PARTY TIME! Winter Blues Blog Hop Giveaway

At last, the Blog Hop has begun! I am excited to be participating in the Winter Blues Blog Hop Giveaway with fellow quilter's, thanks to our host, Michele at the Quilting Gallery .

 

Although I have been making quilts for many years now, I am new to the online quilting community. I have really enjoyed visiting quilt sites and hope to inspire other quilter's in a similar manner.

 

This week I have been working on some sewing/needle books I plan to post on my Etsy site. I haven't quite ironed out the exact plan, so you will notice there are several sizes. I pieced a dozen or so that are waiting for quilting, pockets, and wool pages. I had hoped to have these completed for the giveaway this week, but was sidetracked and will now have to save one for the next giveaway(!)

  I did complete one prototype, pictured on my Birthday Post. These pictured are a bit bigger..

 

If you linked here from Michele's list, I want to reward you for making it through to the R's. (keep on clicking, your over 75% done & only 8 more letters to go!). If you have no idea what I am referring to, click the Blog Hop Linky up top to find the list of sites filled with Giveaways!

 

From my stash, I am offering this lovely fabric bundle of three 1/2 yard cuts of POP Garden by Heather Bailey for Free Spirit:

 I hope you love it!

 

Anyone worldwide can qualify for the giveaway, just comment on this post prior to 5:00 PM EST (that's 2PM Pacific Standard Time!) Friday, March 15, 2013. I will post results and notify the very lucky, random winner by email that afternoon (make sure your current email is available!).

 

If you choose to follow my blog, it is the greatest compliment I could receive and much appreciated.
Sometimes it is hard to reach my own back, so thanks for the pat!

Sorry this giveaway is CLOSED for entries!

Mug Rugs Received!

Today I received the mug rug's from the SWAP! I love them!

They were stitched and mailed by Nancy from Connecticut. I love the Goo-Goo eyes, and all the lovely prints she selected. Nancy enclosed a nice card and the lovely quilt labels she made as well. How fun, I will definitely do another swap soon!

EZ Method for Nine Patch Blocks

A new method for me, I decided to try the nine patch blocks I found at an older post from TLC Stitches . I pulled out a layer cake I have had for some time; a collection of 10" squares from Keepsake Quilting called 'Sweet Baby'. Following her instructions, I began with two 5 1/2" squares, and completed two 4 1/2" squares from each pair.

I added border pieces to one block from each pair and set aside the other.

Two crib quilt  tops were created this way (Not sure yet what I will do with borders)

 

I really had fun trying this out, and I do recommend it for nine patches with only two fabrics. I found it to be quite accurate and only a few of my blocks even needed trimming to complete.

I used a yellow solid for the boy quilt and found there really was not enough contrast, even after adding an additional bar and square to each block. So, I added a teal stripe, and more yellow squares to liven it up and to help make the yellow diagonals a bit more pronounced.

I chose a teal fabric for the girl quilt which I am currently piecing. I thought it would be nice to coordinate these quilts, perhaps for twins:-)

The really great part is that I now have 24 additional nine patches to make a third (and fourth?) baby quilt with. I love these 'sweet baby' prints!

And another bonus: After cutting away 2.5" square of each (I am collecting 2.5" baby prints for a future, 'truly' scrap quilt I plan to make), I still have good size pieces of each print leftover from the original 10" squares. I will likely use these in the border of the third quilt.