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I’ve not only been bitten by the quilting bee bug, but now also the swap bug!  There is no end to the creative outlets!  Pillow Swap 3 is a blind swap where a bunch of super talented people get to create pillows for each other. It is “blind” because, although you know who you are making a pillow for, you have no idea who is making one for you!  Makes for a ton of fun as you browse all the finished products, hoping that many of them will make their way to your door

I decided to finally take a chance on a Dresden plate, which has a richly traditional feel to it. I used the “sew, mama, sew!” tutorial, which was incredibly easy to follow.  Here’s a few pictures of the progression:

**sorry for the blurry pics – I was just starting to get the hang of my new camera phone, which is very cool as it can upload photos directly to flickr.  Now just to master picture quality…  :)

For the Modern Quilting Bee, May was Shea’s month, and she wanted us to help her make an alphabet quilt for her daughter so they can practice her letters.  I loved this idea, and plan to do it one day myself  :)  I was assigned “F” and “S”.  At first I was really nervous, but she gave us adequate graph paper, and with a lot of erasing, I found a plan that worked.  I was pleased with how they turned out to be so consistent – I hope Shea likes them as well!

In one of the bees I am was in, Bee-Stitched, Greta wanted us to make her this half square triangle block.  I love that she chose grey as the background color – I always tend towards white as the backgrounds I use, so it was nice to play with something different.  I loved the way this came out!

I’m not sure how I got so lucky… this was my first swap and I truly hit the jackpot. Jaime delivered Christmas early with her amazing package that consisted of a gorgeous, quilted sewing machine cover, a stunning embroidery design, and some super yummy fat quarters.  Thank you so much, Jaime – you’re set a really high standard for all future swaps!!!  xoxo

Lipstick, shoes, and coffee, right?

These were the essentials I had in mind as I designed this quilt for my mom, for her birthday.  With the help of the very talented ladies from the Modern Quilting Bee, I was able to get this quilt completed, and it now is being enjoyed by my mom!  Her birthday was last week, and the quilt came only a few days late!  

The quilt is ~58″ square, and has so much fun to it.  Munki Munki patterned pjs (coffee, lipstick, and shoes) were cut up and sent literally all over the world.  While the bee members were making their blocks, I was making mine; it call came together SO beautifully!  And a very special thank you to Shea who really helped me with the back!

and more upclose:

I used Kona chocolate for the binding, and the back was used with Kona (cream?) muslin – which is SO soft!

There were SO many incredible blocks that went into this (above is Leanne’s, and below is Dena’s) – with so many great fabrics from everyone’s stash!

For the quilting, I did a simple meandering design – and it all came together beautifully!

Momma, HAPPY birthday!  I hope that this provides you with lots of warmth and comfort!  And yes, there is a lifetime guarantee  

You know those awards they give out in school, “best in reading”, “best in art”, etc, well, in kindergarten, I was named “most optimistic”.  I think that my optimistic qualities were truly apparent at that early age, or the teacher ran out of awards to give, and that was all she could think of.   (in my defense, in 1st grade I got best in math – quite a comeback from “the happy kid”).

Anyway, the optimistic quality often comes through at times when it can be frustrating to others.  Case in point – when I’m 15 miles from the house (all suburban, not interstate, mind you) I’ll tell my husband that I should be there (home) in 15 minutes.  Considering that not a single road has the speed limit of 60mph, and that there are ALWAYS red lights, oh yes, and OTHER cars on the road, that “15 minutes” is actually 35.  Maybe even 40.  But its not that I’m trying to lie… its that I really think I can do it.  And I never give up 

When I started this quilt, much like every other quilt I’ve started, I’ve thought “I’ll have this one done in 10 hours”.   HA! Talk about the understatement (or most grandiose optimistic statement) of the year!!!  I think piecing the nine blocks took 10 hours alone.  Then piecing and adding the white sashing (2 hours).  Then cutting and piecing the quilt back (3 hours). Then sandwiching (30min).   Then {insert most idiotic quilt move to-date} creating grid quilting pattern with masking tape (2hours).  Then quilting (3 or 4 hours).  THEN THE TWENTY PLUS HOURS OF REMOVING SAID MASKING TAPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

****please, for those new to quilting, don’t ever eveR evER eVER EVER use masking tape to grid the quilt.  Now, after the fact, I’ve heard that plenty of people have used painters tape.  I’m scared to try any tape at the moment, because this experience was so traumatic!

Picture the horrific sight of me sitting there for, yes – 20 hours- with tweezers in hand picking off the left over sticky bits from the blasted masking tape.    Then, even after I got all the visible sticky bits off, after washing, it was apparent by the lint attached in certain areas that there was UNSEEN stickiness left!  So, for another 3 or so hours, I sat there picking off the stuck on lint and the rest of the stickiness with the tape-on-tape trick.

And finally, after … let me add this up… 45 hours… my dad had quilt in hand and was grinning from ear to ear.  It was so sweet to see him so moved.

Happy Birthday, Dad!  I love you!  And Dad, please don’t get the idea that you weren’t worth the 45 hours… it was that I had expected it to be 10.  haha…

(i’ll be uploading the larger pics in a few hours!)

It occurred to me today, when I was writing the first draft of this post that to tell you all the gift would be to put something very personal about someone else on my blog.  I definitely don’t mind dishing dirt about myself, but I don’t feel right sharing the intimate details about someone else on here.  To summarize it, today’s gift was giving my best friend enough (of Matt’s) frequent flier miles so that she could be with a friend that is dying.  She needed to get there on very short notice, and it was such a blessing that we had the extra miles to offer her so that she could get there.

I’m going to withhold from posting about my future gifts here on my blog because I’ve found that they’ve become increasingly too personal to share here (without their permission).  I hope you understand!

In other news, I’ve someone really damaged a disc in my back and I have to have two steroid injections on Monday.  Under sedation.  I’ve never had any back issues, and this have given me a newfound understanding and respect for patients of mine with back pain.  This is AWFUL!  But percocet is amazing, and I’m grateful for the pain relief.

I am in disbelief that I’m in SIX bees!  How did this happen when I wasn’t in a single bee only 4 short months ago?  Things can change fast, can’t they?  HA! Anyway, I was forced willingly entered in to another be that started this month, and what a joy these fabrics were to play with!  I am making my Dad a quilt for his birthday in March with these same fabrics, and this gave me a little play-time before I dig into my stash.  These are for Sarah, and this is for the Bee-Stitched quilting bee.

Today I gave to the Red Cross for Haiti.  It was easy – just a simple text and viola.  This was one of many donations to the Haiti relief organizations that we’ve made, but I believe that they all help.   We’re supposed to be getting 53 Haitians to our hospital over the next few weeks; I am grateful for the opportunity to help those in need 

Aren’t these blocks beautiful?  I’m not being smug – Leanne picked the fabrics out – not me    I’ve told her before how much I want to raid her fabric stash, and boy is that ever true now.  Her color choices were so great; so vivid!  These blocks are for the February edition of our bee, Modern Tradition quilting bee, with the objective being to use modern fabrics in traditional block styles. 

Believe it or not, this was my first go at a traditional log cabin, sans wonkiness.  I hope she likes how they’ve turned out    Happy Birthday, Leanne!!