Yoohoo! A Little Update Here!

Due to the overwhelmingly wonderful response to the Bowls With Borders Blog Hop, we are making the cut-off date a little sooner than planned. We will not be accepting any more participants as of right now. Sorry! We'd love to have more, but right now we're well over 160 and need to cut it off somewhere. Thanks for your incredible response--we can't wait to see all those amazing projects!

Aufgrund der wunderbaren und absolut überwältigenden Reaktion auf den Bowls With Borders Blog Hop sind wir gezwungen, die Liste etwas früher als geplant zu schließen. Es werden ab sofort keine weiteren Teilnehmer mehr angenommen. Tut uns leid, wir würden Euch gern alle nehmen, aber wir haben bereits über 160 Teilnehmer und eine Warteliste. Vielen Dank für Euren tollen Einsatz – wir können es kaum erwarten, alle die tollen Projekte zu sehen!

Bowls With Borders Blog Hop-Update

Update: We've had such an incredible response from people all over the world (well over 100!) to participate in our Bowls with Borders Blog Hop, so we've added a few extra days to fit everyone in. It just gets more and more exciting by the minute!

AND there's now a button! Whoohoo!

Go head over to see Madame Samm and pick-up that cute little thing.

Madame Samm at SewWeQuilt has shown her creative side, AGAIN, and come up with a fun blog hop for us...AND...I get to host it! Wow!

Check out her blog for photos of her Bowls With Borders project (it's amazing, of course) and then come join in and play with us!

Click here for Madame Samm's bowls
and other info about the blog hop

(Check for German translation below)

Send me an email letting me know you want

to play (my email address is over there on the right.)

I'll will start posting a list of participants on June 30th to
let you all know the day you'll need to have your bowls
ready to serve-up on your blog (or my blog), but

you have until July 7th to send me an email saying you

want to play with the rest of us bowl-crazy quilters.
We reached our limit, so watch for the link to
buy the pattern from Regina.

The Bowls With Borders will start popping up

on the blogs from

August 13th to August 21st.

The free pattern for these little bowls will be available ONLY to those who participate in the blog hop and will be emailed to you after July 1st by Regina, the designer of these cute bowls. Regina makes beautiful paper piecing patterns and has so graciously let us use the bowl pattern for free (if you play along with us.) Thanks, Regina!

Those of you who just want to watch the fun and/or sew later will be given the link to the designer of these cute bowls on July 1st and you can purchase the pattern directly from her.

You want to join in the Bowls With Borders but don't have a blog? No problem! Just let me know you want to play and I'll post your bowls right here. Just let me know and we'll work out the details.

Ready to play? I am! 

Regina so kindly translated this into German:

Hier ist der Weg zu Madamme Samms Schälchenstapel

und weiteren Informationen

Wenn Du teilnehmen willst, schicke mir eine Email an soswift6@aol.com. Schreibe Deinen Namen und Emailadresse hinein und – sofern vorhanden – Deine Blog-Adresse. Anmeldeschluss ist der 7. Juli.

Der Blog Hop mit den entstandenen Arbeiten wird von 13. bis 21. August laufen.

Das kostenlose Muster für die kleinen Schälchen wird nur für die Teilnehmerinnen des Blog Hops gratis erhältlich sein. Es wird Dir direkt von Regina, der Designerin, zugeschickt. Regina macht wunderbare paper piecing Muster und spendet großzügigerweise das Schälchenmuster für die Teilnehmer dieser Aktion. Danke, Regina!

Wer erst einmal lieber nur zuschauen möchte und später doch einen Schälchenstapel nähen möchte, kann den gesamten Musterbaukasten direkt bei Regina erwerben. Den Link teile ich später mit.

Du möchtest mitmachen und hast keinen Blog? Kein Problem! Melde Dich an mit „I have no blog“ und Deine Bilder werden ersatzweise hier veröffentlicht werden. Details später.

Bereit für ein Spiel? Ich bin’s!

AND...Madame Samm created a little bowl just for me.
Thank You!

Don't Want To, Can't Face It

I have to call "Uncle" as I just can't face machine quilting my Quilt Along zigzag quilt. I was feeling guilty because Ashley's instructions have been great, but this thing is bigger than I thought and I just don't want to do it. Failure? Nope! Just know my limits. I'm off to take it to my friend, Lynn, to do her magic. I feel better already.

So, so windy outside today, but I managed to

catch the quilt top on a not-flapping-away-moment

before I leave to take it to Lynn.

