And the Winners are (a day late)

 I had really intended to announce the winners of my 300th posting giveaway yesterday but was exhausted when I got home.  Sometimes holiday with the family can be just a little too much. I left on Wednesday for Nashville to spend Thanksgiving with my niece, left there on Friday for Mississippi to take my mom home, and came back to Atlanta on Sunday.  Lots of driving!!!

The winners are:

Lisa M, won the six patterns.

Magirite won the two Fig tree books.

LeKa Quilt won the 40 Fabulous Quilts books

Ladies send me your addresses and the prizes will go out in the mail.  Thanks for all of the wonderful comments.

Over the river and through the woods

Not to grandmother's house, but to my niece's house in Nashville.  I don't know why but for some reason she had to have Thanksgiving at her house this year.  It should be interesting.  I hope everyone has a safe and Happy Thanksgiving.  Don't for get to check out my giveaway, the winners will be announced on Sunday. 

Too each his own

I sew, my husband hunts.  Hobbies are a wonderful thing and I am blessed with having one that I can participate in year around.  My poor husband is cursed with one that he can only enjoy a few months out of the year.  However, this has been a very good year for him.  Yesterday while working on my Bonnie Hunter mystery pieces, he was out shooting an 11 point buck.  This is the largest one that he has ever killed.  There will be plenty of meat in the freezer and a new head on the wall. 

Bonnie Hunter Mystery

 I did it again, I started another quilt.  I wasn't going to, but I did.  When I read that Bonnie Hunter was doing another mystery quilt I thought oh, that is nice, but I am not doing it.  I have two of her mystery quilts that I still haven't finished. But of course I changed my mind when I saw the colors she suggested using.  I don't have to buy a thing, I have tons of pink, green, brown, and cream in my stash.  The first clue came out on Friday.  I have almost completed it.  I had to dig through my stash and find a few more pinks.  I had a lot of greens already pulled, but definitely needed more pinks.  Here are some of my two inch strips, along with some of the strips that I have started to sew together and cut into 2 inch pieces.

Stips cut into two inch pieces awaiting the next clue.

Thimbles Weekend

It's that time again.  I so look forward each month to getting together with all of my quilting buddies.  Friday night was pretty quite at Thimbles, not surprising since it was the weekend before Thanksgiving.  Kristie and Becky were there along with Gretchen and Sarah.  It was great to see Gretchen.   She had two great quilts to show, one was Bonnie Hunter's Christmas lights from last year, and a beautiful Halloween quilt.  Krisite was working on an applique project, Becky was knitting, Sarah was sewing on binding, and I was finishing up a Schnibbles.  Sarah has been super busy, she had four quilts for show and tell, unfortunately I only got photos of two of them.  The one below is from the pattern Sassy Sixteen.

The Long Road Home from Bonnie Blue Quilts.  ( I am definitely making this one)

# 300

I can't believe this is my 300th blog post.  It seems like just a few months ago that I joined the blogging world.  I really had never thought about starting a blog until my friend Becky, over at the Quilting Booklady started talking a bout all of the fun she was having blogging.  It took me a week just to figure out what I wanted to call my blog!  Then there was the struggle to find a background that I liked.  Then I thought what if nobody reads it, or thinks it is awful.  After my first few postings, I didn't think about that anymore.  I was doing it just for the fun of doing it.  I do love getting comments from people and reading the blogs of those who have become followers.  It could easily become an addiction.  In honor of my 300th post I am doing not one, but three giveaways.  The first give away is six patterns, four are from Moda and the other two are from a different company. 

The second giveaway is two books from Fig Tree Quilts, Fresh Vintage Sewing and The Pastry Shop.

                                                            

Give away number three is my all time favorite quilt book, 40 Fabulous Quick-Cut Quilts.  I have made 2 quilts from this book, with plans for another in the works.

To enter leave me a comment of any kind, to be entered twice become a follower.  The winners will be announced on Sunday.  Good luck.

Hawaiian quilting

 Ever since I read The Aloha Quilt I have wanted to try Hawaiian applique. I knew that one of our local teachers taught a class in it a couple of times a year I just had to wait until it was offered again. Much to my dismay, the teacher had some health problems and wasn't doing any teaching for a while. I knew that if she could she would go back to teaching. I was very excited a few weeks ago when I saw that she was back at work and offering a beginning Hawaiian applique class. I called that day to sign up. Last Friday night I started packing my supplies and decided that I didn't like the two fabrics I had chosen, I got to the class early on Saturday to look around and see if I could find something that I liked better. I found exactly what I was looking for, I wanted a cream background with turquoise applique. There were several patterns that we could choose from, I selected one called ginger.  After tracing around all of the layers of fabric I was afraid to cut into it, but I finally did and loved the way that it looked.

