Call for Help! and OMG for April

It is scary how much alike Kate (Smiles From Kate) and I are.  Here is yet another example.  We link up for a OMG or the 2017 quarterly FAL, post our goals and then forget to post our results.  Well not this time!   This time we're really going to do it.  Right Kate?

My OMG (One Monthly Goal) for April is:

Finish sewing, baste, quilt, and bind my daughter's dorm quilt:

I have three Stash Bee blocks to make.

And I'd like to finish quilting my mom's quilt.

Speaking of Stash Bee's.  I need help!  It seems gray (and in particular light gray) is a very popular color this year and it is something I have ZERO of in my stash.  I have even searched in my favorite online shops and am having trouble finding enough gray prints in one place to do a decent job on the request block.   Is there anyone out there that likes gray and has an abundance already gathered that you would be willing to swap with me or sell to me?  Or .  . . if you can point me to a great online shop that has a nice selection.  That works too!

Here are examples of what kind of gray has been requested.  Mostly light gray and white:

These medium grays in moderation.

Please contact me at janice (at) passionforperfume.com if you can help!  I am willing to either swap or outright buy them from you.  I only need 6 inch square pieces.  If I had unlimited time, I'd just visit all my local quilt shops but I don't so I'm hoping someone will rescue me!

Here's to meeting goals!

Linking to:

Needle and Thread Thursday

A Finish! Mini Quilt Exchange

When I began my blog earlier this year, the very first person who reached out to me as a fellow blogger was Kate @ Smiles from Kate.   I'm sure a lot of you already know what a sweetheart she is. In the process of getting to know each other, we decided to do a mini quilt exchange for Christmas.

Kate and I have very different styles.  She tends to like solids and tone on tone fabrics where I tend to like bright riots of color.  And I wanted to do something that reminds me of our friendship.  So what to do?  Well, for starters, back in June, 2016 Kate had her very first giveaway on her blog and I was the lucky winner!  Here is what I won:

I resolved to use something from this stack to make Kate's mini.  During the same week, I won a charm pack of Kaffe Fasset fabric.  Out of this stack, I noticed that this particular square went really well with the orange piece in the stack of squares Kate sent me.

So here comes the start of an improv mini!  

I began by sewing a black frame around the square and then a wider border using the orange fabric.

Then it sat like that for a few days while I was deciding what I wanted to do.  So I just waited and watched for ideas and then I cam across this fabric.  It is called Pecking Order by Quilting Treasures.  I should have bought more than I did,   I didn't have enough to make borders.  Oh well.  Improv!

I'm pretty sure Kate is not a big chicken person but there were three reasons I bought it.   

1.   It made me chuckle and I hoped it would make her laugh too

2.   I was living on a farm that had a lot of egg laying chickens while I was making this for her, so it will be a 2016 memory, and 

3.   I imagined that these chickens, being as bright and colorful as they are, probably must have some cool looking poop that looks just like this Kaffe Fasset fabric, So that's this mini's name.  Chicken Poop!  

So I sewed a row of chickens onto the top of what was already going on.

Earlier this year, Kate made a beautiful quilt called City Lights. 

So my thought was to add some blocks using this design around the edge of what I had done so far and just keep building it up.  Well, that meant making some pretty tiny blocks and I have little patience for teeny tiny.  So I scrapped the whole border idea and ended up just making a bottom row in honor of City Lights.

 After this, even after asking for advice from others, (thanks Tish and Paige!) I kept waffling back and forth about what to do (I'm rather indecisive) and by then Christmas was over!  I finally just added a row of flowers from the chicken fabric and then framed everything with the black and white polka dot just to get done!  

Now, how to quilt  it?  To make it even more about our friendship,  I started by using a stitch that Kate taught me!  So in the orange parts, I quilted three lines of serpentine stitching.  I'm still kind of new at it and I was happy that 3 out of 4 of the strips had good spacing.  

In the "poop" and the chickens I quilted swirly lines that remind me of the way chickens might meander around.

