Snowball Challenge and Challenging Shopping . . . . .

I've decided to participate in the Red Snowball Challenge.

Allyson saw this quilt in a shop in Utah, Nicole fell in love with it, so the two of them decided to share the fun and host a challenge, thus the "Red Snowball Challenge" was born.

The pattern is by Evelyn Sloppy, this is one of the first quilting books I bought. Not only are the patterns amazing, Evelyn's strip set directions are wonderful. I incorporate her stripping methods whenever I can. I will even rework a pattern to use strip sets. I think pieces are easier to fit together when they start out as a strip set.

The red snowball quilt pictured above is this pattern, "Leftovers Again?" Isn't it amazing how different this quilt looks totally scrappy versus red and cream scrappy?

At first I considered doing this pattern using scrappy pink and scrappy brown civil war fabrics. But you know me and red, even though I have two red and cream quilts and two red, white and blue quilts, I figured I could always use one more. Plus I have so many cream and red fabrics, I didn't need to buy any new fabric to make this quilt, you know what that means, it's a free quilt!!

Here are a couple of sample blocks I made to get a feel for the project. The finished block measures 6 inches square. Since I have so many red quilts hanging around my house year round, I thought I would add just a little something to this one to give it more of a Christmas feel.

I'm going to add some of these Santa faces to the center square of a few of the cream snowball blocks, no more than 8 or 10.

I'm also going to add this fabric as a border. I just love this fabric. I made a Irish Chain quilt with this fabric a couple of years ago, it lives in Los Angeles.

I'm naming my quilt, "He Knows When You Are Sleeping". Another blogger mentioned she was going to use flannel for the backing, I plan to do the same, making this a warm and snuggly quilt that I plan to nap under.

Since I'm adding a border, but also wanting to keep it around the original pattern size of 58" x 70", I'm going to make fewer blocks. Which translates to fewer half square triangles!!

Yesterday Nicole blogged about how she's using the Easy Angle to maker her half square triangles for this project. I gave it a try and like this method. I still like to make them a little bigger and square to perfection, but it's really not necessary. If you cut your strips accurately, the hst are pretty much spot on. I sure didn't miss drawing that line down the back of all those little squares. So far I've made 120, only 200 more to go!!

On another note, over the weekend I had the opportunity to visit a wonderful quilt shop in Indianapolis, Indiana, Quilts Plus, it was a Better Homes and Garden Quilt Sampler Shop in 2005. They do not allow pictures to be taken in their shop, but if you visit their website, you get a feel for what they have to offer.

They had many beautiful quilts on display, all with available kits. They had a kit for Miss Rosie's True Blue pattern that was lovely. They also had several of those wonderful fabric towers for many gorgeous families of fabric, like Rouenneries, Aster Manor, and Wiscassett. This shop is also participating in the Bonnie Blue Block Sampler and had their finished quilt on display, I loved it! So I wandered all over the shop, visiting with the friendly shop folks and trying to decide what to buy. In all honesty, it was overwhelming, there were just so many things that I loved......so after considering all my choices, after swooning over everything in this shop, this is what I bought.....

1/4 of a yard of three fabrics! No towers, no kits, no patterns, three 1/4 yard cuts of fabric that I liked but really have no plans for!! I spent a whopping $7.77

Could I be a bigger ninny!!

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Goodbye Leaves, Goodbye Faceted Jewels, Hello Wallhanging...

Hello!! The time between my Friday blog and this blog seemed like ages. There really wasn't much going on in general in blogland this weekend. It feels good to be back and I'm eager to see what everyone was up to this weekend.

Remember this tree, full of fall loveliness......

all you folks in California and Florida who left comments about missing the colors of fall,

look what colors I have now....none,

And this ...

is now this.

We had a lovely warm and sunny weekend, just what everyone needed to rake all those previously beautiful, but now dead leaves. This is what I get to look at for the next 5 months. This is why I plan trips to California in February!!

Well it's official, I have my first real UFO!!

I packed up my "Faceted Jewels" project this weekend. This is the first time I've started something and instead of finishing it, I put in a storage box!! I had a pretty good record going, 52 starts and finishes. I thought it would maybe make me feel bad, to start this project and postpone when I would finish it...but it didn't!! It was really a relief!! With the holidays rapidly approaching, my monthly Schnibbles, plus my snowball challenge, I didn't think I would have the opportunity to spend time on Faceted Jewels. So instead of leaving it out collecting dust, I packed it up. My plan is to get back to it in February, when the decorations are put up, the snow is flying, and working an a colorful project is what I'll need to get through the dreary winter.

