I am going to be hopping, how about you?

I am participating, are you?

Blog Hop Starts Monday!

Mrs. Pickles of http://mrspicklesgarden.blogspot.com/ is hosting a blog hop next week!  Easy peasy one blog a day with hints from successful quilters!!!
 Since I am clueless as to how to insert a button on my blog, go to Mrs. Pickles' blog on Monday to find the first blog to hop to!

Christmas Finishes

Most of these quilts were pieced during my time in Florida when I was house/pet sitting for my daughter while she was deployed to Afghanistan.  I was finally home long enough to quilt and bind them!

This quilt is for our niece and her husband.

This quilt is for their son, born in June and quilted with smiling suns.

This quilt is for the new grandparents, my SIL and BIL.  I had fun coming up with different quilting for this quilt.

This quilt is for the new Auntie and niece.  Same panel was used for the center but all different quilting patterns were used.

 This quilt is for my youngest daughter.  Didn't take close-ups of the quilting before I sent it off to Tulsa.

There was one more for the best girlfriend a SS could have, but they were coming over and I didn't get pictures before I wrapped it up!  I'll get pictures tomorrow.

I hope that all of you have a Blessed Christmas and a wonderful New Year, both filled with family, friends, love and laughter.  And I hope you have more finishes and fewer UFOs this time next year!

A Lovely Year of Finishes 2013

My Button <a href=”http://blog.sewbittersweetdesigns.com/?page_id=3033″ title=”A Lovely Year of Finishes”> <img src=”http://blog.sewbittersweetdesigns.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/2013btn128.gif” width=”128″ height=”128″ alt=”My Button” style=”border:none;” /></a>
Lovely way to get in gear and get those projects finished.  I'm going to try, but I don't know if this button will post - never could make it work before!  Never did a linky party before or flicker, but I'll give it a go!  I'm joining Melissa of http://blog.sewbittersweetdesigns.com/?page_id=3033 and Shanna of http://www.fiberofallsorts.blogspot.com/ in their quest to get these projects done done!!!

In memory of Sandy Hook

I received a squishy from Canada

There was a blog hop...I don't remember which one because they all keep sucking me in...and this time, I was a winner!!!  Annette, who blogs at http://institchesandseams.blogspot.com/ picked my name and today I received a squishy from Canada!!!  Annette designs her own patterns - amazing! - and sent me one called Crazy for Candles and 3 fat quarters to make it with!  

It is an adorable star pattern that will let me play with the embroidery stitches on my sewing machine!  Thank you, Annette!!!  Make sure you go over and check out her blog and you'll know why I'm a follower of hers!

I hope to have all my Christmas gift quilts done-done this weekend - they need bindings and labels - and when they are ready for viewing, I'll post pictures of them here!

New Customer quilt finished!

I finished this beauty last week and sent it off to Joan.  She has it now, so I can post pictures of it here.  She has promised me a picture of the whole quilt...it is 102" square and there was no where to put it to see it all, so here is a picture of a little more than half of it!  I got to play with trapunto and McTavishing on this beauty!

Happy Thanksgiving!

As I pause in my preparations for Thanksgiving, I want to take a minute and wish you and yours a blessed Thanksgiving, filled with family, friends, food, and love!  Four of our kids plus one husband, one fiance and one girlfriend are joining us tomorrow for Thanksgiving.  We will all be heading to my husband's Aunt and Uncle's for our big family dinner.  There are usually between 30 and 40 people...I'm so glad his dear Aunt is willing to play hostess for all of us!  Then all the kids will come home with us...still haven't figured out where everyone will sleep, but that's all right, we'll have a wonderful time!  I am squeezing some quilting time in on a customer's quilt...it's a lovely break from cleaning house and I have to get it finished this weekend so I can mail it off in time for Joan to put the binding and label on for this lovely Christmas gift!!!

Blessings!!!!!!!!!!!!

