A Galloping Horse (and a Giveaway!)

Today Bernie of Needle and Foot is hosting a giveaway, celebrating (yes!) our mistakes and epic fails. There are prizes to be had: a fat quarter bundle from Art Gallery, PDF patterns from Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts and Leanne at Devoted Quilter, a $30 gift certificate to Bernie's Etsy Shop, and a book from C&T Publishing! I wanted part of the fun, so I contributed two packs of Grunge mini charms. For a chance to win one of these fun prizes, click HERE to go to Bernie's post and leave a comment about your funniest goof. The event closes on Friday, April 5th and winners drawn and announced on Saturday, April 6th.

The galloping horse? My favorite credo in quilting is something my Mom used to say, "It will never be noticed from a galloping horse." It is so true, and I laugh every time I think about her saying this! However much I try to remember this, glaring errors do perturb me, so I correct as much as I can and forget the rest. Have a look at two recent ones in the photos below:

Corrected!

Log Cabin block is too big

How serendipitous that the same day after hearing about this event, I made two goofs! If you look at the two photos above you will see that in the first one I mis-positioned half square triangle corner pieces - a result of not paying attention. Second photo shows corrected block. In the third photo, I failed to follow instructions and created a log cabin block 3 inches larger than the other 12.5" inch blocks. My biggest downfall in quilting with a pattern is deciphering and following the instructions. The directions for the log cabin block were to trim to a certain measurement after every round was added. Did I even see that part? Um, no, because I didn't read the instructions all the way through before I started. That mistake is destined to become a pillow!

Click on the photo for a chance to win these Grunge Hits the Spot and
Grunge Seeing Stars mini charms and other prizes!

Giveaway Winner!

The winner of my giveaway is:

Diann of Little Penguin Quilts!

Congratulations Diann, I will be contacting you by email for your address. Diann wins a six-piece fat quarter bundle of Sweet As Honey by Bonnie Christine, a mini-charm pack of Prairie by Corey Yoder, and Rebecca Bryan's book: Modern Rainbow - 14 Imaginative Quilts That Play with Color.

Thanks to all of you for reading my blog and entering the giveaway. I wish all of you could have won!

End of Year Giveaway

In honor of the lovely friends who comment so kindly on my blog, I am sharing part of my Christmas bounty with one of you. I am giving away a six-piece fat quarter bundle of Sweet As Honey by Bonnie Christine, a mini-charm pack of Prairie by Corey Yoder, and Rebecca Bryan's book: Modern Rainbow - 14 Imaginative Quilts That Play with Color.

Prairie, according to creator Corey Yoder, features "warm, sherbert-y colors with small scale patterns". The mini charm pack contains 42 - 2.5" squares. I love all these colors together!

Bonnie Christine's Sweet as Honey has "tones of powdery umber, sun-kissed tangerine and corals, and hints of leafy green and sky-blue". The bee and honey-themed prints are so cute!

I LOVE Modern Rainbow (I received two copies for Christmas!). I love rainbow quilts and gradated color quilts, and this book offers both for me. It has beautiful eye candy and clear, step-by-step illustrated instructions. So far I want to make every quilt in the book.

If you'd like to be the recipient of these goodies, just comment below - nothing else is necessary! Giveaway will be open until January 7, 2016, and I will announce the winner by separate post on January 8.

A big thank you to all of you who have visited and commented on my little blog. I feel that I know you and would welcome the opportunity to meet you in person. Your support and friendship have encouraged me more than you'll ever know. I wish all of you a productive, peaceful, happy, and healthy 2016!

Adoption/Giveaway Winner!

Thank to all of you who participated in the Fall 2015 Quilty Orphan Adoption.

The winner of my adoption/giveaway is

Kaitlyn (Kat) Drinkwater

Kat blogs at Kat and Cat Quilts. She is an RN at a medical center in Texas and started a quilt charity for families of dying patients called Covered in Love. You can read about it here, and it will touch your heart.

Here is what she wrote on her blog about Covered in Love:

I want to build a stash of quilts for our hospital so that when a person is dying as an inpatient their nurse (perhaps accompanied by a family member) could come choose a quilt. Placing a quilt on the hospital bed would warm up the room and it would later be taken home by the family as a memento and transitional object.

Kat has a monthly block drive for these quilts, and the some of the blocks and stash I offered in my adoption actually match the palette of this month's block! Kat also likes cats, so that makes me like her even more.

Thanks to Cynthia Brunz at Quilting is More Fun Than Housework who sponsored the linky party for this event, and if you haven't yet had a chance, go to her blog and see what the other participants have to offer.

Fall 2015 Quilty Orphan Adoption

In 2010 when I started quilting, my daughter and I made a trek to Hobby Lobby where she chose fabrics for a quilt. She gave me free reign with a pattern, but I couldn't find one that looked simple enough for me, and I was clueless as to how to design one. When I finally made some blocks and arranged them on a design board, I was not satisfied with what I had done and could not find a good block arrangement. The blocks are not square, and I don't remember how or why I cut them that way (what was I thinking?) In the meantime my daughter's life changed and along with it her color choices, so I finally tucked it away for a future project. A chance at resurrection came in the form of Cynthia Brunz's Fall 2015 Quilty Orphan Adoption Event Link Up - yay! I think this is such a great idea and am very happy to adopt out some of my neglected fabrics in the hopes they will find their forever homes.

I realize that Hobby Lobby doesn't sell the finest quilting fabric, but perhaps someone has a use for my fledgling-quilter odd-sized blocks. If you can't use the blocks perhaps you have a charity group that could use them. I also have some Moda fat quarters to add to my giveaway. Leave me a comment letting me know how you might use the fabrics/blocks, and I will pick a "parent" (winner) next week. I would prefer to ship only to the US but will consider an international home.

Here is what I am listing in my adoption (giveaway) - all are 100% quilting cotton. Click on the photo for a larger image:

65 four-patch blocks ranging from 7-1/4 to 7-5/8, and not all are square

15 fussy cut blocks approximately 7-3/8 x 7-1/2

78 - rectangle pieced blocks about 3-5/8" x 7-3/8" - sew end to end and use for a border?

42 inches striped eggplant, cream, mauve, blue, green (has been laundered)

1 yard plus 6 inches olive green with 1/2 inch brown dots (has been laundered)

1 fat quarter in rainbow stripes, pattern unknown - came as a gift with a fabric order

6 fat quarters - Contempo by Moda

2 fat quarters, pattern unknown

1/2 yard Simply Color eggplant and white

* * * GIVEAWAY IS CLOSED * * *

Be sure and check out the beautiful projects and fabrics offered by other "adoption agencies" on Cynthia's linky party!