Wall hanging give-away on Roslyn's blog

Please go take a look at ROSLYN'S blog for the give away of a Koala wall hanging she is having, in an effort to assist with help for the Australian Bush fires.
She will be collecting names for the drawing till March 14th.

Slow progress on my UFO

The 48 sashing pieces are finally all finished and squared, to be attached to the finished blocks. I'm still debating if I should just use the fabric I used for the unpieced blocks as setting and corner triangles or maybe choose a lighter pink that doesn't conflict with the star tips of the sashing. Once that's decided, I'll add a narrow dark purple/pink border and then a wider border of fabric that coordinates with the unpieced blocks. But for now back to sewing at least some sashing strips onto blocks, so I can get all of this off of my bed.

Heart and Flower and DJ block

First of I want to thank Kristina for the beautiful hand appliqued Heart and Flower block she sent to me. Your thoughtfulness is very much appreciated.

Then below is my last Dear Jane finish - H-2.
The center is paper pieced and I finished the block off by hand appliqueing the two small triangles on the outside.
Today I'll work on this weeks BOW and with tomorrow's UFO sew-in scheduled, I'll concentrate on making progress on the QFC quilt.

My first gradation swap

With DD and myself fighting colds and me having had 3 classes to teach and doctor's appointments to go to, I didn't have time to post a picture of my first gradation swap, but here it is. It is so much fun to see all of the different colors come in. The next swap I'm waiting for is the "make purple". It'll be neat to see how different the swatches will look like for that.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hope you are all able to spend your Valentine's Day with loved one's.

Although DD and I are still fighting our cold's and my voice is pretty much gone, we're also celebrating DS's birthday today! Happy birthday Aaron!

I also want to share pictures of the beautiful flowers DH sent for Michelle and me with you all.

The fun smiley face bouquet is for Michelle and the beautiful red and pink roses are mine. :o)

Two more Dear Jane blocks!

L-8 Box Kite

L-7 Town Square

With the finish of L-7 (Town Square) and L-8 (Box Kite) I'm up to 72 finished blocks and 1275 pieces.

American Hero quilt top

This is my first American Hero quilt top finish for this year, ready to be mailed to Sue Nebeker .
Most of the blocks came from ROBIN .

Valentine's postcards I received

These are two Valentine's postcards I received from members of the Stashbuster group.
The left card is from Diane B. and the one to the right is from Melva H.
Thank you ladies. Both cards are lovely!

70th Dear Jane block finished

This is what my Dear Jane wall looks like with 70 finished blocks. All in all there are 1243 pieces in the blocks so far.
E-7 / Bread Basket is my finish for today with 41 pieces. I changed the block a little, because although I don't have problems with y-seams, I just wasn't in the mood for those today, so I used straight seams on the outside units. I will put the steps in another post.

Stash busting on UFO day

These are some of the strips I started out with for the 31 blocks I needed to make.
The small 4-patch units used 1 1/2" squares of the colored and wow fabric.







Here I am sewing the units back to back.









These strips were the quickest to sew for the blocks.









And here are all 31 blocks laid out, ready to be squared up to be mailed to Moira tomorrow.

I also got a little bit further on the sashing for the Quilt for the Cure top, but haven't gotten around to taking a picture of the progress for that.

Now I really need to clean up the mess I created while sewing up a storm. :o)

I missed my 100th post!

Can you believe it? I just thought to check how many posts I have with so many people doing 100th blog post give-away's and I totally missed my 100th post. Well, with this post just by 6, but anyway. Ugh! Maybe I should do something different and pick a different number. LOL
I think 150 might sound like a good idea.

C-5 finished!

Here you can see my preparation work to create the "Eye of the Cyclone". If you compare the HST units with the block diagram, you see why the colorway of the two units is reversed.

In this picture you see that I fused a circle to the backside of the smaller block. After this step I cut the excess fabric around the circle away with an approximate 1/4" allowance and then used a water soluble glue stick to turn the seam allowance to the back.

Just laying the circle on top of the larger unit, you start seeing the block come together.

To create the outside border I traced the shape on freezer paper (you just have to love this stuff and even if it's just for quilting lol) and then carefully cut the inside shape out to fuse it on the backside of the lighter fabric. I then used the glue stick and turned the allowance back again. This always creates nice smooth curves.

I appliqued the circle as well as the outside shape by hand and in this picture I have not removed the freezer paper yet or trimmed the block, that's why it still looks a little bumpy.

With this block my Dear Jane numbers are 1202/0/0/69.

My mom's birthday!

Today My mom would have turned 71.
While browsing through some pictures I found this one of her working as chief secretary on Bitburg AFB, Germany in the 1960's, before I was born.

Below is a Hawaiian wall hanging I designed in memory of my mom - Christina's garden.

I-3 finished and QFC layout

I-3 is finished!





Today I cut out some sashing pieces with star tips and sashing squares. This is what it looks like so far. The quilt will be a double/queen size once it's done with borders.

Kim's 100th post give-away

Kim, of http://bittybitsandpieces.blogspot.com/ is having a 100th post give away on her site. Here's the link to that post.

http://bittybitsandpieces.blogspot.com/2009/01/100th-post-giveaway.html

I'll copy the prize description directly from her site, so prize one is:
"One is a cute Valentine Mini Purse filled with 100 bitty bits & pieces of Valentine Fabric from the Sandy Gervais collection called "Hearts A Flutter."

"The second prize is one of the Love Note Pillows ..."

These prizes are too adorable! And they're Valentine's Day themed. Gotta love that, especially with my DS having a birthday that day! So go check out Kim's blog.

Forgot to mention, if you leave a comment on Kim's blog, please let her know you found her through my blog here. This would give me another chance to win. ;o)

All 12 blocks are finished

Here are all the blocks I need for the quilt quilt top together.
Sorry about the crooked picture. Since my Dear Jane blocks are taking up the design wall, I had to lay these blocks out on the floor and the only way to get a picture of all of them was to be standing/balancing on my bed with arms stretched out. Probably quite a site. lol
So, these blocks will go in an on-point setting with alternating blocks of the small print that I've used in all of the blocks.





I did the calculation for the sashing last evening, but now have to see if I have enough of the fabric in my stash, I intend to use for it. You'll be able to see the results of that in another post.

This is the last block I made yesterday to go into this top.

4:27pm and 3 blocks are DONE.

Now one more block to pick fabrics for, cut out and piece and all of the blocks for the top will be done.
Next I'll have to calculate the amount of fabric I need for the sashing and see if I have enough of the fabric in my stash, that I have in mind to use for that. OK, off the computer again to get some more work done.

this morning's progress

OK, as you can see, I've cut out two of the 4 blocks so far, using Marti Michelle's templates.
Now I'll be making some cinnamon buns for the kids quickly and a big pot of green tea for myself and then back to cutting out the next two blocks, which have more pieces in them. Be back later.