Giveaway - Quilting Gallery's birthday!

Happy 5th birthday to the Quilting Gallery!

To celebrate, Michele is hosting a Blog Hop party! I decided to put a few goodies together that I will send to one lucky winner!

In my batch of goodies, I have 3 magazines - a Quilt It for keepsakes, a Quiltmaker from Jan/Feb 2007, and American Patchwork & Quilting from December 2007. This last one will certainly have some wonderful holiday ideas!



I also have 2 books - One Patch Triangle Quilts and Doodlebugs. I made my own Doodlebugs quilt for my nephew so I am done with this book. :)  I also have a take along bag that I made to sweeten the pot a little. I love this size bag to carry around my binding supplies or small knitting projects.



Here is the full picture of everything.



To enter this giveaway, we are going to have a virtual birthday party! Leave a comment and tell me what food or drink you are bringing virtually to celebrate! I will draw the winner randomly from the valid comments on December 16th in the evening. To have a valid comment, I must have a way to contact you.

If you are a no reply commenter, leave your email in the comment using [at] and [dot]. It's the very least that you can do in order for a chance to win. All no reply comments without the email in the body of the message will be removed from the post.

Good luck everyone! And I hope you enjoy the virtual party!!

More inspiration!

Over the past couple of weeks, I have picked up and received several quilting magazines.



The one on the left is the newest issue of Quiltmaker that came in the mail a couple of weeks ago. The 2 on the right are ones that were being given away at the IQF show. There is a booth that tries to get you to subscribe or renew your magazine subscriptions and when the show was over, they passed out what was left. Score!



Last month, Quiltmaker released the Quilts from 100 blocks issue and I picked it up with a coupon from JoAnn's. It has quite a few designs in it that I can see myself making.



And this week, I got a surprise in the mail. I have flipped through a little and the pieced blocks are just fantastic!

So even though I may not be sewing on anything, I can at least look at some eye candy!

Goodies received!

I got a few goodies in the last couple of weeks. I got notification that I won something else from Northcott Fabrics and was waiting for that to show up so that I could show it off in one post, but it's still not here.

I got a Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks Volume 3 magazine from the Quiltmaker's site. WOO HOO!! I haven't taken the time to look through the magazine yet, but all of the blocks that I saw on the Blog Hop were very cool!



I also won a giveaway on Carol Fun's blog a couple of months ago. She is in my Guild and passed the goodies along to me at the last meeting. Check out her blog - she does lots of crafts and has great pics and ideas on her blog!



Lots of goodies for me to enjoy!

My Retreat Purchases

I figured that it was about time that I showed everything that I bought while on retreat in Shipshewana. Someone commented on one of Judy's posts that it is really called Ship-Shop-shewana and that seems like a correct assumption, too! lol

On our way up to retreat, we stopped in a few shops and in the second one, I really had to tinkle. Their bathroom for the shop was in their house and the sink was the kitchen sink. After that, I sort of felt like I HAD to buy something. Luckily, I found a couple of fabrics that I could make do with - a purple for the witch wall hangings and a couple of yards of the black that has sewing notions all over it.



While we were at Caroline's, I was just about to make a clean getaway when I saw these little beauties. Actually, I saw the purple one and bought that and as we stood there chatting, I saw the black one and got that, too. Very handy little note pads!! The black one has all kinds of post its inside! Carolin, the owner, said that the designer of Quilt Happy items is a local gal and also produces Knit Happy and Scrap Happy items. They had all kinds of things in the shop once we started looking - water bottles, coffee mugs, traveling mugs - but I just stuck with these guys.





Once we were at retreat, we only went to Yoder's and Lolly's after that. I got the pattern and the thimble on our first trip to Yoder's.



And I got that magazine from Lolly's for making a purchase. It was an older magazine, but I had never seen it so I was happy to get it to look at!

And here is what I purchased at Lolly's to get that magazine. Blush! A layer cake and 3 yardage pieces to make a quilt and a purse. I love this fabric!!



Maxie thought it was for him!



On our second trip to Yoder's, I got this fabric. Some Halloween for the witch wall hangings and a couple of other fun prints for I Spy quilts.



I think that Maisy just likes the ice cream! Or she is appalled that I brought the cat fabric in the house. I can't tell. :)

Magazines, set 2

This giveaway is for another set of 5 magazines. You can see by the covers on most of them that the quilts inside are very exciting! And the Quilter's Home was a duplicate that I had. :)



The rules will be the same as the other mini giveaways...

