Giveaway Winner!

I completely forgot to post the giveaway winner yesterday.  I plugged the comment numbers into a random number generator and came up with number 30 which was Andra Gayle of Simplify and Quilt.  She said;

how exciting-not sure i can pick just one color-maybe red since I haven't started my red strings yet for Orca Bay...Congrats on 1000 posts!

 That sounds perfect to me. I'm using pink for my quilt and would love to gather up some red to send away.  I've got a little stack of red squares ready to go for step 6 and I'll see what I can find for the strings needed in step  4.  I was running low on purple and did a little stash enhancement while finishing up some shopping last night.

Giveaway

Micki over at Irish Muses is having a giveaway of a cool looking book called Miniatures in Minutes. Given my recent fascination with small quilt blocks, it looks like it would be right up my alley. Go and check it out, tell her I sent you.

Giveaway

Getting fun goodies in the mail from time to time is part of the fun of blogging. Julie at Jaybird Quilts is having a giveaway of some super cute fabric along with a pattern and nifty ruler. Go check it out and tell her I sent you over. Those fabrics would look right at home in my stash.

Lucky Me

I'm not sure if I'm blessed or charmed or just down right spoiled. Look at what came in the mail today! I am the lucky winner of a giveaway from Morning Glory Designs. I started following when Amy , my quilting twin, was doing a block of the month last year. Speaking of which, what ever happened to that quilt? I seem to remember some simplification of the design, but I can't seem to picture the finished quilt. I managed to resist, though it wasn't easy. I do have the patterns squireled away and they might resurface the next time I am looking for a themed sampler. Anyway, I think I was the runner up, and these lovely fabrics were in my box this afternoon. I thought they were fat quarters, but when I opened them to pre-wash, they went selvage to selvage! They are just out of the dryer now and ready to be fondled, trimmed and folded. Thanks so much, Reeze, they will certainly be put to good use.

Giveaway Winner

Using the highly scientific random number generator at random.org, I got number 5 for the winner of my 500th post giveaway. Counting down the list of comments, the prize goes to......drum-roll please........ Amanda at Amanda's Musings. I am a longtime reader of Amanda's blog and was even lucky enough to win her giveaway earlier. She does lovely work and has just gotten a fancy new sewing machine and embroidery module. So go visit her and tell her I said "hi". Amanda, if you could just let me know which of the quilt kits from Connecting Threads you would like to have, the choices are: Magenta Cosmos Strippy, Cosmos in Bloom, or Madder Storm at Sea. Also, if you could send me your snail mail address, I'll zip off to the post office when it opens again on Tuesday and send the parcel off to you. Thanks to everyone who left a comment.

Counting Down

Post number 501, and just two days of school left in the school year. I started digging for something fun to add to the giveaway and came up with some kits that I ordered from Connecting Threads. Something about a nicely packaged quilt with pretty coordinating fabric makes me terrified to dig in and I've never started any of these. So the lucky winner can choose one of these kits. They are: Cosmos in Bloom, Cosmos Strippy, and Root of the Madder Storm at Sea. The finished quilts are about 36 inches square, if you win and want more details before making a choice, I can elaborate. If you haven't entered the drawing yet, just leave me a nice comment on blog number 500.


It's Wednesday, and I keep waiting for an evening this week to spend at home. Monday I did a night out with a girlfriend who needed to get out of the house, and that was a nice change of pace. Tuesday was the last Girl Scout service meeting of the year. I was so hopeful that tonight would be my chance to devote some time to quilting, but it was home for a quick dip in the pool before heading out to football practice. I've been trying to leave it all up to Kurt, but it seems that most of the players have both parents there to lend support and so he wanted me there as well. It's not that I don't want to be supportive, I just that all of my knowledge of football comes from the movie The Blindside. I try to follow along, but I get lost and my mind wanders.

We got home in time to put the kids to bed, and I decided to work up a couple of trial blocks for the comfort quilt I was planning to make for my coworker's wife who is getting ready for chemotherapy after a double mastectomy. It is going to be called Mariposa and is a simpler version of the Twilight quilt that I made just before school started. I'll use these simple flying geese stars instead of the sampler blocks and maybe add the extra dark geese into the border. That's the plan so far anyway. I'd better get it whipped up in a hurry. I won't be seeing much of the people at work after post planning ends next week.

