Canasta

Loved this one!

And I was excited to finish it yesterday!

We have a big weekend ahead of visiting and watching plenty of soccer games too, so my Canasta had to be done by today.

I knew we had lots going on this weekend and I knew I wanted to finish this up, but somehow I didn't put the two together until earlier in the week. 

 So it was full speed ahead and here is the final result!

I used two charm packs from the fabric line Grace that I won in a giveaway from my friend Linda awhile back.

The Grace fabric has a Christmas look to it, but I'm not sure you'd think that when you look at it now.  

It just doesn't say Christmas to me like I thought it would.

I found some amazing fabrics that I love for the background and the sashing too.

Originally, I was planning on making the sashing the same color as the background, but once I got some of the blocks made, I just didn't like that idea so much anymore.

It seemed like it was going to be too much grey fabric with the baskets just lying on top of it. 

The grey just wasn't working for me with the tan in the center of the baskets.  Hmm...

  

Then I remembered a beige fabric I saw at my LQS.  It had postcards on it with some writing on it too, which I really like right now.

I had auditioned one of my baskets with it, but I had decided it would be too busy as a background, so I put it back.  I went with the grey text fabric that has a more subtle print, and I loved it.

Later, after making more baskets, I realized that the grey just wasn't cutting it with the tan basket centers and the beige in the postcard fabric popped back into my head.

If I used that for the sashing, it would pull in the tan, go well with the grey and add a bit of interest too.  I was just hoping it was still there!

  

When I was able to go back to my LQS, there it was! Yeah!

I had my doubts about it a bit later when I was getting ready to put it all together.

I thought I was either really going to love this combination, or I was really going to be disappointed with it.

Woo hoo!  I love it!

I'm so glad I went out of my box, a bit and changed my plan in the middle of the game.....game of Canasta that is! 

.......Sorry, couldn't resist using it!......

I put in a few close up shots of the fabric so you could see the details of the text. 

You really can't see it much from far away, which is something I really like. 

And now I have plenty fabric to use on something else. 

You know I'm happy about that!

I can't wait to see the beautiful Canasta quilts in the parade and read about them too!

 You can find the Schnibbles parade on the blogs of Sherri and Sinta very soon. I've seen a few of the quilts already and they are wonderful.

Canasta is a brand new pattern designed by Carrie Nelson.  It was fun to make one that wasn't even available in paper form, it was that new!

I wonder what Sherri, Sinta, and Carrie have in store for us next? 

Hot off the iron

Over the weekend I was able to get some of these little baskets pieced for Canasta.

My plan is to finish them up today, then I'm on to the sashing.

Wish me luck!

Gettin' my quilt on

Between sending one off to college for the first time and sending the other to junior high this week, I did find some time to get some quilting done.

It was a much needed break from all of the craziness and all of the changes going on here. 

I chose to quilt my Gentle Art quilt top with that fun zig-zag stitch that everyone's been talking about.

I used it on my table runner a few months back and I thought it would be a great way to finish this top nicely without stressing too much about the quilting pattern.

I love this stitch!

It turned out even better than I'd hoped.

I probably could have finished it faster with some free motion quilting, but it wasn't about speed, it was about escaping for a bit with my sewing machine.   

Feel free to read more about this stitch HERE if you're interested.

Today I took a trip to an LQS and found some binding that I love for this quilt.

When it's on and finished you can bet I'll be back with more pictures!

Done and doughnuts

Recently I finished up this Wiggle Whimsy quilt.

Today I was able to take a few pictures in the nice early morning light before the school bus came for the first time this school year.

But still I seem to have two different shades of blue going on for some reason.

I'd say the first photo looks most like the true blue of the quilt top.

I used a bright blue batik for the background and some black and white strips for the squares. 

These fabrics have been in my stash for awhile and I'm happy that I finally put them to good use!

My fabric selection was inspired by what I had available in my stash and by a Schnibble quilt that my friend JoAnne made last year. 

Her bright, fun quilt really caught my eye. 

    

Once I find a backing fabric I like, I plan to quilt it and use the leftover black and white strips as the binding.

Wiggle Whimsy is a pattern from Moda Bakeshop by Rebecca Silbaugh.

I made it as part of a quilt along that Terry put together at the beginning of the year.

Thanks so much Terry!

    

And on to the doughnuts!

My boys all ran in three races last weekend!  One of them was Saturday morning near a yummy doughnut shop.

Of course, we had to stop in and pick up a dozen and I couldn't help but take a few pictures of them.

We don't treat ourselves to doughnuts often enough very often.

They were beautiful and tasty!

After the strenuous morning of cheering for the runners and holding the car keys, the Salted Carmel Pretzel doughnut in the bottom right corner was calling my name!

It has to be my favorite doughnut ever!

