Merry Christmas, quilty friends!

What holiday fun is swirling around in your homes this season? I hope piping hot chocolate, wet snowmen, snuggly sweaters, off-key carolers, and crackling fires are all involved!

My quilt guild did a cup coaster exchange for our Christmas activity, and this is the one I made.



I really like the colors and think they worked out nice. They are both paper pieced and Damon quilted it.



It turned out Well.
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I can hardly believe it but I joined a guild! I never thought I would speak those words. But it's true. I did. And the really good news is that I haven't regretted it. I've felt welcomed by this group of ladies like nothing I have ever experienced before. I just know that I belong there.  

One of the many things I like about being part of a guild is the encouragement to sew. I have done a lot more sewing. But I'm getting behind.

Below are two quilt tops that I donated to my guild for charity. I really love this part of my guild. I was praying before I joined the group for opportunities to make quilts for charity. I really wanted to find people who needed and would really appreciate a home made quilt. I just didn't know how to go about it.

This quilt top that is on top is dear to me. There are so many pieces of fabric that I love so much and am thrilled that they made their way into a quit top. This top also has a lot of fabric in it that was given to me by some of my quilty friends. 

The bottom quilt top is combination of projects started and never finished or projects left over from other quilts I made.

I like the colors and think they go well but the pattern is all is disarray. I know it's just a scrappy quilt, but deep down I wish it was better.

The nice thing about unfinished projects is that they make it easy to put a quit top together in no time.

Today's lovely quilt is from a quilting beginners class that I took after being a quilter for five years. And now that I've been a quilter for eight I would totally do it again. Refresher courses are always good. I loved this class and it taught me some new tricks and reminded me of things I first learned years ago but forgot.  

I wasn't able to get any really good photos of the quilting. But I'm happy to report it was all done by me. 

This quilt now sets on my living room couch and gets lots of love.

Row by Row H2O

I have the happiest news ever today. 

I was one of the 2015 Row by Row winners!

If you didn't know, the Row by Row is a nation-wide competition where you visit participating quilt shops, they hand you a free pattern, and then you complete a quilt using 8 different patterns from any of the shops.  If you are the first to hand in your quilt to one of any of the participating shops then you win 25 Fat Quarters! 

Hooray!

This sweet, sweet lady that I'm standing with owns the quilt shop in Hurricane, UT. By the time we got to her shop it was closed. This couldn't be! We were on our way to CA and would not be back this way and I needed her pattern! Why? Because it was a easy pieced pattern and not hard appliqué.  Lucky for me I noticed the sign that you see right next to her head that says 'for fabric emergencies' and the number underneath.

So I called it and she came. She saved the day! I wish that I could remember her name because she truly was the nicest person.

One of the highlights of our trip to CA was this shop called M & L Fabrics Discount Store. It has all the name brands at a deep discount. I was in fabric heaven!

The top row of Sail Boats is from Main Street Quilt Cottage, Hurricane, UT.

Right below that is Quilt Etc. in Sandy, UT.

The row with the blue, green, yellow, red boxes is from Allen Drug in Malad, ID.

Damon quilted an octopus! 

The fishy row is from New Moon Textiles from Pasadena, CA. It was a paper piecing pattern. I loved this one. Such fun!

The one below that is from Scrap Apple quilts from St. George UT.

In this row Damon quilted a turtle and a crab. I love Damon's quilting!

The row with all the fish swimming up (I don't know what to call it…the school of fish one?) is from ETC. in Mesa AZ. 

We were there in June because our dear friend, Monk Bailey, passed away. We love the Baileys so much. Even though it was unfortunate circumstances that brought us there, it was good to see Jenielle and her mom Kristine.

The row below that with the green, yellow and orange squares is from Simply Quilts in Mesquite, NV.

Finally, the last row is from Tranquility Quilts of Cypress, CA.

All of my patterns were pieced. I avoided appliqué like the plague. I worked as hard as I could to find shops that offered pieced patterns and only went to those ones. It wasn't easy as most every shop sports appliqué.

The back.

 I was also able to use the sashing for almost all the backing. I had four yards of this chevron fabric that I got for free when I bought four yards of any other fabric from My Girlfriends Quilt shoppe. I thought that was a deal so I went for it!

Little Bradley is the lucky boy who got to be the proud owner of this quilt.

 I took my quilt in to Allen Drug in Malad, ID.  Since I used one of their rows in my quilt I got an extra prize from them!

They so graciously gave me this cute Tote Bag.

It says Downton Abbey on it.

That's how you know it's awesome.

My 25 Fat Quarters!

They let me pick the ones I wanted.

That was awesome!

I'm a winner!

Thankfully Live Within Your Harvest

Hello and good day! 

 I am tickled to introduce Mr. Turkey quilt. 

Damon decided he was going to make one when we did a Quilt Shop Hop years ago and we found a turkey quilt. It was okay. But it certainly was something that could be done better!

The wheels where put in motion. Damon planed it, 

pieced it and quilted it. It was all him. Seriously makes me so happy! I can barely stand it!

I love these little turkey guys. I could just eat them up!

Ha Ha. I had to say it.

Damon probably started this quilt three years ago and has been diligent on working on intermittently.  Usually around Thanksgiving he would pull it out and say. "My turkey quilt, Ahh! It's not done yet!"

So this year he started before November and got it done.

I love this angry guy. 
He has had it and is not going to take it anymore!

I tried to talk Damon into quilting "gobble gobble" somewhere on the quilt, but it was to no avail. 