Getting ready to cut.

The applique is now pinned on, with about a 100 pins.

Basting the applique down.

I have the entire applique piece basted down and have started doing the applique, but don't know when I will get back to it.  Thanksgiving plans are getting in the way of my sewing time.

Thanksgiving Tablerunner

 I know that I am running out of time to finish this project, but all I have left to do is the quilting.  I plan on quilting in the ditch around the stitchery squares and doing some simple crosshatches on the gold part in the middle.  This has been really easy to do, I just kept getting sidetracked with other non-sewing projects.

Folk Art Tribute #3

I am really getting into this applique thing.  This is the third of the folk art applique blocks from Dawn at Linen Closet Quilts.  I think the reason I like these blocks so well is that the pieces are really big.  I am fairly new to the world of applique and the big pieces are much easier for me to do at this point.  I spent more time trying to select my fabrics that I do on the actual applique.  I am always second guessing myself.  I usually wish that I had selected other fabrics after I start working on a block, but so far I have been pleased with the outcome of the blocks.  I am taking a Hawaiian applique class on Saturday and am really looking forward to that.

Thanks to all of our Veteran's

Don't forget to thank a vet today.



Yes, I am a Nerd

Yesterday when I came to work several people wanted to know what I did over the weekend, when I told them I  was told I was a nerd.  That did not bother me in the least.  I am a nerd and proud of it.  On Saturday I went to the Atlanta History Center to see the Abraham Lincoln exhibit, With Malice Toward None.  It was wonderful, if you are a history buff. I even got to meet Mr.  and Mrs. Lincoln.  I don't know where they found Mr. Lincoln but he  was perfect for the part.  I found out a lot that I never knew about him.  I also picked up some great ideas to use at school next year when our fifth grade classes study the civil war.  I participated in a penny election, to show the candidates from 1860.  It was very interesting, you voted based on the candidates beliefs, without knowing their names.  Maybe that is something that we should try today.

November already

Table Runner by Bird Brain Designs

What Thanksgiving is almost here, what happened to October?  I still have some Halloween decorations out.  The calendar can't be right, but I am afraid that it is.  I need to start thinking about Christmas, but can't forget about Thanksgiving.  I always feel like  Thanksgiving is the stepchild of fall holidays.  Everyone goes all out for Halloween and Christmas, but Thanksgiving often gets overlooked.  I am guilty of it as well.  I realized that I have no Thanksgiving decorations.  This year I decided to change that.  I found a new table runner pattern fro Bird Brain designs,( it even comes with a Halloween stitchery pattern also).  I dug through my stash and found some fall fabrics to use for it.  I have almost completed one of the stitchery panels. 

Mitford Heaven



Jan talking with an admirer.

Last week I had the opportunity to meet one of my all time favorite authors, Jan Karon. Becky,   her neighbor Kathy and myself  headed to the Decatur First Baptist Church to hear Jan Karon talk about her new novel, In the Company of Others. We had a great time.  Becky and Kathy had heard her before and had met her sister, Brenda.  Becky happened to  see Brenda ( who was scoping out the empty seats next to us) and invited her to come and join us.  I can't remember the last time that I had so much fun and laughed so much.  I felt like I was talking to an old friend, with Brenda and when Jan started talking I felt "at home". 

I remember the first time I ever heard her name, I had just become a media specialist, and I was visiting with a friend who was  giving me pointers on being a my new job; while at lunch we were talking about adult novels that we liked and she mentioned Jan Karon and the Mitford series.  I thought they sounded nice and would maybe someday read them.  A few weeks later while at the public library I just happened to see the first one and checked it out.  I was totally hooked.  I couldn't believe that I had not read them before.  The only good thing about discovering them late was the fact that most of the books were out and I didn't have to wait with baited breathe for each one to be published.  I hated for each one to end.  I feel like the people in Mitford are my friends and neighbors.  I have convinced several people to read the series and have never met anyone who didn't like them.  Can't recommend them enough.