October Schnibbles - Hubble

While we survived hurricane Sandy with just some roof damage our Internet, cable and phone service is still out. Luckily, I thought to buy some 3G for the iPad on Monday so I'm not totally out of contact. I'm posting from the Blogger app so I'm sure at least one of the photos will be out of place, but at least I won't miss the deadline! It will be another day of sewing for me since the office is still closed.
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Again, this month we aren't actually doing a "Schnibble" in Sinta and Sherri's Another Year of Schnibbles. Last month we went little with "Little Bites" and this month we go big! We had a choice of designer Carrie Nelson's Hubble or Bounce. While I do love Bounce, I'm already planning on making a similar quilt, so chose Hubble.

Carrie's Hubble actually measures 70"x 70" (for the smallest version!) My Hubble's quite a bit smaller at 37"x37".

When I saw this pattern, I remember the box full of half-square triangles leftover from my Swoon quilt. I had one block left to go, and to get the most color choices for my Hubble, I quickly made the flying geese for that last block so I could use those leftover HSTs too! And, as a bonus, I'm that much farther on my last Swoon block!

I just had to make a few two-fabric HSTs to go diagonally in the middle, but this quilt was half made already when I started!

I still have a few HSTs in my box....

So, we're coming into the homestretch on this year of Schnibbles. I'm excited to see what our last two months' patterns will be!

Hop on over to Sherri & Sinta's blogs on November 1st, to see the parades of Hubbles and Bounces!

The Quilting Before the Storm

We're getting ready for Frankenstorm around here - or the Snowicane - or just plain old Sandy - whatever they're calling it at the moment..  We've dismantled Halloween from the front yard, brought everything inside, gotten our bread, milk and eggs, flashlights and candles.  Now, I'm racing to finish quilting my co-worker's quilt in case we lose power!

A colleague made this cute Super Hero quilt for her sister's baby shower and was trying to quilt it herself when her machine broke.  Right before the shower!  She asked me if I'd do the quilting for her.  I was more than happy to do so.

She chose the Bubbles pantograph for the design and it's coming out quite nicely!

She used a small wale courduroy for the backing and some of the squares...

I've sewn on the binding and I'm ready to snuggle in and stitch it down tonight while the storm comes in.

In other news, I'm still on my winning streak!  I won the new book from the It's Sew Emma girls at the Fat Quarter Shop courtesy of Sherri at A Quilting Life! This is a really nice book - featuring, obviously, fat quarters.  Each pattern contains instructions to make the quilt in four different sizes.  I'll be making at least a few from this book!  Thanks Sherri and FQS!

On Tuesdays, I always comment to enter the fat eighth bundle giveaways on Randi's
"I Have to Say" blog and the other week I won!  I got this great Fall bundle...

Randi's shop, Fresh Squeezed Fabrics has great fabrics and she even has custom bundles!  Thanks, Randi!

To all my friends in the storm's path - stay safe and dry!

Bloggers Quilt Festival - The Wedding Quilt

For this Blogger's Quilt Festival (hosted by Amy's Creative Side - thanks Amy!), I am featuring the quilt made for our family's Wedding of the Century!   I was able to present the quilt to my brother and his new bride at their wedding on October13th.  I think they loved it o:)

Unfortunately, I couldn't get very good shots of the quilt.  My camera decided to die out on me after one photo - that I waited until the morning of the wedding to take.  I grabbed my iPad to take a couple more shots.

There is some background to the making of this quilt - you can read about it here (because there's ALWAYS a story). After much rearranging, angst and conferring (thanks, Becky!) about the placement of the rings to get the right color balance, and making two replacements for rings I didn't think were working, it was as good as it was going to get!

Colorwise, it wasn't really what I had in my head when I started this whole project.  I was going for more of a pastel look.  But because of the fabric issues (again, discussed in THIS post), it wound up being much more colorful. 

I quilted a large allover pantograph (by the time I got to the quilting, the wedding day was barreling towards me - no time for any intricate custom quilting!) using my new favorite Glide Thread in Pearl.  I used the platinum Mirror Ball Dot for the binding and made this cute label for the back...

Quilt Stats:

Wedding Rings - #94

Size - 87"x87"

Fabrics - Michael Miller Mirror Ball Dots and white tone-on-tone

Quilted by: Me
Started: August 2012  Finished:  October 10, 2012 

Best Category - Bed Quilt

The wedding was held at The Black Bass Hotel in Lambertville, NJ.  A most beautiful setting..but the weather decided to get downright chilly - we were shivering in the 50s at the outdoor ceremony!  The next day of course was a balmy mid-70s.  But, at least it didn't rain!

Here are some photos of the happy day...

Piping the groom and his men (the bride's two sons) to the alter...

Our favorite musicians - our very dear friends Mary and Jim...

The Vows...

Presenting the Mr & Mrs with a champagne toast!

Kiss...

The wedding party...hubby and I are 2nd and 3rd from the right.

Our daughter, Ariel...

I keep wishing we could hit rewind and do it all over again - it was a spectacular weekend!

Many years of happiness to Cathy & Jeff!

Chopsticks!

I didn't mean to fall off the face of the blog-o-sphere for so long, but with my brother's wedding and trying to get caught up at work and a broken camera, life happened!

I'll post the wedding quilt (which they loved) and photos of the big day on Friday.  

