And the winner is.....

#63 is Dona, who said:

I just finished 9 pillows for Ronald McDonald House and now have 18 crayon art folios cut out for RMH and the children's hospital!

Congratulations, Dona!  Thank you to all who entered! 119 comments - wow!  It was great fun to read about all the projects in progress, to drop in on some new-to-me blogs, and to hear about all the finishes.  

There were only 12 comments that had to be disqualified due to "no reply" status and no contact info included in the comment.  Many of the comments were from "no reply" bloggers but had contact info in the coment. If you do not know if you are a "no reply" blogger, check out Karen's blog tutorial about "anonymous" and "no reply" blogging.

We are under a heat warning here in the St. Louis metro area. The relative humidity, which was a southwestern-like 13% on Thursday, unheard of levels for us, is currently at 65% so we are feeling the heat with no rain in sight.  By 8AM all my shrub and plant watering was done for the day.   DS's last T-ball game is this morning and then the afternoon is free so there may be some sewing in my future.  What are your plans for the weekend?

Have a great day!!

Giveaway! and Stash Report Week 26

Last week's stash report passed me by while I was back in Indiana.  In anticipation of the task of going through yet more of Grandma's things, uggh, I treated myself to 3 yards of fabric from Connecting Threads' sale page.  And, since there is so much fabric in my house, I decided to share it with a lucky winner.  Details on the giveaway are at the end of this post.

While in Indiana my good friend Beth came by to look at some stuff and guess what.  She brought me a bag of cotton scraps!  Beth is a draper at the Indiana Reperatory Theatre and a wedding designer (check out her website).  She says that in her designing and her job at the theatre lots of scraps get created.

This stack, that I spent a morning pressing, equals about 5 yards.  It's all great stuff - Michael Miller dots, Free Spirit, Anna Marie Horner, Heather Bailey, a little Amy Butler.  Since they're from clothing projects, most of the scraps are oddly shaped.  Get out the GO! Baby.










Teresa at the Green Bag Lady gave away 2 yard bundles of hand block printed organic cotton fabric from Les Indiennes.  I was one of the lucky winners.

Isn't this pretty.  The designs are very intricate.  It was very interesting to read how the fabric is produced in south India.

I love this medallion.  It would make a great topper for the restored desk There are two on this cut.




Back to the giveaway......

This is a stack of 12 fat eights (18"x11") from Connecting Threads.  I decided the polka dots on sale were too cute to resist, but, that I did not need 12 fat quarters to complete my polka dot hexie project.


To win these please leave a comment telling me on what project you last worked.  For a second chance, please spread the word and leave a comment with a link to your blog post announcing the giveaway.


Rules:
1.  No reply bloggers will be disqualified.  If you are not sure if you are a "no reply" blogger, please leave your email address in your comment.
2.  The giveaway is open to all, U.S. and international.
3.  The giveaway ends this Friday evening at 12AM US central time.  The winner will be announced Saturday morning (and contacted via email).
4. If the winner does not claim their prize by Monday evening, another winner will be chosen.




To this week's numbers:
Shew-ee! There's an awful lot of fabric in my house!


Used this week: 0

Used year to date: 17.025

Added this week (purchased/won): 5
Added this week (inherited/gifted): 5

Added year to date (purchased/won): 26.681
Added year to date (inherited/gifted): 65


Added year to date total: 91.681

Net used for 2012: -74.656

Please click over to Patchwork Times and see other stash reports.

Have a great week!

Polka dot hexies

Here's some of my latest little flowers to share. I have about 42 now.  80 will make a good size quilt.

And here's what I've decided to do with the 3/4" polka dot hexies. It's from a book of scrap quilting patterns that I got off the "free" table at a guild meeting earlier this year.

So, when I needed a bit of a fabric/sewing fix a few weeks ago, I got out my 3.5 yards of white muslin and cut some 7.5" squares.  Then I put 6.5" squares of light interfacing on the back of several and came up with this.

It will involve some applique and embroidery.  There's a great spool of orange in the Pat Sloan Aurifil set that matches very well.  A hand project for the long term!

Here's the green I plan to use for the leaves.  A piece that has been in my stash for a couple years, a yard bought on sale from an online shop.  It seems to be quite bright but in small pieces I think it will work nicely.  The variation will add some appeal.

Do you have any new projects in the works?

Productive week and great mail (stash report week 24)

Howdy!


I've been home for over a week!  No traveling, just trying to get the house in order after our U-Haul load and adjust to our summer schedule of swim lessons and T-ball.  We brought home a couple chairs, an old oak dining room table and chairs, a maple hutch (and some dishes), an oak secretary, and my grandpa's roll top desk.  

