A heads up on another GREAT giveaway!

If you're like me and can hardly wait to get your hands on Aneela's Sherbert Pips, here's your chance.

 Check out this giveaway over at Lily's Quilts.

Good luck!

Featured in Quilt Story and a GIVEAWAY!!

Today my Color Wheel quilt is being featured on Quilt Story!  Whoo hoo!  

I'm sort of a little, tiny bit, majorly honored and excited.

In honor of the feature, I'm doing a giveaway today!

You're very own copy of Joelle Hoverson's Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts which is where the Color Wheel pattern can be found. You can make your very own!

I really love this book.  It has great patterns, both quick and simple to more complex.  One of my favorite things about the way the book is organized is that it is divided into sections based on how long the projects take.  Very nice.

So here are the rules....

ENTRY 1: Become a follower here and leave a comment in the comment section letting me know.  If you are already a follower, you can just say that in the comment section.

Optional extra entries (extra credit?  yes please!):

Option1: Post about my giveaway on your own blog with a link back over here and leave a comment in the comments letting me know.  Let me know your blogsite as I'd love to visit:)

Option 2: Post about my giveaway on Facebook or twitter with a link back to my blog and leave a comment letting me know.

Giveaway closes at midnight Thursday, February 17th and 

winner will be announced next Friday here on the bloggeroo.

I've joined up..

I've been waffling back and forth for the last two weeks about joining this.

And a few days ago I was at the fabric store getting backing for this and I casually asked if they carried the Single Girl Pattern.

And they did.

So I took the plunge and bought myself my very own Single Girls pattern and even signed up for the flickr support group.

Even though I was feeling all curved-edged-piecing confident after the Color Wheel, I admit, I was still a little intimidated by all that curving.

But here goes nothing.

I've yet to decide on what my color scheme is going to be.  I'm sort of tempted to break my stash pact and buy some really cute, coordinated fabrics.  It just seems like its going to be a good amount of work and so I want it to really end up being a quilt I love.  No deadline yet on this so I'm just going to percolate on it a bit.

I've been sitting here putting off tackling the mountain of laundry in my bedroom by perusing Quiltstory's block party blocks.  Its getting so bad that I think laundry that my husband fished out of the pile to wear at the beginning of the mountain has cycled itself back.  Maybe twice.

But in my defense with potty training still happening daily here, we've got a lot of laundry cycling through.

But I digress.

Loving the inverted star blocks

and the scrappy pendants blocks.

and the dresden plates. This one too. I'm loving Dresden plates as I've seen them around a bunch of blogs lately and it really makes me want to try my hand at them.  Maybe I'm not so scared of curvy things after all?

The Dancing Diamonds

Today it decided to keep being spring in California and I decided to start enjoying it outside instead of staying in all day forgetting that even though its February, its still sunny and 70 degrees.  

(And I stress less about potty training accidents when they happen in the driveway rather than my living room)

So Asher and I set up shop in the garage while Carver rode his trike around to his little heart's content.  It was one of those afternoons where you think, "this is pretty much what I always hoped my life would be."  Its not always that way (for anyone) but every once in awhile we get those little moments.  

Tender mercies if you will.

I stayed up WAY too late last night so I could quilt this. It seems Mr. Almost-3-Years-Old has traded naps for potty training (I'm still debating if that was a fair trade or not) and so my only found time for myself seems to be late at night.  

But it was worth it to have the house all quiet and to myself to finish up this project.

And now I give you.....drumroll please..... 

the Dancing Diamonds Quilt!...

I wish I had noted what the fabrics were I used for this.  They were so cute and vintage-ish, which seems to be my current "thing."  I made up the pattern myself and it came together quite easily.  There is something sort of meditative about sitting up in the quiet of the studio listening to talks or a netflix movie on the iPhone while churning out a hundred or so triangles sewn together to make squares.

The thing that had been holding me back from finishing this little lady was finding a good backing fabric for it.  Nothing in my stash quite looked right (although I did utilize stash fabric for the binding)  Yesterday I had a chance to swing into Harts Fabric here in Santa Cruz and picked out these pink oval-ish polka dots by Moda.  They seemed perfect and I like how they turned out.

Hurray for whipping through these WIP's!  Which is good because of a certain other purchase I made at Hart's.  More about that tomorrow.....

The Rocket Ship Room Paintings

 A sweet friend from our Seattle days asked to see a closer up of the paintings on the wall in the boys' room.

A painter I most definitely am not but it was fun.  Not too shabby for painting with the boys tempura paints and plastic bristled brushes.  Harder than I thought it would be but I think we all know that seems to be a theme with me.

