NICKI'S PRIZES

I spent the entire weekend sewing!  I was in class Saturday from 10:30 a.m., till 4:30 p.m.  Needless to say, I was pooped.  But I learned some cool tricks with Regina Bernina, so I'm really excited!

Sunday, I made Nicki's prizes from the blog giveaway.  Since she was the only person who signed up, I made coasters and my first mug rug.  Still not digging the name "mug rug."  Just sounds weird.  How about "snack coaster?"  Or "mug mat?"  Anyway, the giant coaster/mini placemat turned out REALLY cute.  Totally going to have to make more of those!

Here are the coasters, front and back.  I switched it up a little and used different fabrics for the backs.  Usually, you use one of the fabrics you make the coaster fronts out of, but I ended up with five coordinating fabrics, and I totally had to use them all!

I used gray thread to do the quilting, and this time I used a longer stitch.  It turned out really well!

The backs are so cute!  I love these stripes!  So fun!

And now to the mug mat.  Sorry, just can't do that rhyming thing.  At least not in this case.  Anyhow, I used the two stripes as backing and binding.  Nicki's initials are NH.

Now no one else can walk off with it and claim it's hers!  Nicki really likes the backing.  Love it!

I really enjoyed making this mini quilt.  So easy and so cute!  It was great.  I'm totally going to make more of these.  I think my momma would like one.  And Nicki absolutely loved it all.  She said the fabrics will coordinate PERFECTLY with her living room decor.  She goes, "I can't wait to take them home!"  Yay!

STACKED COINS LAP QUILT

This past weekend, I finally started the stacked coins lap quilt for my youngest sister.  She and her husband, who is back in the country for her graduation, leave for Sydney, Australia, on August 23.  Needless to say, I haven't much time to finish.

However, I did decide to attempt speed piecing, a technique I've seen frequently, but was always scared to try -- I just didn't think I could pull it off.  I pulled it off!

Isn't that a lovely string of coin pairs?  I was so very proud of myself!  I finished all five columns of coins in about three hours.  If I hadn't breaked here and there to talk to my mom or have something to eat, I probably could have done it even faster.

Here's how the columns progressed:

ConnectingThreads.com collections usually only have 20 fabrics in them, so there are repeats in each strip set.  My very orderly brain has a real problem with being random when it comes to design.  Speech, notsomuch, but that's a different blog altogether.  Anyway, I just can't be random, so I decided to make it very rainbow-ish.  And kinda bargello.

Can you tell what my design wall was on Sunday?  Oh yes, it is a closet door.  I have yet to find the perfect wall for my large piece of flannel.  I think it might be on the wall next to this door.  Permanently.

A pattern is emerging!  Of course, it'll be broken up nicely by the sashing, which is also already cut.  That was a pain!  And I brain farted and started cutting the sashing up for the backing instead.  Oops!  Thankfully, I figured out my mistake before it was too late.  Whew!

I love it!  I think it's looks great.  I can't wait to get the sashing done.  I have to square up the strip sets first, but before I do all that, I have to bake a cake for work, cook some ground beef before it goes bad, and go all the way to Pocatello, ID, which is four hours away, for my sister's graduation!  Sheesh!

At least all the coin sets are put together!  And the sashing is cut!  Hooray!

MORE DETAILS ON THE LAP QUILT

I'm still using my cellphone to take pictures, but I set up the fabrics in a nice bright spot and I've edited them to look a little more lovely and bright than they usually come out.

Here are the charms that will become the coins.  A ConnectingThreads.com charm pack only has 20-ish charms, so I bought four.  They're only about two dollars a piece, so it's not bad.

My sister LOVES pink, and this collection, called Antoinette, is very pink.  It's darling, in fact.  I picked pink fabrics for the sashing and binding because Mary will love that.  Here's a shot of the sashing fabric.  It's a pale pink on white design.

So lovely!  I do my bindings on the bias, and I love using stripes for the binding fabric.  It just comes out fun and funky.  So here's the binding fabric.  It's a medium pink background with darker pink printing.  Very cute.

That will make some fun binding strips, won't it?!  And for the back, I decided to use the focal fabric from the collection.  It's background is white, which is kind of a bummer.  It'll probably get dirty fast if Mary uses it for a lap quilt on the plane.  But the pattern is so pretty, I couldn't not use it!

I'd say these came out pretty good for cellphone pictures!  As for the pattern, it's a Stacked Coins Baby Quilt from Moda Bake Shop.  Mary's only about five-foot-four, so I'm not worried.  And then she can either hang it up or use for when she has kids!

NO, THANK YOU!

