One-year anniversary!

I really can't believe I've been blogging for a year!  You'd think I would be better at it by now, at least as far as linking or copying buttons, but alas, I'm still sort of muddling through, even though my daughter painstakingly taught me the ins and outs.  But it's fun nonetheless, and I do want to thank you all for your kind comments, letting me know you're there, giving me advice, making me laugh, cheering me up, commiserating with my quilting woes and sometimes personal woes, and I love you all and appreciate you taking the time to comment, or even just looking through my pics and moving on.  I sometimes can't take the time to comment on your blogs, even though I might like to, time just keeps running along and I can't always run that fast, not do I want to, so I understand if you don't either, and a giveaway is my small thank you for your kindnesses and precious time.
So for those of you still reading, here's my giveaway goodies, and all you have to do is leave a comment, no circus acts, no hoops, no guessing, no jokes, secrets, words of wisdom, nothing is needed but a comment, long, short, whatever you feel like typing is okay by me (just let me know what you'd like).  I purposely have not added any pics yet, 'cuz I know lots of us just look at pics on blogs and don't read), so I'm going to have not one, not two, not three, not four, but five winners!  It's not oodles of fabric, just two or three or maybe four fat quarters, and one gift is a panel, but check them out and let me know if there's something you really like (I hope you like SOMETHING), and I'll take it from there.  I may add in a solid or two to go with the printed fat quarters to kind of round things out and make it more interesting.
So, without further ado,
Number 1 is this panel of "Fresh Flowers" by Deb Strain for Moda, and I THINK I have a nice orange to go with it, and I definitely have some yellow:

Number 2:   this Michael Miller boy fabric (oops, I'm being sexist), and I will add a solid yellow and blue which I forgot to put in the photo. 

and here's a close up: 

Number 3:  Anyone want some luscious fruit?  The one on the left is Alexander Henry "gilded eve", and the one on the
right is a light pink background, Martha Negley, for Rowan and Westminster - really pretty! with bright purple and greens:
 
Number 4:  This "Germania" by Jay McCarroll for Free Spirit, and this "Sugar Snap" by Melissa Averinos also for Free Spirit:

Number 5:  My little bird fabric which has no selvege, and the yellow goes nicely with it.

 I also have a black and white stripe Dr. Seuss that might go well with the birds or the Michael Miller.
Then there's this, which is sort of like a linen but is an odd color and I don't know what to do it, and frankly, I'm tired of looking at it, so if anyone wants that, please take it off my hands (so I guess that's six winners)!  Does anyone know what it is?  I got it from an Etsy site somewhere along the line, and she had gorgeous fabrics.  It's sort of a green/gray with purpley/blue:

So, I wonder how many of you, my dear followers, are still reading and will enter my giveaway.  Good luck to those of you who do enter, and enjoy the rest of the weekend.  I will draw winners next Saturday, at the latest.  May you bless and be blessed - xo
~ Jodi ~ 
Giveaway closed, no more comments, please!

Almost a year old!

My blog, that is!  May 27 will mark that day.  I missed submitting something to Sew Mama Sew's giveaways (are you all entering like mad crazy?), so I'm going to do my own to celebrate!  My creatively-talented daughter:  

Tara, of www.thetinyhummingbird.blogspot.com, just turned 25 yesterday.  Her beloved made her a delicious mousse cake rivaling that of Pastiche (for those of you familiar with Federal Hill).  Well, she IS having a giveaway through Sew Mama Sew that you might want to check out.  (I can't find my cheat notes on how to link to her blog).  Here's a pic that I just HAVE to show of her hubby and son:

He's such a happy little guy!

And because I don't have anything recently finished to show you, I will show some older finished pieces that I love.  I made this at a fundraising type event for the Smith-Appleby House (a historic house in town where Tara and Matt's wedding was held and where I took photos of my Gardens of India quilt).  Because it's not really my style, but I do think it's adorable, I gave it to my sister because she loves lambs.  Here it is:

It was a little kit that was provided with all the materials.

All the fabrics are hand sewn onto the muslin, then I free-motion machine quilted it.  Fun!

I also designed (pat on back) and made this (and I hope I didn't already post about it and totally bore you to tears) growth chart for one of my pay-it-forward bloggers, who also happens to go to my church.  This has lots of my favorite fabrics, and the pictures do not do it justice at all, in my humble opinion :-)

 It's really looooong, hopefully not too long for her home.  And in hindsight I should have included a nice permanent fabric marker to write on it with.  Her daughter's name is Amelia, obviously!  The fairy fabric is so cute.  I have some of the letters of the alphabet.  All the words are some type of herb or flower, which Agrimony is an herb, I learned after doing a Swagbucks search.

 My shaky embroidery of her name.