500th Post -- Must be a Giveaway!!

I've been procrastinating on my 500th post trying to figure out what I wanted to give away. I've got a few things so far, but I'll keep adding until I reach my birthday which is in a week and a half away. Just leave me a comment and make sure I can get in touch with you in case you win. I'm hoping for a chance to make something, with school ending in just a few more days I should have some time to putter soon.
Last Friday was a shuttle launch at 2:20. There are just two more to go, so I took my last period class out to watch.

Not much is going on with sewing these days. I worked Sunday on a border and bought the fabric for the mystery quilt at Patchwork Times. Judy just cracks me up with her posts about chickens and all the cooking she does.

Even though school is winding down quickly, the evenings have been full of this and that end of the year activities. There is a quick vacation after that and I will finally be into summer proper, long lazy days with plenty of time for everything. Well, comparatively lots of time at least.

Blog 499 and Turning the Corner

At the end of the first marathon I ever ran, there was a very long street which ended in a sharp right turn. It was a double loop marathon, so I'd already seen the path and knew that I just needed to go around the bend and into the park, past the fountain and through the finish gate. Although I was exhausted, in pain, and ready to be done; somehow seeing past the turn and almost to the end made it all possible.
I think I finally turned that last corner of my school year today. It's been late nights followed by early mornings and long days of slogging through a list that just kept growing. Last night I finished writing the last of my three finals and today I managed to plow through three towering stacks of lab journals and almost entirely empty my "in" folders. There are still odds and ends to be done of course, make-up work, proof reading, photocopies...... but the balance has finally tipped so that the undone is less than the done.

Big sigh of relief as that final burst of energy kicks in to get me to the end.

I dug the small pocket camera out of my purse today and found a veritable treasure trove of random photos. The top photo is Sydney at the Mother's Day tea in her class at school. No sign of the top teeth yet, but she is starting to get the two bottoms in. I especially love the big yellow forehead from a healing bruise that she kind of remembers getting from bumping into someone at school .
This one in Anna in "jail" during her class field trip to St. Augustine. Kurt took her on that one and she still talks about the dead bugs that they use to make red dye number 40.

These next two are the most recent additions to my goody pile for my 500th post giveaway. The top is a little home made honey bun with a group of rainbow hued 1.5 inch strips. Next is a group of 25 2.5 inch squares in the colors of the rainbow. If 5 inch squares are nickels, does that make these quarters? I'm going to call it that whether it is real or not. So here is my rainbow quarter stack. Like a charm pack, but smaller. Just one more post to go. I'll try not to wait another week this time between posts.

Blog Entry Number 498 and Counting

I'm starting to collect together some things for my 500th post giveaway. So far I have a book called Mindful Meandering, which has lots of great ideas for free motion quilting. I accidentally ordered two from Amazon when I forgot I already had one saved in my cart. I also found this very cute template which I used to make Paige's Whirlygiggle quilt. I thought it was lost and bought an extra so I could finish it up. I'll dig around some more in the next couple of days to see what else I can add, so stay tuned for more info. I'll probably even include some things that aren't random things I bought by accident!
I was motivated by Judy's design wall Monday to do some sewing this evening instead of collapsing in a ball of exhausted stress after a long day at school, which was my first instinct. I had already cut out the next three in Amy's BOM, although I'm still in March. I am sure I will catch up soon enough. I'm having fun trying all the new patterns and loving the way that they are all coming together. I have worked in new fabrics in as I ran out of the old. A shopping trip may be needed in the near future to replenish the stores.


Here is a close-up of this month's blocks. I think friendship star is first, followed by cactus something and then my favorite block for it's name, scraphappy.

Giveaway

I've been skipping over giveaways lately to give other people a chance, but this one at Sew Fun Quilts looked like fun.
Happy 4th of July! We have a neighborhood pool party to go to this afternoon and and then tonight we are headed out to watch fireworks and listen to the symphony. I hope it doesn't rain.

