Sail Away SAL COME JOIN US!

Attention all Shepherd's Bush Fans!

If you have the kit "Sail Away" and would like to join Terriboog and I in a Stitch-A-Long, we will be starting on August 5th, which happens to be Terri's 50th Birthday. (Isn't that great!)

Terri has a fabulous blog Chocolates for Breakfast; Stitching for Lunch, and you must all run over there and read it. She is highly entertaining, and such a doll! We've never met in person, but I know we would be close friends!

If you want to join us and you don't have the kit...then by all means, sprint over to your favorite needlework store and get it, or order online. We are giving you a little over a month to get your hot little fingers on it.

Neither one of us has ever hosted a SAL, so we really have no clue what we are doing, however, we both feel it would be fun to work on something with a group, so if you are interested then leave a post on either one of our blogs and we will get it set up. If you have already stitched this piece, then we welcome your suggestions.


Once again, that is a start of AUGUST 5th! I might make a little "gift" for all that join our group, so that might be your little incentive!

If you know anyone that might be interested, please pass the word along. The more the merrier!Aren't the colors gorgeous? I'm in silk heaven!

I'm wasn't going to buy anything, honest!

Hi to all my wonderful blog friends. It has been one of those busy weeks with lots to show and tell, so here it goes!

Yesterday my sweet daughter, my mom, Sister-in-Law Melanie, and her mom Margret went on our annual Utah Shop Hop. We were only able to go one day, and made it to about half of the stores, but that was enough for our wallets! I wasn't going to buy anything! Honestly, I didn't think I would. As you already know, I've bought so much in the past few months, that I need nothing!

I'm sorry to say, my resolve didn't last ONE store! I found myself pulling out my credit card at the first chance I got to buy this little kit. I'm blaming it on my DD who begged me to get it! I already had the pattern, and I've been looking at the kit for a while. I finally caved to her pleading and bought it. It will be cute in her room, so I better put it on the top of my list, or it won't get done until she has a daughter! Quilt Soup "All Dressed Up"

Fig Tree's Patisserie line of fabric. Quilt is "Twin Stars" from the "Jelly Roll Quilts" book

I was pretty good at the next few stores, but then we went to Mormon Handicraft, which was having a 20% off sale. I decided to buy this fabric to made a quilt out of my new Jelly Roll Quilt book. I am thinking of doing "Twin Stars". I've never made a jelly roll quilt before, so with the discount I thought it would be a good time to try. I got the fabric for the back in their 75% off fabrics. It was 2.30 a yard! That made it easy to buy, and I'm hoping it will look great with another fig tree quilt that my mom made several years ago from one of our Shop Hop trip. She made this for my daughter, and it is still one of my favorite quilts in my house!

Fig Trees "Flower Star Wreaths." My Mom made this incredible quilt for my daughter a few years ago.

DD begged me to buy this fabric as well. It was only $2.00 a yard, and will make a cute dress or something. Would be great quilt backs as well.

This is the fabric that I bought at market for a spring trench coat! This will go with everything, and I'm actually looking forward to making this!
Summer Snapperland by Bent Creek

I've finished my summer Snapperland. I loved working on this piece. It really was my favorite one of all! I started the Fall Snapperland and I'm hoping to be able to get it done really soon, so that I can have them all mounted at the same time. My framer said he could make it so I could use one frame for all four designs. I'm going to try that for a while. It will be nice to not have to store the other framed pieces. I don't really have a spot for them all to be out at once, so I think this will be a great option for now. I put all of the snaps on this piece, and then took most of them out. I thought they detracted from the piece. Now that I look at this through my camera lense, I think the snaps would have been okay, but I'm leaving them out for now!

Hope you have a great day! I'm off for more quilting and stitching fun. Hope you have a great weekend!

One more thing....

After my lengthy post this morning, I forgot to show you a finish that I did this week! It's my daughter's new pillowcase, that I bought in Pittsburgh last month. Her dinky pillow doesn't really fit in this case. The instructions are for Queen size pillows. I guess I'll have to buy her a new one when I go to the store.

