Author Archives: Bernie

Row Quilt Top Finished

I am so excited to show you the top and backing for my Classic Stitches Row Quilt. It was (just over) a year in the making and it looks great. Thank you again to Mari over at Academic Quilter for hosting this BOM throughout 2015 and posting 11 awesome tutorials.

I sashed it with 1″ (finished) strips of a plain cream fabric that I had in my stash. I had planned to do a colorful border after the sashing but it is already 60″ x 70″ and since I plan to quilt it at home, I decided that was big enough. (It was quite windy when I took these photos so they aren’t the best.)

For the backing, I found a cute blue floral print on a clearance table for a great price. I held my blue ‘Broken Dishes’ row back (to control the length of the quilt overall) and pieced it into the backing.

I am very happy with the way the back looks. I definitely learned my lesson with this Broken Dishes row. It was the first row in the project and I mixed too many scraps within each block. I didn’t realize that mixing the prints and values this way would cause the block to lose the pattern. I feel like it doesn’t even look like the traditional Broken Dishes pattern, but rather like a Pinwheel block instead. This was a good lesson to learn and I didn’t mix the scraps as much in the later rows.

Overall, I call this project a success and will be basting and quilting it soon. I have just about finished quilting the brightly colored baby quilt (made from those blocks I found at the thrift store). But once that is done, I will move on to finishing up this row quilt.

This project is my second quilt made while following along Angela’s Rainbow Scrap Challenge. You can see the first one here. My RSC challenges for 2016 will be two projects that have a modern slant. For one, I be using a pattern called Pretty Gemstones, designed by Cynthia Brunz and published in the latest McCall’s Quilting magazine. I just bought the background fabric so I canstart piecing it soon.

Isn’t this a pretty quilt? I look forward to working on it. I have a second project in mind using improv fabric made from my scraps. There are all sorts of ways to do this and I haven’t quite decided what to do. At this point, I am making the fabric slabs and will wait to see what sort of quilt evolves from them. The color for January is Icy Blue and I have some perfect scraps for it!

Wishing you all a great weekend! We have enjoyed (lots of) rain and snow all week long in much of California. Some flooding is occurring in Southern California but up in the northern end of the state, we are all fine – just really appreciating the rain.

Linking to Crazy Mom Quilts and Confessions of a Fabric Addict this week. Both links are available at the top of the page, under “Link Ups”.

Tutorial – Heat Pack with Rice

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You might remember that I posted about making a few heat packs for Christmas gifts this year. I had initially made one for myself a long while back and it is used frequently by all three of us. They are very quick and easy to make so I thought I would share it here. It only requires a bit of fabric and some rice. The outer layer is removable for laundering. Here you go!

Supplies:

1 Fat Quarter of fabric for the outside (or a scrap of equivalent size, 18 x 22″)
1 piece of muslin or other inexpensive, plain fabric to contain the rice.
Dry rice, approximately 3 cups
Thread

Cut the outer fabric as follows:

Rectangle, 16.5″x6.5″
Rectangle, 11.5″x6.5″
Rectangle, 8.5″x6.5″

Cut the lining fabric, or muslin, into two rectangles, each measuring 16″x6″.

Let’s make the rice-filled lining first. Use a 1/4″ seam allowance throughout the project.

Pin the two rectangles of lining fabric, right sides together. Sew around three of the sides, leaving one end open. Be sure to sew the two long sides and one of the short sides. Before turning it right side out, carefully trim the corners, making sure not to clip your stitches. (I should have photographed the muslin against a color other than white!)

Turn the bag right side out and press. I use a chopstick to carefully poke the corners out from the inside.

Now you will fill the bag with rice. I like to make three sections and fill each with about 3/4 cup of rice. You can do this with more sections or even no sections. If you choose to leave it undivided, with just one section, fill it with the rice at this point. I like the feel of the sections and think it lays nicely when divided.

For the first section, fold the top of the bag back and carefully pour in 3/4 cup of rice.

Smooth all the rice to the end and stitch across the width of the bag, close to where the rice is. I use a zipper foot to do this though it isn’t absolutely necessary.

Create a second section in the same manner and stitch it. (I don’t measure the three sections precisely. I just estimate it.)

