My first Bloggers Quilt Festival !!!

I'm entering my very first Blogger's Quilt Festival!!

 I am entering the Bee-Inspired Quilt under the 'Small' category. I am hoping that those who see this quilt will be inspired to try things that scare them and to take a step forward into the unknown. 

Read about the inspiration for this quilt. 

This has been quite an exciting few months for me. I started this blog two months ago. My first time ever doing something  like this, and I made my first entirely designed and quilted by me, quilt. 

I made this quilt as part of the Triangle Quilt Along over at The Sassy Quilter. 

What a blast!! Such a lovely group of folks, and that Paula sure is Sassy ;)

BUT,

I was scared of making triangles and had heard dreadful things about BIAS and stretching and  matching points misery.  And I did it anyway!! Cause life is for living and not for fearing.

Along the way I found my triangle Mojo, and I know it will never leave. 

And so that you never suffer Terrible Triangle Trauma, I made you a tutorial on how to do triangles, step by step. Easy Peasy!! Cant wait to see what you make!

This quilt is all about Bees and our shifting light and seasons, here in Alaska.

Here is the Quilting on this piece. I Quilted diagonal lines parallel to every seam, across the whole quilt. Then I quilted a variety of triangle shapes inside of the Flowers and the Sun. 

Do you like it? I think it was worth the extra effort and added stability to the quilt. I  see that some people made triangle echoes throughout their quilting and that is definitely an idea I will be pursuing in another quilt. 

Check  out those corners!! I mitered every single one of them. Woohoo!

And how do you like this binding??! 

Fun!!!

FAB post about binding is here! Lol!

The Label :)

Thanks for stopping by!! You're always welcome!! I am sew psyched to see you all!!!

XXOO!

Lori

Check out the rest of the entries at the 

Bloggers Quilt Festival!!

Boy, they sure are fantastic!!!

The Sounds of Spring!!

Did you ever wonder what the Sound of Silence is?

The kind of silence that you yearn for after a week jockeying the kids back and forth between ballet and soccer. The kind of silence you desperately need when the relatives and their spawn have been visiting for two weeks straight. You know; Baby crying all night with the croup.

THAT kind of silence.

Well then. Where would you want your silence,

 and what would you do with it?

Put on some sweat pants, take the brar off and settle in? Feet up, a cuppa joe, and a good book (I’d like mine with a side of pie, please)? Whisk yourself away to far distant isles and splay on a white sand beach with only the sound of the waves washing the shore to accompany your perusal of sky and water?

Here in AK, we get that kind of silence all winter long.

 At least, it seems like Silence.

The heavy, softly falling silence of huge snowflakes floating down on and on and on; a whispering silence. It always seems to mean something exciting is coming, in its breathless way. The silence of a moose crunching and munching and snapping willow branches. The dark brittle silence of a 20 below morning. Breathe freezing to eyelashes; Footsteps crunching Styrofoam snow in the twinkling starlight, Silence. 

The kind of silence that highlights the green of the trees against the white and blue-white shadowed snow. The kind of snow thudding off of tree branches, chickadee self-proclaiming silence that makes you happy to be alive and glad to have the time to know it.

THAT kind of Silence.

And then Spring comes. And the Silence is slowly overcome. First just lengthening play-filled snow days. 

Then slowly, creepingly, softly, warmly budding branches over water newly freed. Trickling water sounds impinging upon the ear while work is being done.

Then, suddenly, the sparkling silence is broken by the Thrippp! of a dark eyed junco. Only one at first, precipitately arrived, two weeks ahead of his competition and three ahead of the girls. One new sound so startling in its arrival that it jars you away from the computer and to the window. Impossible to believe. Thrilling to hear. An unabashed one man band!

And then, a few days later, another new sound. This time the high chipping of the Violet Green Swallows, four in all, as they return from southern California to the same yard, at the same time, every year. What you hear is their glad reunion.

 Chip, Chip, hurray!

 So, to accompany the ever increasing trickle of water is trickle trickle thriiipp chip chip chip!! No more, the sound of Silence.

I guess that’s because what we really yearn for is not actual Silence at all.

But a Peace within which to allow body and soul to reunite. A peace in which to make peace. A peace in which to describe to ourselves who we really are, and in which to edit that which doesn’t fit.