This will be open to both US residents and International readers. All entries will also be counted for the BIG Giveaway or the International Giveaway.

To enter, leave a comment. If you are an international commenter, please tell me that in your comment.

***No Reply Commenters will not be entered for any giveaway unless you supply your email. If you don't hear from me for a confirmation, then you are a No Reply Commenter.***

Magazines!!!

It's giveaway time!!! Again! lol

When I first started quilting, I was lucky enough to know someone who was cleaning out her stash and a group of pals went through her magazines. I came home with quite a stack of older magazines and I have enjoyed them enough! I have used what I wanted to and I am ready to pass them on!



There are 5 magazines for this giveaway - 2 McCall's Quilting, 2 American Patchwork & Quilting and 1 Quilter's World.

And I'm gonna make you work for the entry a little on this one!

To enter, tell me what magazine or magazines you must look at every time they come out. Whether it's one that you subscribe to or one that you have to look at when you are in the store, I want to know which one! :)

If you are an international commenter, please tell me that in your comment. This giveaway will be open to both US residents and International readers. All entries will also be counted for the BIG Giveaway or the International Giveaway.

***No Reply Commenters will not be entered for any giveaway. If you don't hear from me for a confirmation, then you are a No Reply Commenter.***

The sewing going on and a win

I had big plans for last weekend to wrap up some little things that I had already cut out. I ended up finishing a baby cap and a dish cloth instead. Finally, on Sunday night, Regina and I had a virtual sewing night and I busted some things out!



Sunday, I got a set of 4 coasters and an oven mitt done. The oven mitt was from a pattern - Hot Stuff by Vanilla House designs. I probably would not make another one of these, but it is nice to have this done! I also got 4 place mat tops assembled. I want to quilt them on the frame, but I haven't messed with the frame anymore to quilt anything nice.

Monday, I was productive, too. I added the binding to the Love Crumb quilt that was made with blocks from the Bonnie Hunter class. And I made a very long strip of binding for the place mats.

Tuesday was the River City Quilt Guild meeting and we had a pot luck dinner. We had to take a block that represented the food that we brought. Here's my block...



I made brownies with a smattering of powdered sugar! I met Barb and her aunt, Barb, at Joann's before we went to the library. We were all acting goofy in Joann's and the workers were cracking up with us! Of course, I had to pick up a couple of things.



A cute flannel with paw prints and dog bones on it! I will make pants out of this and they will be so nice in January when I can't wear my Christmas pants anymore! I got the other two to make a couple of goodies.

At the Guild meeting, we had door prizes and I won a magazine! More Fast & Fabulous Quilting Ideas! And Barb brought me some fabric that she found at Joann's. Hunks in costume!! I have enough for 2 pillowcases! One for me and one for the 1,000th post giveaway in a couple of months! lol



Ok, I am off to sew my Christmas hunks into a pillowcase that I can use right now! I will sleep well tonight!!

My Guild

As some of you know, I got really involved in my Guild last year and became the Secretary. I have just begun my second term as secretary last month. Being more involved means going to the business meetings that are held and seeing the emails about business that go around the Board. It has been interesting to hear about the finances with my accounting background. In this economy, even the Guild is starting to suffer while also trying to keep interesting speakers coming to the meetings.

Due to the tougher times, we have been trying to come up with creative ways of raising money. At the November meeting, we are having Sewing Room sales where members can buy a table and then bring in crafty items they have made or supplies to sell during the meeting. This year, the Guild is going to have a table and has asked for donations to be sold to raise money. At the December meeting, we are going to have a combination Silent Auction and Chinese Raffle and we are asking for donations for this event, too.

As a Board member, I feel obligated to donate some items so I have been digging around my sewing room for things that can be used at both events. I decided that I would give the remaining books and magazines that were left at the April Retreat that I had to bring home. I will be glad to get rid of them and a few other things that just seem to be taking up room. And I'm sure that I can find a few other patterns that I have no use for anymore and that someone else would probably love to have. I bet I can fill this box up the rest of the way!



For anyone else, have you ever thought about donating your unwanted items to the Guild? For as much as the Guilds do for their members, this seems like a very easy thing to do to give back just a little.