On City Lights, I'm not so sure I like my choice  of quilting there.  It turned out kind of Frankensteinish.  But that was another new stitch I learned this year.  So this little mini is kind of a reminder of a few things that happened during our first year of friendship.

Ah, FINALLY done with all but the binding and I had a curious observer whom I had to gently dislodge before I could finish.

So may I present . .  . "Chicken Poop!"

I have to confess, I am not very good at binding corners yet.  What is the secret?  It kind of makes the whole think look a little lumpy.

So Kate, I hope this little mini will make you smile and think of your friend in Idaho!

Linking to:

Monday Making at Love, Laugh, Quilt
Main Crush Monday at Cooking Up Quilts
Moving it Forward Monday at Em's Scrapbag

Bambi's Show and Tell Monday

Mystery Quilt and More

I actually think I'm going to finish!  Back in July, I joined a mystery quiltalong designed by Cheryl Brickey at Meadowmist Designs.  April 1 is our deadline to have the quilt finished or at least a finished top to be eligible for prizes,  As of tonight, I have three rows left to sew together and I'm done!  Here are the fabrics I chose to use:

And here are the blocks laid out but not yet sewn together.

  I'm thrilled that there are more points that look right than there are that don't!

And another "mystery" was solved today as well.  Remember the missing tree block I told you about?  It showed up in my mailbox today!  I am showing this picture to prove that I really did have my Bee block mailed in January like a good girl.  Apparently, I just don't know how to copy down addresses correctly.

Earlier this week, I found a blog that I'm probably the last one in the world to discover, but it has tons of wonderful tutorials for free motion quilting!  The blogger is Lori Kennedy at The Inbox Jaunt.  She is a Free Motion Quilter enthusiast and I am looking forward to trying some of the cute things she shows.  

Like this:

Or this . . .

Or this!

Her tutorials are very clear and easy to follow and there are lots of really fun designs.  You should check them out, especially if you like doodling with thread. 

This has been a very productive week.  My BQF (best quilty friend) Robin, has the same machine that I do  (Bernina 440QE) and she recently took hers in to have it serviced and discovered that the stitch regulator has to have regular computer updates to work correctly.  So all this time I have been using this BSR and it hasn't been regulating a thing.  I wondered why my quilting stitches weren't more consistent in size.  Any regulating that was done was all me!

I really do like to celebrate little things sometimes.  So here is my little victory for the week.  You know how sometimes you need something but it just isn't that important to take the time to go to the store for?  This week, for me, it was tweezers.   I find that they get borrowed and not returned and then nobody knows where they are.  I keep forgetting to get some and I think my brows are getting rather bushy!   Look what I found today at our university bookstore where I work.     Not only are they cute, they were 75% off!  Yay!   I hope they work.

As I was putting away my Quilting Camp kit and enjoying the colorful fabrics, I remembered that I forgot to show you the backing that goes with it.  

Isn't this cute???  

And this selvedge!!

As you can see, little things make me happy. 

I hope I'm not boring you with minutiae.

Have a blessed day!

Linking to:

Needle & Thread Thursday
Let's Bee Social
Midweek Makers

What I'm Working On

My main goal this weekend was to get my Bee blocks completed.  I joined three bees this year and maybe that was a bit much, but I am still enjoying them.  This week, Lori in Hive 6 of the Stash Bee requested blocks she will be using for a quilt she is making for her father.  He has Alzheimers and will be moving into a long term care facility.

Lori requested a fun block with simple novelty fabrics in the center with sports-related, animals, foods, anything a man might like.  So here are the two blocks I will be sending for Lori:

This one cracks me up.  Blue eyed pigs, lambs, and horses?  Hmm!

One of the bee blocks I am supposed to make this month had very specific requests.  Here is the block she wants us to make:

She wants four different monochromatic gray fabrics with green and orange accents.  I could only find three out of my entire stash!  I ended up having to use black and white for one of the fabrics.  This is what I was planning on using:

My BQF, (best quilty friend) Robin, to the rescue!  We're going to swap fabrics tomorrow at church.  She has lots of grays as a result of a recent grandbaby quilt where gray was one of the requested colors.   

