Design Wall (Correction: Design Bed) Monday

Yep!  Christmas is coming!  I threw all the blocks for this "Trees for Sale" quilt on the design bed yesterday.  Did a little tweaking and managed to get the blocks together and the 2 borders on before bedtime last evening.  This quilt is so much fun!  The pattern is a lovely one by Sandy Gervais and it came out several years ago.  The pattern is layer cake friendly but lends itself easily to whatever you have that you can cut down to 10"squares for ease of cutting.  The pattern also asks for freezer paper which I have not used before.  It works like a charm!  So there it is.  Oh... the fabric is 12 Days of Christmas by Kate Spain and I have had it since last Christmas.  I did not use a layer cake but rather my local quilt shop had bundled together enough fabric to make the quilt and I bought it when it was half price.  So nice of them!  What is happening on your design wall?

I am going to link up with Judy's Design Wall Monday.  Check it out!

Sunday Stash

The large chain fabric store has a crazy sale this weekend.  I had to check it out.  Lo and behold, I found Michael Miller's Zoology line.  Oh my goodness!  Who knew? And half price at that.  I picked up half metre lengths of the dots and a metre of the animals.  Perfect baby boy quilt fabric.  I actually made a baby quilt from this line this past spring.  How exciting to find it there!

The bargain wall of fabrics was on sale too.  Sometimes you can find some pretty decent stuff that is just the right thing for backing a quilt.  At $2 a metre, I bought the end of the bolts of both of these with quilt backs in mind.

Warm and White batting was also a great price.  It seems that the chain is going to price batting competively for now, at least, and that made me VERY happy!

Husband had to wait for me though and he was not that happy about that.  I think it is fair to say that he was BORED without my scintillating conversation.  The line ups for the cutting table were long and once the fabric was cut then the lineups at the cash were endless.  Argh!

So there you have it.  Sunday Stash.  On the sewing front, I finished a quilt top and Husband and I spent a lovely Sunday lunch with friends.  I picked the last roses of summer.  Perfect.

Flea Market Finds and my favourite find of the year...

Sophie is hosting "your favourite find of the year" this week.   This was a tough one as I had a lot to pick from.  I think finding this Johnson Brothers bowl to go with the lid that I have been dragging around for about 8 or 10 years has to be a big favourite!  I tossed around the idea of picking the van load of quilting fabric that I dragged home and filled the house with when I bought the entire stash of fabric from the family of a quilter but this bowl had just the right amount of chance and serendipity!  

And my finds of the week...

First off I found some pretty fall china at a thrift store I don't often go to.  These are marked Creampetal, Grindley, England and were 25 cents each.  Good grief!  Way too pretty for 25 cents a pop.  There are 3 dinner plates and 2 luncheon plates.  Sweet!

Then I picked up some awesome Christmas baskets.  They are basically new and will be perfect for packing up some homemade Christmas gifts.  Love the one with the picnic basket lid and handles!  These were 50 cents each and the picnic basket was $1.50.

And I just cannot resist a Beehive knitting book!!!!  Who knows?  I might learn something!  I have started knitting Daughter's text messaging mittens.  I am even managing to knit them on 4 needles!  Now that is pure knitting skill!

I did not measure how length of this tartan but I am guessing about 1.5 metres. I don't know what I will do with it but it is really lovely quality and I could not leave it behind for a mere $3.

So there you have it.  My Saturday Flea Market Finds.  Husband and I did a lot of running around this morning and I totally scooped some deals at the big chain fabric stores Weekend Madness Sale yesterday.  Husband had to wait too long in the van though because the line ups were so long in the store.  More on that tomorrow.  Husband told me this morning if I took as long today when I ran in for the Clinique bonus event, he would leave without me.  He was joking, but to prove the point that I could be speedy, I was in and out of that mall in less than 6 minutes!  Awesome!!!

Have a lovely rest of your day and I will be linking up with both Sophie's Flea Market Finds and Apron Thrift Girl's Thrift Share Monday!

Christmas is coming!

I started something new!  I had a bundle of lovely 12 Days of Christmas by Kate Spain for Moda bought in end of Christmas sales last year.  I am having so much fun with this pattern.  It is called "Trees for Sale."  Easy to cut.  Easy to sew.  I love it!

Off to the fabric store to take advantage of a Weekend Madness sale!  Welcome to all my new followers of late!

Farmer's Wife Check-in Week 23

#92 Streak of Lightening

#108 Windmill

Here we go!  Week 23.  Once again I have 2 blocks completed for the week.  Totally keeping on track with several blocks completed as a reserve in case I get too busy.  I randomly search the blocks and I pick the ones to make that strike my fancy.  I am avoiding the blocks that have a million little triangles.  I have to ajust make a couple of those in the next while or I am going to be up a creek without a paddle at the end of this quilt along with only the most challenging blocks to make.  YOIKS!

Streak of lightening was fun to make and Windmill was a very simple block.  I wanted a bit more red and blue in the quilt so chose some vintage-looking prints from my scraps.  The Streak of Lightening is made with the scraps from the pillow back that I made last week. Wouldn't want any scraps to get all old and dusty from lingering too long!

I was totally tickled to hear that Daughter has unearthed her sewing machine and has asked me to send her a fabric care package so she can make some Christmas gifts.  I wonder if I have any fabric to spare??  Hmmm... obviously!

Have a lovely evening!!!!

Happy Wednesday!

Husband has been at again.  Yep.  He's been baking and there is nothing better than cinnamon raisin bread for toast in the morning.  Mmm, yummy.

And will you look at the size of those maple leaves?  Those are Big Leaf Maple leaves.  Appropriately named for sure.


Joy, who blogs at aVintage Green, has nominated me today for a Liebster Award.  How lovely is that?  The Liebster Blog award is given to up and coming bloggers who have less than 200 followers.  How perfectly lovely.  Thank you, Joy!  Apparently "Liebster" is German and means sweetest, kindest, nicest, beloved, loveliest, cutest...

The rules for the Liebster Award are:

1.  Thank the giver and link back to her/him
2.  Reveal your top picks and leave a comment on their blog.
3.  Copy and Paste the award on your blog.
4.  Have faith that your followers will spread the love too!

And since part of the fun is in passing the award along... my picks are

cherry red quilter   (85 followers)
Hoosier Toni  (93 followers)
cheerful thrifty door (50 followers)

I am going to leave it at that for now!  You have to check out these 3 great blogs and stop by and see Joy at her blog.  She just rescued a very scary looking piece of furniture and turned it into something lovely!

Have a super rest of your day!!  Check out these lovely blogs too!

November and Fresh Sewing Day

I was thinking that I really didn't have too many finishes from October but I guess it is not too shabby.  I finished this one on the weekend.  It is massive!!!!  72" x 84" of batik bento box fun.  I straight line quilted it horizontally and vertically on either side of the stitching lines.  I won't show you the back yet but it is fun.  Pieced with leftover batik scraps and some other fun fabric.  I know you cannot see the small details in the binding print but in many ways the print echoes the bento box pattern.  Cool!  I don't remember what it is called.  I bought the end of the bolt of it anyway!  I had not planned to use it for the binding, just the back but it just seemed to be asking to be the binding as well.

The batiks came from my fabulous local quilt shop's "by the pound" sale so it is truly scrappy.  I think it is just great.

Other finishes this past month included...

I Spy Wall Hanging for my office

Paper pieced string block pillow for a friend

Coming Home Quilt

And another of the Bento Box quilt with Webster!

I will be linking up with Lily's Fresh Sewing Day!

Happy November!!!