Happy Hallowe'en!!!

Have you ever visited Em's Scrapbag blog?

It's full of fun and quilty things!

Emily has a weekly post on Wednesday, called "what a great idea" (wagi) and she featured my "minky photo book tutorial" this week.  

You can see it here.

Have a "vintage" Hallowe'en!

AYOS and a little bit more - October

This is the Schnibbles pattern that was chosen for October in the group "Another year of Snibbles and a little bit more".

I'm really enjoying the group, but I was a little hesitant about making this quilt.

I didn't think it looked very nice.

I could not figure out what color to use for the background.

I was looking around my sewing room and my eyes landed on this bolt of green fabric that my daughter and I found at a garage sale.

It still had the cellophane on it, so we bought it and split it in half.

I think this fabric is perfect for the background because it's bright and happy and textured, and goes well with pink :)

I went through my stash of charm packs and 5" squares and found low volume colors.

It took a lot of time to cut the fabric, sew all the half square triangles and then crop them all.

I stayed up until 1:00 a.m., three nights in a row.

I'm so pleased with the colors!

I took the quilt outside this morning and took some photos.

I live in northern California, so the weather is in the mid 70's and most of the leaves are still on the trees.

You can see some red and yellow ones on the ground :)

I'm really thrilled with this quilt, it measures 72" square.

Often I make a quilt, unsure of what I'm going to do with it.

When my son moves out at Christmas, I'll put this quilt on his full size bed.

Thanks for sharing my quilt journey with me :)

Mini Medallion - October

This is the 5th month for the Mini Medallion Series designed by Chrissy Lux.

You can get this month's free pattern at Clover and Violet.

I sewed the grey border around the orange snowballs.

I can hardly wait for next month's final border, then I can quilt this mini.

This is a close up of the fabrics I've used.

I love playing with text prints, I think they add a lot of interest.

If you want to get the other free patterns to make this mini medallion yourself, you can go to the search box to the right of my blog and type in "mini medallion".

Quilty Fun Birthday!

I baked a chocolate cake with chocolate mouse frosting and put it on a Polish Pottery pedestal with a pretty red bow.

You can find the free pattern on Lori's blog.

Be careful, they're very addicting!

Handmade Birthday Club 2014

It's Amy's birthday month, I made her a Heather Bailey Smarty Girl book bag.

I've made a lot of these bags and they are a lot of fun to make :)

I love the length that they hang, and the wide strap sits snug on my shoulder.

All the fabric I used was designed by Heather Bailey.

I love her modern, feminine designs and colors.

The bag is completely lined and is perfect for holding magazines and 8 l/2" X 11" notebooks.

I have one and it's great for carrying my iPad.

Amy made me a sweet little mini quilt for my birthday month, you can see it here.

Elsa the Snow Queen

I made my grand daughter Neo, an "Elsa" dress from the Disney movie Frozen, for her 4th birthday.

I posted about it last week, you can see it here and here.

My daughter in law sent me photos and they are beautiful!

I present Elsa the Snow Queen!

 Let it go, let it go 🎶

🎶 Can't hold it back anymore.

❄️❄️❄️ Isn't Neo the sweetest and happiest Elsa you've ever seen?

I think my gift was a success :)

Quilty Fun Birthday!

In honor of Lori Holt's 1 year anniversary of her "Quilty Fun" book, she baked a cake and you can have a piece!

I baked a strawberry cake with buttercream icing and put it on my jadite cake pedestal.

Then I tied a pretty pink bow around it to remind me of all my pretty little grand daughters.

 Would you like to bake a cake, or more than one cake?

Go to Lori's blog and get the recipe,

Who doesn't love birthday cake, especially one that doesn't have any calories :)

The Bees Knees, a quilting bee - October

This is the block I made for my quilting bee, The Bees Knees, for the month of October.

Shari sent us fabric for the block and the pieces were already cut to the right size.

The quilt she'll be making with these modern maples blocks is really cute.

The pattern is by Amanda Woodward-Jennings, and you can see and print it free here.

Each block is 12 l/2" unfinished, and it would be a fast quilt to make.

AYOS and a little bit more, winner!

I joined "Another Year of Schnibbles" and a little bit more, this year :)

I worked really hard to get my "Whit" pattern finished before the end of the month, you can see it on my blog post here.

You can see half of the parade of the small quilt parade on Sherri's blog, A Quilting Life, where my quilt top is featured.   

The other half of the parade is on Sinta's blog, Pink Pincushion.

Four winners were chosen, two from each of the quilt parades.

Mine was chosen as a winner!!!!

This lovely box came in the mail and it was really heavy!

Carrie, from Miss Rosie's Quilt Co, sent me a fat eighth bundle of "Miss Kate", and a beautiful handwritten note :)

That's not all....

It was literally like Christmas!!!

A cute little mini charm pack of "Pot Luck", and the cutest little "Hello Kitty" Hallowe'en tin of sour orange bone candies.

Isn't the tin adorable?  

I can hardly wait to fill it with pins or something :)

A Clover seam ripper and a Clover curved awl!!!

A fantastic little package of glass pins and a little house tin to hold them.

Aren't these the dearest little things?

I'm beyond excited!

Hold on to your chair....

Carrie also sent me some mint green "Miss Kate" fabric, enough for a quilt back, about 7 yards worth!!!

I'm in heaven :)

I shared it with my husband and he very patiently admired everything.

I wanted to share it with you because I know that you will be as thrilled as I am!

You should think about joining the Schnibbles parade.

"Harvey" is the pattern for the month of October.

"Frozen" dress is finished!

I have been sewing and sewing....

...and finally finished "Elsa's" dress for my grand daughter's birthday.

This is the back view.

I added a little "snow" pearl button as a closure at the back.

I looked all over the mall until I found an affordable broach on clearance!

Here is a closeup of the broach and the colors in this photo are true.

This pattern was easier to sew than I thought.

It's a McCall pattern #7000, and I highly recommend it.

I hope to post a photo of my grand daughter in her dress soon!

Thanks for following along with me :)

Quilty Humor

More "Frozen" Fabric

Disney's movie "Frozen" is out of this world popular right now.

Even the Disney store can't keep the "Frozen" merchandise in stock.

When I saw this pattern at the fabric store, I just had to buy it!

One of my grand daughters will be 4 years old in October and she's crazy about Elsa, one of the sisters in the movie.

The blue satin is by Michael Miller, and I don't know who makes the other two. 

The aqua fabric is sheer and drapes really well, while the white fabric is a little on the stiff side.

I might sew the white over the satin for the bodice, but I'll have to see how it looks.

I'm really excited to make this dress, I'll show it to you soon, when it's finished.