Friday, April 30, 2010

Textile Comforts

A few sights from our quilt show...Only one more day left (last day of the show is Saturday 5/1 10 - 4:00)






Enjoy the day!
~ Dawn

Thursday, April 29, 2010

It's Quilt Show Week!

Lots of work going on this week, but no sewing. It's Quilt Show Week!!

My guild has been all a buzz with setting up our bi-yearly show.

Pole frames have been set up all over the church building where we meet.

Small quilts are pinned up, and large quilts are hung with sleeves.

It all came together bit by bit...Yesterday we hung over 350 quilts of all shapes and sizes, and now it's time for the show! If you are in Central Maryland today through Saturday, come and check out our wonderful quilts and vendors at the Faithful Quilters Quilt Show ~ not to mention our awesome raffle quilt! More pictures tomorrow...

Enjoy the day!
~ Dawn

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Another Pattern Available :)

This is my Circle Gets the Square quilt that can be cut out completely with the Accuquilt Go cutter!  Applying fusible to the back of the colored squares and then using the Go cutter makes whipping out the circles a breeze.

This quilt was made with various fabrics from the Sugar collection from Art Gallery Fabrics.

This is another colorway, on this one I used just two Moda charm packs, plus the white background fabric to make up the center.

Because it makes up so quickly it's a great child's gift quilt (or it's a really cute table topper).
The news is, that now it's a pattern! Available through Quiltwoman.com or in my etsy store :) and includes cutting instructions with and without using the Accuquilt Go cutter.

For your reference, here are the optional Accuquit Go! dies needed for this quilt:
55010 Square - 5"
55012 Circle 2", 3", 5"
55071 Strip Cutter 2 1/2"
55054 Strip Cutter 4 1/2"

Enjoy the day!
~ Dawn

Saturday, April 24, 2010

More Donation Love and a Winner

I received another box of happiness on my doorstep yesterday with more donations for Mountain Baby Blankets. This one came from Rita Smick ~ These tops are just adorable!




She even sent some fabric bundles of cuddly flannel fat quarters, and a couple of cute prints for me (or one of my little elves) to make into donation quilts. Thanks Rita for your generous donations!

And our winner of the set of Miniature Quilts magazines from Thursday is #5 Pewter and Steel. Send me an email so that I can get your shipping information :)
Enjoy the day!
~ Dawn

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Passing It On

I realized that I have reached 80 Followers here on the blog, so in honor of this little milestone, lets have a Give Away! In the spirit of Earth Day, I'm passing on a set of three Miniature Quilts Magazines that a friend so graciously shared with me (thanks Tiffany!). These are like gold to people who like miniature quilts, because this magazine is no longer in publication. I've enjoyed them for the last few weeks, so now they can go to another home and brighten someone else's day :)
Same as always, just leave a comment on this post and within a couple of days I'll choose a ramdom winner!

Enjoy the day!
~ Dawn

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Getting Things Finished and Put Back Together

I'm working on quilting my Holiday Inn quilt to put in our guild's show next week. I will get it done in time! But since I don't have anything new finished, I thought I'd show another of my favorite little tools. The Clover white marking pen is a really great little gadget for marking quilting lines. The beauty of this pen is that the marks come off when you iron them. If you are not familiar with this pen though, be patient when applying it ~ it's practically invisible when you write with it, and the marks get whiter after sitting a few minutes.

And I'm finally getting furniture and stuff put back in my green satellite sewing room. There is more to organize yet ~ Notice I'm not showing you the walk-in closet, that will have to wait for another day!

My design wall is now in place. This is a homemade job that was constructed from a 1/2" thick, high density foam board that I got at the home center and cut to size (it cuts nicely with a box cutter), and I covered it with flannel (just wrapped it around and hot glued the edges to the back). Then I screwed it up to the wall with drywall screws ~ very low tech, and easy enough that I did it all by myself :)

We set up a twin size bed in here for when Elsie comes to visit. These two blank walls and the bed give me more places to display quilts...and after all it's all about the quilts, right?