Gifts in the Post

I went to the mailbox today and was so excited to find a package via Royal Mail. It was full of goodies from Amanda. I was the winner of her recent giveaway for her 200th post. Look at all the gun quilting goodies! There are some fat quarters, a lovely needlework bag, an appliqued towel, a fringed bookmark, a little bear pin and a tiny quilters charm with a spool of thread on it. Oh, I almost forgot the packages of shrinkles. Anna nabbed those as soon as the package was open and was ready to start crafting. Thank you so much Amanda for the goodies, I will enjoy them all. Congratulations of 200 posts.

I went online this week and ordered another panel of quilters sayings so that I can finish off my May UFO. I had one panel that I had ordered from Keepsake Quilting a little bit ago. I putzed around with it and ended up making some little 3.5 inch (3 inches finished!) squares to alternate with the printed blocks. I'm not sure how many came on the panel, but this is all that turned up when I pulled it out again. Getting something to fill out the quilt top seemed like a plan. I couldn't find anymore panels at KQ, but did a google search and found some at a place called Clotilde. I had never heard of it, but I thought it was worth a try. Each nine patch is a different pattern. I already had the Log Cabins, Flying Geese and Spikey Stars ready to go. Today I added the Nine Patches, the Amish Strings, the Jacobs Ladder and the Broken Dishes.

In searching for some squares to use, I stumbled across my baggie of bonus triangles. Does anyone else sew behind the corners on sew and flip patterns and save the little HSTs? I am a compulsive saver. Occasionally I'll get the bag out and iron or square up some little squares. I had started putting this batch together already, I think the pattern is called Depression Blocks. The little squares are 1.75 inches unfinished, so it is rather an odd size. I seem to have a lot of them though, so as long as they play nicely with each other It shouldn't matter if it is an even size. I had another bag that finished at 2 inches, and I started turning them into broken dishes blocks.
It was a nice day of putting around the house trying to put back together after the slumber party and finish off a few weekend chores. The kids were all fairly tired and were content to spend a big chunk of the day relaxing. Kurt is either getting sick or fighting off allergies, I'm not sure which. There are several more swine flu cases that have shown up, but the consensus seems to be that it is not any more dangerous than a regular flu.

Another Giveaway

There is another giveaway over at Magnoliabay Quilts. The winner gets a copy of her book on making scrap quilts out of 2.5 inch strips. The quilt on the cover is beautiful. If you tell her I sent you I get an extra entry in the drawing. I shouldn't be greedy though, as I've already won a giveaway this week. Isn't blogging fun?

Ying and Yang

Look what I got in the mail today! These goodies are my prize from Amy's 100th post giveaway. You may remember that I was the lucky winner. Such a cute assortment of fabrics, and this adorable little bag with the cutest, tiniest little squares. Thanks so much Amy -- I love it! So as you can see, for me, it was a good day.
I think the happiness of my day must have been counteracted by my husbands. He was due to fly to the west coast today for business. With a flight leaving at 6 something, he drove home to see the kids on this way out of town. So far so good. He was going to hang out with them for an hour or so while I went to my faculty meeting at school. Hugs and kisses and out the door to catch his flight in plenty of time.
The phone rang at about 5:30 as I was putting the finishing touches on preparations for my Girl Scout meeting tonight. He wanted the frequent flier number to use in trying to reschedule his flight which had been delayed by an hour, causing him to miss his connection. He did manage to rebook onto something later coming out of Dallas, which gave him 10 minutes to catch his connection if he could dash madly through the airport. It was supposed to leave at 8. So I was sure the phone ringing at 7:30 couldn't be good news. Sure enough, he wanted me to look up the number of his dentist so he could find out just how bad it is when the temporary crown pops off following an emergency root canal. I ran my meeting between phone calls while trying to explain that maybe I would be more helpful when my house wasn't full of 10 screaming, running girls.
I eventually told him that maybe the fates were trying to give him some subtle hints that this trip wasn't "meant to be". My Buddhist running partner would probably explain exactly how his karma was trying to warn him off. I'm still not really sure where he is, somewhere between ORL and LAX with his temporary crown in his pocket.
No OHR progress to show today, for obvious reasons, but the house is company clean, I have two new girls in my troop and the house is quiet and calm. For tonight, that is enough. Let's just hope it's not the calm before the storm.

