Schnibbles Times Two – Woo Hoo!

It’s finally here! I’ve been not so patiently waiting for Amazon to deliver my very own copy of Carrie Nelson’s Schnibbles Times Two and it came in today’s mail (I’m sure the receptionist is glad so I will stop stalking her desk to see if I got a delivery today o:) ) I pre-ordered the book, I know it was released on 4/9, so why, oh why was mine on backorder???

Same thing is happening with French General’s Rural Jardin yardage I ordered. I’m all set to start the Snowbound appliqué BOM from Bunny Hill Designs. See the button over on the left? I want to use a lot of the Rural Jardin fabric for it. I’ve been printing out the free patterns for months now and am raring to go! But I’m 4 months behind. And this time it’s not my fault. The yardage was supposed to come out in March and here it is the end of April and it’s coming in dribs and drabs. I ordered five different fabrics from the line to use in the quilt. I got two pieces at the beginning of April, I just got another yesterday and two more are still on backorder. Again, HOW CAN IT BE ON BACKORDER, WHEN IT JUST CAME OUT??? But I digress, back to Schnibbles….

I haven’t even made a Schnibble yet! I just found out about them a few months ago (yeah, I know, where have I been?) and I’ve ordered a few of the single patterns (after making sure they weren’t going to be in the book – thanks, Carrie, for giving us a sneak peak on your blog). Schnibbles will allow me to feed my fabric addiction by buying charm squares of fabric lines that I am drooling over and actually make something with them –without breaking the bank! So now, which one to start with? And, do I do a regular-sized Schnibble first or the larger? What? Oh, I have two new quilts I’ve just started and haven't finished piecing yet?? That’s right, I must have forgotten in all the excitement! Oh well, I’ll savor the book for a while and dutifully finish piecing my Aviary Taffy Treats and Beach Cottage before I cut out the pieces for something new.

Sigh…so many quilts, so little time.

I Heart Aviary

I recently fell in love with the Aviary fabric line from 3 Sisters by Moda (I think Moda puts something in their fabric that makes it addicting!).  It's not so new anymore so I had to scour the internet to get my fix.  First I decided I wanted to make Miss Rosie's Quadrille out of Aviary.....

So I scored these Fat quarters.  I had to get them from a few different on-line shops.  Quiltshops.com has come to my rescue on more than one occasion to find older fabrics! 

Then I saw the Taffy Treats quilt somewhere and decided I needed to make that too.  I certainly wouldn't have enough with just those fat quarters, and lo and behold I found a kit on eBay - and it was on sale!  The kit came with Fig Tree's Pastry Shoppe book.  Which means I get a bunch of other patterns too - Score!   Here's a photo of the quilt - and here are the fabrics that came with the book...

I finished all 1 million 76 flying geese last night - here's a sample.  I can't wait to put this together.  Now the only problem I had with this quilt was using the 6" half-square triangle "Turnovers" to make the flying geese.  My go-to method for making flying geese is to use Eleanor Burns' Flying Geese rulers - I have all the sizes.  They make perfect geese - first time, every time!  I am scared of bias.  So, using the turnover pieces with all those bias edges make me shudder.  The only saving grace was that the pieces are big.  That, lots of pinning, slow sewing and a bit of holding my breath and all flying geese came out great.  Whew!

Jelly Roll Fun!

While I was trolling the quilting blogs a week or so ago, I stumbled upon the Jelly Roll Sampler Quilt-A-Long that's going on.  Since I wasn't too far behind, I thought I'd jump in.  I had a jelly roll in mind and found some background fabric in my stash...

I got the Jelly Rolls at AC Moore before Christmas when I was in my fabric basket making phase (I'll post some photos of them at some point - they were lots of fun to make, but I'm kind of basket-ed out for now since I made so many).  Since you needed strips for the baskets, I thought I'd just get Jelly Rolls and since they were pretty cheap at JoAnns or AC Moore, and with those 40% off coupons they were even cheaper, it made the baskets pretty economical.  I had a roll left over and loved the fabrics so thought I use that for my sampler.  Since these rolls only contain 20 strips each, I had to go and buy another.  Luckily, they still had rolls of the same fabrics!
So, here are the first four blocks.  They post a new block every two weeks and the quilt along runs until August 2, I believe.  You post your finished blocks on the Flickr group page and someone wins a prize every two weeks!  Fun!