But now, I want to recap my visit to The Round Bobbin a few weeks ago where I attended Julie Herman's  (of Jaybird Quilts' fame) book signing.  It was great to see Julie again and I loved seeing all of the quilts in her new book, Skip the Borders, in person

Julie also was introducing her new ruler - Hex-n-More, which cuts 4 different shapes in 4 sizes - hexagons, half hexagons, 60 degree triangles, and jewels.

Julie has already developed a number of patterns using the ruler with more to come!  I bought Candy Dish to make these cute pillows.  I know I'll be getting more of the patterns to use with the Hex-N-More.

My co-conspirator in quilting at work, Lindsay, let me borrow her newly-finished quilt made from one of Julie's older patterns, Chopsticks to show Julie while I was visiting.  Lindsay's already made two of these with at least one more in the works.

She used Amy Butler fabrics paired with some Kaffe Fasset Aboriginal Dots - everyone who's seen it loves the combination.  And, I'm getting some Aboriginal Dots for my stash!

Here's my version of Chopsticks - not quilted yet unfortunately.  I'm doing a second Chopsticks for a wedding gift for later this year.  Just waiting for the fabric to arrive (because, no, I don't have enough fabric to make another Chopsticks quilt - LOL)

This is one of those patterns...I haven't seen a Chopsticks I haven't liked!

Winners!

When we got home from vacation last week, the mail contained two parcels.  I knew what one was...but the other, we were stumped.  My first thought was "what did I order?"  With the second thought being "what did my husband order"  LOL  Upon further inspection, we found out that we won this....

It's the Sherlock Holmes caroler from Byers' Choice!  Do you know the carolers?  My bosses' wife started my collection about 20 years ago with Mr. and Mrs. Claus.  I wasn't sure about the carolers at first, but they really grow on you.  We have quite the collection now and display them during the holidays.  Every caroler is hand-made - we saw them being made a few weeks ago.  It starts with a wire coat hanger and tissue paper.  Amazing!

A little about this great company...Besides being a wonderful place to work (I understand they win awards for this all the time), the business and family are very philanthropic.  Mrs. Byers started making these carolers at her dining room table in the 1960s.  Now they employ over 80 people and have the most wonderful office/workshop/Christmas museum complex.  We love going there for Christmas inspiration every year.

You may not be aware (although I don't know why not - LOL), but it's the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens' birthday.  Charles' great-great grandson, Gerald Charles Dickens does a one-man show of A Christmas Carol every year at Byers' Choice - he does an amazing job.  For the 200th anniversary celebration, Byers Choice had a full weekend of events, turning their workshop into a  Dickens' village in early September.  Gerald also did some shows about Dickens and we saw a show entitled "Unlacing the Victorian Lady" - SOOOO glad we don't wear corsets anymore!  Every attendee received tickets to put in for chances to win one of the many carolers on display. And, amazingly, we won Sherlock!  Now, to figure out where to put him!

The second package contained this....

How cool is this not-so-little bag?  Made by the amazing Kaelin of The Plaid Scottie.   I love her blog.

And, look at the inside.  Pink Polka Dots - love them!

And, if sending me that amazing bag wasn't enough...she included these fabulous scraps (of which I've already used a few)...

I'm using the bag to carry small sewing supplies.  That way I get to show it off to my quilting friends.  o:)  Thanks again, Kaelin!  Kaelin sells this bag and other great things in her Etsy shop (and she didn't ask me to plug her shop, but I want to because she really makes such fabulous things!)

Vacation's Over!

And now it's back to real life!

We're back from our Cruise to Canada.  Sigh.  Vacation's over for another year.  But, it was a great trip!  A little different for us to go somewhere where the makeup doesn't slide off my face 5 minutes after I put it on in the humidity.

We cruised Carnival for the first time...on the Glory....

Our room was surprisingly comfortable....

And we came back to delightful creatures every evening after dinner...

We saw some great shows in the theater...

And stopped by our favorite lounge every evening for a cocktail...

Mom, Hubby, Step-Dad Paul at the Bar

We stopped in Boston...

Mom, me and Hubby waiting to get on the Ferry to the Constitution

Portland, ME....

We had Lobster Rolls at the Portland Lobster Co.

St. John's....

The Bay of Fundy

and Halifax...

I need to go back to Halifax.  I did not get a Donair (I'm not really sure what that is, but I didn't get one) and Poutine (I kind of know what this is).  Google them.

Anyhoo, Halifax was our favorite port, followed by Boston as a close second.  One of our stops was the Fairview Cemetary where many of the Titanic victims are buried.  It was very moving.  We also saw the Titanic Exhibit at the Maritime museum which had artifacts from the actual ship.

The very loud grinding rumbling noise that lasted for a few minutes during the middle of that night while we were sleeping (well, trying to) was not welcome after a day of being immersed in Titanic lore!  We both jumped up out of bed and shouted "Iceberg!"  We did get $50 credited to our stateroom account for the trouble.  Never did find out exactly what that was.

All, in all, we had a very good time.  It was nice cruising with my mom and step-dad.  We had never vacationed together before.  Wish we had done it sooner!

I can hardly believe it, but I actually DID work on the hexies I brought with me!  I got quite a bit done...

I'm making two of these and I'd love to finish this one up before Halloween so I can give it to my daughter-in-law.

So, now that vacation's over, I'm looking forward to our next vacation - we're back on a Disney ship cruising someplace warm next October!