Progress

I spent most of Sunday working on blocks for the new sampler. I had cut all of the fabric for the eight black and white blocks last week and finished one of them. So I spent Sunday working on the sherbet colored blocks. It's coming along and I love the fabrics I chose...so happy!

A little fun....

 Saturday I spent the day on a shop hop with friends. We headed to Ames for our first stop at the Quilting Connection. It is a huge store with thousands of bolts of fabric. Cindy checking out the fried egg fabric.

A batik heaven! I found a few I couldn't resist here.

Our next stop was Quilter's Cupboard in Ankeny...love this shop with all its nooks and crannies. We got caught up in a bag frenzy here, as they had lots of cute ones made up.

 Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures after that, but we did go to three shops in Des Moines and one in Adel on our way home. It was a fun day and we enjoyed the inspiration of fabric and friends!

I collected some new batiks on our travels.

 I am starting a new sampler design and worked on it all day yesterday. Isn't this a pretty stack?

 One person's mess is one quilter's progress, right?

Ahhhh, now we're getting somewhere!

Lots of smiles last night as the new quilters sewed their blocks into quilt tops. They had worked hard during the week in between classes to get their blocks finished. When asked if it seemed to take a long time, they all said yes!

Time is an interesting concept when making a quilt. Time can seem to go really fast while sewing, even when it seems like you aren't getting anywhere. I'm often asked how long it takes to make a quilt and that is a hard question to answer. I don't normally keep track, and sometimes sew in bits and pieces. I know it can seem like it's taking forever. And then you are finished. One thing I do know is that it's always worth it in the end.

Today is the last day to vote on your Blogger's Quilt Festival favorites! Go to this post for the links to take you there! Winners will be announced tomorrow.

More Whatcha Got Bags and Blogger's Quilt Festival

Jane got her bag from Saturday's class finished. I bet it was finished the next day!

Brenda finished her second bag and it matches her first bag! Trust me, these bags are addictive!

If you haven't voted on your favorites in the Blogger's Quilt Festival yet, voting is open until Friday. I entered my Which Way is Up? quilt in the original design category. If you haven't taken time to browse this virtual quilt show, you should take a look. Lots of eye candy and great inspiration. You can vote for your favorite three in each category, so do some browsing and then vote!

Which Way is Up?

New beginnings and a winner!

We got off to a great start last Thurs. night when the new quilters started sewing their new fabrics in to blocks! That's exciting anytime you have new fabric, but especially so when it's your first quilt.

They are definitely going to be pretty quilts! I can't wait until this week to see how many they got made...yes, they had homework!

Marta took the Modern Cathedral Windows class last month and brought this show and tell on Sat. to show me her new windows. She sized it down a bit, sewed the main parts together by machine and is going to handsew the windows down. Pretty.....

 Notice how she fussy cut the flowers in the centers of one and made a design using darker fabrics in the center of the other.

Rafflecopter chose the winner of the $25 GC to Fat Quarter Shop this morning \ /  \ /  \ / drumroll, please.... Maryellen McAuliffe will be making something very pretty soon with her new purchases at Fat Quarter Shop! Thanks to FQS for sponsoring this giveaway, and Maryellen, please stop back and share what you got!

Whatcha Got in that bag?

I had a great experience on Saturday teaching these great ladies how to make the Whatcha Got? bag by This and That. This bag is great because of its size, shape and the vinyl front so you can see what's inside,

They could choose from 2 sizes and any fabrics they wanted to use. We had so much eye candy! 

And the best part was that all but one got their bag finished (she left early or she would have. More than likely it is finished now!). That hardly ever happens in class, as we are usually working on quilts.

It sounded like many of them were planning on making more for gifts for the holidays. They are perfect for stuffing with those favorite lotions or just give them as is.

This quilter finished hers and started another one!

As you can see, we had a fashion show of pretty bags, which is nice because we can all get inspiration from other people's color choices.

I had this bag prepped so I could use it to show the steps, so I sewed parts of it as we went along. I didn't finish it however, so I spent some time yesterday getting it done. Smokey loves it!

Today is the last day to enter the giveaway for the $25 gift card from Fat Quarter Shop, so go here to enter through Rafflecopter.

The voting is open at Blogger's Quilt Festival until Nov. 7, so you still have time to visit the blogs and vote for your favorites in each category. You can read about my entry here and vote here.

Blogger's Quilt Festival voting is open!

It's time to head over to Blogger's Quilt Festival and vote for our favorite quilt! I entered Which Way is Up? in the Original Design category. To vote, you click on the gray heart in the linky that you like best. It will turn red when you vote. It's that easy.

The It's All About Kids Day 5 giveaway is still open Please go the original post and leave a comment to win a great (who couldn't use this?) $25 Gift Certificate to Fat Quarter Shop. Make sure you do it through the Rafflecopter as I will be using that to pick a winner.