a timely sale!

Yesterday I learned that I won Kimberly Einmo's new book, Jelly Roll Quilt Magic, and today I saw a sale offer from Burgundy Buttons in my mailbox ... an additional 10% off jelly rolls, already at great prices.  Even though the offer is not on Burgundy Buttons' blog, Leah told me that I could share the discount code with friends ... just use Promotion code CDS1 to save an additional 10% on Jelly Rolls at check out.  The price will be reflected as new price in shopping cart.

Yes, I know, I already have too many jelly rolls.  But I don't have any CHRISTMAS jelly rolls, and I had to pick up some of Me & My Sisters' "Ready Set Snow!".

Before shipping, my price came to only $26.05!  It was hard, but I resisted buying their Amelia jelly roll too (I think I already have a charm pack of Amelia).  I have to leave something for next time!


So go stock up on jelly rolls!  The sale ends at midnight CST tonight and I think that something new comes along tomorrow since it's a four-day Columbus Day sale.  And get on Burgundy Buttons' mailing list if you're not already because I can't tell you about all the sales!  They have some of the best fabrics at the best prices out there!!

I'm a winner!

Man, what an exhausting couple of days.  Yesterday I made the six-hour drive to my dad's house with the dog (I managed to stop in at Patchwork Plus in Dayton, VA and Pete* behaved during the wait ... they were out of the fabric I originally bought there but I picked up a mottled white/gray batik that I think should match the quilt).  This morning I got up early and drove another almost two hours to my old stomping grounds in Delaware to deal with banks and lawyers and all sorts of red tape dealing with my great aunt's affairs.  I stopped in at my old office to have lunch with a former colleague, and saw my old boss, which was a nice spot in the middle of an otherwise hectic day.  But then I had to go back to the bank and the law office before heading back to Dad's, and I'm SO ready for bed now.

*Incidentally, this is Pete (who is notoriously camera shy):

In the midst of all this insanity today, somewhere I checked email on my phone, wondering who needed something from me next, and I saw an email from Kimberly Einmo, telling me that I won a copy of her new book, Jelly Roll Quilt Magic, which I blogged about on Monday!  What a wonderfully, surprising, uplifting addition to my day! 

I follow a few dozen quilt blogs, and I know that every day there's at least one giveaway to be entered.  But honestly, I don't enter most of them.  If it's a book I don't want or fabric I don't love, I'll let it go to another entrant rather than throw my hat in the ring.  Not only do I not want to be greedy, but I've pared down my sewing room twice - once when I moved house and once when I divorced - and I'm more judicious about what I add to it nowadays.  So I am tickled that I won something that I wanted as much as this book.

I also texted my Honey to crow about this exciting news and he replied that a few "quilt-related things" arrived in the mail since I've been gone.  I'm assuming that it's the Prayer Flag yardage to finish Jelly Girl in my last post, and my Civil War Chronicles BOM.  Or maybe one of my magazines.  Either way, it's always so exciting to return home to new stuff in the sewing room.

Tomorrow I get my son for a three-day weekend ... at the end of which I will return to work from my medical leave ... and then I will be back to sewing during evenings and alternate weekends only.  But before I go, since this *IS* a quilting blog, I'll post the photo taken of Pink Profusion at Monday night's guild meeting.  Until next week!

jelly roll mania!

It shouldn't be a secret that my favorite precut is the jelly roll.  I just love 2 1/2" strips and I keep my eye out for things I can do with them.  My guild is planning a strip swap beginning in January and I'm already cutting from my stash to participate!!  Three of the quilts I've made so far this year were from 2 1/2" strips, all projects from Kim Brackman's books.  And then this past week/weekend I whipped up another quilt from a jelly roll, this time using a prepurchased pattern called Jelly Girl from Fig Tree Quilts:

This started out as one of those "leaders and enders" projects while piecing Kaleidoscope ... I needed to have something to push through the machine so that I could get up to take all my work to press without having to cut the threads.  Since you start by piecing the jelly roll strips in pairs and then cutting from that, it was so easy and perfect.  I used the Prayer Flag line by April Cornell for Moda.  And I found the most perfect cream colored background while shopping at Schoolhouse Fabrics in Floyd on Saturday.

The quilt went together so easily and my points look pretty good too. 

I'm pleased with how it turned out.  I have one more border to add ... since no one is selling Prayer Flag yardage in my local stores that I can find, I ordered some on eBay and it will arrive within the week.  No, I don't know what I will do with the quilt, but I'm somewhat considering giving it to my great aunt for whom I've been serving as power of attorney, since she was greatly on my mind this last week ... she fell and broke her hip while I was on vacation and I'm told she is now back in the nursing home and doing well.  I don't even think she remembers who I am at this point, but hopefully she would still appreciate a quilt.

