The Good and the Ugly

I'm not discussing the big bad that happened over the holiday weekend just yet.  It's a long story for another post.  For now, I'll give a brief recap of the "good" of my Christmas holiday.  My husband and two boys drove to Nashville to have Christmas early with my mom and then we drove on to Missouri on Christmas Eve so we could celebrate with his family.

We went to this ice sculpture exhibit in Nashville.  My oldest is getting so big!  He loved the flannel sock monkey scarf I made him (the night before our trip)!

The sculptures were all from the movie Madagascar.  It was neat, but cold!

My youngest got so cold by the end he was screaming and crying so my husband took him out of the exhibit.

After handing my youngest off to hubby, I dashed around the corner of this ice slide to capture this pic of my oldest going down the slide.  In my haste, I slipped and fell hard and ended up with this:

A broken foot.  This is about a week after the fact.  I didn't know it was broken until we got back home--8 days after it happened.  I didn't go to the hospital earlier because hubby said there wasn't anything they could do but give me a boot.  This is true, but he failed to mention how much better walking would be with the boot!  Needless to say, walking was painful over the holidays.  This picture is AFTER the horrible swelling subsided some.  Pretty, huh? :)  Thankfully, it's not my driving or sewing foot!

We also ate at one of our favorite restaurants, Cheesecake Factory.  I know it's a chain and there are lots of local Nashville places with great food, but I can't help it, I love it!

My kid loves being silly.....and so does his dad.

Christmas morning, first peek!

My youngest gave his great-grandmother a hug before he even looked at his presents!  Love that kid!

My oldest seemed stunned that Santa actually came.  I think he was still half asleep.

Cheeseball loved his remote control car

Still stunned.

He always makes time to say "cheese" for Mama!

Driving down the great-grandparents' long driveway.  He loved it!

Dogs-are-us!  We are definitely a dog family!

Riding the lawn mower was great fun too!

Now for the fun part!  While discussing our drive back my husband asked if I wanted to stop at one of the fabric places we saw advertised on the drive up.  Uh, sure!  I hadn't been paying too much attention to the fabric signs because I was sewing (I'll show that project soon!).  Then he said he thought he saw a sign near Paducah.  Wait!  What?!?!?  Did you just say Paducah?  My head whipped around and I shrieked, "WE DRIVE THROUGH PADUCAH?!?!?!?"  OMG.  So, being full of the Christmas spirit and being a generally fantastic guy, my hubby allows us to take an hour mid drive for me to scope it out!

Geez.  This place is huge!  This does not include the warehouse in the back for the online store!

This was their "sale" table.  All prints were $5.98/yard and solids were 3.98!  I spent all my time and money here because, sadly, the price per yard of the regular bolts was $11-12.  That price is just a bit too high for me to justify when I can get the exact same thing for soooo much less on their own website!  Kinda stinks.  It's still fun too look!

The Kona was a normal price though.  There were about 5 full rows (both sides full) of solids!  Crazy cool!

There were 3 walls of patterns like this!  Any and every pattern imaginable!

Kiddos were acting nuts!

Evil people!  This is part of the online stock (I think).  There was as much on the shelves in the warehouse as was out on the floor, but I couldn't even browse!!!  boo!

Boxes and boxes of precuts!  Overall, it was a fun trip (minus the broken foot and the unspeakable bad). I'll leave you with a mosaic of all but one of the quilts I made in 2011.  Happy New Year everyone!

New Things (and Procrastination)

I'm supposed to be finishing a quilt that my sister in law asked me to make for her nanny, but instead I'm making these.  My oldest helped piece the solids version.  He wanted to give it to his Shelf Elf, but changed his mind and decided to keep it--ha ha!  You can find the tute here

I made these two pillows a while ago, but forgot to blog about them, oops!  These were a custom order from one my Facebook followers.  I really love how the "love" one came out!  The background is Moda crossweave in blue/white.  The "ward" one is Kaufman's quilter's linen.  Both appliques are white felt.  

