Another Giveway

I just found out about another giveaway. Zana offers, in her words "paint the portrait from a photograph supplied by the winner. The size of the portrait will be 9.5" x 11" and is painted using quality materials." The giveaway is a portrait of 1 child or infant.

Such a great giveaway!

Giveaway

Wendy is having a giveaway here for her 100th post.

Breast Cancer CQ blocks, Giveaway Goodies

The past 6 weeks or so, I have been working on 2
CQ blocks to go in a crazy quilt to benefit breast cancer that Leslie Ehrlich is putting together. The quilt is constructed of donated wedding dresses in white, ecru and cream. We were allowed to use light pink and gold. This is my first block. I am sending this off in the mail today.











This is my second block. I had a really tough time taking good pictures of this light block.














Yesterday's mail brought a little package from Barb of Happy Handwork. She had a giveaway recently. While I was not one of the winners of the giveaway, I was one of the lucky winners of the extra names she chose, and this is what I received yesterday. A cute fall card, some lovely note cards and chocolate! Thanks so much Barb!

Quilt Giveaway

There is a great quilt giveaway that ends today, 10/17/2008 here at Pigtails and Snails.

Another Giveway

There is another giveaway here at Ocean Wave Quilts.

Giveaway for Breast Cancer Awareness

There is a signed original art work that is matted and framed, giveaway here for breast cancer awareness. I am hoping I win this for my granddaughter. The drawing is November 1st.

Stitcher's Angel Pin Cushion, Early Christmas

This is my third gift I made for my Stitcher's Angel recipient. It looks like a Stitching Angel to me. I made it into a pincushion. It was actually an ornament kit from my local quilt shop I had not made up yet from a number of years ago. I sent my package with all 3 gifts off to my recipient last week.

I plan to make some ornaments for my daughters in the next month for Christmas with this pattern.









Several weeks ago, DH was browsing the flyer from Harbor Freight, and telling me what he was interested in buying, and items they had. He came home, and showed me all he had gotten. He mentioned something else he had thought about getting, but didn't want to spend the money.

I mentioned that if I had the money, I would have gotten the
tool chest, that is lined in felt, and had a number of drawers inside.

So last week, he went off to Harbor Freight again, and got
me the tool box, and told me it was my Christmas present but I could have it now.







Of course, last night I didn't fill it up with tools, but threads, ribbons, beads, etc!

I love it. Plus it has locks on it so I can lock it when the grandkids (especially the little guys) come over so they don't get tempted.

I got rid of 3 plastic containers last night as I was able to get the contents in this.

THIS AND THAT, LOTTO

I have been busy with a lot of things. DH built a stool for Kyleigh, our granddaughter to climb into her new bed, which is rather tall. He built it, I stenciled it to coordinate with the new color of her walls.



















I belong to a small list of quilting friends and we have been participating in something called Lotto.
We used to send around fabric, and have a drawing at the end of the month and someone won all the blocks for that month. Recently, we have been choosing a month, sending around fabric, and your block request, and the participants send you the blocks back you can then assemble into a quilt. September was DeeJae's month and she requested that we finish up these funky chicken blocks for her.





October is my month, and I am requesting participants make this sailboat block. I got the pattern from here, at Quilter's Cache. These are 12" blocks. There are 12 participants in the swap. I intend to make a quilt for our king-sized bed, so DH figured I needed 42 blocks. I plan to mix in some dark colored blue ships too, and I think it will be pretty scrappy.








I am going to use the rest of the fabric I have left over for the borders.

Giveaways

There are a couple of giveaways I have come across this morning, here, at Quilter Going Bananas and here, at Tactile Pleasures in Fabric.

CQ RR,

I am sending off Moira's block today. This is the round robin I am in with a small group of friends, Moira, Susan and Gail.

This is the section I embellished, around the kitten.

I had commented to Moira that some of the fabrics and laces looked familiar. She told me they were ones I had given her!








This is the whole block.














Today is Keaton (DGS#2) 2nd birthday. He loves choo-choos, so I used my embroidery machine to
embroider a choo-choo on a hooded T-shirt.











This is the bed DH (Papa) just finished building for DGS#1 Jaeger. It has 6 drawers underneath and a secret compartment for Jaeger to put the treasure box Papa also made. It is a captain's bed, originally a pirate captain's bed, but he said now he wants it to be his Star Wars bed.

We delivered this the other night and assembled it. Keaton thinks it is his bed!




John plans this furniture and builds it himself. Most of the furniture in our house are what he has constructed.