This past weekend I also accomplished getting all 80 of the beach cottage blocks up on the design wall.  At first I was very unhappy with my contrast - the block design kind of got lost.  I played around and I think I got it the best it can be...when I saw the photo, I was happier with the way it looked.  I know I'll like this quilt though - soft and summery!  I've got two rows put together so far.  I had hoped to be putting a row a night together this week but this turned out to be one of those weeks where life got in the way a little bit, so I'm way behind.  And, tonight, no sewing will get done as we're going to the city to celebrate our daughter's 21st birthday.  I don't know HOW she got that old?!?!  She's thrilled.  And, it is kind of a relief when they turn 21 - LOL!  HAPPY BIRTHDAY ARIEL!!

Please accept my apologies...

Boy is MY face red!!  I JUST realized how many folks have left comments for me - I've been checking daily and haven't seen comments and just found out I need to moderate them first - du-oh!  I'll get the hang of this blog thing yet - LOL!!!  Meantime, I'm going to figure out how to resond to everyone.  THANK YOU, THANK YOU for taking the time to comment!  I have a number of updates over the next couple of days but this is first!

Just for fun, here's a photo of quilt I designed a couple of years ago (one of the very few I actually thought up all in my own head and didn't use a pattern for - well I didn't make up the block, but you know what I mean) for my lovely daughter-in-law.  She wanted black and cream to go with her living room.  At first I thought "UGH", but I absolutely love the quilt and would like one just like it for me.  Luckily, I get to visit it o:)

Last Hurrah at the Quilt Shop

After much wavering, I decided to go to the quilt shop one last time.  My stomach was in a knot the whole time, but I'm glad I went.  Most everything was 40% off and I made the most of it.  There was only one other customer in the shop and a small class going on.  There was still a surprising amount of merchandise left, so I had lots to choose from.  Here is my haul:

A few creams for my to go with my Mill House Inn FQ bundle; a couple of yards of Rebel Roses by Heather Mulder Peterson to go with a stack of those fabrics I have in the stash, and a backing:

Here are some reds and white fat eights for my Snowball leader/ender project, plus some brown and creams for my Mocha Trails:

  This stack of FQs caught my eye, last one left, and some yardage to go with:

 They had some Blush by basicgrey from Moda (I LOOOOOVE MODA!)  And, since I had gotten a couple of charm square packs from Stitchin' Heaven's AWESOME charm square sale (buy 6, get 6 free and I had a free shipping coupon code - it was a no brainer).  Here are the rest of the charm squares.  I got two each of  Love U by Deb Strain, A Breath of Avignon, Martinique, Wonderland and Collections for a Cause:

Whew!  That's a lotta  stuff.  I think I have enough to keep me busy for awhile o:)  Problem is, I just want to play with my new stuff and not finish what's already started!

Here's the finished Flying Cranes - well, the top anyway.  It looks a little crumpled here (and the colors are a little washed out), but it sure is pretty in person.  I can't wait to get this one quilted!!

I have no idea why some of my paragraphs are underlined - can't figured it out - sorry!!  I need to learn this program a bit better!

Should I or Shouldn’t I?

My favorite local quilt shop is closing. Of course I am very sad but I am a little surprised about just how emotional I am about it. It hit me when I thought about making a last visit before the doors shut on April 27th, and it occurred to me that I wasn’t sure if I wanted to. I think it might be too upsetting. I’m afraid I’ll walk in and burst into tears. This is the shop where I learned to quilt, the shop that sponsored the annual quilting retreat weekends that I went on for about 10 years that I loved so much, where I have met many, many quilting friends, the site of too many quilt classes to count, and overnight “Quilt til you Wilts”. It’s part of who I am as a quilter. And, now it won’t be and I think it’s making me feel a little adrift. The shop has gone through a few owners over the years and I am sad for the current owners that this did not work out for them. I am sad for the long-time shop employees (many of whom became friends over years) and the teachers who taught such wonderful classes at the shop.