This years’ Spring has been so early and so unexpected, that the simple sound of new arrived life is ultimately distracting. It is nearly impossible to sit, to work, when each new moment brings a new arrival and a new song. The music grows from a single voice, to a trio, to a quintuplet…

And suddenly, exuberantly, ecstatically, Spring enters, throwing open the doors, rousing you from your status quo to lean into her like the mast head on a ship; Head thrown up, nostrils wide, hair streaming. SPRING! SPRING! She has arrived, and she is Good.

There’s always room for a little quiet, some other time, right??

Peace is always there to be found. But just like Silence, you sometimes have to listen, and appreciate,

In order to find it.

XXOO!!

Love and Peace,

Lori

Linking up with Really Random Thursday at Live A Colorful Life. 

Ps, none of these images are mine.  Mine look like squirrels chewed them. 

WIP Wednesday! Canvas Pillows with pattern giveaway coming soon!

My 'Canvas' Pillows are coming along. See that sunshine? It's awfully hard to be inside quilting!! It is also terribly hard to tell that there are 12 different yellows in that pillow ;)

Here is a better pic,

Boy, I sure am trying to use scraps and not go to the store for different yellows!
Hmmm! I think I'm going to have to change some on the lower left to lighter yellow.

Here is where I've come from with these pillows,

And here is where I'm going.  

'Canvas' Pattern and Pillows by Leanne She  Can Quilt.  Aren't they Fabulous??!!

Well now. Wouldn't that be nice??!

In other news, 

I'll be hosting a GIVEAWAY of this pattern as soon as its final edition is out. Probably in a coupla days.

Yay!!

Also, CRAFTSY is having a huge two day sale beginning tomorrow, and I will be posting about that and 
some REALLY RANDOM THOUGHTS, Then :)

Have a Wonder-Filled Day!!!
XXOO!
Lori

Linking up with WIP wednesday at Freshly Pieced. Check it out. So many wonderful quilts!!

It's a Winner!!

I couldn't just let Little Miss Random pick who was going to win this contest on her own,
 because all of the comments and ideas were

AMAZING!!!!

So Brilliant! So unique! I am So Psyched!! ;)

Are you wondering...?






Can you stand it...???






The Winner-s are:

Grand prize (Pattern and the Fabric Bundle)

Janie!!! Congrats, Girl!!

Winners of the Every Which Way Pattern ('cause I just couldn't let these ideas go to waste!)

D Barn

Mr. Briggs

B Stull

Connie Cain

Sherry

CONGRATULATIONS!!! 
I have emailed you. If you dont receive my email by end of day 5/12, please email me.

If you did not win this time, come back and try again!! I'll be having lots more Share Alongs and Giveaways!

You can also purchase Cornelias pattern, EVERY WHICH WAY from her CRAFTSY shop. Or you can purchase it from her ETSY shop. Aren't her patterns great??!!

XXOO!!!
WOOHOO!!
Lori

WIP Wednesday and Fabric Giveaway!!

It's WIP Wednesday!! 

Today, I have just a smitch to show you because...

Learn about Bees in Alaska and this quilt

I actually completed a project!

Binding! Free at last! Here.  And A triangle tutorial Here.

I know! I'm shocked, too!

I'm pattern testing 'Canvas' a pattern by She Can Quilt, that is coming out soon. Please check out her blog or IG account for more fab pics of what she has done. 
Incredible!!
 (I am so sorry to have to say this, but please do not copy her pattern without her permission. So much of that going around, ugh! But I know you wouldn't do that, so on to...)

Here are the colors I am planning on using to make pillows to go with the Bee-Inspired quilt.

What do you think? I think I might need a different orange-yellow as those two might be too close in color?

'Canvas' pillows pattern and pieced by She Can Quilt 

Don't forget to enter the 

FABULOUS FABRIC and PATTERN GIVEAWAY here! Winners drawn on Saturday, just in time for Mother's day (you know, in case you haven't gotten her anything yet;) )

Linking up to WIP Wednesday at the fabulous Freshly Pieced. What a gal, she really is fabulous :)

XXOO!
Lori

FABRIC AND PATTERN GIVEAWAY!!