After putting in the last portion of rice, shake it to the bottom of the section and press the raw edges to the inside, taking care to make them relatively even. This isn’t going to show and certainly doesn’t need to be perfect.

To close it up, I use a zig-zag stitch and run it over the end two times so the rice stays where it is supposed to!

OK – the inner bag is done and now you just make the outer cover. It is basically like making a pillow cover with an envelope back. So easy.

For the back side, take the two shorter pieces and finish one short edge of each. Turn 1/4″ over and finger press. Turn it again and press with the iron.

Layer the three pieces, right sides together, as follows. Long piece on the bottom, Short (8.5″x6.5″) piece next and on top of that the longer (11.5″x6.5″) piece. Pin securely, especially where the two shorter pieces overlap.

Sew the entire perimeter of the case. Take two passes over the sections where the backing pieces overlap so they are strong. That is where the most stress is when you take the rice bag in and out. As with the lining, trim the corners carefully and turn right side out. Use the chopstick carefully to create nice corners.

Take the rice pack and insert. It takes a bit of wiggling to get it all inside the cover.

Ta Da! All done.

The amount of rice that is put into the liner affects how malleable, or flexible, the rice pack is. When I made the first one I put too much rice and it felt stiff and quite heavy. You can play around with it and see what feels best for you. To use, just put in the microwave and heat for a minute. Check to see if that is warm enough for you. Of course the timing will depend on your microwave, but it can get very hot so be careful. This bag can also be put in the freezer and used as a cold pack. These are great for icing or heating muscle aches, sprains, and warming cold toes in the winter.

Hope you’ll give it a try. Leave any questions in the comments or send an email and I will get back to you. I haven’t written very many tutorials, so if something is unclear, or I left out a step, please let me know so I can update this.

Linking to my usuals. Freemotion by the River, Let’s Bee Social and Crazy Mom Quilts. T hese links are listed at the top of the page, under Link Ups.

Looking Forward to 2016!

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Happy New Year everyone!!! We enjoyed a very quiet New Year’s Eve with just the three of us at home, a big pot of French Onion Soup and some lazy movie time. The perfect way to end 2015. Between my mom’s heart surgery and my sister defeating breast cancer, our family looks forward to a year of peace and good health.

Last year I wrote a post to set some goals for myself in 2015. I want to take a quick look at those and then set up a few for 2016. Here is what I had hoped to accomplish in 2015:

Finish my three UFO’s
Sew only from my stash
Improve my piecing by slowing myself down while sewing
Improve my photography skills
Study up on quilt restoration

Here is what actually happened.

I did finish all three UFO’s, check! Sewing from my stash was a miserable fail. I was only kidding myself with that one. I think I lasted about ten days before I purchased fabric! I believe I made huge improvements on my piecing – partially through slowing down, which made the process much more enjoyable. But even more than that, through joining up with Mari’s BOM, Classic Stitches. She chose blocks that had lots of pieces which forced me to really practice a lot. I used a lot of chain piecing with her tutorials and overall, my corners and points are improved. Thank you Mari!! I worked on photography by using a light box at times (mostly for product photos for my Etsy shop), taking a class with a friend who is a photographer and buying a 50mm lens which I absolutely love. The last goal, quilt restoration? Nope, never happened. Not once did I work on this, read about it or even look at the two quilts I want to restore.

The year seemed to fly by. Here we are again with a fresh new year just ahead. I have a few simple goals, several of which build on last year’s goals.

UFOs – I have three quilts that are nearly done. My Kaffe Fassett strip quilt top is finished. I need to sandwich, quilt and bind it. The baby quilt that I made from the thrifted blocks needs the same; sandwich, quilt and bind it and then send it off to Project Linus. Finally, my Classic Stitches row quilt. The quilt top is not yet done but I have it nearly sashed. Then it needs to be finished as well. So these three projects are at the top of the list.
Improving my quilting skills. This will be done via a great group that I just subscribed to. It is called The Mighty Lucky Quilting Club. So named because the subscription is sold through Lucky Spool. This is a one year subscription where I will receive a new lesson and project, based on a certain skill, with support and inspiration from a different quilter each month. Some of the twelve awesome teachers are Amanda Jean Nyberg (Crazy Mom Quilts), Allison Glass (fabric designer/pattern writer), Angela Walters (Quilting is My Therapy), and Jacqui Gehring (Tall Grass Prairie Studio). These teachers and the rest of the group are sure to provide some really great instruction and should help me to really advance in my quilting. The cost is very reasonable at $5.00 per lesson or $50 for the whole year.
Write some tutorials. I have only written two and would like to practice this skill. It is also a way of giving back to this community. I have learned so much from other’s and want to contribute.
I will carry over the quilt restoration goal and hope that I will take the time to learn about this so I can work on the two quilts of mine that need restoration.