This is another one I forgot to blog about!  Some friends of mine received some bad news--the kind of news where there are no words of comfort--so I decided to make a quilt for them.  This one took me only 2.5 days from start to finish since I was extremely focused on getting something to them quickly.  I was super happy with the results.  I love simple patterns, they have such a clean look!  This pattern can be found here.

We Have A Winner!

Wow!  514 comments!  Mr. RNG chose one of the first commenters though!

  Pink Stitches said...

Yay! Fabric! I love simple charm quilts. Can't go wrong with those!

Congrats to Bonnie of Pink Stitches!  Bonnie was giving away an awesome 241 tote on her blog!  I entered to win that one, but don't let that influence you, Bonnie, when you announce your winner! :)  If I don't hear from you, I'll email to get your address soon.


I just love giveaway day!  I've won 2 that I know of already!  Can you believe it!  I have crazy giveaway luck.  Have any of you won anything from SMS giveaway day?


As a side note, when entering giveaways, please don't tell the person who is GIVING away something that you don't like or don't use what they are giving away.  Why would you enter a giveaway that you didn't like the prize?  Why would you diminish someone else's chance?  Someone else who might actually LIKE the prize.  Manners  people.  Manners.

So amazingly lucky!

Our guild did a little scrap swap where we each brought in some scraps and our partners would make us something. We figured it was an easy way for everyone to get something they liked since it would be made from your own fabric. Kelly (SewKellySews) got my scraps and this is what she made!!!

Isn't it awesome?!?!?!?!? I gave her a bunch of scrap pieces of dot fabric plus one piece of Dick and Jane text. I got the chills when I saw it (and I may have teared up a bit). She was so very thoughtful and Flickr stalked me to come up with something I'd love. I absolutely adore it! Thanks Kelly!!!!!

 My partner, Ashely, gave me the scraps from her Fall couch quilt.  I opted for a pillow cover in a simple design with a little bit of interest in the quilting.  After seeing what everyone else in the guild made, however, I felt like a loser!  Luckily, Ashley didn't make it to this meeting so I have time to whip up a little something else with the scraps I have left! :)

Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day!!!!

I love SMS giveaway day!  It's so fun to hop from blog to blog and discover new creative people!  If you haven't been to my blog before, feel free to browse around!  If you'd like to check out my etsy shop, I have a coupon code for 15% off until the giveaway closes on December 16th.  Just enter "GIVEAWAY" at check out!  This code also applies to my Wonky Alphabet pattern!

This year I'm giving away three charm packs to one lucky winner!  Two from the talented Tula Pink--Plume and Hushabye, these are hard to find these days!  The third is from Liesl Gibson, City Weekend.   

To enter, just leave a comment!  That's it, no hoops!  If you want, you can tell me your favorite precut pattern since I have a precut addiction and I love finding new patterns for them!  International entries welcome!

Be 100% sure I have a way to contact you!  If you are a no-reply commenter, please leave an email address in your comment!

Good luck!  Giveaway will remain open until December 16 at 5 p.m. PST.  I will use the Random Number Generator to choose a winner on December 17th!  

And The Winner Is......

Mr. RNG and I are up early this morning and he said the winner is #10, Ali!!!!!!!!  Congrats to Ali!  It's always fun when someone you know wins! I'll get the Traveling Stash in the mail to you today or Monday (along with the other box of stuff I owe you!).  If you guys want to follow the Traveling Stash, be sure to check in with Ali's blog http://www.asquaredw.com  for her post.  

Just so I don't have a post without a picture, here is our Christmas card picture this year:

Sadly, this was the best of the bunch!  

So I opened my mail and said...

