Christmas is coming Flea Market Finds...

Apparently this is supposed to be the busy shopping day leading up to Christmas.  Husband and I were out nice and early this morning and I did manage to squeeze in a few thrift stores along with all the other stuff on the list.  I found a gorgeous ruby red glass vase.  Nothing fancy but just the right colour for Christmas.

For a mere 50 cents, I picked up this box of oldies but goodies.  The box label says these glass balls were made in Poland.  I thought that was most interesting.

This lovely dish is marked made in Japan and was half price in the vintage section.  I was most delighted to hand over $2.50 for such a lovely dish.  The elderly male volunteer at the cash was quite enamoured with it and I thought that was sweet!

And what is a trip to a thrift store without some fabric?   I love this red vintage cotton print!  The bundle had several metres and that is a great thing!

So there you have it.  Flea market finds for December 17, 2011!  Mum is coming on Tuesday for Christmas and I am sure to have some awesome thrift store shopping with her!  Husband will get a break for a bit!

I will link up with Sophie's Flea Market Finds as soon as the link is active and with Thrift Share Monday!  Merry almost Christmas!!!

Drum roll... we have a winner!

Huge thank yous to the amazing quilty people who have left 506 lovely comments this week and to all my new followers and already following followers a big whoop whoop!  

Mr. Random Generator has selected the winning random number to be none other than...................  116

I am having a blast with SMS giveaway, I am finding all sorts of new to me blogs and ideas it is great! Thanks for a chance to win your prize.

By Jo on Giveaway Day!!! on 12/14/11

Congratulations, Jo!  I have sent you off an email and will wait impatiently for your mailing address so that I can pop your prize in the mail!  

Again thank you everyone for participating!!!!

Scrap attack!!!!

Rachel from Stitched in Colour is planning some scrap-iliscious fun for the new year.  I don't know about you but I have a lot of scraps.  I tried to take some pictures of my scraps in all their glory but scraps have a mind of their own and in case you were not aware, they multiply when your back is turned.  Scraps are like rabbits and hangers.  You know what I mean.  I do try to keep my scraps under control.  I am using scraps for my Farmer's Wife quilt and I made my giant string quilt out of scraps but I still have scraps everywhere!

itty bitty scraps in a bag

I have 2 systems for the most part.  I take the little itty bitty pieces and throw them into a bag.  I use a really classy paper shopping bag from Britex in San Francisco.  Only the best for those little itty bitties.  These are the pieces that are really too small but I figure they must be good for something like the last piece for a string block where you just need a tiny little scrap.

leftover quilt scraps in ziploc bags falling out of a basket

My second system is at the completion of a quilt, I take the leftovers that are not folding yardage and I stick the works into ziploc bags.  The bags then go on the shelf in an overflowing basket.  What I have then are colour coordinated scraps in a bag.  This works fairly well so far but I need a different storage system for all the bags.

What about you?  How do you manage your scraps? Rachel has invited bloggers to show her how you manage the scrap mess.  I am going to send her an email with a link to this post so I can share my scrap mess.

Don't forget to check back here in just a little while because ladies and gentlemen, we are going to have a WINNER!!!!  It is almost 5 pm and that is go time for Mr.Random Generator.  I am currently sitting at a HUGE 505 comments!  I cannot believe it!  Thank you, everyone, for your interest!

Almost there... and farmer's wife blocks check in

Well!  Tomorrow is the last day of school for the holidays and we have a staff lunch to celebrate.  Husband was hard at work today making all these glorious, wee empanada style "tourtiere" meat pies for me to take to the lunch.  Tourtiere is a French Canadian meat pie.  Most delicious and spiced with allspice.  Look at the sweet little trees he put on each pastry.  Oh my goodness, they look so awesome!

And then I was farming away with my Farmer's Wife blocks.  Week 29!!!!!