UPDATE:  Here is the block I ended up making:

Last month, one of the Queen Bees of a bee I belong to wanted a magical forest full of trees and I made one and sent it but she did not receive her block!  Pooey!  I worked really hard on that one and I even mailed it on time but who knows where it is.  I told her I would make her another one so here is what I have so far. I'm excited to see what her forest ends up looking like!

I am also making good progress on the quilt for my daughter's dorm room.  She will be a freshman this fall.  I have two long seams left to sew and the flimsy is done!   I hope to show you the whole thing in a few days. I love the colors she picked!

And now for a confession.  I have been trying really hard not to buy any new fabric unless I absolutely did not have it in my current stash.  I was doing pretty good too.   This weekend, I fell off the wagon HARD!  I bought a whole kit.  I have a problem.  I admit it.  I could not resist.  It's summer and camping season!  My kit has red background on the borders instead of blue.  Red is my favorite!

So what are you working on?  I'd love to hear from you and hear all about your projects!  

Hey Lisa P!  When are we going to get together?  I know you have an unfinished quilt top you want to finish and I would love to show you how!

Linking to:

Sharing Sundays at Creative Side

Finish it Up Friday st Busy Hands Quilts

Blog Hop Summary & Giveaway Winners

OH MY GOODNESS!  I had such a ball seeing all the different versions of the Quilter's Laundry Day mini.  Such creativity!   If you haven't seen the results of the mini blog hop, you can find all those links here.   I am in the process of creating a gallery and adding all of your quilts to it with a link to your blog post about it.  So far, I only have a few, but will keep plugging away at it.  I'll announce the prize winners at the end of this post.

Vicki at Vicki's Crafts and Quilting posted her mini in a forum she belongs to and Shirley at The World According to Me liked it so much she decided to make one . . . out of faux leather!  Whaaaaat?  Look at this!  You can see her post about her process here.

I have to give a shout out to Karen at Tu-Na Quilts, Travels and Eats  She turned her laundry line posts into cactus plants and added a hot sun beating down on the whole scene.  Obviously, the quilter who lives here dreams about cooler, wetter, places judging by the lighthouse quilt hanging on her line. That micro mini took Karen an entire day to  make and has over 40 pieces in it!

Melva at Melva Loves Scraps looks out at the mountains every day so she added them to her mini quilt in a very modern way!  Love it!

Several ladies had the idea of making the quilt on the line a 3-D actual quilt with an actual line a little clothespins.  So clever!  Vicki's version (of Vicki's Crafts and Quilts)  has a few little extra's with buttons safety pinned on so she can switch them out as desired.  Her micro quilt is themed for the month of March and it can be switched out as well.  I wonder if she'll make little quilts for each month of the year?

Julie of Pink Doxies made her mini into the cutest baby quilt!  I happen to know this quilt is going into her stash of quilts for potential future grandbabies!

Jen Strauser of Dizzy Quilter had another beautiful 3-D quilt on the line

Oh, I would like to show all of them but that's what the gallery is for so I will force myself to stop.  There are sooo many more good ones!

And now last, but not least the winner of the blog hop participant prizes were:

Sharon Denney Parcel of Yellow Cat Quilt Designs for the USA 

Sharon won a $25 gift certificate to the Fat Quarter Shop

and

The International winner for a free Craftsy class was 

Leanne Milsom of Lizzie the Quilter from Australia!

Thanks ladies! 

Now to announce the winner of the commenters.  Comment  number 40 is . . .

Leanne Milsom! LEANNE!  How are you so lucky?  

Well, I think it would be better to spread the wealth around so I think Leanne will be ok if I try again.  This time the random number generator choses #62 which is 

Tish Stemple from Tish's Adventures in Wonderland

Tish I'll be in touch with you with instructions on how to collect your prize!

OK, now to get to work on that gallery!  Thanks so much to everybody who participated and visited and commented!  You all made this so much fun!

Linking to:

My Quilt Infatuation
Busy Hands Quilts