Check out these Giveaways!

Have you been to Green Fairy Quilts? Judi is a busy mom, a great quilter, writes a fun blog and runs an online quilt store; I don't know how she does it! She always has a great selection of the newest lines and stocks a ton of kits, pre-cuts, patterns, and threads. This is one of my favorite stores for two main reasons: 1. She always includes a picture of the whole line. This is very important to me as sometimes when I buy a pre-cut, I end up not liking the whole line and just loved the top fabric. This way, I can decide whether the whole line speaks to me or if I just want some yardage of certain fabrics. 2. Her prices. They are always the lowest and oftentimes she will have fabulous specials like buy a layer cake and pick a free charm pack. Awesome. Oh, and did I mention all her amazing giveaways?

Right now she's giving away a Layer Cake and a Charm Pack, so head over and enter!



Another fun blog to follow is Leona's Quilting Adventure. Leona is a quilting mom with a stash to die for. She has such an eye for color and is always making the cutest projects for bees and swaps. I think she has more giveaways than projects! This time she is giving away a pillowcase kit, a tabletoppper pattern the 11 pink fat quarters pictured above! Head on over and become a follower, Leona's projects are so inspiring!



This last giveaway ends tomorrow, so hurry over! Dawn's Quilt Corner is giving away 7 yards of Dr Seuss fabric. That's right, 7 yards! This is probably two baby quilts in the making! I'm a fairly new follower of Dawns. I think I found her in the Fall into Fall Giveaway. She doesn't post often, but her projects are darling. Check out her Hawaiian quilt in the post below her giveaway post.

So there's three giveaways to enter, and 3 awesome blogs to check out. I just realized last night that I follow 125 blogs. And I read every post on every blog! Whew! Luckily, I have an iphone and spend the majority of traveling time reading blogs from there! Thank you bloggers, for brightening my day with your posts, each and every one of them!

SMS winnings

Did you have a great time in the Sew Mama Sew giveaway? I did! I saw some amazingly talented artists, read some brilliant bloggers and even won a few prizes! My gifts have arrived and without further ado...



I won these pretty earrings from Lomagirl over at What we've done. Cynthia is a mother, artist, and a wonderful photographer. Her blog has a ton of cute little snippets from her daily life. I love that; she keeps it real. I also recieved one of her amazing photo calendars. I keep it in my cubicle to add some color and whimsy! The photos are just breath-taking. Thanks Cynthia!



I also won this awesome shirt from Kristen at Ola Mae's . This shirt is FABULOUS! I immediatley fell in love with it when I saw it on her blog. But in person, this shirt is UBER-FABULOUS! Wow! It hugs my body but not my fat (amazing, I tell you!), makes a perfect neckline and looks even better on. I was so excited to wear it that I wore it to work the morning after I recieved it. I got so many compliments! Thanks Kristen! You are one talented girl! Check out Kristen's blog, it's full of fun, DIY projects and yummy recipes!



I am so happy with my gifts. Thank you!

Thanks Santa!

We had 3 Christmas's this week-end! That's the way it's always been in my family and that's the way I love it. All the traveling on Christmas Day i can do without, but I love seeing and spending time with everyone.

This year we spent Christmas Eve with my mom. She had to work for a few hours so I cooked a turkey dinner while she was away. Actually, I mostly cooked the fixings and let my stepfather worry about the turkey. He told me when to baste it and kept checking it all day while I laid on the couch watching Lifetime Christmas movies. It was fun! My mom decorated the table:



I didn't get anything quilty there. We got new dishes and sheets, which we needed bad! See that giant candle holder on the table? That was my gift also!

Next we headed to my grandparent's house for a huge party. I got two Charm Parks and a pair of Gingher Scissors! And a 5 pack of rotary blades. Score!



I also got to see some family I haven't seen in a long, long time and to meet some family whom I've never met before! There were probably 20 of us. We had a great time!

Last stop was my Dad's house. We had a small wind-down after-party there. Opened up the last of our presents and dived into my stepmom's homemade cookies. Yummy! There I got a programmable crock pot, and some Hexagon Dies! yay!



Here's all my loot laid out for your viewing pleasure!

Of course, my house is a mess. We got home from Christmas and basically just dropped everything on the floor. Since then we've been doing laundry (new clothes!) and dishes (new dishes!) and slowing unpacking and putting everything away. Hope your Christmas was as good as mine!

How do you do it?

I don't know how you do it. Work full-time, take care of the house and bills, the kids and cats, decorate for the holidays, home-cook meals and churn out these beautiful amazing quilts! Since taking on this full-time job I feel like I'm sweating to keep up with even the simplest tasks. And I'm exhausted! Sometimes I crawl into bed at 9pm because I can't keep my eyes open anymore!

Granted, my job does take up 12 hours of my day. I wake up at 5am in time to shower/hair/make-up for work and don't get home until 5pm. I've learned to catch-up on blog reading on my commute to work (don't worry, I don't drive!) or in the afternoon, get a bit of shut-eye. I've learned to do all my cooking for the week on one marathon Saturday afternoon (after waking up early and doing all the grocery shopping for the week). I peruse recipes for casseroles and soups and slow cookers during my lunch break so I can prepare grocery lists in advance. I delegate some cleaning to my husband (what I can trust him with, anyway). Throw in my weekend job waitressing on top of that and there's still hardly any time for sewing. Maybe 5hours a week!