This is another view. John realized after putting it together
that the headboard could be a little taller, he was worried about the window. So when he builds Keaton's bed and delivers it, he is going to make another headboard that goes up to the window ledge and we will take this one off.

Kyleigh also recently got a new, much taller bed, so Papa built her a stool, and I am going to stencil that today. She has a new "grown up girl's bedroom that has recently been painted and very nice.

Stitcher's Angel Needle Book

I finished my send gift to send my Stitcher's Angel recipient last night. I finished up this needle book.

I have an idea about my 3rd gift, just need an opportunity to make it.

Canning Season

This is what has been occupying a lot of my spare time recently. I started out making bread and butter pickles which we love. I gave part of them away when my family was here for the wedding in August.











I also made grape jelly from our grapes and gave a lot of these away in August when family was here for the wedding. My brother especially loves grape jelly.












Then my friend Jan, showed some pictures on her blog of some dill pickles they had made, and kindly shared their recipe with me. These are just delicious. I could barely wait for their curing time to dig into them! I am worried about running out of these, I think I am going to have to make another batch!
















And lastly, Allie shared her recipe for corn relish which I made last week. I still want to make labels for the lids, so these are still sitting on my counter. I haven't tasted this yet, but I know I am going to set this out at Thanksgiving.

Self-Portrait Blog Challenge

I recently participated in Marilyn's blog challenge. We had to create a 8 x 10 collage using
a picture of ourselves as a child. This was mine
finished project.

I used a combination of elements on Photoshop Elements, added some digital effects, did some stamping, and paper collage, and spritzed a paper doily with some color.

Stitcher's Angel Needlework Bag

I have just completed my first project for my Stitcher's Angel recipient. This is a needlework bag, and this is the outside.
I started this right after I signed up for the Stitcher's Angel project.


















This is the inside of the bag showing the various pockets, and pin cushion.
















This is one of the pockets on the outside of the bag, and even has a place to hook your scissors.














This is the bag all rolled up and tied.

















This needlework bag was a pattern I have made before, by Pat Sloan.

Giveaway at Retro Cafe

I just found out that Retro Cafe is offering this digital sheet giveaway:

I hope to have something creative to show tomorrow. The past few weeks I seem to have lost my creative muse, and can't seem to find it. I did do one paper type collage-swap using a baby picture of mine, which I will share later.

I have tons, and tons, and tons of things to do before November, and I hope I find my creative muse in the next couple of days.

TIF-August, TAST

I am still trying to catch up on my challenges. I finished the one for August last night.
Sharon's TIF challenge for August was about balance, what balance is to you, whether you maintain a balanced life, and how you balance aspects of your life.

This was the color scheme:




I have to say, that most of the time I maintain a balanced life, I am able to keep a lot of things
going at the same time. I was doing really well before our daughter's wedding, I was getting a lot of things done, getting ready for the wedding, working, and doing some projects too. Then I just sort of lost my balance. We had our granddaughter's birthday the week after that, for which I made her some gifts. We had our daughter's (the bride's) birthday the week after that. I had some computer issues (which I work on most of the day) which I got straightened out, but it took awhile. I had some Photoshop Element issues which I finally got straightened out, and some printer/scanner issues which I gout straightened out, but these all took time, and in the evening
I did not feel like doing anything creative.


This is my piece for August, representing me trying to keep all the portions of my life in balance. I think I have it back again and am trying to get caught up. The colors really matched the color scheme, although it doesn't show up very well on this photo.
'
Also for the Take a Stitch Tuesday, the balls were done using the barred chain stitch, and alternating barred chain.

TIF-JULY, Sticher's Angel

With our daughter's wedding in August, and preparations for that, time sort of got away from me
for July, although I did get my block pieced. Sharon's concept for July was "half", "way", "mark". I thought long and hard about that, but could not come up with anything to do with it.
I instead just pieced my block using the color scheme.





I am going to use this stitchery to make a needlecase for my
Stitcher's Angel recipient. I hope to get this made up in the next day or two.

KARRIN'S UGLY BLOCK

My "ugly block" is heading off today for a round robin with my small group of friends, Susan, Gail, and Moira.

I probably made this block more than 7 or 8 years ago, and it was sent off on another round robin with another crazy quilting group. This was how it came back home, with not too much done, and it has been in a pile of UFOs since. I added the piece of lace last night, but I am hoping my dear friends can help me "pretty up" this ugly block. It needs some major help! I have a lot going on right now, swaps, etc, and didn't have the time to make a new block.