One Piece at a Time

Won't you join me for this Blog Tour?

No design wall today friends because this is my stop on the Quiltmaker Blog Tour! Swoon. It's such an honor to have my block in Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks Volumn 7!

Let me tell you a little secret, The Quiltmaker Staff is right down the hall from me, so I get to see sneak peaks of everything. This is going to be one special issue, let me tell you! Everything is gorgeous!

Anywho, here is my block!

AND the best part is...drum roll please...you can win your very own copy of this magazine! Just leave a comment on this post and I will pick a winner next week. Be sure to visit all the other bloggers too!

Just follow this link to join the blog tour fun!

www.quiltmaker.com/100blocks.html

 

Quilt Along Anyone?

 

 

Here it is folks! McCall's Quilting's first ever Quilt Along. Join Sherri, Tracee and I as we make this fun little quilt "Accent on Amish".This is a wonderful quilt for beginners or for anyone who wants to sharpen their skills!

The first lesson is up today. You can check it out here:

 

For further lessons, just click the Quilt Along button on the left side of the blog. There should be a new lesson every 2 weeks.

Scallop Baskets...oh yeah!

Some of you may have noticed that my go to basket on a small quilt block is the little scallop basket you see above. Since it is making an appearance on Appliqué Block 3 I thought I would give you this little tut on how I do these.

Heads up, when I was first designing this block, only the red check bit was scalloped and that’s what you see in the pictures. I ended up adding scallops to the green part too, because, well, you can’t have too many scallops.

For these I like to use a double layer of thick freezer paper to do these. The freezer paper sticks the template to the fabric and really cuts down on hand tiredness. I do this for most of my larger more complicated shapes. So, trace and cut out you shapes.

Then, iron to the wrong side of your fabrics and cut out, giving yourself a 1/4” seam allowance.

Clip your inner points (some people call this “cleavage” which makes me smile)

I press all my inner points first.

Then my outer curves.

And, here it is, all glued together.

Aurifi Designer of the Month-April

I'm so sorry that this is late. Among other things these last few weeks, I also had a major computer malfunction. I had been in the process of switching over to my shiny new laptop so all is well. I'm just needing to learn to use a Macbook instead of a PC which is what I was used to.

April's Designer of the Month is Katy Jones, who write the delightful blog, Monkey Do. You can read all about Katy and get her block here:

auribuzz.wordpress.com

And you can see Katy's blog here:

imagingermonkey.blogspot.com

Design Wall Monday

Hi everyone! Things are slowly getting a little less busy here, thankfully. Here is a shot of what I worked on this weekend. If you look closely you can see Applique Block #3 up there. It's not quite done but I am hoping to have it up this Saturday. From now on, all the BOM blocks will come on Saturdays. That just works so much better with my work schedule.

Be sure to check out Judy's Blog for some more Monday inspiration!

10 Years Ago

 

Ten years ago this month I was diagnosed with stage 2B malignant melanoma. Every single day since then I have been grateful to be alive, grateful that I had such great doctors, and grateful that as far as I can tell, the cancer has not spread. This video makes me cry everytime, but it is really good. Please please please be safe in the sun everyone, especially now that we are heading into warmer weather...hopefully.

Love and hugs from me to all of you who have had a similar diagnosis.

If this doesn't make you want to go on a cruise...well, there is no hope

Hello everyone! Here is a shot of my back porch this afternoon. Can you even believe that it is April 17th!!! I had to drive home from work in blizzard conditions, as in run out of wiper fluid TWICE blizzard conditions. I am so ready for spring. I used to be a winter kind of girl because it gave me an excuse to stay inside and make quilts...but..now that I commute 50+ miles a day, I say let's have a little sunshine, PLEASE.

The good news is, one of my meetings at work today was to plan the McCall's 2014 Cruise. It's from February 9 to 16th, 2014. We start at Port Canaveral Florida and go to the Bahama's, Saint Thomas, and Saint Maarten. I get a little light headed just typing that, actually. I can hardly wait. So I want ALL of you to go to

www.sewmanyplaces.com/tours/mccalls_0214.html

and sign up RIGHT now! Because that way I can meet you in person, we can spend a week sewing together and soak up some sun. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!!!!!!!

Wouldn't that be so fun!

A Little Update...

Well, my knee is slowly getting better. Still being really careful about how I walk on it...

AND Tracee, Sherri and I finished up the first McCall's Quilt Along videos and that picture is what we looked like on Friday. Now I just have to finish up another big project that I know you guys are going to LOVE LOVE LOVE and I will be back to Jingle!

See you in about a week with some cardinal applique Christmas goodness.

All I was doing was walking the dog...really

A couple of days ago I was just doing my boring old daily dog walk when I felt something a little dodgy go on in my knee. It was a little weird the rest of that day but over night it kinda turned into the monster knee from hell. Kinda swollen and really sore! Yesh!

So that, combined with some big work projects and some family members needing a little TLC I am going to be a little missing in action from this here blog for a bit. I will be back in a couple of weeks with Applique Block #3 (hopefully) and I just have to tell you..it has a cardinal on it.

AND...the winners are

The winners are (these are you FLICKR names)

sandi1100 gets the flying geese ruler

lazyquilter gets the traiangle square up ruler

If you guys can please e-mail using the link on the blog I will get those right out.