to our house.

If you are local and love raspberries you must drive on down to Payson and get some.

We walked away with 21 pounds of the little red beauties.

Then on Saturday after spending the day at Swiss days we stopped and bought two cases of corn

What do you do with two cases of corn you might ask.

You freeze it.

All of this fun was my way of consoling myself over my loss.

Yes I am a looser, I guess I don't have as many friends as others do.

Since the contest comes down to the popular vote I lost.

I think the fact that I lost third place to a wall hanging is what is really getting to me,

and rubbing me wrong.

I mean really a wall hanging. I know, I just have got to let it go.

So this morning after all the craziness had subsided, I wrote down everyone's name that voted for me, and put them in the cup.

Went in and distracted Baby Sister from Tangled, and had her pull out a name.

And the winner is

Becky!

Who not only voted for me once, but twice, and even tried to get her Facebook friends to vote for me.

I now need to find out what you would like to have around your neck as you sew.

Speaking of sewing I will be back tomorrow with swapping news so stayed tuned.

The Giveaway (a week late)

I said in my last post that I would have a giveaway and then totally dropped the ball on that one.

Things have been crazy here. School started and my parents had to come home from their mission due to health issues (don't worry they are on the mend). Good Looking and I are fixing up their new apartment. Blah blah blah and so forth. Since Baby Sister started preschool today I finally have a minute. Speaking of Baby Sister she showed no fear going to school, I think she was irritated that I was there.

She has got to be the cutest one there though.

So here is my giveaway, and the story behind it.

I have what I call my tool belt.

Good looking no matter what small job he his doing he will strap on his tool belt. I am the same way when ever I am sewing even if it is a two second job I am lost with out my "tool belt". It is essentially a lanyard that holds my nippers. If Good Looking is wanting me to do something while I am sewing I say

"Sorry, I have my tool belt on, I am busy".

I first started using one when I was working in the sweat shops.

I found I was faster if I didn't have to look for my nippers. Since then I have found that once I set them down they are lost. Even if I don't have them on, and thinking that I can sew two seconds with out it I find myself grabbing my chest trying to find it. Something that my friend DJ thinks is hilarious. 

I figured if you were going to be nice enough to vote for my quilt you might like one for yourself.

I will make it in colors that you want, and if you want something special, I will do that for you.

Here are the rules.... Vote for my quilt (Jeweled Wedding Ring)

Let me know that you voted for my quilt. One entry 

You can vote from your smart phone.One entry

Get your facebook friends to vote for my quilt. Two entries

(there is a share button on the link by my quilt)

If you voted before let me know that you did, I wouldn't want you to miss out.

You have until September 1st that is when voting ends for my quilt.

September 2nd I will announce the winner of my giveaway, and if I won my contest. 

Good Luck I hope you win.

I Made It

This quilt contest is over.

My quilt is one of the finalists for the Riley Blake design contest.

I am so excited that I made the cut.

Now the real work begins.

I need your vote!

Here is the link

http://www.rileyblakedesigns.com/cutting-corners/contest/

Just for fun I thought that you might want to hear the stats on this little beauty.

It measures roughly 90" square

It has 525 circles

64 petals

Each circle has about 25 basting stitches and

30 applique stitches

Each petal has about 63 stitches

So in total, without counting the binding that is a grand total of...

32,907 stitches.

No wonder my fingers hurt.

We went to a local quilt show, and since Riley Blake is a local company they had the bike on display.

Isn't it just about the cutest thing, Baby Sister isn't so bad either.

I would really like to win,

and pedal this beauty around town,

so could you please vote for me.

I mean if you go over and you think that mine is not so great, I suppose you could vote for someone else.

 If you think that mine is the best, not only will you be my new best friend, you can vote for me too.

In case you forgot you can just click on over here and vote.



OK I think that might be enough begging for now.

I might be back later with a give away/ bribe.

I can't find my camera and it is no fun describing how great something is without a picture.

