Blog Building

Well, the giveaway was a bit of a bust since I didn't get enough people to sign-up for it, but that's okay.  These are some things to expect when you are just starting to blog.  My blog may be little, but I'm happy to have two followers, and I love getting to know other bloggers through the various sites that I visit regularly.  Seeing everyone's projects and participating in events continues to be fun and inspiring. 

I want to give a special thank you to Swooze for leaving such a nice comment about my pincushion.  I hope to add a few more pincushion patterns to this blog as the year goes on and hope to hold a giveaway in the future when I have a bit more traffic.  

Pincushion of the Month Pattern and a Giveaway!

*Giveaway Now Closed*

Well, It's that time of the month where I start feeling a bit festive and want to spruce up my sewing area to reflect the season.  February is just around the corner, and who can resist those cute little candy conversation hearts.





Want some of that valentines cuteness for your sewing room with fewer calories, just make yourself this little candy heart pincushion.  To download the pattern click on this link Candy Heart Pincushion.  Make sure to download the original file to get it to print properly.

I really had a fun time making up this pattern to share with everyone, but I admit that I am not a professional pattern maker so I hope that my directions are clear and easy to understand.  It's a pretty straightforward little heart, but the curves might be challenging to a beginner.  I included a variety of candy heart sayings for you to choose from in the pattern.

Don't have time to make this pincushion yourself?  Why not WIN IT.  Just leave a comment on this post and you're signed up to win this pincushion!  I need at least 6 participants in order to do the giveaway so tell your friends to come by and sign-up too.  The giveaway opens today and closes at midnight on Saturday.  I'll announce the winner on Monday.

As always, I'd love to hear from anyone.  If you find a fault, problem, or need assistance just email me and I'll do my best to help you.

Happy Sewing :)

QOV #3 progress

I am definitely making some progress on my patriotic drunkards path quilt.  I pieced my blocks into four square units to make it simpler to arrange them in a pleasing way on my "design wall". Since I live in a fairly small apartment with my husband and three kids here in Germany, I really don't have a dedicated space where I can arrange quilt blocks.  In the past, I would wait for the kids to go to sleep, move the dining table, mop the floor, and stand on a chair to get a view from above of my quilt arrangement.  This has gotten a bit old so I thought that I would try to hang a temporary design wall on my closet with hangers and fleece.  It was a complete fail.  Getting them up wasn't too hard, but any rearranging made ten blocks fall off.  Taking this photo with the blocks on the fleece was a miracle.  In the end, this did work, but it wasn't a time saver.  I like the idea of getting the quilt blocks up on a design wall, but I need something more stable and also compact so that I can store it while it's not in use.

Small Blog Meet

Hello to everyone visiting here from Lily's.  As you can see, I am a new "baby" blogger with only one real post to my name, but I have some great quilts and crafts planned for this year and I can't wait to start sharing them on this blog.  I also have really enjoyed looking at some of the other small blogs that I've visited today.  Let me just give a shout out to Michelle at semi-organized Chaos who say's that one of her goals this year is to learn curved piecing.  My current project is noting but curves so maybe I'll try to do a post more about how I do curved blocks.  I also visited The Elven Garden where Jess from Australia has an impressive number of beautiful projects displayed from 2011, and I perused the Addicted to fabric blog where Mary longarms from Tehachapi California, which just happens to be a great little town where my family and I would go to every apple season to pick apples.  I hope to visit several more sites so that I can get to know my fellow bloggers better this year. 

Quilt of Valor #3

I am well on my way to making my third quilt for the Quilts of Valor Foundation. I always enjoy the challenge of planning a new quilt that will honor a member or veteran of our armed forces.  It is also a time that I like to try patterns and techniques that I haven't done before.  I've always wanted to make a drunkards path quilt so I found the idea of making a patriotic version almost irresistible.  Without sounding too much like a commercial, I have to say that I do love my EQ7 program.  I was able to arrange the colors and layout on this quilt much easier than in the past.  The plan for this quilt was a bit of a happy accident while learning my EQ7.  After I had the quilt all laid out perfectly, I accidentally hit a button that flipped around some of my quilt blocks.  After realizing my error, I decided that I liked the accidental layout better.

This quilt will end up being around 60x72 inches and has 480 3 inch curved squares.  I have been using my newly acquired curve master foot to piece these blocks.  Piecing tight curves was a challenge, and I ruined about a dozen test blocks before I got used to the curve master, but now it is going along rather smoothly and I should have my blocks pieced and pressed in a few days.