 I've been hoarding my little pink bicycles, but I broke down and put one on the chart because it's so fitting for a little girl (and she is a real cutie, too!)  Her mom has a blog called Quaint and Quirky which you can access through my side bar, if you don't already have enough blogs you're following - hee-hee!

 The backing is a vintage sheet that I found in an antique shop - very pretty.

That's it for now.  I hope you enjoyed my little show and tell - I know I did!  Don't forget to check out Sew Mama Sew - I think most of the giveaways end tomorrow!  And I will be posting about my anniversary giveaway any day now!  

Take care, and bless and be blessed!

~ Jodi ~

I'm back...

not that I went anywhere, just busy and didn't feel like blogging, then Google had issues, etc., etc.  But here's some pics of what I've been up to.  I made this using a tutorial from Karen of http://lisnaweary-quilts.blogspot.com/:

And still not being in the mood to finish quilting the border of the postage stamp quilt, I started "making fabric", first using Victoria's guidelines on her blog, Bumblebeans, which I believe I neglected to take a picture of my fabric, and then Aneela's blog, Comfortstitching.

Pink with teapot featured (I wish I used my pink bicycles),

Yellow with mushrooms,

                                                                   Green with zoo animals,

Black with peacock, and

 blue with Happy Campers featured!

 

Pleasantly surprised!

And, boy, was I ever when my daughter and I were called up onto the platform at our church's Mother/Daughter Brunch on Saturday. Six mom's were honored by their daughters, and I was one of them! My daughter truly made me proud to be her mom. She spoke flawlessly, singing my praises (ahem). Afterwards many people congratulated me on what a good job she did. One even said she did the BEST job out of all the six speakers, so that just reinforced what I already knew! I love Tara more than she will ever know, and thank God for her every day.

Tara gave me this beautiful Dahlia and a sweet card. The Real Simple mag in the below pic is also from Tara. She has been supplying me with a subscription to this magazine for years now, and I love it! Tara, thank you so much for being a fabulous daughter!

I hope you all had a good Mother's Day, and I hope others who had a heavy or sad heart found some source of peace and comfort on a day that can truly be difficult. 

~ Jodi ~   

Taking a break...

from quilting straight lines on the postage stamp quilt.  I haven't yet been able to sit down and quilt a whole quilt, even with normal routine-of-life breaks, without starting or working on a different project.  I guess I have a hard time sticking with the same thing.  Soooo, I made this:

Mostly all Joann fabrics except for the orange dot with gray background (?), third fabric from the right which you can't even make out.

There are those dots!

And here's the unexpected back, which I kind of like better than the front.  It's from Ikea and it's been waiting for just the right project.  I did the math before I cut the backing, sandwiched it on the table, found that the backing was too short, so I trimmed both ends of the top.  Wrong!  It was bunched up underneath and I didn't realize it till too late!  I just quickly assumed my poor math skills were to blame, but I was correct all along and should have checked to see if it was smooth underneath before I went ahead and cut off the ends!  Anyway, I like it just the same.  It's sitting on my dining room table now after I washed and dried it last night.  And I was pleased to see that it only shrunk a little bit.  I'm always leary using Joann fabrics that I'm going to have a mess, but I was pleasantly surprised.  (I have had problems with their fabrics before, so that notion is not because I'm a fabric snob!  :-)

A couple more pics for your viewing pleasure:

Some of you dear friends agreed with me that you, as well as me, like lots of pics in a post, so I think there's one more showing some stitching I did along the edge of the binding (to cover another mistake I won't bore you with).

Well, it's quite blurry, but it's like a very wide zig-zag.  My intent was to make a spring runner, which this is not so spring-like, but it's nice and soft, and better than the St. Patrick's Day runner that was still on my table as of May 1!  Don't tell the interior decorating police!

Take care, and may you bless and be blessed!

~ Jodi ~ 

 

NSQG Show

I went on a bus trip to Somers, NY, on Saturday to a quilt show.  Here's a miniscule amount of what I saw and liked:  a pineapple quilt:

 Mostly, if not all, Asian fabrics:

Maybe called a string quilt:  (gorgeous)

The white fabric had handwriting on it:

And saving the very best for last for those of you still tarrying with me, I sat in the auditorium for close to an hour and listened to Rosalie Dace from Africa.  I was entralled!  (As you know, post pics never can convey the beauty of fabric that you can actually touch and feel).  But look:

(Blogger is treating me badly!  I've already posted this twice and it keeps cutting off my last paragraph!)  Here goes again:  Rosalie only brought two quilts with her, but she had a wonderful slide show of lots of her incredible work.  She hosts five-day workshops in the US, which I would LOVE to go on someday!  (And I've forgotten what else I wanted to say, thanks to blogger)  So I hope you've enjoyed by offerings for today, those of you who are still tarrying with me after all those pics. 

Bless and be blessed!

~ Jodi ~