Block #51 Hovering Birds

Block # 45 Grape basket

I notice when I look a the pictures of the blocks that Grape basket has a bit of wonk at the bottom.  Good grief.  I am going to fix that.  That simply will not do.  I cannot believe I did not notice that!!!!!  Perhaps it is just the way I pressed the seam.  Crossing fingers!!!

And if you have not entered my giveaway or checked out the other giveaways over at Sew Mama Sew, please do!
Huge welcome to all my new followers!!!

Secret Santa gift...

I made another pillow.  I whipped this up on the weekend for a secret Santa present at work.  I was able to use some of the fabric from the giant estate sale stash of fabric that came my way last fall.  There was a fair pile of Christmas fabric including this snowman print and some coordinating trees.  I had the pillow form already.  16" x 16".  Not a  giant pillow by any means but nice enough for a Christmas snuggle.  I cut some 4"squares.  Made some snazzy half square triangles, stitched them together and slapped on a border.  Here is the funny thing.  My new amazing sewing machine has a built in walking foot system.  It is truly wonderful but the actual foot is bigger than my old walking foot.  It is taking me a bit of time to figure out how and where to line up the seam line for straight line quilting with the walking foot.  I started to quilt the pillow top and thought that the stitching lines were too far from the seam line but it was too late to change it.  The penny dropped or the light bulb went off  midway.   I think I have it figured out now and will line everything up a little differently next time.

The back is a simple envelope closure.  I was able to use up a scrap of binding that was left over from something and a bit of burgundy stars along with the snowman print.  SWEET!

Lots of fun things to look at in blog land as people finish up their Christmas sewing projects.  I even found a wonky little star quilt at Oh Fransson.  Check it out!  Wonky little stars are spreading all over the place.  I am so going to make a wonky star quilt.  It will be my 2012 scrap buster quilt.  I have it all figured out.  It is going to be fabulous!  I may have to actually have a design wall though!  The design bed might not work for this puppy!


And if you have not entered my giveaway or checked out the other giveaways over at Sew Mama Sew, please do!

A Christmas Gift Finish and a welcome!

I have a finish!  From the weekend.  I really like it.  I made this wonky, wonky little star table runner for a gift.  I have to do more of this because I think they look AWESOME with all their twinkly little star-ness.

I want to say welcome to all the new followers that have dropped in and decided to stay.  It is just so exciting to see the number of followers grow!  I just noticed that there are 150 of you!!!!!  I am also stunned with the number of people who have left comments for my giveaway.  Simply fantastic!

Today was the Christmas Concert at school.  It was GREAT!  Lots of funny little Kindergarten moments and wonderful bits all the way through.  There was, of course, a standing room only crowd and gift basket and gingerbread houses for raffling.  I have to say it was wonderful and we are all so happy it is over.  I telephoned Husband when the concert was over and he thought I sounded unnaturally calm.  He he he.  That can only be because the concert was over.  I don't think I would have sounded that calm before!

I am trying to figure out how to have a list of all my quilt finishes on my blog that will link to a picture. If anyone has a great idea or where to go to figure this out, please let me know.  : )

Have a wonderful rest of your evening!  And if you have not entered my giveaway or checked out the other giveaways over at Sew Mama Sew, please do!  The loot is drool worthy!

Giveaway Day!!!

Here it is folks!  Sew Mama Sew's Giveaway Day!

I have a charm pack of Aneela Hoey's Sherbet Pips!!!  But wait, that is not all!  How about the charm pack and 2 Liberty fat quarters!?  Yippee!

You have 2 chances to win.  Leave a comment, any old comment for one chance and followers get a second chance.  It is that easy!  Good luck everyone!  The giveaway will be open until December 16, 2011 at 5 pm Pacific Standard Time!  And I will ship internationally!

Check out all the other fabulous giveways at Sew Mama Sew!!!!  It is crazy!!!!!!!!!!!!!


edited to say!
thank you everyone!  the giveaway is now closed!