I love, love, LOVE quilts using jelly rolls that don't LOOK like they use jelly rolls.  Which is why I'm so anxious to get my hands on this brand-spanking new book by Kimberly Einmo called Jelly Roll Quilt Magic.  I mean look at this quilt ... from a JELLY ROLL!

 And even though I'm hoping *I* win, she's giving away a copy of it on her website - just go comment here.  If I don't win, I'm going to have to buy a copy since I have SO many strips and jelly rolls around here.  I am especially excited after reading the following from the amazon.com review of this book:  "Last but not least, Kimberly experimented using precuts in a Round Robin exchange with international quilting friends. The idea and the results are amazing."  How timely with my guild's exchange scheduled for 2012!

quilty weekend

It was a delightful weekend, even for someone still recovering from surgery.  Let's review:

I finished the main part of my dad's Kaleidoscope quilt towards the end of the week.  I am short the amount of fabric I want for borders in that whitish-blue batik (looks solid white here) so this is as far as it has come:

My thought is to add 5" white borders all around, and then to applique onto that a curved bias-cut strip of fabric, kind of like a vine, in a color that really pops.  I didn't love anything in my stash, though, so it was on my shopping list.

On Thursday night, my Honey's dad came by with a little sewing project for me that I did on Friday.  When my Honey's mom was sick with cancer last year, his aunt made her this beautiful watercolor quilt.  My Honey's mom was an amazing gardener and it was perfect for her.  She passed away last September and since then his dad has moved to a new place and wanted to hang the quilt.  I sewed a sleeve on the back of it so that he could do so.  We took it down to him Saturday morning and later this weekend he emailed me a photo in thanks.  I've never done a watercolor quilt and I find Kathy's work beautiful and wanted to share.

He lives outside of Blacksburg, so after dropping it off with him, we went to Sew Biz in Radford, where I thought I could find some fabric for the bias strip for the Kaleidoscope quilt, but I wasn't finding anything I loved.  We decided to head to Floyd, where there was a quilt show happening.  On the way there, we hit Schoolhouse Fabrics in Floyd and made some good finds.  I bought not only the red for the quilt, but a nice 108" wide dark blue paisley to back the quilt with.

I'll stop back at Patchwork Plus in Dayton on my next drive north to see if I can find more of the batik which I originally bought there ... if not, I'll have to find something close and be okay with it.

I took a nap on the ride home so I had energy to sew that evening.  I was working on a whole different project that I'll blog about in a separate post, but it was fast and easy and is almost finished.

I sewed for much of Sunday, too, with football on in the background.  My son, who is 11, was having a lazy day and was texting me.  I've been feeling guilty because I've finished quilts for both my Honey's daughters, but for well over two years have been making only sluggish progress on my son's quilt (lesson learned:  do not allow anyone to choose their own pattern when making them a quilt).  So I'd recently resolved to work at least an hour a day on his, regardless of what else had brought me into the sewing room.  When I texted him that I was working on his quilt he replied, "Yay!  Thank you!" which added a little pang to my guilt accumulation.  This is my setup, with some finished blocks in front:

He chose the fabric and the pattern (from Carol Doak's 50 Fabulous Paper Pieced Stars, this is "Ohio").  Each star is paper pieced using eight sections, and yes, it takes a while.  I managed to make an entire star yesterday and picked out the paper while watching the Ravens beat the Jets last night.  I think I now have three finished.  I'm calling it "Dark Star" (although maybe I should call it "Bright Star Dark Sky") and although I've long since determined that the quilt will have to be made up of more than just these 12" blocks, I have no idea how many I will make or what the finished quilt will look like. 

It was also a weekend of good eating.  On Friday night my Honey surprised me with dinner reservations at a new restaurant in Salem called Blue Apron.  We had an 8:30 reservation but it was jammed (parents weekend at Roanoke College) and we didn't get seated until almost 9 (and while we waited in the bar, it was tiny - room for only 3 at the bar itself, and occupied with diners).  The staff was extraordinarily apologetic, though, and made up for it in service.  I enjoyed lobster bisque and an incredible mahi dish; my Honey's choices were excellent too.  What I loved was that every dish came in a small plate option so that you could have appetizers without sacrificing your meal.  On Saturday while in Floyd we stopped in at a brick oven pizzaria in Floyd called Dogtown Pizza.  It was very busy also and the pizza was worth the wait - using only fresh, local produce - and a nice beer selection to help pass the time.  Yesterday my Honey cooked up some beer-basted bratwurst and carmelized onions to enjoy in front of football and I'm already craving the leftovers I know are in the fridge.  Good food and good sewing, what more could a weekend hold?

