If it's not one thing, it's another!!

Holy cow, did you see what happened?  I lost everything off the right side of my blog on Wednesday!  All my personal information, my follower list, all my cute icons, my blog list of favorites (I really..........I mean, REALLY.......miss that!) and everything!  Now what?  I called my two favorite computer whizs (or is it whizzes....e-gads, who knows??) and neither one could figure it out.  In fact, both said the stuff might magically re-appear!  (Can that even happen???)  I suppose I should be happy that I can still post and receive comments..................(oh, while I'm on that subject, thank you ALL sooooo very much for your sweet comments on the pincushions..........I wish I would have had one for all of you!! But more on that in a bit!!)...........SO, what am I going to do?  I guess it's something about the new blogger, or something and they are working on the kinks.  I'm an idiot on this thing, dontcha know?  Like, I can fix it???  THAT IS TOO FUNNY!!!!  Please pray that my stuff comes back............PLEASE??????

Until then, I have randomly picked the pincushion winners and have e-mailed the winners.  Please check your spam folders and get back to me so I can ship your pincushion to you, pronto!  The boxes are all ready to be mailed:



I've been working on more bitty blocks for May.......there is something about those tiny 3.5 inch blocks which mystifies me for some reason.  Maybe it's getting so much mail!  Out of the 12 that I have to make of each kind, 11 get shipped out so when I join two groups, I get 22 bitties back.  Who knows what I'll do with all of them someday!???

Tomorrow is my friend, Annie's, birthday!  This is the girl who sends me the darling fabric postcards, so I knew I had to do something special for her!  I thought a placemat might be in order.  She likes bright colors like I do, so I really did a number for her:





I wish I could link you up to her blog, but I lost my list and for the life of me, can't remember the name of it!!  E-gads!  Oh well, Happy Birthday, Annie!  You KNOW I love ya!!

Have a good weekend, my friends!  AND, good luck with your own blogs!  This isn't nice!  I feel so lost!

Surprise, surprise!!

Did you see what happened while we weren't watching?  I'm sooooo happy to say that I just passed 1000 followers of my blog!  If you ask me, that's pretty darn good considering I don't have any sponsors and I hardly give anything away.  lol  Maybe I should rectify that, huh?  Well, you KNOW how I love to make pincushions, right?  (If you didn't, you do now so say.........."YES, Carol, we all know that"!)  Okay!  The other day while browsing one of the quilt shops close to me, I came across a panel of preprinted rectangles.  I've been told (since I did a Flickr post yesterday) that they were to be used for labels, but I saw nothing but possible pincushions when I spied them!  Naturally, I had to buy 2 strips since they were different.  I cut them apart, with extra seam allowance for (yet to be made tiny piping), did some hand embroidery, free motion words, and quilted them into 4 x 5 1/2 pincushions!  Yes, I did!  ALL.......I'll have you know, just so that I could give them away!!

Now, here's the deal!  (And I'm truly sorry to all you "over the ocean girls"), but this giveaway is for US residents only and here's why........................oooopppppsss, I also MUST tell you of the allergy warning so that you KNOW now!  These pincushions are all stuffed with crushed walnut shells (so nut allergies are a no-no) and they have a wonderful weight and your pins will love them!  Problem with international shipping is that the custom dogs sniff these out and customs destroys them.  (Ask me how I know that!!)  Thankfully, we can still ship within the states with this stuff!  I made 6 so I will draw names at will and you will have no idea which pincushion you will get.  How's that?  Sound fun?  Here are the choices and since I'm such a dummy on the "huge big lots mosaic" maker, I have pictures of both the fronts and backs separate.  Duh!!!  I'm sure you can figure it out!

















So there you have it!  Six pretty cute pincushions up for grabs and all you have to do is make a comment and live in the USA.  Please make sure I have an e-mail address for you so I can contact you if you win!  Good luck and thank you all for following my blog!  I do have a few panels left, so maybe I'll work on making a few more (unstuffed) so I can bless my non-US readers too!  Sound fair?

Yay, all done!

I finally finished my niece's baby quilt and I must admit, I really like it!  Who would ever guess being that it's completely in neutrals too???  Me, neutrals?  Perhaps not, but for a baby boy, I think it's perfect!    Besides, it's big enough at 45x48 inches for him to use it as a play quilt on the floor and that was my main objective.  Being that my niece and her hubby live in Florida, there's really not much need for a warm quilt for sleeping.

I think I told you that I wanted to straight line quilt it, right?  I thought that would give it the organic look that I was aiming for......but how should I accomplish that?  Walking foot?  I did think of that, but turning it every row would probably have driven me right to the bottle!!!  After reading this blog, I decided to do it with my darning foot, free motion, too.  Only, I did NOT lower my feed dogs....I tend to have more control without doing that, and I wanted my lines to be as straight as possible.  

