Friendship x and + Swap

I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving.

Just got home from 7 hours of Black Friday Shopping!  I am pooped!!  But so well worth the day! Great deals and a lot of fun.

As I mentioned in a previous post I am involved in The x and + Friendship Block Swap.

My partner choose. red, light green, and blue for this month's blocks. We make 4 twin blocks . I keep four, I send my partner four.

Here are the four I will be sending to the UK!

This month it is my turn to pick the colors from our palette.

I choose; Navy, Yellow, and Blue.

Here is a peek at some of my fabrics.

Just a reminder, you can join anytime!  Come take a peek at the flickr page to see other blocks from different color palettes.

Happy Sewing, have a wonderful weekend and do something you love.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Have a Happy and Blessed Thanksgiving.

(google image)

A Post To Share

I would like to share a post with you that you may not have seen.

Amanda Jean from  Crazy Mom Quilts
gave me permission to share her quilt with you....

Scrap Vortex

I simply adore this quilt.

My Katie Jump Rope was my quilt for 2013 all pieced and quilted by hand.

I was so inspired by Amanda Jean's quilt that I decided that this will be my 2014 quilt!

I am so excited!!

Of course I have scraps and I cannot believe I am even saying this but I have to get more!!

Must find scraps!

Thank you to Amanda Jean for allowing me to share this quilt.

Amanda Jean has posted more about her quilt on her blog.

Crazy Mom Quilts

For the Love of Hand Embroidery

I am sorry to say that we do not have a post for today. 

Wendy hurt her arm and cannot stitch.

Heal soon Wendy.

Happy Sewing!

Flimsy Number Two!

Yippee!!  Things are going well with my college quilts. I finished the flimsy for quilt number two.

Coral....

and I have started to tie the purple one! 

 I am so proud of myself for getting a jump on these quilts.

Oh wait, I still have Maggie's and that one is hand quilted.

Well. I have until May!

Have a wonderful weekend and do something you love.

Friendship Swap

I have begun making blocks for the Friendship Swap I have joined. If you missed my post about the swap you can find it 

HERE.

you never know, you might what to join!

For the month of November, Maria choose

red, blue, light green

Here I some fabrics I am going to use...

As you can see, slim pickings on the light green. Some shopping is in order!

And I can only show you one block for now.

We have a revel day at the end of each month.

Happy Sewing!

I am so jealous, really!

Oh you lucky New Yorkers! Yes, I mean you lucky one's who live close to Zabars!! How jealous am I that you can go in and shop for all their deliriously good treats! 

New York Bagels, 

Rugelach, 

 Babka, 

 black and white cookies,

Do you remember the Seinfeld episode where Elaine just had to bring a chocolate Babka to her friends. As the cinnamon was "the inferior one"! I tend to agree!

Well I am in Illinois, so god bless the internet!  Once a year at Thanksgiving I treat everyone to what they want from Zabars.

The order is on the way, and I can taste it now.

Hey you lucky New Yorkers go get a treat and enjoy every mouth watering bite. I will be doing the same soon.

Have a wonderful weekend and do something you love.

ZABARS

A True Friend!

A true friend. One you can call and she will come over just to help you adjust your sewing machine so it sews a true 1/4 inch seam.

When my middle daughter got married 3 years ago, this is the quilt I made for the newlyweds.

Queen size...

Fast Forward to last month...

Ring, Ring, "Hi Honey"

"Hi Mom"

"We got a king size bed"

"That's great"

"Ummm, we were wondering if there was anyway you could make our quilt bigger?"

"Sure. no problem, just give it to me and I would be happy too"

"Thanks, love you"

"Love you too"

A true friend, someone who will come over and walk you step by step through a process you had no idea how to accomplish.

My idea was to take apart the last 6 inchs of the quilt on all four sides, hand quilting and all!

Elaine's idea...

Not sure if I can even explain it correctly!

After we talked to my daughter and measured the quilt we were able to figure out that we only needed to add 13 inches to two sides. The other two were fine.

So, off came the binding. Then a quick sew around the edge of the whole quilt so the hand quilting would not come out. 

OK, I get it I will cut 13 inch stripes to make a border. No, stop!  "you do not want any seams in the border right?"  "Ahh, sure"

First cute the length of the one side we need to fix, what!!  

Cut right down the middle of the 6 yards. I now had two pieces of 72 by 44 inch fabrics.

Take the 72 by 44 and now cut two 13 by 72.

This would yield 4 pieces of 13 by 72.

Next cut batting 15 ( a little bigger) by 72, twice.

OK now I have a back, batting, and top.

Let's sew!

Somehow it ending up being a french seam. I believe we laid it backing right side up, batting, the top and sewed, flipped the backing over and it hid the stitching. Or something like that! See no seam on the back!

Hand quilt the new border. 

Add new binding. 

 Wash, dry, and give back to the couple for a good night's sleep.

Yep, a true friend is someone who has the patience to hold my hand through a process I can barley explain.

Thank you Elaine! 

One Little Click!

One little click!

Wow, what one little click can do!  I was on pinterest just looking, nothing special just browsing, when I can across a picture I just loved. For the life of me I have no idea which one!  But I clicked on the owner and was cyber swooshed to Susan's blog Patchworknplay What a great blog! I started to follow her through Feedly.  I noticed in one post that she and her friend Carla from Lollyquiltz  (another fun blog) were holding a friendship swap.....

Hmm....what could that be?

I'll tell you!  Super fun!  Each month you make eight blocks.

4 different blocks, twice. Twins!  You keep one set of four and send the other set to your partner.

This is the block we are making. It is a + and X Friendship Block.  The pattern is from Amy Badskirt. Tutorial found HERE

My partner is a lovely blogger named Maria from the UK. This is her fun blog. She Love To Sew.

    

You and your partner pick a color palette together. 

This is the palette we choose with some modifications. For us there was a few too many blues and we wanted to go outside our box and stretch our comfort zone. We choose our palette from Design Seeds (amazing site) 

Our colors are:

blue 

red

light green

mid tone green

yellow

WAIT FOR IT!!

Navy!!

I cannot wait to make my first eight blocks.

But first a trip to the store.

Navy!  I have none but I know there are some beauties out there just waiting for me!

 Not too late to join, here is the LINK.

So... from one little click, three new super great blogs, three new super bloggers and a swap!!

Wow, now that is what I call fun!