This is a really fun, fast project that will give you instant gratification. Here are the instructions:

Main body - 3/4 yard fabric
Tiny Accent Border- 3" length of fabric
Border - 1/4 Yard

1. Fold 3" strip in half lengthwise and press "wrong" sides together.
2. For border: Fold in half lengthwise and press "wrong" sides together.
3. Main body is used just as is.
4. Layer and pin the different raw edges in order:
a. The long 44" edge of main body, right side up.
b. Raw edges of the mini accent
c. Raw edges of the border.
5. Sew through all five layers using 1/4" seam.
6. Zigzag seam edge, or use a serger for all of your seams.
7. Iron the seam toward the pillowcase.
8. Fold pillowcase right sides together, pin well, matching the seams of the tiny border. Sew with 1/4" seam.
9. Zigzag if not using a serger.
10. Turn right sides out and press.

Give it a try! It's fun to have new pillowcases! Hopefully that's it for today!

Plugging Along...

Hike we made to a waterfall near our home.

Hi to all my bloggy friends! I know I've been a bad, bad, bad blogger lately. I have been trying to finish some projects so I can actually have something to show. I'm showing you progress today, because nothing is really getting done as fast as I would like!

School is out, so what is the deal? How did my time evaporate? Between scouts, church, WEEDS, dentists, hiking, and cleaning, my sewing projects are not getting done, according to my unrealistic expectations! I have visions of stitching entire projects in a day, and quilts that somehow sew themselves in the night! I do wish I could hurry my projects along sometimes. I know I am not unique, in having project start-i-tis! I think I managed to do much better with my monthly goals, and will be reverting back to that after this month!

In the meantime, Here are some of the things I've been doing:

We finished our stitching project for our friend Cindy who is suffering from breast cancer.

I finished the Needle book, and snippet box, and Rachel finished the biscornu and the scissor case. Melanie (my sister-in-law who does not have a blog) finished the darling bag.

We were able to take this gift to her last week. She is such a sweetheart. She has been given many challenges the past few months. Not only has she had cancer, but she has lost her father, whom she took care of. To make matters worse, she was opening a window a few weeks ago, and tore her rotator cuff, so she needs surgery on that as well! Pray for Cindy! There is only so much stress a person should have to take!

Cindy has a great eye for decorating. I asked her is I could take a picture of her darling wall, because I love how she has decorated it. I hope she doesn't mind me sharing it with you. I love how all of these stitching projects look so great together. The addition of the the shelf and iron pieces makes the wall dimensional and classy, don't you think?

"Abundantly Blessed" by Cotton Way.

This was a really fast fun project that I decided to do on the weekend. I think it honestly took about 2 hours to complete. It has the look of a cathedral window quilt, but is actually a charm pack (5" squares) sewn together and then about 60 of these oval shaped pieces layed out and sewn down. (The hardest part of this quilt is cutting out those shapes!) It is a "quilt as you go" method, and is raw edge, so there is no binding, and no finished seams. I loved doing it. I need a wedding gift tomorrow, and I'm thinking of making another today. What did I say earlier about unrealistic expectations?

I joined "crafters choice" book club, and was excited to add these books to my library. I got all 4 books for about $10 with shipping, and I only have to buy one book this year, with no automatics send. Great deal, and the books are all fantastic!

Progress on "Shores"

I've been stitching away on shores. I am working on block 5 now. The plan is to have it done by the end of the month! (Sorry no picture, as the camera battery decided it was done for the day!)

I decided to leave out all of the single stitches on block 4. They were suppose to look like stars, but I don't really like working with single stitches, especially with silk thread. I will wait till the end to decide if I need them or not!

I've gone to the beach! (How I wish!) "Summer Snapperland" by Bent Creek

I just got the bug the other day to finish this project. It is stitching up fast! I have to finish this today. It has been pure therapy to work on. I love the colors and soft "feeling" of this design. It reminds me of San Diego. I want to use it for summer decorating, so I need to get it to the framers quick!

And last, but not least, this is my "Sunshine and Shadow" Amish quilt that I'm working on. The squares finish at 1", and this has been more of a challenge than I anticipated. For one thing the squares are small, but I couldn't really find a great pattern to use. My Mom lent me a book that had a good strip-pieced method, but I have still unpicked more than my share on this quilt. I'm making two of these. One is for my friend Kim. (see prior post about spring quilt market for the story). I left the calculator in the photo. I could not have done this quilt without it! My "plan" is to have this finished next week so she can take it home and have it quilted. We shall see!

Take care to all! I hope you have more stitching and sewing time than you want! HAHAHA, does that ever happen? If it does, then let me know your secret!