I love this picture that I took this morning once I was done sewing on the binding:

It looks like someone else's work!!!  I quick thought that I should sign it while I was at it, so I DID lower the feed dogs for this:

Then, before it rained like the predictions were claiming, I quick ran outside and took at picture of it hanging over the fence:



So........DONE!!  Now, I can get working on more fun stuff like pin cushions!  In case you didn't know it, I LOVE making pincushions!!!  AND, isn't it funny that a new pincushion swap is starting?  How convenient, huh?  Well, I just couldn't wait until I got my partner, so I had to practice:



More my style, huh?  I guess!!!  Just wait until you see what I have in mind for my partner though.  I think it might be a pincushion to out do all pincushions.........(if everything turns out like I have it in my head, that is!  Stay tuned!!)

I'm trying......

I'm hardly over my "non sewing" slump, but while trying to beat this thing, I thought I should maybe try to start a project that I've been thinking about for awhile.  My niece, who lives in Florida, is pregnant with her first child.  It will be a boy!  Knowing my niece, a typical baby quilt just wouldn't "do".  She is not the "baby-baby" type and is a 30 something, so I thought I'd try my hand at just a neutral type quilt with maybe some heavy straight line quilting.  ('Course, I'll cross that bridge when I get to it, cause I'm no where near that far yet.)  Now......usually, (in my old life) I'd have this whipped up in no time flat, but............now I have a 8 1/2 lb dog who jumps on beds like a small gazelle.  AND......in my old life, I'd lay my blocks out on my bed since I don't have a design wall.  So now what?  Needless to say, this has cramped my style a bit!  I finally decided to clean off my kitchen island and lay out the strips there.  Good thing this won't be big, huh?  After the first three strips this is what it looks like:



I have mixed feelings.  I'm hoping a few more strips will improve it, and if not, my quilting will dazzle the whole thing .........perhaps wishful thinking on my part????  Oh well, at least it keeps me sewing for now.   The background is Kona Snow and I cut up various pale Kona neutrals for the beiges......



I know......hardly exciting!  Sorry about that!  Hopefully, this will look better all finished!  Keep your fingers crossed........PLEASE?????  In the meantime, I think I will go clean my house!!

E-gads!!

Well, here's the scoop.........if I don't get my butt in gear, this will be my last blog post since today's stuff is the only thing left that I have to show you!  I have been very (VERY) lazy and have not sewn a stitch in days.....nor do I have any desire to even do so!  Someone take my temp!!!  YET........I have heard that I'm not alone!  Even Flickr is slow lately........or so it seems to me!!  Do you think this is a virus of some kind?  At first I thought it might be spring fever with the unusual warm temps that we were having, BUT our cold weather has returned, so it's not that!!  Then I thought it was because of my obligations and promises of stuff that I had to make, but as you saw last time, I did what I was supposed to do, and that still hasn't helped!  I must admit that I still have two things to make for two swaps, but even the thought of that hasn't gotten me going!  Perhaps if the deadline wasn't the end of May, I might be more inclined?  I bought fabric for my niece's baby quilt and although I have been thinking about what to do, the stuff is still sitting in a pile on my kitchen island all wrapped up like it came.  Perhaps today???????  Who knows?

So, my friends, this is it!  Big whoop!  Here are my bitty blocks for April.  Don't get too excited now!  It's not like you're going to get tons of inspiration from these, believe me!  We had two themes:  birdhouses and black/white plus a splash of color.  I did 12 birdhouses and 2 sets of the color themes, one with turquoise and the other with yellow.  Remember, these are only 3.5 inches square:













There now......aren't you impressed?  Hey, I just might have to show you the ones I get from the other swappers, huh?  Now, there's a thought!  Until next time......(whenever that is?????)

 

Obligations.....

Sometimes, I wonder if I'll get my sewing ambition back.  Lately, it seems to have flown out the window!  I've noticed though that Flickr is somewhat barren so perhaps lots of other sewers are feeling the same way as me.  In view of this, I figured I might as well get my sewing obligations out of the way while I'm waiting for my creativity to return.  I promised lots of things so here they are:

First, I told a friend that I'd make two house blocks for her.  She will incorporate them into a big quilt.  Each ended up at 12 1/2 inches square:





Then, I promised another friend that I'd do the same for her, except she wanted improv blocks in neutral colors with only splashes of specific colors thrown in:



a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/35289170@N06/7027828493/" title="Playing with neutrals by mamacjt, on Flickr">

I had so much fun with those, I'm thinking of making my "mother-to-be niece" a baby floor quilt using that method.  She's having a boy in July and lives in Florida.

Then, I received my mug rug from "scrapnchick" (Jeanette) and love it!  She really nailed my likes in this one.  Isn't it pretty?



And finally, I have been super busy with my bitty blocks (which I will show you next time.)  Here is a peek though of all the fun I'm having:



Oh.....AND.......if you're wondering what I'm (we're) going to do about a puppy......who knows?  My mojo has left about that situation too for now.....(which is a good thing, I'm thinking).  In fact, I think I'm going to tell that breeder with the little black and white boy that now is not a good time.  I figure when the right time comes along, I'll know it......AND.....if not, that's okay too!  Life's too short to worry about stuff like that!

Enjoy your holiday, my friends!  I'll be back next week!