The desk went straight from the U-Hau truck to the refinisher.  All stain was gone from the top board, it was bare wood.  Isn't it lovely now? It sits near my sewing corner by the patio door.

I always remember the desk being a dark color, so we chose a walnut stain.  I might be from the country but there are very few light oak pieces that I like.


However, here's the exception!  My grandma's secretary.  In cleaning it up after the move I discovered that it is oak veneer over hardwood.  I always thought it was solid oak.

Grandma always told me that she and Grandpa had it refinished when they got married, so I assumed that they bought it someplace.   Mom said that her dad actually bought it when she was young, around 1945, and that Grandma always had it.  The other pieces that we brought home I could probably part with, but these two are special.


(Oh - this "grandpa" is actually my mom's step- father, grandma's second husband.  I spent more time with him than either of my biological grandpas.  He was a widower who never had any children and he did a lot for my parents and me. He was a farmer and his mother was a quilter.) 


As for mail, it has been a  great week! Leona sent me a birthday package - wasn't that nice?  She does these monthly packages for her blog followers and she is one busy lady.

And then, I got a special package from Aurifil.  One day while I was down with that awful cold at the beginning of May, I entered Aurifil's Facebook contest to guess the colors in the upcoming Pat Sloan thread kit.  We only guessed 4 correctly but I was the first one to do so, sew they sent me a kit!  

Pat doesn't have these on her website yet.  It goes with her new Moda line that's due out in October, with some lovely batiks btw, called Eat Your Fruits and Veggies.  


For the first time in at least two months, I walked into a Joann's! Cutting scraps reminded me it would be handy to have that little 2.5" ruler pictured above.  So, out came the 50% off coupon.  And, cleaning around my sewing corner and this new thread kit reminded me that I needed a thread organizer, out came another 50% coupon.

I had seen this double sided one in the Connecting Threads catalog and checked Joann's - there it was.  It holds 46 spools.  I'm gonna get two more today for my step-dad to carry his embroidery thread (they're 50% off, no coupon needed).


DS was a winner in the May for Me Bingo game.  He was so excited to get a Bingo.  Sharon sent him a package of magnets to paint (he loves to paint! which I didn't get a shot of b4 he opened the box) and 2 yards of this cute animal print.  

He wants me to make something.  I suggested a placemat and maybe runners for his new night stand and chest of drawers that we brought from Grandma's house.


Finally, I got the last of Grandma's fabric tallied up.  In three large cuts if fabric there are about 19 yards!  There's 10 yards of the cheater print alone. However, it's only 36" wide.  But the muslin makes up for it by being about 54" wide and there's about 5 yards of that.  The sunflower print comes to about 4 yards.

Sew, I have plenty of fabric, plenty of thread, and plenty of cutting tools.  Now, to make the time to get some sewing done!!


Used this week: 0

Used year to date: 17.025

Added this week (purchased/won): 2.25
Added this week (inherited/gifted): 19

Added year to date (purchased/won): 21.681
Added year to date (inherited/gifted): 60


Added year to date total: 81.681

Net used for 2012: -64.656

Please click over to Patchwork Times and see other stash reports.

Have a great week!

Enough is enough

My silly boys at pre-school
graduation

DH and I have been workin' hard around the house this week.  One week ago we went to my grandma's house to continue cleaning it out - geesh, there's a lot of stuff in there!  So, we sorted, we threw away, we recycled, we packed, and then we loaded the U-Haul truck.  


And Monday DH and I got home, leaving DS to have his vacation at "Papa's house" this week.  Thankfully, a friend helped DH move all the stuff off the truck.  The next day we took Grandpa's roll top desk to have it refinished.


To make room for all this furniture and stuff we have been spring cleaning like mad.  Three trips to Goodwill and two trips to the recycling center and we still aren't done.  Today the weather is fantastic and we tackled the garage.  But, having done this for a week, I'm bushed!!  So, I have my feet propped up catching up with y'all while DH patches some dry wall.


Tomorrow is our day off before DS comes home Sunday afternoon. We're thinking a movie and a trip to the Strawberry Festival.  Tonight might hold a trip to the gym's hot tub.


Here's more stuff from Grandma's house.  First some blocks:

Some Dresden plates that she pieced and appliqued

Then some courthouse steps that look like squares in squares.

And just when we thought we had found all the sewing stuff, there was more fabric in the basement.  It was dry and clean so I brought it home and washed it all.  


There's lots of scraps and 3 large pieces: an unbleached muslin, the sunflowers on green, and the cheater cloth that is all twisted.

Not sure when I will get around to ironing and counting because this is the way my sewing corner looks right now.  Uggh - I don't work well in a mess and even if I did, I can barely get to the ironing board!


I doubt if I will post again this week, sew have a lovely weekend!