Tonight is quilt guild and I'll take Pink Profusion for show and tell.

Still here, recuperating

I did make it to quilt guild the night before my hysterectomy and showed off the two finished projects.  First, the Hoopla baby quilts:

I finished sewing the bindings on them that evening and sent them out later in the week (my big post-surgical outing to the post office).  The recipients loved them.

The other quilt I showed was the wall hanging I made with Moda's City Weekend Candy Bars (2.5" x 5") from the Moda Bake Shop recipe.  Here is a closeup taken at guild showing the bubble play quilting from Laura at Star City Stitchery:

It goes with the baby quilt I made Janice before (see here) which she hung on the wall rather than put on the baby. 

I haven't done much sewing in the almost two weeks since my recuperation.  I did sew the binding onto the quilt I am now calling "Pink Profusion" and will take that one to guild next week for show and tell.  I am starting to be up and about more and while I'm trying to do some work from home, I also want to log some time in my sewing room.  The Kaleidoscope blocks are nearly finished, I have catching up to do on the Civil War Chronicles BOM, and I have all but fallen off the face of the earth with the FWQAL.  Yet somehow I'm in the mood to do one new quilt from start to finish for no apparent reason.  We'll see how that goes.

time is running out

I had my pre-surgery appointments yesterday and the time until the big "H" is winding down.  I realized yesterday while navigating the hospital that all my previous surgeries had been emergencies and I was completely unfamiliar with the concept of pre-admission tests and procedures.  I got a fancy little wristband to wear until Tuesday but luckily it slipped over my hand so that I can just put it back on Monday night.  I need to be at the hospital at 5 AM on Tuesday.  My wonderful Honey is very kind and patient to not only take me at such an ungodly hour, but wait for me throughout the procedure, which will probably last a couple of hours according to my OB/GYN.

We are going to see the kids this weekend so I won't be able to work much more on the baby quilts until Sunday night, except for the one which I did get the binding started on.  I really wanted to get them in the mail on Monday but at this point, Monday is going to have to be a marathon day with all I want to get done at work and in my personal life.  Quilt guild meets Monday night too and I don't know that I will be able to attend with all the pre-surgery requirements, including an early night's sleep.  I suppose that if I don't have the Hoopla baby quilts for show & tell, there's little point.  The program is on EQ and is done by Susan Kraterfield ... since I don't have EQ and currently don't intend to get it, it might be lost on me.

I will take the GFG blocks to hand piece during the long car ride, though.  It's five hours up and five hours back.  I try to help my Honey with the driving but honestly, I like the daylight to sew by on the drive north, and by the time it gets dark we're around Washington, DC with lots of traffic and construction (and narrow lanes with Jersey walls right next to you), and I'm less comfortable driving his car than mine.  Still, he often drives the whole way home and I can sew the whole way as a result.  Or sometimes I read aloud to him.

I'm working on stacking up my Netflix queue and trying to get my office all wound up before I go out for weeks.  It's been a strange week and I'll be glad to get on to the next part and get this over with.

New handwork project

It's been a week since I last blogged, or really sat down to work on the baby quilts.  I'd better get a move on, since they were born yesterday!  Yes, they're very early, and weigh less than three pounds each, but they're here, and they have names (for labels), and they will need quilts when they leave the NICU.  So it's back to the machine I go tonight.

In the meantime, I've been doing more handwork when I've been sewing at all (the weekend was a projects-around-the-house kind of weekend, although the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee have been drenching us for days, so Monday became a movie marathon day with hand sewing).  I pulled out this very old project last Thursday night for sewing at Kitty's and have continued working on it during my TV time:  a reproduction 1930's Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt top.

This is what I have had put together so far, and below is another flower in progress.  I use the Quilt Patis to piece.  I believe I'm using the 1" per side hexagons.  Interesting story - a few years ago, I was in Columbus and near Pati Shambaugh's Picking up the Pieces.  I stopped in to meet her and buy some more Quilt Patis, and she signed my package for me.  :-P

 The fabrics are the result of an internet swap from YEARS ago.  I spread out the baggies of the pieces on the coffee table and see one of my own there with my address in Delaware, which we moved from in 2002.  This was probably done well before that since most of my quilt swaps were before my son was born in 2000 and I got busy with sewing for him.

It should be a fun project to continue sewing as it grows and grows.

My Honey is away for the next few days and while I worked last night until almost 8 PM, tonight I plan to leave right at 5 to devote myself to finishing the quilting on the baby quilts and making some binding.  I would love to finish them over the weekend on the drive up to Maryland to see the kids and then get them in the mail early next week before Tuesday's surgery.