sewtakeahike

annular eclipse

 

Is finished!  (Thank you Jane and Carmen for helping me name it!) 

These blocks are all from a year (four quarter rounds) of the 3X6 bee.  I put a flea market fancy gray bouquet border on it and then bound it with the same. 

Thank you to Rita for this machine binding tutorial, it looks just like it was hand bound on the front and I only had to go over a couple areas on the back where I missed the binding edge. 

Now I only have 5 more quilt tops in the closet to sandwich and quilt!

Happy Friday to you all!

~Penny

National Quilting Month

 

 

Did you know March is National Quilting Month? 

The girls at SeamedUP are celebrating with twelve contests with fabulous prizes, three podcast episodes with can't-miss co-hosts, and guest blog posts. You can find all the details at the Contest tab of their website.   They are having a month long contest and the prizes are really cool, like a copy of EQ7, a $100 GC to Fat Quarter Shop, fabric bundles, sewing tools, Aurifil thread, Stash and Martingale books, Fabricworm, Robert Kaufman, and more. 

So if you want the chance to win some goodies, make sure and check it out!!

~Penny

p.s.  today is the day my sprout pattern and tutorial is up at Sew, Mama, Sew!

Rooms of my heart: part 2

 

 

This weekend I spent a little time finishing up my quilt top "rooms of my heart".  I gathered several orphan blocks, like the one above, some fabrics that make me smile, and started sewing. 

 

 

This quilt top reminds me of so many people and the journeys I've been through in the last 2 years.  It has orphan blocks from projects for my mom, friends, scraps from friends, and also includes my first applique block (the tea kettle) and my first template pieced block (the house), and my first paper pieced blocks (the string blocks in the bottom corners.  Both the tea kettle and the house are designs from Nanette over at Freda's Hive.  Nanette was so encouraging to me as I started these two blocks, and can you believe that after piecing the house I emailed her and told her I didn't think I liked doing blocks that required so many pieces and told her I would probably never do anything like that again? 

My how things have changed. 

Case in point.  Here's my latest Ringo Pie block.

 

Ayumi's month was May.  The theme she chose was: letters and packages.  I was stumped.  Then my first idea didn't work out.  Finally, I chose to make a pattern out of one of her inspiration photos.  She loves chocolate, so I put a little chocolate label on the box (and made sure to include some pink in the background fabric since she has a thing for pink, too!). 

I hope you've all had a wonderful weekend, doing things that have filled the rooms of your hearts and for those of you in the US, Happy Independence day to you!!

~Penny

Get yer Yoyo along button and progress bar here!

Firstly, I must thank Robyn of Coffee & Cotton for all the help she has given me through oodles of emails.  Also, thank-you to Julia for planting the seed to have a progress bar at all!  Between Robyn and I, we have come up with the official yoyo along button and progress bar combo you can see here:

 

Yoyos completed
Goal: 1008
Current: 166

16.5%

 

 

 

If you'd like to add the button and progress bar to your blog, I'll give you the code for it in just a sec.  First though, you'll want to know a couple of things.

• the progress bar % has to be updated manually.  For example, if you have 28 yoyo's done, you'll enter 28 into the code where I have 166, and then you'll need to figure your percentage and enter that as well.  28/1008=2.7%, so you'll enter 2.7 where I have 16.5 (in two places) in the code.  You'll need to do this manually each time you want to update the number of yoyos you have done.
• if you are making a different # of yoyos than I am, you'll need to change out the 1008 in the code to whatever # you ARE making.

 Alrighty, now for the code:

<br/><br/><a href="http://sewtakeahike.typepad.com/sewtakeahike/2011/06/yoyo-along-part-1.html"><img src="http://sewtakeahike.typepad.com/sm%20yoyo%20along%20button.jpg" /></a>
<br/><br/>

<b><font color="#51B1CF"> Yoyos completed</font></b><br>
Goal:  1008 <br>
Current:  166<br>
<div style="width:160px;height:15px;background:#51B1CF;border:solid 1px #555;">
<div align="left"><div style="height:17px;background:#ff7f00;color:white;width:16.5%;"><b>16.5%</b>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br/>

 Happy Friday everyone!

~Penny

 

 

Potholders, refrigerators, and winners!

 

Ahhhhh!  Time is moving so quickly!  Seriously, why do our parents have to be soooo right most of the time.  It used to drive me a little crazy when I was a kid and older folks would talk about how fast time goes when you get older.  Argh. 

We've decided to do a potholder exchange at the workshop (what??  I only have one and a half weeks left to prepare???  It's coming up soo quickly!) and this is the prototype I came up with for the one I'll be swapping.

 

I'm calling it the "hot pocket".  Isn't it smokin'? 

 

Kind of related in a spider web kind of way, I was recently turned on to this cookbook by Angela:

It was illustrated by Charlie Harper, who I didn't know about until Lynne schooled me when I made this block a while back.

Anyway, I think Charlie Harper should have been a quilter!!  His illustrations lend perfectly to quilt block design.  

One of his illustrations inspired this block, I'm calling the "Big Chill" (for very obvious reasons):

 

And speaking of quilt block design, have you all read this post by Kerry?  She is absolutely amazing with pen, paper, fabric and a sewing machine.  Absolutely amazing!!!  Thank-you again, Kerry, for taking the time to go into so much detail about how you create your blocks!

And now, for the winners, Winners, WINNERS!!!!

The winner of the cupcake pintoppers is:

14:  Kelly Jackson, who said:  Those are so fun. Very difficult to say...I'm liking the cupcakes....but I love ice cream....so can I say I like them both the best?

Smiles,
Kelly

and

the winner of the sewing set pintoppers is:

51:  Lara, who said:  Definitely the wee gnome set - what a cutie! Thanks!

Email me with your physical addresses, ladies, and I'll get your pins sent out to you!

And for those of you who didn't win (or even if you did!), remember that Christine is offering 10% off to you through this Friday!  Just enter the coupon code:  SEWTAKEAHIKE when you check out!

That's all for now!  I'm going to be taking a bit of a bloggy break for the next week or two (ok, maybe I'll post once, maybe!). 

But pleeeeeease make sure you check back on the 18th for sure!  I'm going to be debuting my first project in the

on that Monday and would love it if you joined me then for a little party!

Hugs to the lot of you!

~Penny