I will try to be back tomorrow with all the details.

In the meantime you can go vote for me.

OK, OK, I will stop now.

Let the Games Begin

It is DONE!!!

I got it back from my quilter's on Tuesday,

Thank the heaven's above for this lovely world of blogging, because it totally saved my life this week.

If you are ever wondering, or needing to know how to bind a quilt, or make it look like you have bound a quilt in a day here is the tutorial for you.

There is this amazing stuff called fusible thread, totally saved my life, and good news Gutermann makes it and you can get it at Joann's. When I first saw this tutorial I thought it might be hard to find, but there it was, and there I was with my 50% off coupon to get it.

It is my new best friend, we are going to get along great.

I am glad that it is done, and after entering the contest yesterday I am almost done hand sewing down the binding. I guess it will give me something to do tomorrow while Gowyn is getting ear surgery for the third time. She is getting the tubes back in. I really hope this is the last time because, seriously she is 10. I really don't want to be watching her kids when she is 30 getting her fifth set in.



Now I just have to wait and see if I made the cut.

If I did I might have to have a give away to bribe ask you for your votes.

Until then have a great day enjoying the last days of summer.

It's Gone

My quilt is gone.

It is off to the quilters.

I should have it back latter this week, so I can get the binding done.

I think I just might make the deadline after all.

Here are the flimsy pics.

I still have to add red dots to the white centers

I wanted to get it to the quilter in time, so I traced where they are suppose to go.

I did get some done

Look how cute they are going to be.

I can hardly wait to get it back and get it done.

Good Looking is really looking forward to this project being done.

He wants his house back in order.

Quilt Fail

As I said in my last post, I was going to take the sewing machine to the lake and finish my quilt.

That was the plan, that while the generator was running I would be quilting.

The first and second day of our trip was spent setting up and getting settled.

It was not until the third day that I had time to set everything up and get started on the sewing.

I had been finishing up the appliqueing though, I don't want you to think that I was being lazy or something.

Anyway, I was setting up everything...

card table - check

sewing machine - check

power cord - check

 pedal - check

extra needles - check

thread - check

all the pieces that were precut at home - check

iron - check

starch - check

I sit down to sew and think to myself... where is my presser foot

Yes it is true, I brought down to the lake, five hours away from my house, and three hours away from the closest fabric store, everything that I would need to get this thing done. Everything that is except the blankety blank blanken presser foot.

I had great dreams of getting it done and taking amazing pictures of the quilt hanging over the rail of our house boat, pictures laying against the red rocks, maybe even one looking like the sail of a boat. 

I was going to deliver it to my quilter early, and she would have been blown away with my speed and skill. She would say things like, I can't believe you did it, you have it all done. I will have this to you in a couple of days, and then I would have sat back and relaxed, sat around today watching HGTV and drinking a Pepsi in peace. But no I was frantically trying to get it all done today.

I was really thinking it would just go together beautifully, and I would be done. Instead I have spent the day unpicking. Curse those little points that have to match together perfectly. It is now 10:30 at night and I have only one row done and still have to sew together the rest of my "melon" units and make all the circles. I don't want to talk about how my petal centers, are kind of similar and are not going to look random like they should. I will try not to complain about my sore back and my messy house.

I just really wanted to come home with pictures of it done to show you all :(

Instead I will show you some pictures of my trip that did not include sewing a quilt.

It rained three of the days we were there, and I got this shot of the rainbow after storm number two.

This is what was at my back while taking the rainbow picture.

Lala had way to much fun jumping off the boat, baby sister was to scared to try until...

The second to the last day.

This is good looking saying "you did a good job"

and this is him laughing with his friend when he didn't know I was looking. He is very good at fake smiling, so I love it when I can catch him off guard and get one like this of him laughing.

Yesterday we celebrated seventeen years together, I love that man more and more everyday. I am hoping for at least 117 more years with him.