Enjoy the day!
~ Dawn

Monday, April 19, 2010

Jo Morton Sisters

Here are some of the "Sisters" quilts from our Jo Little Women Club meetings this past week. Some of the ladies in our group decided to use pictures of them and their sister in the center block. This first one was Barbara Lanore's.

This one is Sheri Thompson's in progress. Sheri decided to cut her squares a little larger to be in better proportions with her picture.

Rosemary Swartwood shared some little miniature blocks that she makes into greeting cards to send to all her friends for their birthdays.

And she also used one of these little blocks as the center of her "Sisters" quilt.

Her squares were cut a bit smaller for this quilt to make the little center block fit better.

This was my "Sisters" quilt again. I love how everyone in the group is making this quilt their own!

And here is my example of the "Keystone Medallion" quilt that our club will be working on for next month ~ and I'm sure that we'll have more "Sisters" quilts come in by then too :)

Enjoy the day!
~ Dawn

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Friday Night Sew-In Results

These are my finishes from last night's Friday Night Sew-In. I will qualify this post by mentioning that all of them were almost done, they were in my file folder in various stages of completion.



Blocks 5 & 6 from last year's A Tisket A Tasket BOM from Bunny Hill Designs.


And the Snowbound block for April...you know what that means ~ I'm all caught up so far with this one for this year! This is huge because with most Block of the Months that I start, I fall behind in March.

Run on over to Heidi's blog and take a look at everyone's Friday Night Sew-In Show and Tell.

Enjoy the day!
~ Dawn

Friday, April 16, 2010

I'm Getting Ready

I've got my file folder full of prepped applique blocks all ready to go. (I'm not sure when I started keeping these blocks in progress this way, but it seems to work for my ongoing block of the months).
I have different pieces from multiple blocks in various stages of the process...

All ready to add to the block that they go on.

Some of the blocks are just getting started,

And some are almost done. So I should be able to have a finish or two as a result of tonight's Friday Night Sew-In :)

Hop on over to Heidi's blog and get all the details on the monthly Friday Night Sew-In, and join me tonight. This month, she also has an optional project with a pattern available. I plan on curling up in my easy chair tonight, with some tea, my hand applique blocks-in-progress, and a bunch of episodes of NCIS ~ and I'm actually looking forward to it a little too much. How will you spend your Friday evening?

Enjoy the day!
~ Dawn

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Ok, So I Couldn't Resist...

Ok, so I guess I don't have enough to do, because I just couldn't resist jumping in on Pat Sloan's Meadow Breeze BOM before I got too far behind ~ you know I couldn't miss the party! The center applique design was month One released in February.

Month Two, released in March, gave directions for this pieced inner border and the little butterfly that will be in the bottom corner.

The rest is a mystery that Pat is giving out one month at a time for the next seven months. I decided to go ahead and make this quilt because it will finish at 36 inches and will fit perfectly on one wall in my new green satellite sewing room that we finished yesterday (I almost have all my stuff moved back in ~ hopefully pictures will follow soon).

Now that I have my fabrics all picked out and these little guys fused, they are on my pile waiting for my next "blanket stitching day".

Enjoy the day!
~ Dawn

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Scrap Quilts for Charity

Heather and I have been cutting up scraps. A little of this and a little of that for a good cause.

Our church youth group is participating in the 30 Hour Famine this weekend, April 16th - 17th to raise money and awareness for hunger relief through World Vision. As an activity the kids will be making and tying quilts with a total of 1200 squares to represent the 1200 children per hour who die from starvation throughout the world. The quilts they make will be donated through Lutheran World Relief.

We've helped the cause along this week by making two quilt tops for them to tie. They are each 60 x 80" made up of 192 5" squares each.

We had started them on Easter Sunday when we spent a very pleasant afternoon going through my stash and cutting strips from some of our favorite fabrics, many with great memories attached and from some of our most loved projects. I'm happy that I got them finished this week in time for the weekend's events, and that these little snipets of our lives will end up somewhere else in the world to comfort another person or two :)
Enjoy the day!
~ Dawn