A Day

Today was a day. A good day, but with enough stuff to fill a week. I had run last night, so I didn't need to do it this morning. That allowed me to go to work early and try to get some stuff done. I got a new computer over the summer, and I keep finding out that the programs I need have disappeared and I don't have the installation discs anymore. So that was the morning. It was a review day before tomorrows test in chemistry, so that part was easy. The broadcast class at school runs announcements and they wanted to do a segment on the new forensic science class. I prepped one of my classes yesterday and told them to pick something that would look cool and do some sort of lab or demo on it. They went crazy with it. They were looking up recipes for fake blood, making up dental molds, doing spot tests for drugs, explaining the markings on spent ammunition -- all with no input from me. I just sat back and pointed them in the right direction if they asked. I can't wait to see the segment. The teacher who runs the class seemed to have an idea in mind, because he came prepared with crime scene tape and then staged the kids very deliberately. The other forensics class was taking visible prints and one of the students who is in the yearbook class wanted to take pictures. I spent the day wishing I had done my hair this morning. So that took me to lunch. I had volunteered to help out with the academic team because I have run a group in the past. That meeting used up lunch. After that I spent an hour trying to get my *&%$# web site for school up and working. I won't go into the details, but I consider myself fairly literate in technology, and it was too complicated for me to do. Rushing home, I had half an hour to do e-mail and phone calls trying to set up the girl scout troops for the new year. I have a new kindergarten daisy leader, and suckered talked the first grade leader into taking four new girls. I'm still working on setting up two new troops for the second and third graders because we have so many girls on the waiting list. I was unsuccessful at talking the 5th grade leader into anything, so that is a problem for another day. By then the school bus was ready to arrive, so I went to meet it, which is required for kindergateners. I got the best hug from Sydney coming off the bus, and she told me all about the handsome boy in PE. She doesn't know his name, just that he has handsome hair and eyes. Then followed homework and an early dinner. Our neighbor came to stay with the kids because it was parent night at school tonight. They have two sessions, but we have three kids, so reinforcements were needed. Kurt did one session and came home to relieve the neighbor, and I did two before heading to the girl scout leader meeting to try to talk more leaders into taking more girls. I picked up a teddy bear to decorate to a charity auction, and the packets for fall sales, which is magazines and candy. I got a candy bar on the way home to call dinner, and now I am in my jammies ready to enter grades in because they are due tomorrow. All good stuff, but it would be even better spread out over 13 days instead of 13 hours.
Speaking of good stuff -- I won Amy's 100th post giveaway. I won! I was doing a little happy dance when I got that e-mail. Amy is my quilting twin, and I think I must have been sisters in a previous life. I'm serious. Go look at her blog and you will see the similarities.

And the Lucky Winner is...

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

17 

Timestamp: 2008-06-13 12:07:46 UTC

I went to random.org and used the random integer generator to come up with the number 17. Comment 17 was left by.....(drumroll please). Deb at Quilter in the Woods. She didn't leave me any hints as to her favorite colors, so I got to choose. I'll make the bag today and get it out in the mail tomorrow. Thanks to all who played along, and for those who didn't win, I'll have another on my 200th post!

Giveaway is Ending

22 people have left comments in order to be entered in my giveaway. I was explaining the giveaway process to my husband who looked stunned and asked how I was going to make 22 bags! Rest assured, I'm not making 22 bags. However, I am making at least one, in custom colors, and including mystery goodies to ONE lucky winner. I'll draw tomorrow, so be sure to get in on the fun. Just leave me a comment and give me a little hint about your favorite colors, styles or whatever. Good luck.

100th Post Giveaway

I just realized that this is my 100th post! I have "met" some great people through my blog, and I so much enjoy checking in on their projects and keeping up to date with their lives. I never would have imagined that having a journal online would be such a fun and interactive experience. Not being much of a writer, I've tried to keep diaries and journals in the past, but always fizzled out. It seems so futile to write things you know no one will ever read.
There seems to be a definite trend in offering a giveaway for 100th posts, so I feel I must join in. If you would like to be entered in the drawing, please leave a comment with a hint about your favorite color or theme. I'll make you a fabric shopping bag of your very own, and try to find a few quilty surprises to put in it. I'll draw for names next Friday at this time. Good luck, and thanks for visiting my blog!