That's okay. At least Bradley got his photo taken with the quilt.
That makes life right.

I love the back too.

I'm happy that Damon made this. He loves Thanksgiving and I love him.
We are a happy family.

Panguitch Quilt Walk Festival

My dear friends,

  This year I was so lucky and got to go to the quaint town of  Panquitch, Utah to attend their annual 4-day quilt walk! I journeyed down fearlessly on my own, no Logan road-trip quilty friends to speak of. I was happy--it's always a good time.  I left on Tuesday so I could stop at my dear parents home to dine and slumber for a night with them.  
  Wednesday morning I left Mayfield for Panquitch making a quick stop  at the cute Cotton Tree Quilt Company in Salina. I've been trying to go to this shop for-ever. Unfortunately every time I'd drop by no one is there. The owner was sweet but she didn't have a lot in her shop. That is how it goes sometimes in small towns.

  Arriving in Panquitch was a hoot! Almost all of the businesses had quilts in front of their establishments.

 I got a good chuckle out of this one. I just had to share! I know you love it.

 I absolutely fell in love with this small town!

  I took only two classes: one class to teach you how to use a walking foot for quilting and one called "I Can't Believe it's Machine Appliqué". This was a really good one. I loved the instructor. But still hate Appliqué. There is not enough fabric in the world to convince me otherwise. Here is what I made in the appliqué class.

Cute, eh?

It was a really fun class. Both of them were. And one day I hope to learn to like appliqué. As it appears to be the language of the quilt gods. So maybe one day... seriously... I don't even like spelling the darn word.

For Easter, I went to a remembrance service for my friend's mom at a Buddhist Temple. I got to listen to chanting in Vietnamese and sat for over an hour with my legs criss-cross applesauce. I don't care who you are--no one is supposed to do this. Then immediately after the chanting everyone was served a big bowl of Vietnamese mushrooms noodle soup! It was delicious! Sitting-- visiting with my wonderful friend and eating tasty food, it is was where I was meant to be. 

This quilt is a Joanna Figueroa quilt. She is the creator of the this pattern, a modified dresden plate, called Lollipops.

It's cute. And fairly easy. I took this class by Joanna Figueroa about two years ago. It's always two years ago with me, isn't it? Then after that class I had to go to Crafty.com to buy the class again so I could remember how to make it. Learning how to make this Lollipop turned out to be kind of expensive. But I completed six of them right away and tucked it away. I then received the news that my dearest friend, Ta, mom had passed away in March. I was able to have a good portion of a potentially demanding quilt all ready to go for this person that I care so much for.

Naturally, I wanted this quilt to honor her mother entirely-- as much as my talent and knowledge would allow. This is the quote that instantly came to me. I knew it was not my own thought that brought it to mind.
"Remember me in the family tree my name, my days, my strife. Then I'll ride upon the wings of time and live an endless life."

This quote is also used in the family history quilt I made. I wanted it to be in Vietnamese so I went to Google Translate to see if that would give me what I wanted. I thought the job Google did was good. I mean it looked fine to me! But Damon helped me to see that I shouldn't use google for this. So I ended up asking my friend to translate it for me. Ruining the surprise! But I was really glad that I did ask, because my friend changed a lot of the Google translation.

My friend's mother was born in the year of the rat.

And her mother's name means Golden Daisy. I made the golden daisy into a normal dresden plate because I really wanted it to stand out.

You can see the outer border pretty good in this photo above and I love this border. It rocks!

The label. Ta really loved that her mom's name was put onto the quilt. She was moved to tears. I was grateful that I could make something meaningful for her. I love you, Ta!

Also, I made 100 bars of soap for my ward's Relief Society birthday dinner.

It was a big deal.

 The bars of soap that I usually make (and love) have sugar in them; it's what makes them smell so sweet. But the sugar turns them a dark carmel color.  This event's colors were clean cut: white, lime, lemon, and grapefruit. So I couldn't use sugar. I bought synthetic fragrance for soap making called Sugar Lemon. Perfect! 

  Well, it seemed perfect until I got it home and found that it had a fragrance that strongly resembled cleaner. I all most cried! I just couldn't go out and buy more fragrance. I knew that. So I made a batch of soap with it, and it stunk like cleaner--Mr. Clean cleaner! Good things were not happening at that moment. I was devastated and sick. But I left the house and Damon made a batch. He added less of the Mr. Clean fragrance and that was the ticket! It no longer had a revolting sent. The aroma was nice and light and full of lemon. Phew!

 It was a blessing.

This is my block of the month quilt that I started way back in 2012. 

Okay, not way back. 2012 wasn't that long ago and I pretty much finished it up in 2014 except for the binding.

This beautiful pattern is by Swirly Girl and the fabric is by Michael Miller Clubhouse. 

This is the largest quilt I have ever completed--a queen. I do love it so much and think it looks fabulous on my bed! Happy thoughts go bouncing every time I lay my eyes on this piece of cozy.

The backing I bought almost a year ago at a awesome blow-out sale at my fave quilt shop. I would have preferred for the backing to be darker. Something that color coordinated. Or like a nice blue. You know, anything that was not this light. Because heaven knows that stains happen. 

However, they better not. 

You know as well as I do that if they did, if anyone did, they would not live to tell about it. 

But beggars can't be choosers.  So I am happy that I was able to find an affordable backing. Talk about laying out the money. Backings can be killers!

Happy New Years to my fave girls!