I received this:

in the mail today!  Hooray!  It's my catch-up for the Fat Quarter Shop's Designer Mystery Block-of-the-Month club!  I joined a little late.  Anyway, I really liked the little envelope my invoice came in.  Very polite and professional and kinda cute!  It looks like a present and says, "Thank you!"  And I say, "No, thank you," for such a fun first block.  After I get my house clean this weekend, I know what I'll be doing!

BUNGLE IN THE JUNGLE

I had a baby shower to go to today, and the theme was "jungle." The parents, M and T, decided not to find out what the sex is. Therefore, green, yellow, and brown were the colors of the day. My god-daughter and her mom helped me pick out fabrics last night. We found eight REALLY cute fat quarters. I used a pattern I saw on the Moda Bake Shop -- Ribbon Blanket and Block. Very cute. The pattern called for using Minkee, which I've never sewed before. It wasn't fun -- lots of fuzzy stuff all over my sewing room. But the color was fun -- the Minkee we found is a cheetah pattern with a green background.

The front of the blankie has two each of the eight prints. The block has my six favorite. I picked out nine ribbons. I tried to vary them enough around the blankie.

I enjoyed making this little set. I don't have any ribbon other than this stuff, but I definitely want to make more of these. Too cute!

THE DISASTER THAT WAS HARVEST FESTIVAL

So it totally sucked to be honest. The weather would have been perfectly crisp but for the fact that it was so windy chairs were falling down and we were shaking all day.

I got up at 7:30 Saturday morning to help my mom. I was ABSOLUTELY frozen by the end of the day. We only sold about six hats and gave away a couple of order forms. There just weren't enough people -- they took a look out their windows Saturday morning and said, "Screw this!" It was miserable!

I didn't get anything sewn for the event. I used Malu's bargello that I gave her for her birthday last year. That was all I had. By the time I thought of making stuff, it was too late. Maybe for the Arts and Crafts fair this year. Who knows? Oy.

At least nobody missed anything. However, the parade did break the five-minute mark this year! It was cute. One of the guys drove his tractor backwards, which was pretty funny. When I asked my mother why he did that, she goes, "Because it's Ray." That pretty much summed it up. Oh well!

TABLE RUNNER PREPARATIONS

So I have all the strips cut for Mom's table runner. It might not be totally finished by the time Harvest rolls around this weekend, but at least Mom'll have something to decorate her table. And I'll get some coasters done -- quicker than potholders. Sets of four or six, depending on how much I have left over. I'm just going to do pinwheels since they're so easy. And kinda crazy quilting since I have such an old machine! Wish me luck!

MAMA'S MAGIC

I recently was accepted into the Etsy Bloggers Street Team, for which I'm quite excited. Hopefully, that will get me some more readers. And it gives me the chance to check out other people on Etsy whom I might miss otherwise. One of them is Mama's Magic. Her name is Jen and she has a couple Etsy shops, one of which I find really interesting, although the majority of what she has on there isn't for me -- I'm not a nursing mother. Heck, I'm not even a mother!

But her nursing beads for mom and baby are really cool! They give the child something to focus on so that the nursing goes smoother for everyone involved. It totally made me think of my friend and her baby, George. George has a hard time focusing on nursing -- he tends to think it's "play-with-Mommy's-booby" time rather than breakfast, lunch or dinner time. It makes me wonder if Jen's really fun beaded necklaces would help my friend get George to focus on nursing and not goofing around. However, he is a boy, after all! ;-)

Jen's blog, which you can check out by clicking the title of this post, has some pictures of her baby beads and stories about her life, including the latest story, wherein her son BJ wanted to know if the vice-presidential candidates were still going to love each other once the debate was over. How cute is that? As a former teacher, I love reading about what kids have to say and ask regarding the world. Makes us rethink our own perspectives. Thanks, Jen, for sharing BJ's insight!

HOW RUDE!

I found a certain website through a friend of mine who has a different craft hobby than mine. I checked it out for my mother, who has the same hobby as my friend and then some. It looked like a great website. I really thought it was cool, and a little beyond my mother's powers -- which she would readily admit. I read later that there was a group of people who participate in my hobby, which you all know about. So I decided I would join this website.

I was on it for about a week or two, adding this and that to my profile and enjoying all the features that could be incorporated or thieved for my hobby. Then yesterday, I was basically told by the founders of the site that I was unwelcome. Others had complained about my profile because I didn't participate in the same hobbies that were on the site. And I was also told by members of other groups on the site that I wasn't using it how it was intending. I wasn't -- I admit that. But I wasn't the only one, and I certainly didn't expect to be basically banished from the website.

Therefore, I cleared all my things, quit my groups, deleted my friends, and said good-bye to this site.

PS: If you have any desire to know of which site I'm speaking, email me and I'll tell you. Otherwise, I'll not broadcast it. They know who they are -- I made my displeasure known.