Giving Back part 1

I must admit it here and now...I am an incredibly lucky girl.
Not in everything in life, I assure you, but with winning fabric/crafty giveaway's I am a bit charmed.

My current streak started back in October when I won Cathy's giveaway.  It was the most productive giveaway ever!  I made loads of Christmas presents with that awesome FQ bundle! (Thanks again Cathy!)
and incidentally, Cathy has a great online shop with lots of great sales right now!

And I blogged about my win of Art Gallery Fabrics just a few weeks ago.

And now...now the grand daddy of most coveted giveaways...in my book anyway...I won a Fat Eighth bundle of French General's La Petite Ecole hosted by Sherri and sponsored by Green Fairy Quilts.

(picture borrowed from Green Fairy Quilts...I sure hope that is ok!)

Thank you so much Sherri and thank you Judi and Clint.  I am so excited!

So you see...I am a lucky girl...and what better way to show my gratitude toward all the crafty bloggers that host giveaways, but than to host one myself?

I just finished sewing together the postage stamp blocks...thank you everyone for your input in the last post...in the end, I sewed them all together as is.  I got a comment stating that since I love postage stamp quilts, chances are I probably still do, and that prompted me to just follow thru with the quilt as is. 

I'm still debating a border or two...but that is another post...

So...giving back...yes...I got a lot of comments here and on Flickr about everyone's love of the Urban Chiks 1974 line...so I thought I would pull my stash and give away my own FE bundle!

Please leave a comment below...and I will pick a winner next Sunday, February 6th.
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This stack of red is all about Giving Back part 2, and that will be my next post in the following days...but can anyone explain how someone who has as much fabric as I do could only pull these predominantly red fabrics from her stash????

Oh NOOOOOO!

So...I got all (minus one) of my blocks done for the P.S. I Quilt - A - Long and there is only one problem.  I do NOT like it.  I feel like it's missing something.  Like sashing?  maybe an alternating solid block?  something...

I thought I was completely on board with a postage stamp style quilt...

What do you do when you are mid project and suddenly fall out of love with it?

A horse is a horse

Has anyone discovered a cute way to photograph fabric garlands?  OY! I have no idea!  

Anyway, I have a good friend from college that just loves horses.  Growing up in the city I don't have much experience with horses, but I sent my friend a Christmas garland, and she loved it...so, when her birthday rolled around, i figured..."why not"?

She loves it!!  I just got a letter from her today!! (yes, she and I have been corresponding since college with snail mail...it's not that we don't have email, blogs, or cell phones...we like it that way!!) So I can already imagine during big race days, she will have this hanging in her living room!

Postage Stamp Quilt a long

I joined the quilt a long with Rachel at P.S. I Quilt and I am really glad I did.  I've had 2 Urban Chiks 1974 jelly rolls for a while and been wanting to use them...I've used a few strips out of one of them, so I ended up opening both...and I plan to make the quilt bigger than the quiltalong directions...
I was so lucky to find the solid teal that came with the line at my LQS!!  I think this is the first time I have made a quilt 'just because'.  It is not destined for anyone's bed or new baby...I kinda like quilting for the sake of quilting!

Also, I bought a new ruler called Shape Cut for this project and it made cutting the strips much easier!  I feel like I have quite a few more postage stamp style quilts left in me!!

Quilts for Queensland

Corrie at RetroMummy is organizing a drive to collect 12.5 inch quilt blocks that she and a group of sewers are going to assemble into quilts and hand out to the families affected by the floods in Australia.  I knew I wanted to join in and I made a block but then I remembered a 'block of the month' I did at my LQS years ago that I never finished...

I found enough scraps (or maybe the fabric for the missing block I never made??) but Im sure I can make a block of it and get these sent off to Corrie.

Maybe you have a block or two you could send?

FABRIC post

Here is the good and the bad of my week, fabric wise...

first...the good

 I won a giveaway at Don't Call Me Betsy!!!  Sew Fresh Fabric on Etsy sponsored the giveaway and they sent me 8 very fresh, new to me 1/2 yards cuts!  Just looking at this pile makes me think spring, which is important as the snow falls and the temperature drops...I apologize to you though...I didn't have time to take a pic during the day...so this is the best my wee camera can do at night.

and now the bad:

not bad fabric mind you...just bad habits.  Stopped into my LQS looking for a fabric for an upcoming quilt I am working on, and lucky for me, they had it!  But they also had lots of new fabrics on the sale rack.  So polka dots and Ash Kona solid came home with me...for all the wrong reasons...not that I don't like all of these, I do...but if I am honest, the price was too hard to resist!

So here we are on the 8th day of the year, and I easily and readily have slipped back into bad habits.  I am really going to try and stay within my fabric budget this year...

design wall

I am very lucky to have a room all to myself for sewing.  Its a big help to be able to leave things laying around...but the floor space is v. limited as well as the wall space...I have some batting pinned to the wall giving me approximately 38x50 inches for a design wall.  Today I decided I am going for a new approach with my 2010 bee blocks.  Using the limited space of my design wall...I'm going to join blocks together in whatever fashion strikes my fancy...today's 'block' is roughly 25 inches square.

Maybe this is quilter's suicide...I'm not entirely sure...but with limited floor and wall space, I figured it would be easier to put together a limited number of very large blocks vs. lots of small blocks.

I will let you know how it goes!!

I have a friend who loves horses.  Man, she loves horses.  She rides whenever she is able...and she loves watching the big horse races.  I don't know much about horses...but I have an idea of something to make for my friend so that she can decorate during race days.  She *might* be reading my blog, so I'll leave it at that...but, I'm wondering do any of you know of other horse fabrics?  have any I could swap you for?

Happy New Year!

Hope everyone's year has started off on the right foot!
We have had a few days of unseasonably warm weather so the kids and I have gotten in a bike ride and a long walk over the past two days...but listening to the wind outside now I would guess the cold is rolling back in..... 

Do you make new year's resolutions?  I'm not good at keeping them, so I should not go there...I think it would be better to start fresh everyday and that is my resolution for 2011.

There are two hot spots that I would like to concentrate on this year...

I need to make time to work out more.  Athletics have always been a part of my life and one area that has seriously been lacking since having children. And luckily for me, I have the next 364 days of this year to make that happen each and every day! right?

Additionally, I hope to use my stash this year.  Keep track and be more responsible in my fabric shopping habits.  Hubby and I have talked budget and I think challenging myself to stay on track with my 'crafting budget' is a better idea than trying to abstain entirely from fabric shopping...Ill keep you posted on my progress.

And I will end tonight with a picture of the bee blocks I received from my fellow bee participants in 2010. I hope to work these into something over the next few days.  I think I'm jumping in with both feet.  A la Freddy Moran and Gwen Marston going to try and work from the "Parts Dept" to make this quilt.
I'm not entirely sure what my approach will be.  I may start adding in more Kona Snow around blocks...keeping the focus on solid fabrics...I didn't specify size of blocks to the bee groups so it will take some fiddling to make this come together, and I think I'm up for the challenge.