Getting The Hang Of It

I've been trying to learn to do paper piecing and thought I was going to lose it, tear my hair out, or crawl under the sewing table and start sucking my thumb. I'd sew a strip thinking "I got this now!" but OH NO, those silly little pieces of fabric were going the wrong way, sewn with the seams the wrong way, or were too short when I'd flip it over. Geez! How hard can this be! Obviously for me, pretty hard!

I succeeded in making some blocks (I won't even tell you how many times I had to use my seam ripper on them) and will show them in the Red, White, and Blue Blog Hop that starts July 1st--my day is July 3rd.

Don't expect a masterpiece,

but they aren't too bad for a paper piecer in training.

A sneak peek--check back on July 3rd to see the whole thing

I'm A Guest Blogger!

I'm not a guest on any quilty or crafty blog, BUT I do dabble in emergency prep/food storage when I'm not pretending to be crafty. Today's MY DAY to be a guest blogger on an emergency prep website, foodstoragemoms.com, about cooking with my new Sun Oven. I like to use my food storage (not just store it away for a just-in-case moment) and my little solar oven was a fun way to "practice" cooking in case of an attack by zombies. Just so you don't think I'm crazy (or crazier), I don't believe in zombies but this makes me laugh:

My guest post (click here to check it out)

was about using my freeze dried apples,

and cooking them in this

to get this.

They were yummy!

A Little Progress

No star on my forehead for a job-well-done since I'm so behind on just about everything I joined. I have been busy, though, and have gotten this far:

The Red, White, and Blue blocks are piling up (not a huge pile, just a little stack.) I keep changing my mind on which ones I like, which ones I don't like, and which ones need to be given to the dogs to play with. I can't show any of them until July 3rd, MY DAY, over at the Blog Hop at Jane's place. Madame Samm has teased us with her blocks--funny lady--and Jane is flashing just her fabric.

The Zig Zag Quilt Along is coming along and just needs the borders to complete this week's assignment. Not sure the zigging and zagging is as distinct as it should be, but I like the colors (which aren't showing up here as well as I'd like them to. The red is actually more orangy.)

One more block of the month--really slow on this project.

I'm loving how motivational these projects have been!

Charlie Brown?

It wasn't suppose to look like a Charlie Brown quilt, but that's what my husband says it looks like. He's right (just this one time.) Thank goodness for my cheesy design wall, because this thing has made my eyes go crazy trying to keep things going the right direction. It's been slow going (started this in April) with the little squares for this and I've changed them all around dozens of times before starting to put them together. I just want it off my wall so I can move on to other "shiny objects" and all those join-in things I got myself into.

It's getting closer to the finish....whew!

The colors don't photograph to their true color at all--dang!

"Aaaaaand she's off!"

Aaaaaand she's off!
Go Carol go!!

Off my rocker maybe, but anyway....loved the comment by Duff over at Bacon Then Eggs about my starting off on all those "join" thingies I'm trying to do. Made me laugh, which is a good thing.

I'm a little behind starting this one and was a couple days late with the Cutting Your Fabric part of the Quilt Along. I'm using mostly CURIO by Basic Grey--love the colors! The cutting is done and now I wait until next week, which is tough because I'm such an impatient person. I'm also attracted to something new on an hourly basis, so this could actually be good for me.

January Block-Of-The-Month Blocks

I've had this fabric, Moda's Sonnet Collection by April Cornell, sitting in a plastic container for several years. Since I have so much, it will work out perfectly for this block-of-the month practice project. Buried in that stash of fabric was a quilt I'd started, but never finished. Maybe I'll finish that one when I'm done with this BOM project. The fabric has kind of 60ish colors in it like the oranges and browns, which is okay just not my favorite--yet.



The January Block of the Month from Amy Gibson

Wonky Pound Sign Block

The Asterisk Block



I Have "Join" Written On My Forehead

With a deep need to get focused (or because I'm a little or a lot crazy), I signed on to this block-of-the-month at Craftsy.com. It was already in progress, but I'll catch-up......maybe. Amy Gibson makes it fun and easy, plus it's FREE and great for beginners (or people like me who need a little focus in their life or just want something else to add to their already busy sewing table.)

Craftsy Block of the Month

That makes three things I have agreed to take part in. Crazy! A year ago I was scared to death to sign-up for anything, but then I saw something that had to do with Ghastlies on Madame Samm's blog at Sewwequilt.com and I was hooked!

I'm so excited for this one over at janesfabrics.blogspot.com. My day is July 3rd.

This one will be fun, too, and starts with the cutting instructions tomorrow. You can find it over at mommybydaycrafterbynight.com.

I have plenty of fabric to join at least 50 blog hops/quilt alongs/or whatever, so I told myself "why not."

I'm sure there's a reason "why not", but too late---I'M IN!