It's SPRING and it's time for a fabric and pattern giveaway!! (Or for my Downunder friends, it's AUTUMN and it's time for a fabric and pattern giveaway!)

Oh yeah,  Don't they look delicious?!!!

This giveaway is open Internationally, so don't hesitate to join!! 

Folks from 17 Countries follow this blog, and only one of those countries is the USA. How exciting is that!!!

So, my instagram friend Cornelia has some exciting news!!

NOT ONLY is she publishing the exciting pattern  "Every Which Way", 

that I AM GIVING AWAY, but

she is being published in a magazine!!! ! know!! 

Woohoo!!

Those are my notes, I am making this quilt in shot cottons :) No, you can't poach them, lol!

Cornelia blogs at Piecedwithlove xoxo. Read more about her love of piecing and her wonderful work here.  

I am so excited for people who follow their passions and dreams!

THE GIVEAWAY

Hop on over to Cornelia's webpage and look around, then

come back here and leave a comment telling me what colors you would use in your Every Which Way quilt that are different than hers. Are any the same? Oh yeah, and she didn't make hers in the colors from the pattern cover, so no cheating ;) Different background? Why/Why not?

You could win a pdf version of the pattern, AND these eight fabulous fat quarters!!! What could be better than that???!!

Winner will be chosen Saturday, May 10th at 12 midnight AK time.  Perhaps by random number generator, perhaps by cat. 

XXOO!

Lori

Binding: Triumph at laaaassst!!!

Oh Yeah! A SewPsyched! Triangle Quilt Along finish!!

Binding.  Who'd a thunk it??!

Now, I don't know about you, but I have a hateful relationship with binding. Not a love/hate relationship like I love ice cream, but hate how it make my thighs look like cottage cheese, but a hate-hate one, like fire hates ice and like some people feel about onions, or, possibly, limburger cheese.

 It stinks!

Think I'm kidding? Every one of these quilts
is FINISHED and is waiting for ... 

 I hate spending more time cutting a bias binding than I spent, total, in college (and that's a looonnng time!), and I hate how I always have to redo my bindings after the first wash because I missed a spot, or how when I try to machine bind them the stitching that is supposed to lie close and snug to the edge of the binding wanders about like a troop of peripatetic ants.  (And yes, I had to use that word because I finally learned it after a thousand attempts, and when will I ever use it again??! )

But no more!!!

Check out that binding! I OWN that binding.  And how
do ya like the quilting I did in the  Flower sections?

 Do you have a sound track to your life? I do. And my sound track to binding was more like grinding, gnashing, rusty gears, or the sound of a train coming to a screeching halt. Tug tug, curse, threaten, tug tug, screech! You get my drift. As a matter of fact, my husband has always thought that quilters were some of the major philosophers of the world, because the only sounds he heard drifting down from the sewing room were agonized,

"Whhhhyyyyyys??!!"

But, THIS TIME, after my binding and I faced off like UFC champs contesting the title - sweating, cursing and groin punching-I came across several calm and lovely tutorials that have completely changed my perspective, and my attitude. 

That's right, baby, mitred corners. Every single stinking
one of them ;)

They worked so well that now when I bind by machine my sound track is songs by Rod Stewart.

Come on, sing along, you know you want to!!

"If you want my body, and you think I'm sexy, come on sugar..." 

That's right, girl. I OWN binding now. I am bindings' BOSS. 

And I have Lynne of Lily's Quilts, and Katy of The Littlest Thistle to thank for it. 

You rock Girls!!!

That's the hubster doing his first
quilt appearance. He knows I'm sexy, too ;)

For this binding, I used clear thread (thanks, Katy) in the bobbin and needle, and used the Fabulously Fast Binding Tutorial from Lily's Quilts (thanks, Lynne!). You might also like this tutorial from Sew Fresh Quilts on how to turn corners when binding a triangle quilt. 

The fabulous Quilt Musings left a link at the bottom of this post to an awesome way to stop being peripatetic by using a stitch in the ditch foot.  Tutorial by From the Blue Chair.

And now you can rock out to fabulous 80's pop tunes while you sew, too! 

The Bee-Inspired Quilt is a Finish!! As part of the Finish Along quarter 2 at the Littlest Thistle. Check out my original list of things to finish, here.

XXOO!

Lori