Posted... and a giveaway!

I am so excited to tell you that my 4th pattern has posted today at Moda Bake Shop!

This time it's a tote bag, and it's been great to take to the library and everywhere else my girls and I have gone in the last month.  It's a really quick pattern, and I very much enjoyed putting it together.

I was working with the American Jane Fairy Tale Friends line, and it's so cute.  And I'm sharing.

Would you like to win this stack of 7 layer cake squares?  It's enough squares to make a tote bag, but you'll need to purchase yardage for the lining and handles and sashing.    Details on how to enter below...

I have another announcement!  I'm very excited about this too:

I have fabric in my etsy shop.  and it's cute.

It's Daisy Cottage by Riley Blake.  I have a giveaway for it too... so after you enter my layer cake giveaway, click here to enter the other one!

So to enter my giveaway for the 7 layer cake squares:

1.  Leave a comment telling me who you're going to make a bag for using them.  That's one entry.

2.  Want a second entry?  Become a follower or tell me that you already are one.  Just leave another comment for that second entry.

Best of luck!  I'll choose a winner on Tuesday November 15.  Be sure that I have a way to contact you if you win.

And don't forget to click over to my other giveaway...

Pattern giveaway

my exciting news.....  

new stock in my etsy store!

It's Daisy Cottage by Riley Blake.

I have fat quarter bundles.

And I have a quilt pattern in the store that I have written specifically for this fabric.  

It's easy.  It's quick.  It's fun!

Finished size is 50" x 65".

AND.... I even have quilt kits with all the fabric needed for the quilt top + binding and the pattern too!

What a deal!

I also have yardage available.  Don't you love the chandeliers?  And the top print.  I can just picture an apron made out of it......

 Anyways, I have a giveaway.  I'm giving away 2 copies of the pattern!  

To enter:

1.  Take a guess at why it's called Betty.  Just for fun.  That's one entry.

2.  For an additional entry, become a follower or already be a follower. And tell me in a second comment.

3.  Want one more entry?  Blog about it.  And leave another comment with your blog post address.

Please be sure that I have a way to contact you.  If you are a no-reply blogger, then please leave an e-mail address so I can find you.

I'll choose 2 winners on Tuesday November 15.  Best of luck!

Spider Progress

I decided a while back to start a spider selvage quilt.

{I'm not sure what I was thinking... I'm never going to have enough selvages to finish this!}

But I really, really like it.  I'm enjoying working on it little by little.  It's my go-to project when I'm stressed and just want to work on something for a while.

Here's how many I have so far.   Each block is 8.5" square.  I'm using Bonnie Hunter's method.

I'm using selvages with about 3/4 of an inch of the fabric on it.  If you have any selvages you'd be willing to donate to the cause, please let me know!  I'd be glad to send you some (selvageless) fabric in return.

Leaf banner -- fun project with kids!

I did a fun project with my kids today, and it was so fun that I wanted to share it so you can do it too.

Now here 's my criteria for a really fun project:
cheap
entertaining for at least an hour
kids learn something
accessible for a wide range of ages

And I have to tell you that this one hit all the marks!

For this project you will need:
a package of coffee filters
washable markers
drying rack
water sprayer (old windex bottle or similar)
needle and thread

 Buy yourself some coffee filters.  Get them for cheap at the dollar store.

 Iron them flat.  You can do 8 or 9 at a time.

 Cut them into leaf shapes, again 8 or 9 at a time.

 I made 2 different shapes.  I was going for a regular leaf and an oak leaf.  My kids called them hearts and stars.  oh well.

 Let the kids color on them with WASHABLE markers in fall leaf colors.  (If they are not washable, they won't work)

 Get a water sprayer (like an old windex bottle) and spritz them.  Better yet, let your kids spritz them.

 When they get wet, the colors will run together like a watercolor.

 Hang them up to dry.  Be warned, this is messy.  They drip.  But it's washable marker, so if you do it on tile, it will wipe clean easily.

They turn out pretty!

 Here's an example of how the spritzing changes them from this....

 to this!

 Once they are dry, thread a needle and run it through the stem part of each leaf.

and you will have a beautiful fall leaf garland!

My daughter enjoyed it so much that she drew a heart on on our hands "because we did a good job."

Huppah and more shoe clips

Last week I posted about this quilt that I made as a wedding present, and I wanted to show you a picture from the wedding:

This is the huppah with both tallits (prayer shawls) draped on it.  I constructed the huppah canopy (from an IKEA sheet!), which was fun.  And it didn't fall on anyone, so that's good.  

It was a beautiful wedding.  

They loved the quilt.  

The bride asked me to show it to her 93-year-old grandmother, whose late husband's prayer shawl hangs on the right side.  That was awesome.

Had another set of shoe clips to show you.  

My mom went with me to both the wedding and Quilt Market, and she asked me to make her some shoe clips too.  (Here's mine if you haven't seen them)

So here's mom's shoes with the clips.  Just a simple bow with a pair of earrings destroyed to make the center stone.  Very easy, but very cute.