 Carver likes this one because of the 3 and as we know he is aaaaaaaaaaaalmost 3!  The other day I heard him talking to a kid in the gym's kids club.  The other kid asked him how old he was and Carver answered, "I'm two but I'm almost three."  The kid responded, "that's not a very high number you know" and Carver didn't miss a beat and just said, "I know, that's why I said I'm only 2 now but I'm ALMOST 3.  Okay?" with a little sass.  I guess I don't have to worry about him being too sensitive and standing up for himself right?

 This one is my favorite.  I think I just love red.

And this one I think I should hang the other way.  Flip it 180  maybe?  I don't know. 

And a quick shot of my two boys who I do it all for.  When I was doing the painting in the garage, Carver was riding his bike around and Asher was in the excersaucer doing his thing.  Carver would "drive by" and inspect my work now and then and always want to know, "which one is for me and which one is for Ashie?"  He likes to cuddle in bed at night and tell me about his and Ashie's paintings that mama did for them.

And that's what its all about right?

To see other bloggity blogery of the rocket ship room, 

click here (for a better shot of the actual quilt) 

and here

Its Birthday Time...

 Last night I was up till I don't want to think about how late cutting out little triangles for a certain someone's birthday banner.  It seems my found time to craft and meditate at this point is the after 9PM slot.  I sat in my softly lit corner listening to this and it was kind of a little heaven on earth.  I think its my current favorite talk.  Thomas S. Monson just has a way of delivering what you need to hear.  And if I can listen to it while playing with fabric?  All the better!

Anyway, back to our birthday boy.

He may just be the same kid who woke up with a totally dry pull up this morning. (WOO HOO!!! cue: screaming, joyous angels singing...)  I can't believe my little guy is going to be 3!

Wasn't it just yesterday that he looked like this?? 

Carver has recently started to love to color and draw.  Especially with his "marks" as he calls them.  So I thought I'd make him a little carrying case for all those important artistic coloring tools of his.

Once again this pattern comes from Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson.  Oh how I love the patterns and projects in this book.  Maybe we should do a little giveaway of this book since it seems to be my favorite thing right now.  We'll do some thinking about that.  Anyway,  my hope is to finish this little present in time so that I can embroider his name on it too.

We'll see how it goes!

And speaking of really great things to make you think.  I don't know if you read CJane but if you don't, you should and you should start with her post today.  I loved it.

Friday Favorites of the week

One of my favorite things about this whole blogging world is that its an opportunity to share and be shared with.  As a stay at home mama of two little boys, its hard to get out to interact with other quilters and crafters and even mothers to share ideas and inspiration about all those things near and dear to my heart right now.  I can't get out to a quilt class very easily but I can read and share with other bloggers from the comfort of my own home patterns, fabric, creations, recipes, parenting advice, and the list goes on and on.  It opens my mind to new ideas and confirms old ones as I read what other quilters, mothers, women, sisters, friends, etc are doing in their own lives.  


So for Fridays I'd just like to take a little opportunity to note a little blog roll of some of my favorite posts from some of my favorite old and new blogs that inspired me this week.

• Progressive Pioneer talks to Katherine Heigl and says some great and spot on things about "doing it all"
  
• Annela at Comfort Stitching does a great give-a-way of a jelly roll of her sweet Sherbert Pips!
  
• Ashley at Film in the Fridge finishes her Innocent Crush Rectangular Square Quilt and its fantastic.  I love the picture of it being held up in the snow.  I'm jealous of her snow.  She might be jealous of our sunshine...
  
• Heather at Quilt or Stitch? finished her Hexagon quilt and its so ooh and ahh worthy.  My brain gets tied in a knot trying to figure out how you make it.  Beautiful! I especially love how she did the back.
  
• Rachael at PS I Quilt announced her Flip Side pattern is published and I wish I had made an exception in my StashPact11 promise for cute quilt kits like this one that is being offered by Fat Quarter's Shop
  
• QuiltGypsy Mermaid showed some beautiful quilts she's made for families of fallen soldiers.  So inspiring.  How can I get involved in something like this?  Very very moving.
  
• Nettie at A Quilt Is Nice showed us her Sherbert Pips baby quilt.  I've been looking for a pattern for a baby quilt and I think I might have to try out this tutorial.  Such a beautiful and fun quilt.  I love how its not quite centered. Give it that little something.
• A Cuppa and a Catch up showed off the ticker tape quilt as you go block and it was just the inspiration I needed for a pile of tickertapes I've got going on my desk.
• Malka over at A Stich In Dye introduced me to MySewingCircle.com and I'm so excited about it I got myself all signed up.  Be my friend okay?  You can find me on there as...silverlilysews.  I'm sort of templed to stay up all night inputting all my WIPs and such but...I'll refrain for now...
• Shalece from The Domestic Diva Daily taught me how to make tortillas which was just in time for a week where it seems like we all just wanted to eat quesadillas and homemade salsa around my house.

As for me, my Dancing Diamonds quilt has made her way up to the top of the quilting pile.  Stay tuned for next week...