These goals seem reasonable, thus attainable. I am especially looking forward to the monthly lesson from the Quilting Club. I have a feeling this is going to be a great way to learn and have fun in this community of ours! What are you looking forward to in the new year? Whether you are one to set goals or not, I wish you all the best in 2016.

Christmas Giving and Receiving

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About a week before Christmas I decided I wanted to make a few gifts. My self-imposed parameters were no trips to the store, no spending money on fabric and something quick, easy and fun. I decided on the thirty minute zipper pouches that I found at Kelby Sews. They are a lot of fun to make and very satisfying.

I do follow the basic tutorial that Kelby posted as her method of making these bags is wonderfully simple. However, I don’t strictly adhere to her dimensions. I have a large zip lok bag of zippers that I have collected from various thrift stores. Many, really most, of the zippers I have are very long, 16-22″ or so. It doesn’t matter as the ends are cut off once the bag is assembled. In addition I, like most quilters, have a large drawer full of batting scraps. The long pieces that are trimmed from the edges after quilting a project are stored there and are perfect for this project. With the zippers and batting on hand, I just had to pull large scraps that went well and coordinated with the zippers. That was probably the toughest part of the process, matching fabrics to whatever zippers I had. Looking at the photo below, you will see fabrics from Kaffe Fassett, Henry Glass, Allison Glass, Amy Butler, and several by Kathy Davis. A variety of wonderful colors, to be sure; it felt great to use up so many scraps! The tutorial tells the maker to use adhesive and glue the fabric to the batting. I chose to quilt them together instead. I think it adds an extra touch, and also…I don’t have any spray baste on hand!

If you look at the picture you will see the bag that is the fifth one down in the stack, is made of multiple fabrics. I used an orphan block for that one. It was a practice block I used when I was trying to make a herringbone block. Fortunately it was long enough to make a pouch with, I just had to cut the width down. I loved that pouch because it looked like I had pieced it.

I put some yummy Evelyn and Crabtree lotions in the pouches and mailed them off to my sisters and a quilty friend in Michigan. I also gave them to my mother, my mother-in-law, and sister in law. For my two nieces, I filled the pouch with chocolate and a gift card.
In addition to making these zipper pouches, I made a couple of heat packs for my kids. These are filled with rice and can be heated in the microwave to soothe a sore muscle. (They can also be stored in the freezer and used for muscle aches and pains.) I made one for myself a long while back and love it.

While it is fun to make, and give, gifts, it is also fun to receive a quilty gift. This year I received three quilting books. I have a list of books that I want to add to my library and received three of them.

Since receiving it, I have already read Fifteen Minutes of Play, by Victoria Findlay-Wolfe, in its entirety. I love it and spent a few minutes yesterday creating ‘Made-fabric’. I am planning to incorporate her ideas into my projects for RSC16 and will post more on that later. Sunday Morning Quilts has some wonderful ideas for quilts using mostly scraps. Written by the quilt world’s scrappy quilting queens, Amanda Jean Nyberg and Cheryl Arkinson, it is filled with great ideas. Mary Mashuta’s recent book, Foolproof Walking-Foot Quilting Designs, is also wonderful. Mary has some great ideas for quilting designs other than straight lines with a walking foot. I have just taken a peek at that one and already learned a few new ideas that I will try soon. These three books will provide a great deal of inspiration and instruction for upcoming projects. If nothing else, just looking at the photos of the quilts made by these amazing women is so satisfying!

Happy New Year to all of you. May 2016 be a year of peace, good health, and many hours of stitching!

Linking to Crazy Mom Quilts, Freemotion by the River, and Let’s Bee Social.

