THREE YEARS!

Holy moly - another year has passed and today, I am celebrating 3 years of blogging!!   I want to thank all my friends who read and comment regularly, and encourage any lurkers to comment as well by offering this brand new, ultra-slick Gingher rotary cutter as an anniversary prize.  Just comment on THIS POST between now and April 5 and I will put all names in the hat for this finely crafted rotary cutter!  And thanks to all who have visited my blog in these last 3 years.  Stop by again, won't you?

Progress and some setbacks

I'm at the border stage of my Swell Moda U quilt for the shop sample.  Last night I was basting the red cotton rick rack I bought to the innner border and this morning when I picked it up to admire my handiwork, I realized I was going to run out of rick rack!  I am more than a little peeved, as I ordered an entire extra yard.   And now of course I must order another whole piece plus extra, in case it is a different dye lot.  Ugh.

I have made ZERO progress on our Web Sampler quilt.  I ordered the finishing kit on January 31 and paid with a credit card through Paypal.  The shop charged my card immediately but I did not get my kit.  3 weeks passed.   I was assured it was on its way "within a week."   2 more weeks passed, then 2 more.  I finally contacted the shop and asked for a refund.  My email went unanswered for 4 days until I filed a complaint with Paypal, and then I got an immediate response and credit.  I won't name the shop since I did get a resolution, but I am not pleased.  It has soured me on this web sampler business and I doubt I will ever again do a project like this from 12 different shops.  I'm really disappointed and have lost all my enthusiasm for this project.

Quilt show - my entries

OK, here is the last of my quilt show posts, I promise! These are the 2 quilts that are entered in a voting category. They are both in the same category and have some stiff competition, so I don't expect to win anything, but I think it's always fun to see your quilts on display.  Edited to add:   One of my commenters made me realize I forgot to provide any information about these quilts!  I'm sorry about that!

They are both Miss Rosie's patterns.  The first one is her pattern Allemande, and since that's a dance term, I named my quilt "Swing Your Partner."  It's made using just 3 charm packs of Moda's Faded Memories fabric and added background (Lakehouse Frosted Dots in cream and white), along with more Faded Memories yardage for the large pinwheels and borders.

The second quilt is Miss Rosie's ZuZu's Petals pattern, and it's made using nearly every orange and cream or white fabric I could find.  I found a wild surfboard print for the border and Nicole suggested "Kowabunga!" as a name based on her wild, surfer dude past, which I thought was the perfect name.

Quilt show inspirations

There were, of course many inspiring works of art at a show of this size, but I took photos of these two which were my favorite and destined to be a future project. The first was made with a collection of fabrics from her trip to Australia, but I just love the flying geese pattern and the way she did her borders. I think this is a great scrappy quilt, which is of course *MY* favorite kind!

The second quilt was in a merchant's booth, although they did not have a kit or even a pattern for sale. I was able to buy a few of the Robert Kaufman Potpourri fabrics and will make this one at some point in these colors, but perhaps bigger and using a different pattern - maybe even the flying geese pattern above? At any rate, I fell in love with these fabrics!

Quilt show entries - Then and Now

The quilt show is over and although it was great, I'm very glad. What a lot of work! My guild will be selling CDs with photos of all 500+ quilts, so I didn't take a lot of my own pictures, but I will share a few over the next few posts. A couple of my online friends have asked to see pictures of my quilts, and though I have shown them on my blog before, I will show them here again.

Here are my entries for the special category Then and Now - my very first quilt and then a recent quilt that I completed. These were not eligible for voting.

A huge sigh of relief!

Last night I put the final stitches into bindings and hanging sleeves of my 4 quilts going to the Quilters Anonymous quilt show next week.  The drop off date is Tuesday, I will be working to set up the show on Wednesday, and the show opens to the public on Friday.  Please come if you are in the area, it's a really great show with over 400 quilts on display.

I will be working at the Keepsake Cottage Fabrics booth all day on Friday, so if you are there, stop by and say hi!

Now, I am very anxious to get back to my SEWING MACHINE!!!