Mini Peak

This year when Holee's Mini Quilt Swap for the fall rolled around I jumped right on board!! Only difference this time was I would be assigned a swap partner. ;) Although the due date is in the Fall (October) there are no restrictions = Any colors or designs... however, we could ask our swap partner 2 questions about their preferences if they liked holiday themes or if there was a certain color they rather not have.

My partner sewlove2quilt let me know that she la,la,loves 1930's fabrics! ;) So this weekend I'm happy to report that I just finished binding on the VERY SMALLEST Thing I have ever made in my life!

"Smallest Thing Ever"..........as in....
5.5" X 7" is what the whole thing finishes at measuring binding to binding.

and before the 2 borders the quilt top finishes at only 2 1/8 X 4.25"

it does look rather cute in all it's smallness but I'm really not pleased with my less than perfect blocks. Did I mention that there are 40 blocks each only 0.5" big!!!

I've already started making up a second mini that won't be so mini, so that I can hopefully hand quilt that one. and then decide which to keep and which to swap.


I can't show the actual quilt until after the swapping, but here is a little peek at the colors and things. Thanks to dumpr.net for the fun transformation of my peek pic.



Dumpr - Photo Fun

Ha-Ha yes there is some cutting mat right there in the center of the photo. ;) I purposefully didn't crop the photo so that perhaps that would throw off my partner :P I thought about sharing a photo of the back side b/c all the seams ironed open completely cover the blocks! I'm really impressed that I made something so small.

Of course I wasn't too thrilled with dear husband's reply when I showed him... and asked - What do you think? He took a quick look and replied "Nice potholder." *men*

Love from Texas!

Christmas Mini Swap

It looks like I left several posts in my "draft" box on blogger... oops! So I hope you don't mind if I post and try to get caught up. Most are written and just need photos added so I'll work on them in the next few days.


My first mini swap with Crazy'boutquilts was a fall theme and we both had so much fun that we decided to also swap for a Christmas theme! I'm not too sure how much we discussed but I do remember that we both mentioned that we decorate with the traditional red/green colors... so with that in mind - here is what I made for her.

Perhaps it looks familiar b/c you saw it on Day 1 of the Cross Country Christmas Blog Hop. The designer Gudrun, shared a free tutorial for it over on her blog. Here is the link incase you missed it several weeks ago. I put it together really fast... in one day and then spent the next day binding it! ;)

The label however... well that took me about a week working on it here and there in the car... here's one snapshot of it while still in progress... sorry I don't have a photo of it finished... but I'm sure that was a day that I had misplaced my camera or it wasn't working at the time. :/

perhaps Sandie can one day take a photo of it and send to me... hint, hint ;)

Thanks Sandie for emailing me the photo of the back side with the label!!! :)

And guess what my friend, Crazy'boutquilts, who lives in Washington State, that I've never met in real life before but have known for 4 years from my online quilting group, SENT TO ME!!!!

...it was in a baggie with more MBH blocks, and wrapped up so carefully in white tissue paper...

Ta-DA!!! This about blew my socks off!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I. can. not. believe. that. she. did. all. this. work. for. me.

WOW!! isn't it beautiful!!!!!!!??!??! A *real* miniature quilt! Those little blocks are little y'awl! Perfect to hang on the wall or even place in the center of a table. Those blocks are super small!!!

I know b/c I measured them! Each star block is only 4.5" big! wow!

I love it Sandie! Thank you so much for creating something so pretty for me! And you know how I feel about that cheddar color that you used.... :) Reminds me of that commercial from years ago when the family wakes up on Christmas morning and says WOW at all that is in the room with the tree... and the little girl says, "I didn't leave him cookies.... I left him CHEEEEESE!" ;)

Love from Texas!

doll quilt

Last week while blog reading I saw this adorable tiny ticker tape doll quilt over on crazy mom quilts' blog. Then the next day over at Sew Mama Sew she posted a tutorial on how to make the same adorable quilt - to see the tutorial click here

So since Nora's eardrum repair surgery she can not play soccer for the next few weeks and I was thinking... since Pink is her favorite color I'd make her up one of these and I even had some left over princess frog fabric that I used on the backing of her Happy Quilt...

So Friday I went upstairs and removed my pink noodle drawer and brought down to the dining room and laid them all out layered on top of each other and started cutting

Since all of the noodles were already 2.5" wide I just measured over 1" and sliced. and then again over to 2" to later square up a few of those

Here is a little something I will share with you - the tutorial shows just putting the 3 layers at the machine and adding snippits as you go along - no planning really. . . . well I just can't do that! I have to know how it's all gonna look and move things around to fit before I even make the first stitch. :P So I decided to try using hair spray to stick them in place. BAD IDEA.

