FMQ conquered & Teacher Tuesday

I Want to be Teacher's Pet

Today was definitely a new day.   I look forward each week to Teacher Tuesday announcements on the Sewing Summit but today was such treat.  Two of my favorite bloggers are teaching a paper piecing class together: Lee of Freshly Pieced and Elizabeth of Don't Call Me Betsy.  When the class schedule goes live, I'll have my finger on the trigger!  Also big news for me; the hunt for a SLC room mate is now officially on - wish me luck!

FMQ Conquered

I was filled with excitement which is not exactly relaxed but certainly not stressed out and uptight like yesterday either.

So... FMQ was back on the table.  More accurately, two folding tables - all sprawled out. I had to climb over to get to my machine.

Aurifil is my new best friend.  I know there's a lot of give aways and promotion of the thread lately but you don't have to sell me on the stuff - it's fabulous.  A nice medium aqua worked well with the Amy Butler honeycomb backing.  I'll do a full reveal of this project once complete.
Linking up to Lee's WIP (because it's already Wednesday in other parts of the world - and morning have been rough since my work schedule change)

This weeks tally:
Completed: Dana's Row Robin
Great Progress: Asterisk Quilt
QALs were a bust this week/Zilch: NYB, Quick Curve, Zakka (although the book arrived so that kind of counts!) 

Churn Dash Whimsy

Hedgehog to the Rescue

I was in a bit of a sewing funk today. I'm working on a secret project that I'll be able to share soon but not yet.  Great progress was made this weekend and I am loving how it's turning out - happy to have it all basted and ready to go - smooth sailing until I found myself too uptight to FMQ.  

The required state of mind to tackle FMQ is critical, wouldn't you agree? I just felt like if I started without having my head wrapped around the process I'd fail, so it was smarter to wait.  What do you do to gear up mentally for FMQ?  Tomorrow is a new day and fingers crossed that I'll relax enough to pull it off.   

Rather than let the evening escape entirely, I pulled out the bits of whimsy and solids that I had chosen to use in Dana's Row Robin for Around the Bend and Across the Pond! Her inspiration was a needlework sampler and I found the Farmer's Wife book the perfect resource settling on the classic Churn dash.  Just the ticket to cheer me up.    An adorable hedge hog, pink rooster, a pony and more did the trick. Dana and Mandy included scissor fabric in their rows so I added a pinking shear detail.

 

A love affair with Japan

Tonight at our Guild Meeting for PVQA

Tracey Brookshire was the guest speaker and shared slides of the amazing Tokyo International Great Quilt Show . This is a nine day festival and in 2007 she was invited to have her basket quilt in it. She also presented a small trunk show of her work and patterns.  

The Bento Box was the first quilt pattern that I ever purchased and still think it's great after all these years.  This one I made for our bed is 105x105 - huge for me - and this one was made as a gift for a very sweet young lady. I wonder if she ever expected that there would be crazy/wonky versions popping up all over flickr. I've been in two swaps myself. 

Shoji and Jigsaw are a couple of my other favorites that I have yet to try.  When youngest was on a little league team with her son many years ago I had no idea who she was which is a good thing I guess because I would've been way too intimated to have made the coach a quilt - which he loved. 

Linky Party Love

I was lucky enough to find out about Quilter in The Gap's Finish-Along 2012 last quarter and joined the fun.  I'm proud to say that I finished all of my goals - amazing what a little accountability will do to motivate a person.
Congrats to all of the many prize winners. 

The Linky Party for Quarter #2 is going on right now so dust off your UFOs and let's get those projects completed together.  It may be a bit ambitious to double my goals form 3 to 6 but I'm going with the aim high approach.
1)Asterisk Quilt, 2)Cat & the Hat, 3)Tassels Quilt, 4)Curio Quick Curve, 5)Teal We Meet Again, 6)Zakka in Echino.
Wish Me Luck and Good Luck to YOU.

Speaking of Lovin'  - great job ladies, passing the love along with your Liebster Blog award nominees. Some blogs were new to me and some I had visited before - all were clearly deserving.  Be sure to check them out.

Blogland is the Best

Life is full of surprises - in a good way.

I now have 31 followers and 16 posts under my belt. Can you believe it? I'm so thrilled with the growing number of people that have stopped by.   It's kind of silly just how much I like getting comments.

Less than three weeks ago I got it in my head to just jump in and make one. If I was really attending Sewing Summit as planned, it was high time to see what blogging was all about from the other end.