How do you do it? After work, I come home, pop a casserole in the oven, pet my kitties for a little while, talk to my husband, eat dinner, clean the cat box, dishes, pick up a little bit, take off my make-up, pack my lunch, put out my clothes for the next day and it's bedtime! My husband says that my body just needs to adjust to my new schedule. I sure hope it happens soon; I'm tired!

I've decided that some things just aren't that important. So I stopped making the bed. I make my husband do more dishes. I don't clean my bathrooms every week; instead I'm stretching it to every 10 – 14 days. The living room isn't immaculate before I go to bed every night. My husband can handle the laundry just fine. And guess what? Our house hasn't fallen in on itself! I wonder what would happen if I stopped sweeping the kitchen floor every time I cook?

I have quit my part-time job too. There are just not enough hours in the day and I have to re-prioritize what is important in my life. And it ain't money! So even though that extra $500 a month was sweet, we can make do without it and spend more time together loving each other. I had my first week-end off recently and it was sweet! I forgot how long week-ends can be when you are not dreading work. I forgot how much faster the week can go when you don't work 7 days a week!

So that's where I'm at now. Re-prioritized, re-organized and rearing to go. I'll have more time to devote to my husband and more time to devote to quilting. Pretty soon you'll see some completed projects in this space!

Better than Santa...

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas! I know we did! The first Christmas I got to spend with my family in 5 years. We had a Christmas weekend full of delicious food, loving family, relaxing, teasing, having fun and even a little bit of cheap wine! Delicious! The only hand-made gift I made this year I forgot to take a picture of. I know, I know. I made my mom an XL hot pad from the tutorial by Vickie of Sugar Spun Quilts. I was lucky enough to win her giveaway for a kit and threw it together one day while watching Christmas movies with my husband. It's super easy and useful too.

Speaking of giveaways...



Look what else I won! No, Santa didn't bring me this stocking! I won this from Diane at Quilting is Blissful! I won a stocking just stuffed full of fun stuff! Some of my favorites are a snowman broach that I wore for Christmas, a fun Christmas stitching pillow pattern, some super-cute snowman ornaments, yummy hot cocoa mix (that I already drank!), a snowman tea towel and some darling snowmen baking cups. And that was only my favorites! There was a ton more fun stuff to unwrap. Watch out Santa, you have some competetition! Thank you, Diane!

And if you are reading, Thearica, you will see your lacy table covering I won from your blog still in use. I've already posted about this and thanked you, but I still want to point out that we love that table covering. It hasn't left our table since we recieved it!



Have you checked out the giveaway at Retro Mummy? Up for grabs are 2 fat quarter packs of the lot.....that is 20 fat quarters of the gorgeous Flower Sugar range from Lecien as featured in this lovely picture. (yes, I copy and pasted that) I'm crossing my fingers! Imagine what you could make with those babies!


I have some quilt blocks to share with you, but I think I'll put that in my next post. I've also made a list of UFO's I want to complete in 2011. But that will come later too! Until then, quilt on!

Friday Night Sew In Results

How fun! I had another fabulous Friday Night Sew In! This time, my husband joined me! Well, kind of. He sat in my sewing room as I sewed and he played computer games. Ahh...my perfect Friday Night!

I'm not doing any homemade Christmas gifts this year. Instead, I thought I would work on getting closer to finishing some of my UFO's. It seems like I'm full-steam ahead on patchwork but once I hit borders, basting and quilting, I run into a snail trail. Stuck in my own path. I put it away and forget all about it. So I've decided that this month I'm going to concentrate on my 2 B's. Borders and Backings. I hate Borders and I hate Backings. Whenever I get to Borders and Backings I somehow convienantly forget about my work-in-progress.



So I pieced together the backing for my Bliss quilt. I had got this really soft, thin blanket from somewhere that I really wanted to use. Only problem, of course, was that it was too small. Maybe I should start making quilts that fit my backings. Hmm...there's an idea.



So I used my leftover Bliss squares and some pieced triangle scraps to make my back bigger. I might cut it again to make the Bliss run down the middle. RIght now I'm feeling a bit lazy. Maybe if I put it away for a few weeks, I'll find the motivation.

Wait, that's how I got into this situation in the first place!

I also put a border on my second Love Quilt. This is the one we are keeping here in the house. It's a good copy of the one we got married in front of:



That's all I did. I chatted with my husband, drank some wine, snacked on chocolate and lazily pieced. Like I said, a perfect Friday Night!

Did You Hear?

It's time to play Bingo!! Yay! The Quilt Shoppe is running another Bingo game. I did this last time and had so much fun (and strange looks from the husband) that I even set an alarm for my phone to remind me of the Christmas Bingo! Today I picked my 25 words and emailed them to the Holly Jolly Blog. I posted my words right next to my work computer and now I'm ready to scream "Bingo!"



As if that's not enough fun, it's also another Friday Night Sew-In! Yay! There's going to be 2 this month in preparation for Christmas. I'm not making any handmade gifts this year but I will participate in both Sew-Ins! Because I need more sewing time. And that's my gift to myself this year! Come hang out with us, and let's get our Sew on!



And have you heard about this amazing giveaway?! It's this 28 piece bundle of fat quarters (that's 7 yards of fabric!) from the Shelburne Calico Garden fabric collection. Wow!

Click on any of these pictures to join in the fun! I'll be back Saturday with some pictures of my works in progress! Until then, happy sewing!