New Respect for Pattern Designers

I am so thrilled with the response to the Two Hearts in Love quilt (pictured below), but someone asked me for the pattern I used for the border.  Big problem.  I didn't use a pattern, just had an idea in my head, put it on graph paper, applied crayons then went for it.  Yes, I made mistakes and enjoyed some quality time with my seam ripper.  But how to describe what I did and how I did it???  Mercy me, what a trial it was...sure hope the poor lady can figure out what I was talking about!  I did send her pictures, so I hope she can figure it out.  My respect for designers who publish their patterns has skyrocketed!!!

Testing a Quilt Pattern

I had the wonderful opportunity to test a quilt pattern for Jenel Looney called Two Hearts in Love.  Her pattern was inspired by the romance author Susan Mallery.  She is Susan's assistant and she created this pattern as a gift for Susan.  She has submitted her pattern to a quilting magazine but said I could share a picture with you before the magazine came out with it.  I will admit, she designed the heart portion of the quilt, but finished her pattern with a solid border...well, I like pieced borders and wanted the finished quilt to be larger (I will still be adding more borders to get it queen-sized), so I came up with the woven ribbons border.  Currently it is 57"x73".  I LOVE this pattern and it has become my go-to pattern for wedding quilts!!!

HOPES and DREAMS Quilt Challenge for ALS

Angela Walters of Quilting Is My Therapy http://www.quiltingismytherapy.com/2012/11/08/hopes-and-dreams-quilt-challenge-for-als/#comment-14334 is teaming up with Quilters Dream Batting http://www.facebook.com/pages/Quilters-Dream-Batting-sponsoring-Hopes-and-Dreams-Quilt-Challenge-for-ALS/150913912237?ref=ts&fref=ts with a Quilt Challenge for ALS.  Please check out their pages and join all of us in the fight to find a cure for ALS.  You might win a really great prize while helping those with ALS.

Taking Action, want to help?

Erin at http://vesuviusmama.blogspot.ca/2012/11/taking-action-wanna-help.html is asking for help making Disappearing Four Patch blocks which she is going to put together into quilts for those suffering from Hurricane Sandy.  If you can help, it would certainly be a blessing to many!!

Giveaway!!

Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe: 25 Days of Christmas and 25 giveaways! Enter Now!...:      NANCY AT VICTORIAN MOTTO SAMPLER SHOPPE wanted to do something very special for the Christmas giveaways and I want to make sure my faithful followers will receive prizes.

She has Cross-stitching and you will find other items like Ric-Rac or hand dyed linen and aida. 
JUST MENTION Farm Quilting SENT YOU.....

Home from MQX West

I had 2 fun-filled, busy days in Portland, Oregon at MQX West.  Great venue, quilts - both the ones entered in the show and the collections, vendors and classes!  I even got to spend Friday morning with my beloved quilting buddy Carol from Florida!  I am tired from the drive home (about 5.5 hours) and unloading my over-packed car.  I will say, before I head off to bed or up to my studio to sew a few pieces, Angela Walters is a great, fun teacher as well as a fabulous quilter.  Her class was only 2 hours - flew by - and I could have sat there for 8 hours without complaint!  More with pictures soon.  Just a tease pic for now :)  The lovely lady is pictured with her equally lovely quilt entitled "My Stash History" which contained material from her wedding back in the 70's and the small squares on the right side were all from her children's clothing.  Love the way she did the border!!!

Foods that are toxic to your pets

Just a few websites that contain information to help us keep our furry companions safe and healthy by not sharing some of our foods with them.  They not only tell you what not to feed them, they also tell you the signs your pet will exhibit if they have eaten something they shouldn't!

http://www.aspca.org/pet-care/poison...ple-foods.aspx
http://www.earthclinic.com/Pets/poisonous_foods.html
http://www.humanesociety.org/animals...s_to_pets.html
http://www.entirelypets.com/toxicfoods.html
http://pets.webmd.com/cats/ss/slides...ould-never-eat

Let's keep our furry family members healthy by expanding our knowledge!  Thanks to auntpiggylpn of quiltingboard.com for doing the research and posting the information there!

Happy quilting!