2015 Wrap Up

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I hope all of you had a wonderful holiday. Christmas was lovely. The weather forecast called for a white Christmas and we were all excited – it’s been years since we had snow for Christmas. However, the forecast missed the mark and all we got was a lot of hail and ice. Oh well…. maybe next year.

Now that things are calmer, it is a good time to look back at the year and celebrate quilting achievements and successes. As usual, at this time of year, it is amazing how the year flew by. Recording projects and events via this blog makes it so easy to remember the course of the year. It is satisfying to take a peek back and see all that was actually accomplished.

For example, I made:

Five mini quilts, from start to finish, including my first fabric challenge project and my first swap on Instagram.
Two tablerunners and three pillows.
Finished four quilt tops that I pieced in 2014.
Pieced and finished two baby quilts.
Pieced and finished three lap size quilts.
Pieced two quilt tops, a baby quilt and the Kaffe Fassett strip quilt, both of which need to be completed.
All of the rows for my Classic BOM quilt – they are not yet sashed and pieced into a top though.
Numerous small projects that were intended to give me areas on which to practice my FMQ skills.
One very, very, very fluffy yellow bathrobe!
14-ish (?) little handmade Christmas gifts this year (which I will post more about in a few days.)
I also had 80 Etsy sales, of which approximately 65 of those were handmade items.

My sewing machine was well attended this year! Most importantly, I enjoyed just about every minute of it. Spending so much time in the sewing room improved my skills. Specifically, my accuracy in piecing and my efficiency over all. I did a lot of chain piecing which was surprisingly helpful. This is not to say I didn’t have my fair share of fails either. But who wants to dwell on the negative?? As long as I learn from the mistake and don’t repeat it… very often!

In addition to all of the sewing, I spent a fair amount of time at the computer blogging. In fact, this post is my 99th post for 2015 (and due to my fondness of round numbers, I will definitely post again this week to even it out to 100 for the year!!) Looking back at the posts I wrote, I have a short list of favorites. I am fond of these posts either because of the quilty project they recorded, the discussion that resulted, or the event that is represented.

A Finish with a Flange; This post shows the quilt I made for my sister Patti to wrap her up and support her while she endured chemo for breast cancer.

Love and Good Luck Rolled Up in a Quilt; This post tells the story of two amazing people who journeyed to India to have their baby, via a surrogate mom. I am so happy for them and I loved making a little quilt for their child. It was also one of the first times that I used thread sketching on a project which was very satisfying!

No Easy Solution; This was a discussion about Craftsy.com and their ability to sell for lower prices, shopping online vs in brick and mortar shops, and Craftsy’s decision to sell their own fabric line. While it wasn’t an earth-shaking piece of writing, I completely enjoyed hearing the input everyone left in the comments.

Finally, New Quilt Blogger Bloghop; This one was more about the experience than the actual post. Being relatively new to the blogging arena, joining this group last summer was a great experience. I met many great bloggers and we all supported each other as we worked to improve our blogging skills. Led by four awesome bloggers, I learned a great deal. There were opportunities to participate in other projects that our leaders put together which made for a very rich experience.

Yes, 2015 was a productive year in which I learned so much. I am looking forward to the new year and hope to work out a plan of what I hope to accomplish during 2016. I would love to hear what you most enjoyed sewing in 2015. What is your favorite accomplishment? What new skill did you work on? Share in the comments!

Linking to Meadow Mist Designs today. Cheryl is hosting a ‘Best of’ link party for bloggers to share some of their favorite posts from 2015. Hop over and take a peak. I certainly plan to. 🙂

Taming the Yellow Beast

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The beast has been tamed. The pile of oversized yellow fluff has been transformed into a cozy bathrobe at last. I received so much encouragement after that last post that I decided to dive back in and take control of that yellow monster.

It was easy!

First I took a bit of time with the seam ripper and picked out the hem on both sleeves. Turning it inside out, I laid it on the floor and carefully smoothed it out. I pinned two inches or so along the inside of the length of the side seams and the seam of the sleeve. Then I just cut – cut off the two inches along each side.

