Projector Give Away!

Hey everyone! Check out Twice Lovely's blog to enter in her giveaway. 



Good Luck everyone!

It's Been Too Long and I'm Gettin' the Itch...

The Itch to Quilt that is!

Wow! It has been way too long since I have posted and since I have quilted.  I recently made the HUGE move from Charleston SC to upstate NY near Albany.  My husband and I packed up over 6,000 pounds of stuff our dog and three cats and headed north to his new station.  Luck him he just had the dog in the truck with him, I was stuck with ALL three cats for almost 20 hours of travel. 

Chief in the truck on one of our breaks.

We stayed the night with my grandparents for a night in VA on the way up.  It was great to see them and I inherited some wonderful peices from my Gran.  I got her sewing table and dinner table.  I could NOT have been more happy.  The sewing table isn't anything spectacular but just the fact that it was my gran's thrills me! It is perfect in my new little sewing room.

A picture I took on the drive up here.  I couldn't resist, it was so beautiful.

That brings me to another reason I haven't posted in so long, my new sewing room! It has taken me a while to get around to unpacking it and it is about one fourth of the size of my old one so I am having trouble making it just right for me. It is coming along nicely though and should be done soon.  The freezing cold weather here (which I am NOT accustumed to being from FL and never traveling much norther than VA) Makes me want to do NOTHING but quilt.  All I can think about is sitting down with a hot cup of tea and make beautiful quilts to keep me warm and to hang on my walls to help insulate my new house.


I have a couple of projects I have been working on recently as much as I can and I will keep you all updated as much as I can as I work on them.

Moving!!!

My husband recently got orders to relocate.  We just found out that we will be moving to upstate NY to finish his training.  Although it is going to be a huge change and EXTREMELY different from what I am used to (I was raised in the south and went to highschool and college in FL) I have decided I am very excited for the change and adventure.  The first thing I did went my husband told me the news was jump on the computer and look up quilt shops in the area.  I was ecstatic when I found out there were so many shop nearby since here in Charleston there really aren't any quilt shops.  With this big change I have decided to add some changes to my quilting life to make it more productive.  We will only be in NY for about 8 months so I feel like that is the perfect time period to set some short term goals.  My goals are roughly as follows:

GOALS:

1. Take at least one quilting class a month.  Each class should be based on a new task I should be learning or perfecting.
2. Finish my Gran's quilt by Christmas.
3. Participate in a Quilting Bee.
4. Participate in a Siggy Quilt swap.
5. Make at least ONE Brown Bag quilt from the Stash Manicure Brown Bag Quilt Contest.
6. Make a "Baby Jane" Quilt top.  Do a certain amount of squares per week until I get the whole Quilt top done.

Christmas Quilt 1

So this post is a little late due to some personal issues I was having. But here it is :).  I am doing the Christmas in July Blitz by Monkey Dog Quilts.   I am making a quilt for my Grandmother (on my father's side) for Christmas this year.  Since she has done so much for me over the years I figured it is the least I can do for her.  It will be a signature quilt with a block for each of my cousins, aunts, uncles, father, and sister.  My grandma is very proud of her Scottish heritage and immigrated to America when she was 19.  I have decided to make the Quilt purple and green because those colors remind me of her home.  These are four of the fabrics I have picked out.  I still need to get two more that are green.

Below is a picture of inspiration.  Although my quilt will be somewhat different it will still have the same type blocks.  

I Have drawn this rough sketch to see if it is how I want the quilt but I am not quite sure yet.  I think I really like it, what do you think?

Right after I picked the colors for this quilt a found this quilt being done for an ill mother.  I plan on using my left over fabric to make squares for it.  Maybe you could help too?

My Pledge

Today I watched a documentary on Wal-Mart and have decided to boycott this store and start shopping locally.  I am disgusted with how this corporation treats it's workers from both overseas and right here in America. I will do my best to by form local farmers and to buy as many things handmade and reuse as much as possible.  Read here about what you can do to shop locally and why we should not be shopping at Wal Mart. The documentary can be rented from NetFlix and I highly recommend every one watch to have an understanding of we are participating in when we shop at the awful place.

History Lesson: Friendship Quilts

Friendship quilting started in the mid-1800s and was a huge fad of the time. These nifty quilts where also called signature quilts and album quilts. Friendship quilts were used to help remember friends and feel connected with them in a time before telephones and internet especially when so many families were up and moving out west and would never see their old friends again. They were also used to raise money or to donate to troops. A group of women would charge per signature per block and then raffle off the quilt or sell it at auction. Blocks would include either names, locations, bible verses, notes or any combination of these either written in ink or embroidered.

I love the idea of a friendship quilt! Once I have more readers I plan to do a friendship quilt group project/quilt along and I have some different ideas for them. Maybe one for followers and we can all make squares to send to each other and we could all make our own friendship quilts? And I totally love the idea of making one for our troops! Sending a quilt to someone fighting overseas would be a wonderful thing to do. I think I am going to make a christmas style friendship quilt for my Grandma's Christmas present with our families signatures and notes.

If anyone has anything they would like to add please leave a comment.  I am always in the mood to learn more! :).  Also, if you have done a friendship quilt I would love to hear about it.

Mary Ellen's

So today I had to go to Hancock Fabrics to get some bobbins and I stumbled across a basket with 50% OFF in bright yellow across it. Of course this got me interested. (I am a sucker for a sale) I saw that this basket held Mary Ellen's Best Press. I have heard great things about it but could never bring myself to buy it until now. Again, I am a sucker for a sale. It is usually a bit pricey but at four dollars I just couldn't say no and boy am I happy I didn't. This stuff is AMAZING. I used it to press a binding strip and it made the fabric so crisp and creased yet still very soft. I began finding myself wanting to iron ALL my fabric to make it this nice. I washed and ironed the fabric I will be using to make a quilt tomorrow and then cut it into pieces a little after and it was so much easier to cut and measure perfect little squares and strips. If you have never used this product I recommend you go get, and quickly too while it is still on sale! I cannot belief it made my fabric so much easier to work with and still left it so soft. I hope y'all enjoy this product.
P.S. Oh! And I got some little storage containers for my studio! I am so excited to get my selves up and use my new boxes to organize.