Stashmaster

You can teach an old dog new tricks!

I'm sure many of you have made pillowcases - they are a fun, quick gift to give someone special.  I haven't made one in a while, but recently a friend had surgery and a bunch of us from the quilt shop all made her pillowcases to let her know we were thinking about her during her recovery.

Now, I have made the standard pillowcase, but we have a newer pattern at the quilt shop that we hand out free with a fabric purchase, and I wanted to try the new method.  It was a little harder to wrap my head around the instructions (and harder still when using a directional print like this Monster pillowcase I made for my daughter), but now I really like this method for making a pillowcase.  Try it the next time you need a quick present for someone!  There is a good tutorial with photos at the Lazy Girl Designs website.  So try something new, you might find a method you like better than the one you use now!

Million Dollar Smile!

Orthodontia Phase One is complete and my beautiful daughter got her braces off yesterday - isn't that a gorgeous smile?  Now she'll wear a retainer and her headgear for a while (I'm guessing until all her permanent teeth are done emerging) and then - well, I don't even want to think about Phase Two ($$$$$).  But seeing her teeth, it's so totally worth it!

Progress all around

I'm making great strides with my Prairie Paisley quilt.  It looks rather wild with that feather print border, but the last pieced border will really help tone things down, I think.

There's also been a lot of progress where my daughter's teeth are concerned.  Here's a picture of her last August when she first got her braces on - see that big gap between her front teeth?    It was something she wanted gone.   Well, as the second picture shows, we're almost there - the gap is very small now!   Of course, now the silly girl says "I miss my gap"   You can't win, but I think she's adorable, gap or no gap.

Sharing my good fortune

I hesitated to post about this because I didn't want to appear to be bragging, but I see Nicole shared her loot with you, so I am going to do the same.  Besides, I am so over the moon with excitement that I can't stand not sharing my good fortune.

I was also honored to be asked by my friend Carrie Nelson to piece 2 quilts for her upcoming secret project.  Now while it was certainly reward enough to me to have been asked to be a part of this project, Carrie somehow felt she needed to reward me with gifts as well.  She not only sent me 2 boxes of my favorite Presencia thread before I began the project, but she sent me these wonderful goodies from Market, which came as a surprise in my mailbox after a rough day at work on Tuesday.  I could barely contain my excitement as I opened the box.

Inside were a FQ bundle of the fall release from one of my favorite designers, 3 Sisters - Aster Manor - plus 2 layer cakes of Eva, the upcoming collection from another designer I'm growing quite fond of - Basic Grey.  Those mulberry, pink and lime green are not my typical color palette, but one of my secret projects was a quilt made from their current collection, Sultry, which is lighter shades in the same color ranges and I absolutely fell in love with that quilt.   It's all I can do not to post a picture of it.  These Eva fabrics have already been planned into a quilt that will coordinate nicely with my Sultry quilt and I can't wait to get started after my Prairie Paisley project is finished.

Carrie also included one of those great sampler pincushions from Blackbird Designs, which I have been coveting at the quilt shop where I work, I just hadn't brought myself to buy one yet.  And now I'm glad I didn't!

Thanks so much for your kindness and generosity, Carrie.  I had so much fun working with you and hope I get to do it again soon - you don't even have to bribe me with fabric!!!

Quilt Show

I put in almost twice as many hours this week as I usually work at the quilt store - this week was the Quilter's Anonymous quilt show in Monroe and the only show where our shop participates as a vendor (and I can see why - it's a LOT of work and I'm exhausted!!!)

Thursday and Friday I worked in the shop, but Sunday I got a chance to work out at the show, connect with some guild friends, see the beautiful quilts on display, and even meet a blog buddy!   This is me with Candace, from Squash House Quilts, who is just as nice as can be and isn't she cute as a button?!  It was fun to finally connect with another blogger - I hope you enjoyed the show, Candace - it was really nice to meet you!