The nice thing about this robe is the fluff. Conversely, the worst thing about this robe is the fluff! Once everything was stitched back together I tried it on. Amazing how this helped! ( If only I would have thought to do this the first time around!) It fit much better but was still too puffy. Topstitching around the entire collar and all the way down the front of the robe, on both sides, really helped to tame it. Because of the fluff, it was hard to sew accurate straight seams. When I was sewing on the “wrong” side of the fabric, there was no issue. However sewing on top of the fabric was really tough. My presser foot would get lost in all that fluff! There was a lot of drag on the fabric and my top thread shredded over and over. (I tried my walking foot but that seemed to make it even worse.)

Like I was saying before, the fluff was also a positive attribute in that it didn’t truly matter how straight my seams were. The depth of the fabric made it difficult to see the actual seam, you only see the impression the seam leaves.

Here is my first attempt at modeling the robe (in my sweats and socks!)

Photo credits to my kind husband for these modeling shots. I may send them into a bathrobe modeling agency. I feel a new career beginning.

Looking at these amazing photos, I noticed that the pattern on the fabric almost matches where I put the patch pockets on. I cannot take credit for this – it certainly was not planned! I found that hand stitching was much faster than top stitching so I sewed the hem by hand while watching some TV last night.

At this point my only remaining concern is that this is one very warm robe. Maybe too much so for this post menopausal model.

Linking to Crazy Mom Quilts and Confessions of a Fabric Addict. Also with Sew Bittersweet Designs, once the December ALYOF link up is posted. Because, with 13 days to spare, I just completed my December goal! Woot woot!

Both links are found at the top of the page under Link Ups.

Mid-Week Update

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First of all, I really want to thank everyone that entered the giveaway last week. I loved reading about all of the Christmas memories. So many really sweet stories were told; I encourage you to take a peek at the comments and read them. It was very heartwarming. Julia drew two winners. My gifts were sent off to Kelly (she won the bunting) and Sarah (she won the tablerunner). Interestingly, both winners hailed from Pennsylvania! Congrats to both!

I have been busy in my sewing room over the past week. Working on my row quilt, Christmas gifts (which I will share after the holidays), a very frustratingly fluffy yellow bathrobe and a gift for my dad for his upcoming birthday. Where to start? Let’s go with the frustrating stories and end up on a more pleasant note, shall we?

Oh, this bathrobe! The fur and fluff that flies when I work on it is truly amazing. I had NO idea what I was getting into and never will I buy such a fluffy fabric again! I have the robe basically assembled – I sneezed my way through it only to find that it will fit nicely once I gain about 75 pounds. I don’t know how to account for this. I made it a size small (8-10) but honestly, I could wrap it around me twice over. When I re-read the post about planning to make this, I can hear a very cocky tone in retrospect. I said that garment sewing came naturally to me because I had done it so often. In some ways that is true. I knew how to put it together, didn’t need to ponder the directions, just dove in and sewed. But what about trying the thing on? At least holding it up to me in front of a mirror at some point?? Nope, as I was getting ready to hem it, I thought, ‘hmmm, this looks a tad large’. I put it on and my jaw dropped. It frustrated me because I can only imagine the fluff that will fly if I try to take a seam ripper to it.

I tossed it on the bed in the sewing room where it landed in a cloud of yellow. There it sits, waiting until I calm down and decide how to fix it.

Next project update: My Classic Stitches project that I have been working on all year. You probably remember that I have been doing a BOM project led by Mari over at Academic Quilter. All I had left was to complete the green row of ‘Peace and Plenty” blocks. Well, I can honestly say these blocks gave me no peace. Not a moment, in fact. It started out well enough. When I was up in Downieville over Thanksgiving weekend I got all of the green pieces cut and I felt so proud. All organized and ready to go. I came home and assembled the first block. It was adorable and I even shot an email with a picture of it to Mari. (What is it they say about pride????)

With that one done, I quickly made another. So far, so good.

After those two, everything hit the fan. For some unknown reason (though it may have to do with that whole pride thing) I couldn’t assemble block number three. COULD. NOT. I sewed it and picked it apart and sewed it again and picked it apart. After the third time using my seam ripper (you know when the edges of the fabric are frayed and you know that the integrity of the block is nill?) I gave up. Luckily, I had just read Mari’s post about finishing her row quilt (which is spectacular – take a look here!) I saw that she had issues with the brown row and decided to just make a checkered row of simple squares. Since I had my green blocks cut, I just trimmed them down to 3 and 1/2″ and called it good. I figured I was really just taking my cue from the master. So my green row is now a simple row of blocks. (See it to the left of the pink hearts?) I actually like that it is a small row. I wanted a change in the height but couldn’t see myself really making any of these blocks in a three or four inch size. At least not without a considerable amount of pain. 😉

Right now I have all the rows hanging over the back of the couch (luckily we have two!) I am at the stage where I am moving rows around, trying to decide what order to put them together with. I need to get sashing fabric too. I don’t have any stash that is long enough and I don’t want to piece the sashing. I do love how this is coming together and hopefully I will get it assembled in the next few days.