I hit the New Blog button on my dashboard not even knowing what was next to come and I'm so glad I did. Here I thought I'd be talking to myself, and there you are listening, thanks.

You're too kind Beth, I'm blushing

Now for icing on the cake, one of my flickr friends Beth at Smazoochie honored me with the Liebster Blog Award.  I've seen the award given and know what it is, but it didn't occur to me that I'd be chosen - especially in the infancy of my blog while I'm stumbling around trying to get my footing.  Beth is so sweet and always making flattering, supportive comments on flickr of my swap/QAL pictures so I shouldn't be too surprised - it's her nature to be so thoughtful.  I'm touched. 

Here's the scoop:
“The origins of the Liebster Blog Award are somewhat unclear but the general consensus is that it means favourite or dearest to showcase bloggers with fewer than 200 followers.”

Here's the rules:
1. Thank my Liebster Blog Award presenters.
2. Link back to my presenters' blogs.
3. Copy & paste the blog award on my blog.
4. Present the Liebster Blog Award to five blogs with 200 or fewer followers that I feel deserve to be noticed and post links to their blogs on my blog.
5. Let the recipients know they have been given the Liebster Blog Award by posting a comment on their blog.  next on my list of to do.

Be sure to visit them and let me know what you think.
Drum roll, the envelope please... in no particular order, my nominees are:

Deb at Trio Stitch Studio: One look at Deb's buddy icon and it's obvious why she made the list. She is just so perky and witty, how could you not smile while reading her bog and looking at the cheery quilts she creates. I'm tickled pink that we get to meet in person at Sewing Summit.

Linda at Surrounded By Scraps: There is something so inspiring and liberating to me about Linda's approach to quilting and I am especially drawn to the richness in the color pallet that she often uses.  I've pushed my creative envelope because of her influence. Even my blog subtitle Second-hand scraps has a familiar ring to it.

Sarah at SoSarahSews: Quilters are notoriously generous and this gal takes it up a notch, above and beyond.  I've had the pleasure of contributing blocks for the treasured quilts she makes foster children Quilting for Kids and I really appreciate the opportunity, it feels great and she makes it so easy. Her own quilts are awesome and her baking make me drool.

Jenn at Sunny in CAL: The thing about Jenn is that she's a mind reader. Or at least she can read mine because every time she posts a new project it's exactly the one that I've had in my head to make. She's literally taking my wish list of patterns and creating them one by one. It's gettin' kind of freaky! Although I'd never dream of hand stitching a queen for my bed - that'd be more of a nightmare to me.

Anne, Gillian & Jane at Play Crafts... design.create.share: I didn't see how many followers they have on the blog and hope I'm not breaking any rules by choosing them but I'm going to anyway!  Check them out, you'll be inspired - I know I am.

It's Official - I'm Going!

I'm so excited to be one of the lucky ones. I'll be attending Sewing Summit and am no longer worried that I won't know anyone. There are familiar buddy icons popping up around flickr saying they got their ticket too.  I'm itchin' to stalk the Google Group and view everyone's profile but ugh... I'm headed out the door.  It will have to wait.  

I'm one of the Lucky Ones

 At first it seemed kind of silly when I arranged to go into work late just so that I could click the registration button when the link went live, but it wasn't.  A hundred ticket gone the first minute and completely sold out in 10 hours, oh my these are some serious folks. I'm sad for those who didn't make it in - it promises to be a great time.

A Glorious Guild

At the SBAMQG meeting last night we had our big reveal of the first Guild Challenge, the Photo Inspired quilt.  Some sneak peaks had been seen on our flickr group - like mine, because I just cannot NOT share - but they were so much better in person and there were some surprises.  The participation was great for our very first go at it.

Here are a couple stunners by Anne and Julia (not sure how to insert the picture but it's worth taking a look).

Fixed my upload problem but didn't get the best shots so I just made a mosaic. Other cameras had better luck capturing how special these were.  There's even one of me and the Hanalei Pier Quilt  I made for my friend's birthday. Hope you'll check the amazingly talented and sweet quilters in our glorious Guild.

Fresh Sewing Day - Small Blog Meet

I discovered a couple of wonderful Link Ups and am excited to blog about them.  Figuring out how to grab a button requires more than one cup of coffee this morning, so for now I'm just going suggest you visit Lily's Quilts and learn all about it.

Later today I'll edit this post and fill you in more.... in the mean time, check out the March Madness mosaic and let me know which project catches your eye.

What did you do in March that stands out? Make a comment and let me know!

Fresh Sewing Day - March Madness