A giveaway

GIVEAWAY IS CLOSED:  Winner is:  

Have you all seen the orange soda quilt at imagingermonkey?  Amazing isn't it???!!!!  Well, I bought one of her 'petal' templates from her on Etsy, but the first one didn't come (hung up in customs?)..... so she was SO kind and sent a second!  Well, they both ended up being delivered after all - and on the same day (yes, shipped a month apart, but delivered the SAME day!)

So, I have one extra template and she was so kind to allow me to have a give away!  You will need the book for the pattern, some charm squares for the background, and yardage for the petals!  And maybe head over to Sew Allegorical's blog for the 'soda pop' quilt along that she is hosting!

orange soda by Katy Jones

So, to enter, just leave me a comment!  If you blog about it, you can have a second chance to win too, just leave a second comment :)  And, if you follow my blog (new or old followers), you can have another chance to win, just leave a comment that you are a follower  :)  I will choose a winner Monday the 6th, so there will be plenty of time for everybody to have a chance to enter :)

A Friday finish!

This purse has been languishing in my WIP pile, and it's finally finished.  I used scraps, all scraps!

I don't know if it's something that only a quilter would appreciate, but I thought I'd try to sell it, so it's listed here in my Etsy shop.  I'd love to make another one for myself, but I think I'll make longer handles and maybe made it a little narrower :)  Just my personal preference :)

Good idea? Bad idea?

Hmmmm

Vintage Modern Pinwheels

I want to introduce you to my latest Moda Bake Shop project: ''Vintage Modern Pinwheels''

I am so glad to have this quilt finished!  I have been agonizing over how to quilt it for a month!  I actually started to do a feather wreath, but quickly realized it was NOT going to show up in those busy fabrics.  So, I just settled on stippling in the areas with the prints and then a nice chunky hand-quilted stitch with perle cotton inside the stars/pinwheels.

I think I will be adding hand-quilting to more quilts in the future!  Not a LOT of hand-quilting, but just enough :)  I have plans to make this quilt again using a jelly roll of WeePlay and a jelly roll of mono Pezzy Prints (minus the pinks and replacing them with reds), and use the leftover half of Porcelain jelly roll for the stars/binding :)


Yesterday, our power was out ALL day (from 8am until 7pm) for a ''grid upgrade'' from the power company.  So, I went to my moms and basted TWO quilts!  One is my 'bottled rainbow' quilt.

Here are a few of my favorite blocks:

 The upper/right fabric is a fabric scrap from a quilt I made I think in 1991 - a sampler quilt and I used that print, plus a solid fuchsia and a solid purple and unbleached muslin for the entire quilt.  And we all know what the fabric in the center directly below the 'couches' is from, hehe :)

 I think this is my favorite block of all of them.  The mermaids, the fussy cut flower and pears, the little little seahorse.  Love it all :)

Now, I am totally STUCK at how to quilt this!  Most people did ''quilt as you go'' when they made their blocks.  But, I had to be a bit different of course.  Not only did I change it up by using black behind the scraps and mitering the solid border, but I also added a thin black sashing/border.  Any ideas to quilt this beauty would be greatly appreciated!

I also basted the University of Idaho 'stack and whack' kaleidoscope quilt :)  I think this one will either just be stippled or possibly straight line quilted.  And, I just realized I have NO pics of this quilt top!  So, you are all gonna have to wait until after it's quilted to see it I guess :)

The Mini Lop rabbit quilt

I raise Mini Lop rabbits - and I made this quilt for a national club to auction at a national show this fall.  Actually, I don't know if they will auction it or if they will raffle it.  It's their decision to make :)
I love the all black/white print I used for the front (the backing is black/white damask print too), although I kinda wish I would have bound it in white, but the black is OK too.

This quilt has been a LONG time in the making and I am so glad it's done finally.  I had the rabbits printed on Spoonflower from a drawing I had commissioned of one of my Grand Champion bucks from the past.  I can't remember where I got the quilt pattern.  It was free somewhere! I think it might have been on quilters cache.  Anyhow, I love it and I think it will bring a nice price for the club :)

a finish and some new fabric

I finished a quilt yesterday!  I can't show it for a bit yet, but it will be soon!  Actually, I just finished another one on Friday.......*that* one I can show you (and will in a post tomorrow!).  I wanted to show how CLOSE I came to running out of thread for quilting the one I can't show yet though.  I was *sweating* when I had to wind a half a bobbin to finish it!