It's going to patiently wait for me right here in my closet.

Have you ever made a Harmonic Convergence quilt? It's a pattern created by Ricky Tims.

I can vouch for the book cover, they are mysterious, magical, easy, and fun!! The inside of this book is pretty amazing too. There are some very clever and artistic folks out there!!

All it takes to make a Harmonic Convergence top is four 14 1/2 inch squares of fabric. You cut the squares into 1, 1 1/2, 2, 2 1/2, 3, and 3 1/2 inch strips, mix'em up, sew'em up, then cut'em up, mix'em up and sew'em up again. And then you get this.

Some afternoon when you are wanting to feel like an artist and not a quilter, give it a try. I'm giving this to a friend for Christmas. It's quilt # 45 and is 31 inches square.

Well, it was 31 inches square before it was quilted, something happened after it left home to make it a little wonky and ripply. Do small projects get distorted by long arm quilting? I told the quilter I did not want an all over pattern, I think she did a nice job.

I'm still waiting for my Schnibbles Picnic pattern to arrive in the mail!!!

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Patchwork Party 2007 - Part Two . . .

This is the second quilt I made from the Patchwork Party Fall 2007 sampler blocks. It is called "Clara's Enchanted Nutcracker Dance Quilt" and it's by Bittersweet Blessings.

This quilt is 66 x 66...a little more than half the size of this one.

Don't the twelve sampler blocks looks so different in each setting?

I couldn't pick a favorite, so I did both.

The quilter quilted these tops one right after the other, and she did an amazing job on both. She also tried to quilt the blocks as similarly as possible. The borders do have the exact same quilt pattern.

I like this spinning whirlygig quilt pattern thing.

Here's a close-up of the center. This top has just a little applique going on, just enough for me to be able to do it!

This is the back. This is quilt #30.

The large quilt will go on my bed after the holidays, (I have a Christmas Quilt that I use during the month of December) and the smaller quilt will hang on the wall beside it.

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50th Post .......

Yesterday was the 50th post on my blog. Wow, how fast did that go!! I decided to have a giveaway for the folks who left messages on my 50th post.

Cara, Rene, Nicole, Allyson, and Mary are in the running for this:

a Gingher seam ripper.

And the Random Number Generator picked....4! Allyson you're the winner. I've got your address so consider this on the way to your house. Thanks to all who left messages.

(I have no idea how those clever folks cut and paste that random number generator box on their blog...I had Cooper verify the results.)

Speaking of Cooper, he got a birthday card, his first card on his first birthday.... He loved it!! Cooper looked just like the pup on the right when he came to live with us, cute, quiet and shy. That's definitely his sister on the left.

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Patchwork Party 2007 - Part One . . .

Are you familiar with Patchwork Party Quilts? It's kind of like an online shop hop/block of the month combination. A group of twelve online quilt shops each offer a sampler block using the same family of fabrics. You have a couple of months to visit each shop and purchase their block. Each shop also offers a finishing kit, with each shop creating their own design. I participated in Patchwork Party 2007 Fall Edition. The blocks are made using Marti Michell templates. I figured while I was making one block I might as well get some extra fabric and make two. With Marti Michell it's all about the cutting.

This quilt is called" Snowbird Migration". The finishing kit was created by Creative Quilts and the pattern designed by Rose Wojnar. The fabric is "Home for the Holidays" by Faye Burgos for Marcus Brothers.

A few times I have mentioned my Lessons Learned Journal, and how one project taught me to pay attention to the size of a quilt before I start. This is the quilt that taught me that lesson. It is 112 x 120. I started this project in January 2008, and finished two different kits by the end of February. I just got it back from the quilter. She did a custom job that's amazing, it was worth the wait.

Each sampler block is surrounded by red sashing, then black sashing, then the flying geese. Each one of these large sampler blocks finish at 26 x 26. You think I would have noticed that these were rather large blocks but the size of this quilt really didn't hit me until I started sewing these large blocks together.

Here's a little close-up of some of the quilting.

Friday I'll post pictures of the other quilt I made using these same sampler blocks.

Patchwork Party Fall 2009 is going on right now.

This is quilt #29.

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