Do you have an all time favorite doughnut?  

Butter - in a finished quilt and a birthday treat

I finally got around to binding my Butter Churn quilt.  I originally posted about it HERE.

Until I tried to write the title of this post, I didn't even think about a quilt called Butter Churn having so much butter yellow in it!

In case you're wondering, the pattern is by Sherri K. Falls from "This and That".  I used both Portugal and Prayer Flag fabric lines.

   

Although I quilted it a few months ago, it took a bit for me to finish, because I had a binding fabric all picked out and ready to go, but I just couldn't bring myself to add it to the quilt.

The color was just too dull.

 The fabric went with the quilt well, I was just afraid I would always wish I had used something else.

So as much as I wanted to put the binding on and have this quilt finished up, I waited until I found something that made me feel like it was ready to go.

This polka dot fabric was the one!

I'm glad I waited.

I know there are lots of pictures of this quilt.

I was just so happy to have it finished that I got a little carried away!

And for the birthday treat part, here's a picture of the cupcakes we made my youngest son for his birthday recently. 

This little guy is a minion from the movie Despicable Me 2.

My son likes the funny little minions and all the trouble they cause, so this was a great surprise for him.

It's a tradition at my house to surprise the birthday boy with a fun, specially decorated cake.

Every birthday brings out our creativity and makes us figure out something new!     

My Lincoln Schnibble - Log Cabin Christmas

 There aren't any log cabin blocks in this quilt, but I'm calling it Log Cabin Christmas anyway.

I think it works!

It's my Lincoln Schnibble designed by Carrie Nelson.

Since Lincoln lived in a log cabin, I thought the name was appropriate, despite the lack of log cabin blocks.  Sometimes you have to stretch a little. 

I went with Christmas fabrics for this one.

It's a mix of Joy by Kate Spain and the new line Aspen Frost by Basic Grey.  I also added a few scraps from past Christmas projects. 

Originally, I was planning to use different fabrics for each star point, but after making my first star and reading the pattern closer.........which I should have done in the first place........I realized that wasn't going to work.

The base of the points overlap slightly which isn't really conducive to different colored fabrics.  I tried making one star with different points anyway, thinking I could get over it, but it just wasn't going to happen.

So, I did some frogging and some rearranging and started sewing again! 

The stars are floating, which means no pesky points to accidentally chop off!  Yea!

I like how this top turned out!  Really scrappy!

In the next few days you'll be able to see many more Lincoln Schnibble projects in the Parade of Schnibbles.

Visit the blogs of both Sinta and Sherri to see what other versions are out there!

And if I'm not mistaken, I think a brand new Schnibbles pattern will be the project for August!

I'm looking forward to that!

Thanks so much to all of you that responded to my last post concerning Bloglovin'.

Since I didn't use Google Reader in the first place, I didn't pay much attention the whole thing.  I didn't think I had to worry about it.

Until a Bloglovin' friend mentioned she was was having trouble leaving comments on my blog and some others.  I thought maybe I'd better look into it a bit more.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet.  It sounds like I may need to change my settings so the comments aren't in a pop up window to make it a bit easier to comment or maybe join Bloglovin' or Feedly. 

I just wasn't sure if Bloglovin' readers could comment on non Bloglovin' blogs.

 It sounds like they can, it just may take a few more clicks or it's some kind of temporary glitch.

And many bloggers, including myself, are outside enjoying time with family and friends this summer!  Can you believe summer is coming to an end????

Thanks so much for your help and your kind comments!

Would you mind helping me out? I just have one quick question.

I noticed a few weeks ago that the number of comments I've been getting has gone down since the beginning of July.

I'm sure you remember that this is also when Google Reader went away.

Because I mostly use my sidebar to read blogs, I didn't join Bloglovin' or anything like that since I didn't think I needed it.

I had looked at the Bloglovin site and read there that you could add any blog if you decided to use it.  I took this to mean that this was the case even if that blogger wasn't using Bloglovin'.  

I figured I wouldn't join because the way I understood it my blog could be added to anyone's list even if I wasn't using Bloglovin'.

It has been brought to my attention by a blog friend that she wasn't able to comment on my blog now, could this be because I'm not using Bloglovin'?

Is that the catch?

I'm just wondering.

I was just chalking up the small number of comments to everyone being busy doing fun summer things and me taking it easy on projects the last few weeks because I'm doing some fun summer things myself.

Now I'm wondering about it.

If you don't mind, I'd appreciate it if you would take a minute and try to leave a comment for me on this post.  Please mention if you are a Bloglovin' user.

If you are unable to leave a comment, please click on my name on my side bar, go to my profile and click on email. Send me a quick note to let me know that you couldn't comment so I can figure this out.

It would sure help me.  I love reading your comments and suggestions, so this has got me wondering.

Thanks so much!