I was especially sweating because it was thread I got from Connecting Threads and would have to wait at least a week to order any, then another week to receive it if I ran out.  WHEW, relief when I finished and didn't completely run out!

I participated in a polka dot charm swap - and got these lovelies in the mail last week!

I have 4 charms of each polka dot plus 4 charms of coordinating Kona for each polka dot.  Now........  what to make with them????


I also picked up a couple packs of the new DS print fat quarters from JoAnn's (on sale plus a 10% off total purchase coupon).  I am in LOVE with the aqua floral!!!!!!  I wish it was in yardage because I think I'd get about 10 yards.  LOVE LOVE LOVE!

I want a quilt backing and pillowcases from this print.  Alas, it will not happen since it's just in the FQ's :(

a teaser

I have been quilting a little lately (not much though!).  Here is a teaser of something I am *almost* finished with.

Hubby took the camera to work with him, so I had to settle using my phone camera, which doesn't do such a great job!  Oh well!  I have all the machine quilting done and the binding done on this quilt, I am just doing some finishing touches with some hand quilting with perle cotton and big chunky stitches.  I think I will be done with this by the end of the week ::crossing fingers::

I have to show you how my ''topsy turvy'' planter is doing too - it's blooming nicely!!!

Can you see the hens & chicks in the strawberry pot?!  I've never had it bloom before, but it's just about to bloom!

I must be doing something right with it, because normally I have a black thumb!

we interrupt this quilting blog......

we interrupt this quilting blog for a little holiday fun in the sun!

Hubby and I (and our brother-in-law and nephew) went clam digging on the 4th, just had to show off our haul!  We got SIX geoduck!

Well, between all 4 of us, we actually got TWELVE!  (The limit is 3 each, so we got our limits!)  Our brother in law and nephew also got their limits in horse clams, but we just came for the geoduck!

If you've never dug for geoduck before - these clams are DEEP in the sand - around 4 feet deep.  Horse clams are shallower (shorter necks), but are still around a foot or so down.  There is a trick to digging geoduck - you almost have to use barrels with no bottom (keeps your hole from caving in on itself).  First, you have to locate the geoduck (and a lot of time, they don't show themselves until the tide is starting to come back IN), then sink the barrel into the sand around their siphon hole - then dig the sand out of the barrel.  Most of the time, a second (slightly smaller) barrel is necessary to get even deeper.  They aren't easy to get, but they are so worth it!  Here is a pic that shows our brother-in-law and nephew's haul.  Happy campers! It also shows their barrel setup.  These are stainless steel (and heavy!).  Our barrels are plastic (much lighter, but also harder to sink into the sand because the sides aren't as straight/smooth).  They need a cart to bring along their barrels, we just carry ours.  The rope handles are for getting them OUT of the sand after they are sunk.

Looking at the pics makes me want to go again!!!

My favorite way to make geoduck is like clam strips (pound the meat out to tenderize, cut into thin strips, dredge in flour seasoned with Old Bay, then egg/milk wash, then in panko/Italian bread crumb mixture - and deep fry, mmmm.  Even my picky 18 year old loves fried geoduck!   The bigger ones were probably around 3.5# each - and the local seafood stand sells them *in the shell* for $28/lb.  So, those bigger geoduck are worth close to $100 each! (Too bad I couldn't sell a few!).

I cleaned them, cut the siphon (neck meat) into several sections and left the belly meat whole - then individually packaged each piece in the freezer so we can take out just what we need for a meal depending on how many people I'm cooking for.  I saved some of the siphon meat out (in the fridge) to grind today - I am going to try canning some for making chowder later.  I would make chowder now, but chowder is so much nicer when it's cold out or when someone is feeling icky.  It's going to be in the high 70's and into the 80's here this week, so don't think I'll be making chowder :)

Now, I think we're gonna go sockeye fishing (or maybe crabbing?) tomorrow!  Can't wait for some more fresh seafood!