Boo!

Happy Halloween!

We spent weekend before last decorating for Halloween.  Hubby found lots of great Halloween decorations on his yard sale haunts and really went to town for the holiday!

We were inspired by the great Halloween decorations we saw at Disney...

On our cruise...

The Haunted Mansion at the Magic Kingdom....

And here are our spooktacular decorations (well, maybe a little heavier on the pumpkins than on the spooks)...

 Here we are channeling the Haunted Mansion...

He even found some Mickey decorations (Luanne, too cool, huh????)

And, here are some of my Halloween quilts hanging in my kitchen....

And even my office at work is decorated with my favorite pumpkin quilt!

I hope we get more than two trick-or-treaters this year after going to all this trouble!  You should see all the candy we have so far (although with my husband around, it might not last until Halloween!)

Blogger's Quilt Festival Fall 2013

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My entry for this Fall's Blogger's Quilt Festival is a quilt I made to donate to the Wounded Warriors charity event my son & DIL hosted earlier this year.  I am entering it into the Throw Quilt category. This was a very special event and I wanted to make a very special quilt to be auctioned to raise funds for this cause.  My DIL's uncle passed away earlier this year on a dive trip to support the Wounded Warrior Project.  He was very involved in helping to raise money to send vets and their families on the Wounded Warriors Cruises and my kids wanted to honor that.

I chose Elizabeth Hartman's Marmalade pattern...

I had such fun making this quilt and I will definitely make more.  Elizabeth's instructions were great and, while it looks more complicated, it was very easy to put together!  I pulled all of the scraps to make the strippy diamonds from my stash.  Since this was such a modern design, I went modern with the quilting...

And I found the perfect print for the backing, incorporating the grass greens and teal blues....

I wasn't sure how a modern quilt would go over at the event, but I heard it drew a lot of interest.  And, I was thrilled to find out that my DIL's sister fell in love with the quilt and was the highest bidder and took the quilt home (in fact she told me she bundled up in the quilt to sleep that night!)

Please visit the Blogger's Quilt Festival at Amy's Creative Side to see all of the other entries!

It's a Plus!

I couldn't get back to my sewing machine fast enough after we returned from vacation last week.  I had been working on a quilt I saw in last month's issue of Quilty Magazine before we left.  I'm really liking this new magazine a lot.  It's geared toward newbies, but I'm finding a lot of great patterns in it and the stories are fun too.

I saw two quilts in this issue that I had to make.  Apparently, immediately, because I put aside everything else I was doing to make the first one.  I'm kind of liking the one of the cover too.

May I present...It's a Plus...top completed...

It's supposed to be wonky, but I think I went a little overboard on the wonk, but that's okay.

I used two layer cakes of Comma by Zen Chic and some Moda Bella Medium Gray solid.  I'm loving this fabric line...

Called Comma, because, well, COMMAs!

The great thing is I have a bunch left over to make another quilt...

I'm thinking of doing a variation on a Chinese Coins quilt.  I eve sketched it out and had grand plans to maybe submit it to Quilty to see if they'd publish it.  Then I saw that someone beat me to it  - I saw it on someone else's blog but I can't remember where or I'd show you.   Oh well, guess I'll keep my day job.

This is the next Quilty quilt I've got on the list...

I've got a Philly Modern Quilt Guild retreat coming up next month (YAY!) - maybe I'll work on this!

A "Snap Happy" Birthday Bag

Hi again...we're finally back from vacation (two weeks, but it seemed longer).  We had a great time, and I even made a bunch of neutral hexies while we were on our cruise - and then left my sewing bag on the ship!!!  I was very, very unhappy with myself for awhile, but I'm (mostly) over it.  I think Disney Cruise Line Lost & Found is getting a little tired of hearing from me.  I know exactly where the bag is - night table drawer - and I'll just bet no one has used the drawer since we left.  So, I'll give it another week or so and then buy some more templates, Gingher embroidery scissors and the really cool needle threader I had just bought.  Luckily, I still have more of the fabrics that I had in the bag, so I'll be back in business soon.  And will do a much more thorough check next time!!

But, before we went away my very favorite sis-in-law had a big b-day.  We surprised her with a dinner party - at her house!  We came with dinner in hand (her mom even brought the wine glasses!)  She was really surprised and we had a great day.

I had made myself this cute little Snap Happy Bag not too long ago. You use pieces of 1" metal  measuring tape for the "snap" part.  It's very cool.  

So, I thought I'd make one for Cathy in her favorite color - purple!  I added a bunch of little gifts - some earrings, special tea bags, a scarf and a scarf clip - and she loved everything.  She's so easy to buy for - if I like it, I know she'll like it!

