Happy New Year!

Well I am starting off with 2 small finishes today. The first is a little stitchery , it was a pre traced gift from my friend Doreen. I started off by colouring the snowman with white crayon and then stitching the snowman. After it was all finished I tea dyed it.

My snowman will eventually be a pillow front.

My second finish is one of my last 5 blocks I need to complete my Christmas Town Sampler blocks.

Until next time,
Denise

Well I didn’t think that I could fall in love with yet another project, but I have! I will show you one tonight, and the other one ( yes, there are two!) tomorrow or Friday.
The first one is called Sugarplums/ Tales of the Quillt Shop, a collabrative project by HollyMabutas of Eat Cake Graphics and author Terri Thayer.

A Christmas applique quilt , with a story of a quilt shop provided each month with the pattern. It is only $2.25 per month and available as a PDF file so you recieve your pattern and story right away.

Check out Sugarplums right here and tell me it isn’t cute!! Lol

I guess this is the year of starting a lot of projects, and hopefully finishing them as well!

Until next time,
D.

I have had such a great last couple weeks! I have new quilting buddies to chat with and work on projects with! It just makes my heart happy! Lol

I’m so excited about a couple of new quilt alongs coming up real soon.

The first is a mystery Block of the month, by Esther Aliu! Wow is all I can say about her projects and incredible talent. Check out Esther’s blog , and you will see the information for ” Forget Me Not“, I can’t wait to start!

Continuing with my paper piecing fever, even though I have not completed my Africian Sunrise, I feel compelled to start the New York Beauty Quilt Along. You can see all the blocks for the quilt here. It starts March 5th, and I am going to give it my best shot! It will be beautiful when it’s all done!!
I hope you follow along with one or both of these amazing quilt alongs.

I think I have figured out that there is nothing better than a group of friends who share the same twisted and obsessive love of fabric and quilting that I do!!!

Until next time,
D.

Ever had one of those weekends where you have everything planned out in your head that you feel you can accomplish, and none of them happen? I still managed to get things done, just not what I would have liked. We gained an hours’ sleep on Saturday night as our clocks “fell” back an hour, so that was a good thing. I finished my #5 SAL block from Sew Happy Me , and have started #6.

Stitch-A-Long Block #5

I wanted to pass on a First Friday Freebie from The Painted Quilt, it is very cute and quite Canadian! Have a look I think you’ll like it.

I have also been part of a Jo Morton’s Club in Bellingham, Washington since last January, we are wrapping up for the year with a block exchange . I did manage to get 15- 4 1/2″ blocks completed as well. We had eight projects for the year I have  finished five.

Jo Morton Blocks for Exchange

Until next time,

D.

I was so excited when Bari J. started her new blog “we love french knots“, and I have been faithfully following along. There are interviews, free patterns and helpful hints. I was thrilled when I read Monday’s post — it featured Meg Hawkey from Crabapple Hill Designs! Here is a link to the article.

I love Meg’s work, and as if that wasn’t enough, I was so fortunate in June to be able to attend a retreat at Crabapple Hill Studio! My good friend Kate and I headed out on our roadtrip, it was a long trip from British Columbia down to Kennewick, Washington, but we had so much fun!

Meg and her husband and staff were absolutely wonderful. The studio was beautiful and the food was amazing, we laughed and stitched and had a great time.

Here are some shots of the good times we had.

On the way to the retreat.

At the entrance to Crabapple Hill Studio

Flowers outside the studio.

Lavender lining the driveway.

Until next time,
D.

Well here it is October already! The pumpkins in the garden are orange and the leaves on the trees are starting to change colour. This is truly my favorite time of the year.

It is also less than 3 months til Christmas! I know we haven’t even had Halloween yet but if you are wanting to make a handmade gift of some sort these next few weeks seem to fly by, at least for me they seem to . I found a blog that is having a SAL ( Stitch-A-Long) , she posts a new stitchery every Friday , and she leaves it up for one week, so you have to act fast. The finished project is a Christmas banner, very cute. I have completed the first one and have the second traced, you can find it at SewHappy.Me .

First Stitchery from SewHappy.Me

So that I hit at least three of the four seasons, I will leave you with a parting shot of the last flowers of summer!

Last Flowers of Summer

Until next time,

D.