I haven't spent much time in the ol' sewing room this month.  Hopefully after the honors concert tomorrow, I will be able to return to my trusty Pfaff.  I really miss him!

And the winner is....

The Random Number Generator picked comment #5 for my contest winner - so Kathie, from Inspired by Antique Quilts - come on down!  I want to thank everyone who took the time to leave a comment and I'd also like to say that the quilt blogging community is the best ever!  Here's to many more posts and years of inspiration for all of us!

These are a few of my favorite things...

This is my 400th blog post and I think it calls for a celebration, don't you?  Now, since I have been blogging nearly 4 years, obviously, I am not the most prolific blogger to have only made it to 400 posts, but I want to thank those of you that stop by on a regular basis, and also to welcome anyone who may be visiting for the first time.

As a prize to go along with this milestone post, I'm going to give away a few of my favorite quilting tools.  Please leave a comment on my blog between now and midnight on Sunday, March 1 to be entered to win this adorable pincushion in a ceramic bowl with hand-made woodsy character pins (made by Etsy seller Pinks & Needles), a package of Schmetz quilting needles (I use them for all of my piecing), a spool of Presencia thread (my thread of choice for all my sewing) and a box of my favorite Clover fine, extra long, glass head quilting pins.  Thanks for playing along, and for reading my blog!

Good, clean fun!

I'm sorry that my blog has been absent of anything quilt-related - our entire family has been immersed in making soap for a school project for most of November and December.  Our elementary has a Sixth Grade Marketplace every year where each student creates their own business to sell goodies to their classmates and parents to raise money for a 2-day Urban Adventure field trip in May.   We decided on handmade soap for our project, and making 116 bars of soap truly was a family effort!

Sadly, the weather interfered with Marketplace and instead of having 2 days to pitch and sell their products, my boys only had one day due to snow closing school the last 3 days before winter break.  They didn't sell as many as we had hoped, sadly.  But they looked awfully cute while doing it.  Here are my 2 boys (yes, they really are twins!) and you can see our handmade soaps hanging from the tree and on the table.

Looks like everyone I know will be getting soap for Christmas!   VBG.

My new friend

I recently replaced a vital piece of kitchen equipment - my crockpot.  The previous version had given up the ghost - it was no longer cooking properly.  A pretty inexpensive replacement, we got a new crockpot and all is well again.

While we had a truly marvelous family Thanksgiving dinner, it was not at my house and I missed out on any leftovers.  So Sunday morning I threw my Mexican Beef Stew in the crockpot and drove my family crazy with the amazing smell all day while I went to work at the quilt shop.  But then I was able to come home to this delicious meal!

My MIL and I have talked for years about creating a family cookbook of all our favorite recipes.  I have a pile of loose recipes and I'm constantly digging through them, searching for this one or that one.  I went searching online and found several websites that help you create and publish your own cookbook, so I'm trying Tastebook to create a recipe book for my family and perhaps a couple more for gifts.

If you are interested in seeing my family recipes, comment here and I will send you a Tastebook invite.  It's free to join and allows you to share recipes with friends and family.   You can also order a published cookbook, but that's entirely up to you, no obligation!   I hope you don't feel like I'm promoting this website - I really have no personal stake in it at all, I just thought it would be a fun thing to do and I would love to hear any of your family favorites - I am always on the lookout for yummy new foods to try!

Merry Christmas, Y'all

Yes, I realize I just said the "C" word.   I know a lot of you aren't ready to hear it - myself included.   But one of our assignments at the quilt shop where I work was to make a stocking to hang in the shop.  We could use any fabrics in the shop, but I kept coming back to this cute Alexander Henry cowboy fabric (and yes, I realize the cowboy front and center is upside down... oh bother...).  I used some ultrasuede for the fringe, found the Texas Ranger badge and a real spur rowel on ebay and I think the stocking turned out very cute.  It sure was fun to make, and it will be fun to see what the other gals at the shop come up with for their stockings.