Bonnie Hunter's Grand Illusion Mystery Quilt is Coming Soon!

Have you taken part in the annual Bonnie Hunter Winter Mystery Quilt before?  If you're looking for some pure sewing fun this winter, check out Bonnie's Blog Quiltville's Quips & Snips!  Every year Bonnie runs a Mystery Quilt starting with the first clue the Friday after Thanksgiving, and releasing another clue each week.  If you sew along each week making the clues, you end up with a wonderful  quilt at the end :)  Bonnie gives the color clues out ahead of time, using paint chips as reference to what she is referring to, so you can go through your stash and start gathering up your fabrics.  It's meant to be totally scrappy ~ the more fabrics the better!  Here are this year's color chips, and you can visit Bonnie's blog post to get full description of the colors and how this all works. 

***We want to take part in the fun at Spring Water Designs, (Mary has made some of Bonnie's past Mystery quilts, and they're amazing!) ...so we've decided to have a Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt Sew-In Day at the shop on Friday, November 28th!  It's totally Free to come and sew for the day ~ bring your machine and sewing supplies, and we'll supply the coffee and snacks :)  It's free, but call the shop to reserve your spot (410)381-0695...And since it's also Black Friday, there just might be a Sale or two going on at the shop that day...just sayin'.

Lisa, who has a great eye for color, pulled some fabrics that we have in the shop that she thought would be nice in this year's mystery quilt...

 All I could say is...oohh...

 ...aahh...

 ...Sweet!

 ...and she and Starlyn cut some yummy Fat Quarter Bundles :)

So if you need to supplement your stash (and I have spied some people in the shop with paint chips lately), come in a pick up a bundle.  We have little ones for each color way, and big ones that include all the fat quarters in them.  ...while supplies last ;)

Enjoy the day!
~ Dawn

A Productive Day of Fun Sewing

Today was a Sew In day with friends, and I like to take just fun, kind of mindless sewing when I go to these days.  I got everything accomplished that I wanted to get to today, and that's always a good feeling :) 

This first one I got the binding put on today to finish it up ~ it's a little quilt that I made as my donation quilt for the Log Cabin challenge that the Baltimore Modern Quilt Guild was doing, and the quilts will go to the SE Early Childcare center in Baltimore.  The quilts were due at last month's meeting, but I missed that one so mine didn't get in on the quilt display that was put up at Kennedy Kraiger, but it's going to tomorrow's meeting and will still get donated to a little kiddo.   Btw, the whale's name is Steven...I asked Elsie to name the quilt, thinking she'd say something along the lines of Willie the Whale...but after a little thought, she said his name should be Steven ~ So Steven it is :)
 

I also got these two tops pieced today.  I'm making these quilts for my cousin's grandsons, they are 8" squares made up of fabrics that interest each boy.  One has footballs and basketballs, etc. and the other has guitars and music notes.  They each will get an inner and outer border and then be ready for quilting and off to them for Christmas gifts :)

And finally today I put some extra borders on this top that I had made up a while back after swapping these blocks with my sewing buddies.  I need another Queen size rather than Full size quilt, so this one just needed to be made a little bit larger.  Maddie liked it as soon as I brought it home and draped it out to snap a photo :)
 

And here are some of the things that got finished at the Sew In today by others.  Starlyn and Mary finished the last bit of hand quilting that needed to be done on this block of the month quilt that Starlyn had made a while back and just hadn't gotten it completed.  It's so cool to see some hand quilting getting finished :)

Chris finished piecing together this beautiful quilt that she made from a block of the month.  I love the different size blocks throughout this quilt. 

And Cappy added the borders on this awesome black/white quilt to complete the top.  It's going to be a raffle quilt being raffled off at Halloween to benefit her Border Collie rescue group, so contact me if you're interested in trying to win it, and I'll hook you up with the ticket sales.

I'm glad I was able to make it today, it was a fun and productive day visiting, eating and sewing with good friends :)

Enjoy the day!
~ Dawn

Sew In Results & A Winner

Last night was the Friday Night Sew In.  I like to curl up in my recliner, put on some TV and hand stitch in the evenings.  So this is what I worked on last night. 

I pulled out an old project that I had started years ago at a class in Hershey PA with Lisa Schiller.  This project is from the book Baskets and Blossoms published by Indygo Junction.  I started mine years ago, but decided to make some changes to it. 

These layered roses were what we had learned to do in class, and I had them already finished.

So now I've finished the basket edge, and I'm going to applique a star medallion on the front of the basket.

 Then last night I finished a couple of these little baskets that are going in the quilt...someday.

And I used some different thread than I usually do ~ usually I use 60 wt Mettler or YLI Silk thread for hand applique...

But my longarmer friend Sheri gave me some left over bobbin threads from Superior Threads.  These are called SuperBobs that are prewound, and well less than full bobbins are not fun for longarmers to work with, so she gave me some of her extras for hand applique.  The colors are great and the thread is really fine and easy to applique with ~ Thanks Sheri!

To do some blog hopping and see some of the other Friday Night Sew In results just go to Heidi's blog.  Plan on spending some time hopping around, there were lots of participants!

And I've drawn the name of the winner from my little Christmas in July drawing from Thursday's post ~ and the winner is SoSarahSew!  I'm emailing you Sarah to get your address :) 

Keep posted ~ later this week I'll be having a really fun GiveAway of a neat new item that I've been reviewing :)   In the meantime...

Enjoy the day!
~ Dawn

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

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

Results

I decided to do a little hand applique for the Friday Night Sew In. I started with a few of these...

Added a few of these...

And I got this block finished up! (I had cheated, and started it earlier in the week)

This is block number two from a block of the month that we are doing at the shop this year. It's from the book called Women of Influence by Sarah Maxwell & Delores Smith. It is a nice mix of some pieced blocks and some applique.

It was a nice way to spend a Friday night, in my comfy chair, with Stash and Hershey, watching tv, and stitching. I'll look forward to the next monthly Friday Night Sew In :)

Enjoy the day!
~ Dawn

Friday Night ~ It's a Date!

What will you be doing on Friday Night? How about a virtual Sew-In ~ complete with prizes! Read about it here on Heidi's blog, then join me...put on some comfy clothes, grab some chocolate, and spend Friday night doing something you love!

Enjoy the day!
~ Dawn