Finally – to leave you on a good note… I went to the monthly meeting of a gardening club that I belong to. Since there really isn’t much gardening to be accomplished right now, we made wreaths for the holidays. I decided to make a really big one so i could hang it on the front of the house. All of the boughs were cut from trees in out yard, which is a nice thing. It turned out so pretty and was incredibly easy to put together. (I really needed a win at this point!)

I also wanted to show you how pretty the Swoon Mini looks. I hung it on the wall behind the Christmas tree and the lights just make it glow. I just love it. I need to make another one that doesn’t have a holiday theme.

I hope your recent sewing efforts are a bit more successful than mine have been. I feel I am turning the corner though. Ready for success.

Linking to Freemotion by the River and Let’s Bee Social. Links to these two lovely blogs are at the top of the page, under Link Ups.

Thrifting SCORE

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I went to a few of my favorite thrift stores last weekend. While I was out I also shopped at Humble Fabrics, it’s not really a thrift store, because she sells both new and “pre-owned” fabrics. It is, however, one of my favorite places to hunt for unusual fabrics. Last weekend I found an abundance of both new and pre-owned fabrics.

My favorite score has to be this set of quilt blocks! Two rows of four were stitched together.

There were also these three additional blocks.

I was thrilled to find them in a tub of scraps! The tub mainly holds small pieces that are not big enough to fold and put on the shelves. I don’t usually rummage through this but one of the quilt blocks caught my eye. I dug through it and was able to find two pieced strips containing four blocks each. The piecing is lovely – great points and tight stitching. Before I took these pictures (which I apologize for because they were taken at night, indoors. Forgive me. 😉 ) the blocks were labeled – A-1, A-2 etc. So I could sort of tell where the quilter was headed. However I wasn’t able to place the blocks as they were intended. Having only a few of them, I just did what I could. It looks good though!

When I got home, I pressed them and played around a bit. Finally I decided to piece them for a baby quilt to be donated. I love the bright colors. In the center I used two blocks from a set of hand dyed fabric that I won last year in a giveaway for RSC14 over at So Scrappy. They were made by Vicki Welsh. Her work is fantastic.

The squares finish out at 8″ which means that the body of the quilt comes to 24 x 36″. I felt that was too small even for a baby quilt so I played around with various ideas for borders.

The left side with the square patched border looked way too busy. On the right was a piece of blue and black print. I rejected that one because it was too dark and I wanted to stick with solids and batiks (like the body of the quilt.)

After trying a number of borders, I decided on this combination of purple (Moda Marbles line) and solid green. Softer than the others I tried and remains neutral (so fine for either a boy or girl).

Here is the end result, made with thrifted blocks and fabric from my stash. It finishes at approximately 33 x 42″.

We are having a rainy day (Yahoo!) so I had to tape this to the wall for photos. Not the best but good enough to give you the idea.

While I am very excited to finish this up, I have to set it aside and finish up some Christmas secret sewing. I have the backing and binding all ready to go, so after the holidays I will finish it up and donate. I know about Project Linus but are there other nice organizations to donate baby quilts to? If you know of one, leave it in a comment for me. Thanks so much and have a wonderful weekend!

If you haven’t already, be sure to check out the giveaways on Sew Mama Sew. You can enter my giveaway until Sunday night. Take a peek!

Linking to Confessions of a Fabric Addict and Crazy Mom Quilts – links for both are at the top of the page, under Link Ups

Sew Mama Sew December Giveaway

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Hi Everyone! Welcome to one of my favorite events of the year. Twice each year, in December and May there is a huge giveaway link up sponsored by Sew Mama Sew. It is a fun way to check out blogs you may not otherwise have read. If you have not checked out the giveaway yet , I encourage you to do so. So many craft bloggers have linked up and there are all sorts of prizes to be won.

