Applique at last

Saturday here in New Hampshire was very wet. The remnants of a hurricane made their way north and we got the rain! Which to me is a good thing. I love the rain! Hubby had just bought a new Playstation game, so while he and the kids played that, I escaped to my quilt room in the basement and cut out applique pieces for the border of the quilt you all voted on!

By the time I had cut them out, we decided to go to the mall, (hubby had decided that since his children are now old enough to play Playstation games with him, he needed another controller - any excuse for a man and his toys...) so off we went, he got said controller, and we came home. To a power outage!! Normally this would be a big inconvenience to me, but not this time - I had hand applique to do! Of course the rest of the family was very upset - I think a few tears were shed by an almost 9 year old girl - no power meant no Playstation!

So I started my applique and within an hour the power was back on. Is it strange that I was a little sad it came back on?!

I have a lot more to do, but it's slowly coming together...

Little Purse

I had spent some time in my quilt room the other night, and when I came out my husband said, "So were you making a bag?" I just laughed and said, "Yes, how did you know?!" To which he repied, "Well you're going to a quilt show on Saturday and you always make a new bag when you go to a quilt show!" Now that is a husband who knows me better than I know myself!

I've had these woolens that were just calling out to be made into a bag. I rather fancied the idea of a purse made with the soft wool and some modern Kaffe fabric, so that is just what I did. When I showed my hubby, he said, "No it's not you - too conservative". Then I flipped it open and said, "Oh really?!"Even the flowers on the front got the Kaffe treatment...Yes, the outside is rather conservative for me, but the inside is thoroughly me. It's just the right size to hold my phone, camera, breath mints, lipstick, and the pocket is perfect for money and cards.At first I made it with a long shoulder strap... (I just want to flick that white thing out of the way!)... but it just wasn't quite right, so off came the long strap. The short one is much better.And now for something completely different... I know some people are already decorating for Christmas, but it's still Fall ...and I refuse to put up Christmas decorations until December! So pumpkins it is:)


And onto something simple but exciting (hey it doesn't take much to make my day!)...hubby came home the other day with a pizza stone for me. A friend at his work had a Pampered Chef party, but we couldn't make it. Unbeknownst to me he ordered the large pizza stone. That was a great surprise for me, and it makes the best crust on my bread, and pizza too! Yum!

Borders.....Check!

Finally, after all these weeks (or is it months?!) I put the borders on that darn quilt of mine. Remember, the one you all voted on?! I went with the majority, (the "B" choice) and I am loving it! I have very clever folk reading my blog :)

I also played around with appliques to put on the border. They are mostly cut out and ready to attach, so there will be more to see soon. In the meantime, the borders....TA DA....

Best Giveaway Ever

I feel like such an absentee blogger! I keep having the best of intentions and then life gets in the way - like having 2 kids home sick today. Just a small example!

Anyway, I have been working in my little quilt room so will have some fun stuff to show soon, but in the meantime I just had to blog about my friend Brenda.

She is having the BEST giveaway! First off, she is giving away two huge Fat Quarter Bundlse of Red Rooster's Pumpkins & Spice Fabrics by Whimsicals. I was at her house on Saturday night ('till 2 in the morning thank you very much....we love our girly catch-up time!) and I saw these bundles with my own two eyes. They do indeed exist and they are Fab-u-lous! With a capital F! AND if that isn't enough, because her comments for this giveaway have exceeded 350 (I think she's up to about 500 now) she is also giving away - wait for it - a $100 gift certificate to her online shop! Yes you read right, 100 buckaroos. Brenda has very reasonably priced things, so that $100 will get you a lot of goodies from her shop! Like maybe this... or this... or perhaps even this....

So get yourself over to her blog, follow the rules (Brenda is a stickler for rules!!) and you could have the best Thanksgiving ever when a bunch of fabrics and/or patterns/and or Prim goodies arrive on your doorstep via Pumpkin Patch Primitives!!!

(And no she doesn't pay me to say all this great stuff about her - I just happen to know her in real life and know that she's more wonderful than you can possible imagine!)

Blogger's Quilt Festival

So as usual I'm almost a day late and a dollar short, but I do believe I'm just sliding in before the deadline for Park City Girl's Blogger's Quilt Festival. I don't have a new quilt to show, but I delved into my photo archives and found a pics of one of my favorites. I have shown it on my blog before, but some of you probably haven't seen it unless you've read through my archives.

It is a Valori Wells design, and was one of the first needle-turn applique quilts I made. I think I did it in about 2003? It was also my first prize-winning quilt (in the UT Springville Museum of Art quilt show) that I received a cold hard cash prize for!

Right now, sadly, it is hanging in my basement as I just don't have any walls upstairs big enough to hang it. But it is directly at the bottom of the basement stairs, so I get to smile every time I go down there:)

What I've been up to...

I have been a little busy this last month with redecorating the house a bit. I just typed out a few long paragraphs about the process, but then realized a picture is worth a thousand words, and deleted it all. So here's what I've been up to!

Kitchen before
Kitchen during
Kitchen after ( I still have to put my nic nacs up on the walls...)
Hallway during
Hallway after

Bathroom before (well, halfway through!)
Bathroom after
Living room before
Living room after (still have to get quilts up on those walls!)





Phew I'm tired just looking at it!
I listened to 6 books on CD during all of this if that gives you any indication of the time it took!
I can now paint a straight line without using painters tape, cut miters on baseboards, use an undercut saw on doorjambs, install new windowsills, and am pretty good at cutting odd shapes with a utility knife :) And if you're wondering why my hubby wasn't the one doing all of the work, well he is as inclined to do home improvement projects as I am to do math (which he loves!) He just pays for it all ;) Oh and an incident with a table saw as a teenager involving a couple of fingers being lopped off doesn't make him too excited about being near any kind of home improvement tools!

Next up is our bedroom, painting kitchen cabinets and the 'gorgeous' 70's faux brick, and more work in the bathroom (new caulk and paint).

And of course, finishing up the quilt you all kindly voted on! Now you see why I changed that border choice to green, right?!

And the winner is......

And the award for the most over-used phrase in my video goes to.... "WOO HOO!!!!"

Oh and don't you love the container I used to put the names in? Yes that would be an old milk bottle cut in half to hold my paint. Best use of a milk container ever...hey it comes with it's own handle. Doesn't get much better than that!