More fabric to win!

http://www.elefantz.com/2012/09/my-bumper-garden-issue-plus-gumboot.html is having a giveaway of fabric and buttons!  Head on over there and let her know that you heard about her giveaway on the blog of Farm Quilter...maybe we'll both win!!!

Anyone interested in winning fabric?

http://straystitches1.blogspot.com/2012/09/its-giveaway-time.html has hooked up with The Fat Quarter Shop in a giveaway for a $25 gift certificate!!!  Go to her blog (she has a lovely blog) and enter!  If you win, you don't even have to share with me!! LOL

A Little About Customer Service

A few months ago I bought a kit from The Enchanted Quilt.  It was a pre-cut kit and I have never tried one of them before - now I am totally a fan!!!  It was for a quilt that was from a shop hop and they bought the extra block packets from the other quilt shops and put them together into a kit.  Well, we all know what happens when many people cut blocks...yep, some fabric was missing and some that needed to be cut in a single layer were not so unless I was willing to use the back of the fabric in my block, I needed more/different fabric.  I gave them a call to let them know what had happened and to see if I could get the lovely pink and white polka dot material missing from the one block - I looked everywhere for this fabric with no luck!  Well, the apologized all over the place, sent me the polka dot material, 2 black and white fabrics (matching what was already in the packets) and a solid black so I could finish my blocks.  They also included cutting directions for the blocks that had problems, a fat quarter of cute pink with mini flowers and a note apologizing again!!!  I highly recommend them for the quality of their fabrics and their awesome customer service!!!  I will be back!!!!!  http://www.theenchantedquilt.com/

Finished quilting a quilt for my MIL

Finally finished quilting a quilt for my mother-in-law today!  She cross-stitched 30 17.5" squares and put them together for a 105"x85" quilt.  I'm taking it to her tomorrow and I'll take a picture of it then!  It was marked for hand quilting but she didn't want to do that since the blue dots won't wash out and her hand quilting thread is too thin to hide them at all.  I'm still seeing blue dot-to-dot!!!

Took a bit of a break from quilting last evening and went for a ride on my beloved Skippy!

I'M A WINNER!!!

|I participated in the "Think Christmas" blog hop and won 6 fat quarters AND the book Christmas Cats and Dogs from Linda Alexander of http://living4quilting.blogspot.com/!  How lucky can a quilter get???  There are 21 different patterns in this wonderful book and now I'm busy figuring out which project to make with my fabulous fat quarters!!!  Thank you so much, Linda - I love it all!!!!!

Home, finally

Home after being away for over 3 months, anxious to get back to work in my quilting loft to quilt all the lovely quilts I pieced while in Florida...and I have pneumonia (been sick for almost 4 weeks now) and I have no energy at all!  I still haven't unpacked my truck yet and I've been home for over a week!!!  Yes, my sewing machine and all my quilt tops are still out there and I just can't get the energy to bring them in the house!!  Hoping I will get up there soon to quilt the baby quilt for my niece who had a beautiful baby boy a month ago.

My daughter is finally settled in her new location!  For the next 3 years she will be a recruiter on the Olympic Peninsula!  Only a 6-7 hour drive from me, instead of a 5 day jaunt across the country.  I will miss the wonderful friends I made in Florida while house/pet sitting for my daughter while she was deployed to Afghanistan.  I will also miss the lovely warm of Florida, but my part of Washington is certainly warmer (right now) than the Peninsula!  Of course, winter is another story, but it is months away, so I won't worry about that right now!

Happy Birthday, Dad!  Wish I was there with you to celebrate you 91st birthday!!!

I'm currently in Florida while my daughter is finishing up her schooling to become a recruiter.  Weather is warm, humid and lovely!!  I have been piecing quilts, making a couple of appliqued wall-hangings and enjoying some wonderful Vit. F with my Sew What?! group.  I'll be missing them when I move my daughter from Tampa, Florida to the Port Angeles area of Washington next month.  It will be lovely to have my daughter only a 6 hour drive from me, but I will sorely miss my dear friends here in Florida.

This is what I have been working on.