Here's the back.  I see more shoe clips in my future.....

If you arrived here by searching for how to construct a huppah, e-mail me and I'll be glad to help you out.

Quilt Market I... in which I got to take a picture with a celebrity.

Yep, that's me with my mom.  

My mom's a rock star celebrity to me because she went with me to Quilt Market and braved the thousands of booths and looked at all of the displayed quilts with me.  

Every single one.  And there were zillions.  

She discussed color and texture and different threads and use of paint on the surface and construction and all those other quilt words.  

She even hula hooped with me to get entered into a contest.

I'll have more to post about Market through the week, but I wanted to put this one up first.

Oh, and Ty Pennington's in there too.

I got to talk to him about his fabric line, which is very cool.

More to come.

A wedding quilt

Just a note... if your name is Jennifer and you're getting married this weekend, click elsewhere or risk spoiling the surprise!

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I have a friend getting married, and I wanted to make a quilt for her as a remembrance of the event. I've been blessed to help with some of the planning, and it's been a lot of fun.  I've learned a lot about wedding traditions in the Jewish culture!  It's always fun to learn new things I think.

At the ceremony, they will get married under a huppah, which is a canopy.  Both paternal grandfathers prayer shawls (tallit) will be draped on the canopy.  They don't get to keep the tallit, so my idea was to create a quilt that would capture them together signifying the union of the two families.

And I had never seen one, so I was utterly fascinated.  I snapped these pictures and put them together into an inspiration board:

The angel charm has special significance for her, and so I wanted it to be included on the quilt as well.

Here's my palette I chose.  

And my initial sketch.  Sorry the edges of the paper aren't showing up on the scan....

Then I stuck fabric to the sketch to decide what color went where, and got to it.

I tacked the inspiration and the sketch above my sewing machine.

The piecing went rather quickly.  I wasn't trying to exactly reproduce the tallit;  I just wanted to create a piece that reminded them of the tallit together at their wedding.

The angel I did in freehand embroidery.  Here's my chalk drawing.

And here's the stitched piece.

All in all, I'm thrilled with how this turned out!

I put their names into it and the wedding date.  (The names are across the diagonal of the picture)

I was able to add some interesting machine quilting to add detail to the tallits.

 I enjoyed this project so much!

Linking up to Amy's Blogger's Quilt Festival.  Click on over and check out some of the other entries!

Shoe clips. Really, shoe clips!

I decided I needed some Very Cute Shoes for a wedding I'm going to.  Now, I am not afraid of high heels in general.  But have you see how high the heels are this season?

 For example, I thought these were darling.  Ordered them.  They arrived -- darling.  But wait.....

Yep, that's right.  The heel is 6 inches tall.  Guaranteed that I would break an ankle on the dance floor.

(I returned them)

So I started thinking.  I have a perfectly comfortable pair of black high heels (by high I mean 3 1/2 inch heel).  That I can walk in.  Dance in.  But I needed a way to jazz them up.  

I remembered shoe clips.  From the 80's, yes.  And I started experimenting.

Here's the tutorial I used for the flower.  I didn't go to all the trouble she does in the tutorial for the backing piece, just hot glued it to some felt and called it good.

I bought some shoe clip hardware on etsy.  Here's who I bought mine from.  They arrived quickly, they stay on my shoes, they don't hurt my feet.  Enough said.

and for the wedding, I went with vivid yellow!  

For these I alternated satin and chiffon and it gave the flower a nice texture.

Best of all?  I have Really Cute Shoes for about $10.  That I can walk in.

Machine quilting work

 I really love machine quilting for other people.  Here's two pieces I finished up and delivered this week.

Love the pattern she used for the top.  We decided that it needed a swirly pattern in the quilting to set off the boxy pattern in the blocks.

 Here's a closeup of the quilting...

 I love how it turned out!

This one was a 9-patch pattern, and she wanted straight-line quilting on the diagonals.  Boy, this one took a lot of patience!  I used my walking foot on this one.

And here's a closeup of the quilting.  

I'm just sorry I won't get to see these all washed and crinkled up!

Fuddy is not (quite) Duddy Challenge Piece

I like a good challenge.  Especially when it involves miniquilts....

So I decided to enter Cheryl's Fuddy But not Duddy Challenge.

The requirements were to use brown, green and burgundy + one color to make a modern mini quilt.

Well, here goes:

I added mustard.  I certainly didn't intend to add mustard, which is think is rather fuddy in its own right.

But when I pulled out my solids, it actually fell into the pile, and it seemed nice.

I pieced it to take the shape of a rock formation.  You know, those ones that seem to be a zillion years old but look like they could fall over any time?

I wanted it to have a sense of teetering as if it could fall, but wouldn't.

I tried to also modern it up in the quilting.

You know I love machine quilting, right?

This was a very fun project.  

Thanks so much to Cheryl for hosting this challenge!

What's next, Cheryl?  How about mauve and country blue?

Actually, I'm not sure anyone or anything can modern those up.....

I'm linking this to the challenge.  Click on over and check out the other entries!