If this is your first time visiting Needle and Foot, welcome! I hope you will take a minute to look around my site. I have been blogging for approximately 18 months and have made so many friends via this blog and the others that I follow. To learn more about me, click on the About Me page at the top of your screen. I have many of my quilts displayed in the Quilt Gallery page (also at the top of the page). If you would like to read the blog post associated with a particular quilt, click the title showing just below the picture. I love blogging and sewing and spend most of my time with one or the other. Comments and questions are always welcome and I try to answer each one. (With the exception of this particular post – I won’t be able to answer each comment on this post. I hope you understand!)

On to the giveaway. I have two giveaways to offer. (Before I get to far into it, I want to be sure to tell you that I will be shipping within the United States only. I apologize but it is fairly expensive to ship outside of the US.)

The first is a holiday table runner that I made. It measures approximately 40 x 14″. The center of the runner is a pieced stripe of various Christmas prints. The various fabrics feature holiday ornaments, poinsettias, and holly. The color scheme is green, red, cream and gold. Along the length of the center strip is a border of dark cream and gold fabric. Next to that is a deep red border.

The backing fabric and binding are the same deep red, gold and green print. I quilted this table runner on my home machine by stitching the length of the table runner at various widths. I would love to give it to one of you!

The second giveaway is a holiday banner, or bunting. The flags are double-sided so it looks nice where ever it is hung. Across the top is red ribbon with an extra length left at each end t give you some flexibility when you decide where to hang it. These buntings are a fun holiday decoration and I would love to send it off to one of you!

I used traditional colors and many of the fabrics have a vintage look to them.

.Each flag measures 6″ across the top and is 9″ in length (down to the point of the flag). The entire banner measures 80″ in length from first flag to last. There is 20″ of ribbon hanging freely to use to hang it. To make this, I cut the triangle shapes and fused them together with Wonder Under. I topstitched the perimeter to add strength to the flags.( I don’t think it will do well in the washer. I would just spot clean the flags as necessary. )

OK – Here is how you enter to win one of these giveaways! Please leave me a comment describing the best (or favorite) gift you have ever given or received. It can be either one. I am looking forward to reading your memories! If you follow me, you get an extra entry. Just comment and let me know how you follow. The giveaway will be open through Sunday, December 13th. I will pull two winners on Monday morning. Be sure that you are not a no-reply blogger (if you like, you could leave your email address in the comment.)

Thank you so much for stopping by! I wish you luck with all of the giveaways this week. I hope you have enjoyed looking around my blog and invite you to follow me via Bloglovin or sign up to receive posts in your email. (Rest assured that your email address is never shared or used for purposes other than to send you blog posts.) Both links are on the right at the top of the page. For a little more fun, follow me on Instagram. I am @kringelb.

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED.

Again, thank you for visiting. I am wishing each of you a fabulous holiday season, whichever way you choose to celebrate.

Saturday Smile

6 Replies

If you are an Instagram user, you might have seen the flurry of activity surrounding #GETYOURQUILTYWISHESGRANTED. In the usual form of this quilting community, there is all kinds of giving going on. I am not sure who started it (if you know, please give them credit in the comments) but it is such a joy. IG quilters are posting a wish’ for a particular pattern, a certain piece of fabric, scraps from a certain line or colorway, and others are granting the wish. Yep, just out of the kindness of their quilty heart, mailing off their fabric, usually to someone they have not met, in an effort to make them happy. Yet another example of why I love this community. It feels great to fill a need and is fun to receive something you have been looking for or have run out of. I have filled one wish so far and plan to run through the hashtag again and see what else I can do. Just because it is a nice thing to do.

On another note, my sister, Alicia, shared this video on her Facebook page a week or two ago. I loved it and have watched it a couple of times. It is a mashup of 66 classic movie dance scenes set to Uptown Funk, by Bruno Mars. I thought you might enjoy it too. It is a bit long but really entertaining. I am dating myself when I say that I used to sit and watch the Shirley Temple movies with my sisters. We would watch them when we were over at my Aunt’s house. It is such a fond memory and here is Shirley Temple dancing to Uptown Funk. It’s fantastic. Enjoy!