I have to admit, over the last few years I haven’t visited nearly as often as I used to, and have only taken a class or two. Maybe I am not the only one and maybe that is part of the reason the shop is closing. Yes, I feel a little guilty. Used to be for many years I was a fixture there – you could find me there most weekends. My husband said he thought maybe I had moved beyond needing the shop – I have enough fabric to practically open my own shop, don’t really need classes anymore, etc. I just always thought it would be there when I wanted it.

I was planning on putting a number of quilts in their annual show this Spring. I used to do that all the time. I had finally finished 3 or 4 UFOs from classes I’d taken at the shop years ago and thought, this year, I’m going to enter again.

I guess I should not have waited so long. Sometimes you get reminded how short life can be.

Sometimes I can be a Big Ole' Copycat!

I found the wonderful Nicole from the Sister’s Choice Quilts blog a month or so ago. I want to make every quilt she makes. I chose to start Beach Cottage from Kim Brackett’s great book Scrap Basket Surprises, along with Nicole, using April Cornell’s beautiful and summery Nature’s Chorus (just like Nicole, that's where the whole copy cat thing comes in.) (Nicole said she didn’t mind o:) ) Scrap Basket Surprises is one of those books that I think should be on every quilter's bookshelf. I don't think there's one quilt in there I don't want to make!



These blocks were fun and easy to make! Particularly using my Angler quilting tool that I decided is going to live taped to the bed of my sewing machine. I’ve had this doo-dad for years – why has the lightbulb just gone on about what a terrific product this is!!

I finished my 80 blocks this past weekend – whew! Now for the big project of getting all 80 of those blocks up on the design wall and arranging them properly. I’ll take a photo when I get there, for now, here’s what I started with…

The Flying Cranes caught my eye…

As I was getting ready to leave the New Jersey Quiltfest last month, having already purchased more than I should have, this stack of fabrics caught my eye….



The fabrics, each with flecks of gold in them, practically jumped into my arms. I grabbed the stack and went into the vendor booth and then saw the quilt sample – it was stunning. The quilt and fabric line is called Dance of the Flying Cranes.


Here’s a shot of the first 4 blocks…



I’ve finished the top and will post a photo. I hope to get it quilted soon (my HQ16 needs to be moved before I can do that though – that’s a WHOLE ‘nother story though). I really don’t know what quilting design I want to use, but I know I want to use a gold-ish (not metallic though) thread. I give lots of gift quilts and also sell them, but this one’s going to be all mine, mine, mine! (Although DH loves it too, so I guess I’ll share).

My quilting buddy at the office also fell in love with the fabrics and I was scouring the internet trying find them for her. Not easy. This line’s almost gone. My boss was horrified that I was going to actually use the quilt! He said “no, that belongs on the wall, it’s ART!” (No, really, this one's a quilt, meant to be wrapped up in.) These pictures don’t do the fabric justice (thanks to my less-than-professional picture taking skills) – it is beautiful and everyone seems to fall in love with it.

Hello Blogland!

Hello Blogland! I so enjoy all of the wonderful blogs and podcasts that I follow and thought I’d throw my 2 cents in too! I want this blog to be a place where I chronicle my quilts, ones I’ve finished, ones in progress, in a bag waiting to be finished, in my head and in the many, many kits I can’t seem to stop buying. Some other passions besides quilting that I’ll probably throw in from time to time are my family, including our sweet (well, most of the time) Pekingese Lilly
(she was Prom Queen at her Day Camp prom you know!), cooking and books I enjoy. Oh, and our trips to Disney World. Our family LOVES Disney!

This is Lilly with her "Prom Date" Bob...(sorry, I just had to....)



I’ve been an obsessed quilter for about 16 years now. When I got bit by the quilting bug, I got bit hard! I’ve just about tried it all and love most of it. There are so many quilts to make and so little time! There’s so much fabric and not enough money to buy it all! I piece my quilts on my beloved Bernina Virtuosa 160 and quilt them on my HQ16. I do a bit of hand embroidery but most of my applique is by machine. I am grateful for the joy that quilting brings to me – not just in the making, but in the community and sense of satisfaction I get from it. I hope you find something of interest in what I share.

Happy Quilting!
Denise in PA