 Some shots of the day...

Cathy's sister Peggy (a NEW quilter who just moved near us - I'm going to make her as obsessed as I am - LOL) on the left - birthday girl on the right....

The birthday girl and hubby (my very favorite brother)....

The day before the surprise party, my PMQG-challenge cushion cover was on display at the PA National Quilt Extravaganza with all of the other PMQG cushion covers!!  It was so exciting (hey, it doesn't take much)...Here are the photos of the display...

And, here's my cushion...

My seat has never been so famous!

Show & Tell Tuesday - Wedding Quilt #4...

...and I hope the last of 2013!  I feel like all I've been doing this year is making wedding quilts!  This is another gift for my daughter to give a longtime girlfriend at her wedding next month.  The sleuthing revealed the couple likes neutrals.

So, I pulled a bunch of neutrals from my stash...

I started with this bunch which include some Essex linen blend fabrics for some good texture...

And this stack of Classical Elements from P&B Textiles (I just knew I'd find something great to do with these when I bought them months ago!)...

This stack didn't make the cut (but will be perfect for something else I'm sure!)...

I also pulled out this leftover brown from Bill's quilt for contrast...

And since this wedding is coming up very quickly, I needed a very easy pattern.  Luckily, I quickly found the Buttercup pattern from Heather Mulder Peterson's book Stop, Drop and Roll...

Obviously, my version will have a very different look ( and no applique!).  So, I cut all my strips...

and sewed and sewed and sewed for the last couple of weeks and this past weekend, I started quilting!

I'm using the Razor Grass panto.  It's a dense pattern, but it looks great.  A very modern design for this very modern quilt....

And, I got a bonus from this quilt....over a hundred of these!!

If I had time, I'd make a pillow or something to go with the quilt, but that's not happening.  So, all of these HSTs have been put safely away for another time!

I should also show off these great place mats I made for the bridal shower that took place last month (notice the neutral theme here too?)....

The bride said to my daughter (and I quote) "These are nicer than anything I could buy.  Your mom is unreal!"  I'll take that as the compliment it was meant to be - LOL.  I'm thinking she'll really like the quilt!  Not only did I make these four, but I also needed six more for a housewarming so I needed and easy pattern.  The six were brown, cream and blue and I am kicking myself that I didn't get a photo of them.  Use your imagination please - they really looked awesome! I used this tutorial by the awesome Alissa Haight Carlton.

I'm linking up with Randi's Show & Tell Tuesday.  You can see more great Show & Tell over there!
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And for all one of you who may care (Hi Luanne!), hubby and I were happy dancing around the kitchen a little while ago... we opened the mail today and saw this invitation regarding our upcoming Disney vacation.....

I've been scheming to try and get us invited to be testers for Disney's new "guest experience" program but didn't know how.  And they just picked us!  (Yes, us and I'm sure about 5,000 others-LOL)  Hey, Mickey, we'll be there soon!!! o:)

Summertime Sewing

I made some fun things this summer, not the least of which was this fabulous beach tote designed by Jill Finley from Jilllily Studio.  This was a free pattern on the Henry Glass website.

I saw the bag on one of Jill's blog posts and she promised it was super easy.  It was!  I decided I needed to make it immediately and went hunting through my stash and chose this fun print from the Twirl line by Me & My Sister for Moda.  I had a bunch of Mirror Ball Dots leftover and I picked out three matching colors and got sewing.  I already had a package of Soft & Stable on hand purchased for another project that never got started.  If you haven't used Soft & Stable, it was very easy to work with.  I'll definitely buy more.

Here is my bag modeling some quilting supplies!  Look at all of those great pockets - 6 in all - to hold whatever....

I needed some nice white cording for the handles and found some on eBay from tlollini.  Now I think it cost all of $2.98 or something for 3 yards.  Just plain old cording.  Look at the beautiful way it was packaged.....

It was like getting a little present.  I was very impressed, she could have just stuck this in an envelope and she went the extra mile!

I couldn't wait to show my bag to my daughter-in-law and I knew she'd fall in love with it.  She saw it, she fell in love and then she said "wouldn't it be cute in flip flop fabric?"  So, of course I went in search of cute flip flop fabric.  And, you know what?  There is lots and lots of cute flip flop fabric to choose from.  We settled on these two (one for the outside, one for the lining) and found matching chevron prints...

Too cute!!

Raqhel was sure stylin' at the beach this summer!

I however, didn't get to go the beach, so my bag still has quilt supplies in it - LOL!  (Don't feel too sorry for me - I've got a vacay coming up next month!)