Bad idea b/c it didn't work -most did stick to the white fabric but as soon as I picked up the piece to carry to the machine and it folded they started popping off! and the pink pieces were as hard as plastic... :( so I ended up using pins to hold each of them on in the long run... next time I think I will try Elmers school glue.

and see that blanket under the hairspray lid??? Well that is because I was holding each tiny pink fabric into the lid as I sprayed - I didn't want to make a mess... but little did I know that that black lid had a PIN SIZED HOLE IN IT and then noticed juice running out and lifted it up and LOOK AT MY TABLE!!! I quickly whipped up all the hair spray and took a photo then continued on with my project using the blanket... and afterwords when I removed it the spot was GONE! :) yeaaaa! Thank the Lord! Not that this table is in perfect condition - I've used it more for quilting than dining and it has the marks to prove it but I didn't really want yet another one to 'splain to my husband! Whew!

Thankfully this was a small project - other wise all those pins would have been a pain to work with if I had to roll up the quilt to get it thru the machine. I worked on it some Friday night and then finished it up Saturday morning.

I piecked three or four pink noodles to use as a scrappy binding and as I was joining them up and cutting them... seeing these leftover triangles gave me another idea - you could make up one using all triangles! :) Wouldn't' that be cool?! Actually last week in Nora's hospital room there was a boarder wallpaper around the room with all triangles lined up with the white space between them... and I thought that then too. ;)

I washed it up and really la,la,love how it turned out! so soft looking!

It's really quite a shame that Nora doesn't feel the same :( I know it was just a blue moon type of day for her b/c she didn't like my doll quilt I made for her...

...or the stuffed kitten present that a little girl from church brought over for her as a get well soon gift or the card that Bella drew for her b/c she made Nora the "short one" on it :( but Bella is 7 and Nora is 5 of course she's the shorter one...

...and she refused to eat spaghetti for supper saying she didn't like it when I know she does! URGH. :/

Well that is ok -b/c I do plan to make up some more of these with scraps that I save - after all Nora isnt' the only one in the house that likes to play with baby dolls - take a look at the photo I took the other night at the kitchen table of Paul Thomas and Olivia playing dolls.... ;)

Love from Texas!

fall mini take 2

Tonight while I had the camera out getting a few photos of the twins wanting to watch big sister Nroa play her computer game... I thought - Hey, I'll get David to take my photo with my mini so I can post on my blog for Crazy to see just how happy I am with it....

only problem - all David wanted to do was zoom in on my face. :/ and not get the quilt much.... men! LOL I then told him what I wanted and then he thought it would be funny to work that much harder at getting the opposite of what I wanted. Talk about hard to smile a genuine smile of thanks for the mini and not really show how frustrated I was at him. :P

See what I mean... he even got closeups of my watch or feet... urgh. Finally ONE photo of me and the whole quilt like I asked. Looks like next time I will have to find my tripod and learn how to use the timer on my camera!

and look how cute Paul Thomas is looking through the sales flyer like Daddy :) and of course Olivia is right there helping him pick out what looks good in the grocery sale paper! ;)

Love from Texas!

From her mailbox to MINE!!!

WORRY NO MORE!!!! IT Arrived today!!!!! My Fall Mini from Crazy'boutquilts is finally HERE!!! :) And oh how B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L is!!! I may have been the "last" to receive a fall mini of everyone who participated in the swap but that is fine and dandy b/c I received the best one of all!!! :)

and take a look at the love in the wrapping. A piece of tissue paper covered it folded up and only a single piece of clear tape and heart sticker to seal the deal..... so sweet! ;) In a way that reminded me of my mother... and I love her personalized label in the corner.

I tired to recreate the same mailbox photo with Crazy's mini as I had taken with mine. Look at those colors aren't they great!?!!

I’ve have seen this pattern done before and wasn’t’ sure what it was called but saved a photo in my inspiration folder for one of these years!!! I really love it – the fabrics blend together so perfectly and are G-O-R-G-E-O-U-S shades of fall which I really miss seeing in these parts where I now live! After all the hurricanes we’ve had in the past 4 years, we are just lucky to have trees I guess.

and then playing around I just tossed it over the fence post - this mini is the most fall looking colors in our whole county!!!! See that one little patch of color just above the right top corner of the quilt? That is about the only thing in that field that changes color each year. Really.

And of course I walked it to the front porch and took a photo of it by Nora's "Princess Emily Pumpkin" ;)

Sorry for the delay in sending you a note but I had to be early to the carpool line so I was the first set of cars along the pickup area b/c I had to rush to go take the twins to a friends home to play while I took Nora for her post surgery follow-up appointment – and you know Dr’s offices! Our appointment was 3:45. Anyway after that and going to pick up twins and chit chatting with Jill… then home to unload kids and CHECK the mailbox!!!

I'm so glad I took the kids in the house first and gated them into the den with a show so that I could just sit and enjoy my package on the driveway!!! And of course I took a few dozen photos hoping to get some good shots to show just how pretty it is!!!!

Crazy - You did a super job Thank you, Thank YOU, THANNNNNK YOU!!! I’m so glad we swapped between us b/c I feel that we got the best of all the minis in the swap! :)

EDITED TO ADD - here is a link to Holee's blog where she has shared photos of all of the quilts included in the HGTV Fall Mini Swap - go take a look... they are all so pretty! There is a lot of talent on the boards - and I'm so glad to be a member! Lots of support, encouragement and inspriation there ;)

Love from Texas!