HOLY FREAKING SHIT! Sorry, but that's what I said! I randomly messaged Laurie (Wisbrun) to see if she had any more of the Christmas donkey/Wellington boots fabric I used here

so I could buy some. She kindly searched her stash to see if she had any scraps only to find none. She said she found some of the Spring Donkeys and asked if I wanted some....uh, YES! I offered to pay and she declined--I thought she was sending me scraps! She sent 1/2 yard cuts of the boots and the donkeys!!!!  Then, she adds a stack of Christmas boot hexagons and a FQ set of her new line. A-MAZ-ING! Thank you Laurie for being oh-so-generous and kind to a stranger! Off to plan my projects......

Oh, for those of you who love Laurie's fabrics, she's having a sale on some of her limited edition prints in her etsy shop!

The Traveling Stash Giveaway!!!!

I was lucky enough to win a box of goodies from Staci (the confused quilter).  It's a box filled with random fabric, notions, books, etc called the Traveling Stash.  You can read more about it here.  I thought this was such a cute idea!  If you win the box, you can remove whatever you like and add items from your own stash before you pass it along!  Now here is where things get interesting, when I received the box, there wasn't much in it that was my style.  The box was filled with more traditional fabric and patterns so I had an idea--I'll donate almost all the items in the box to my local quilt guild and fill the box with more modern fabric and patterns from my own stash!  So here is a sample of what's in the box now:

I will probably be adding more fabric and patterns to this, but I want to keep some things a surprise!  In the box now is Amy Butler home dec, Ikea home dec, Heather Ross, Denyse Schmidt, Urban Chiks, Laurie Wisburn, vintage sheet scraps, and the hugely popular Swoon pattern just to name a few!  I will stuff a LARGE flat rate box full of goodies!  

To win, just leave one comment--maybe tell me your favorite fat quarter pattern (besides Swoon). 

FINE PRINT!  You must be:
1. an active blogger
2. a US resident
3.  You must promise to fill the box back up after you have taken out what you'd like to keep!

I will leave the giveaway open until 11pm on Friday, December 9th.  I will have the Random Number Generator choose my winner.  Good luck!

Math and Christmas

Finished up this sample quilt for Ali based on her paper pieced pattern for the equation y=1/x. 

There are a couple of firsts in this quilt for me.  It was the first time I've made an entire quilt from a paper pieced pattern.  It's the first time I've used 505 to spray baste a quilt--by the way, I think I'm in love!  It's also the first time I've used the start/stop function on my machine to free motion instead of  the foot pedal.  I've always wanted to try it, but if you pin baste, the start/stop button isn't practical.  I'm still not sure I would ever take the time to spray baste a large quilt, but it was sooooooooo much faster to FMQ this since it had been spray basted I might consider it!

I used some Habitat for the binding since it had a lot of the colors I used in the top.

The back is an AMH flannel print.  It's super soft and cozy!

I love how the quilting show up on the back!  

I'm now working on a stocking for my nephew!  I still have to add the cuff and add some details to the other side.

Stuffed and Stuff

I'm keeping it short because I'm too full of Thanksgiving food and too tired from Black Friday shopping.  Here are some things I've been working on:

My completed bag for the Goodie Bag swap.  Pattern is the Melanie bag from ithinkisew.  Good bag, poor pattern pieces and instructions.

Button detail (it's on both sides).

Inside has an open pocket that is divided into a larger and smaller side (smaller side for a cell phone).  All fabric is Echo.

Christmas pillow listed in my shop and using my Wonky Alphabet pattern, also in my shop.  

I really like how the letters come out when I shrink them!

The red fabric was a random JoAnn's find.  I never buy much fabric there, but I really liked this print.  The binding is Just Wing It by MoMo.

Yep, another Christmas pillow for my shop.

 Used a scrap of an old Laurie Wisburn fabric along with some Ruby for the front.

The back is Joel Dewberry's Modern Meadow herringbone.

And yet another binding in Just Wing It!  I really love these stripes, can you tell?

FYI, 10% off right now in my shop with the code TWEET10!