Quick post - please vote

I entered another contest at Quilting Bloggers. Click on the link on the sidebar to go see the entries this week and vote for your favorite (even if it's not mine.).  Voting is Friday through Sunday HERE  I entered my colorful airplane quilt.

If you are looking for my giveaway - please go directly to my previous post below.

Cheers! Beck

ps- I'm having posting withdrawal but I don't want to push my giveawy down the blog too far but be warned, I might come back with a posting frenzy next week.  Don't say you weren't warned.

2 in 1 Giveway!

I have a two part giveaway.

First, I'm going to giveaway a $20 gift certificate to Hancock's of Paducah! Yes, you read that correctly. Since I have to go back online and order an important fabric I forgot, I'm going to spread the spending wealth! This will be sent from Hancock's directly to the winner.
The second giveaway, the Baby Kisses by Jeanne Coverdale pattern only. There is no fabric included with this pattern but the pattern itself would be great for a memory quilt or for fussy cut squares to highlight a fabric. I will be sending this directly to the winner

The rules for the first contest: Comment to this post answering the 6 questions below. The person who correctly answers most or all of the questions will win. If there is a tie, I will draw the winning name out of a hat from those who tied.
The rules for the second contest: answer the questions as for the first comment, that's 1 entry. Post about this contest, another entry (be sure to tell me you did this). Become a follower, or state you are already a follower, another entry.

The giveaway will run until 11:59pm CT on Sunday, Februrary 28.

Background: I finished my Valentine's table runners. For the square runner, I had a few errors. For each picture below showing the error, one of the following answers is correct (note, some answers will be the same and some different.) So the answers to choose from, did I, (a) rip it out and fix the mistake, (b) not do a darn thing about it or (c) find a way to hide it in the final product?

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4) I ran out of bobbin thread on this last heart. Each of the other 3 hearts have one last small heart in the middle, in this case, "did I correct it" means did I add more bobbin thread and finish out the final heart in the middle?

(5) Here is an example of one of two little hearts flanking the big shadowed heart on one side. The "did I correct it" here means, did I add flanking hearts to each of the other three sides, the "did I find another way" means did I remove the flanking hearts, and "did I not do a darn thing" well, means the same.








BONUS QUESTION:
What color binding did I use? Light Pink, Hot Pink, Black or the leftover striped fabric.

GOOD LUCK!!! (and remember to be sure I can contact you when you leave your comment.)

Note: Since this post was originally a part of a previous post and I've now seperated it, I pulled the comments myself and put them in the comment field instead of requiring commentors restate their own comments.

A finish!

(Edited to add the link for the Sew and Tell Friday over at AmyLouWho!)

FINALLY the airplane quilt I designed completely from start to finish is done.  I'm quite proud of myself and will be writing this one down for future use.

The Quilting Goddesses are messing with me again.

Laugh all you want but these ladies get their kicks out of messing with me (all of us, I'm sure).  I've prayed to them, I've thanked them but apparently, lately, I haven't paid them enough attention.  I am fixing that right now!

Today's prayer (feel free to use yourself if you've fallen victim to their hijinks):

"Please, please, oh Quilting Goddesses, take back my newly developed turrets tendencies when I'm trying to quilt, machine bind a quilt, or sew a straight line when I'm piecing my tops together. Please refrain from grabbing my fabric or my machine when I'm sewing and wrenching it in another direction for 4 of 5 stitches.  I like my seam ripper, but I really don't think I need any more practice ripping.  My previous post was not a lie, I feel like a frog with all of it. Can I please just be a quilting princess again? Thank you. Thank you for all you do (even the laugh I'm afforded with your antics!)"

Oh, and I also want to send a little "I'm sorry" to all of you as well. I am sorry I haven't yet posted my finished table runner tops with the quilting or the finish of my airplane quilt. I just have to get the pictures uploaded and instead, yesterday, I went to Hancock's of Paducah and learned why I was better off not knowing what, exactly, was in that store only 1.5 hours away from my current home. -sigh- $82.50 later and 3 new projects in my head. I really need to get cracking on my WIPs!

Cheers! Beck

The Winner!

The One World One Heart Blogging event hosted by Lisa Swifka has come to an end. So first and foremost, THANK YOU ALL WHO VISITED AND LEFT SUCH GENEROUS COMMENTS. I wish I could reply to each of you individually but it just wasn't possible for me.

I'm very pleased to say I visited every blog on my magic carpet ride. This prompted my husband to say I was addicted to my laptop (which I was for a short time!)

I entered a few giveaways, bookmarked many more blogs and made a few new friends in the process which is what this whole event is about. I feel privileged to be a part of this event and as long as Lisa can host this, I'll participate!  THANK YOU, LISA.

On to what you really want to know. I used the random number generator to choose the winner out of all my commentors and the winner is:

125:  Chelle said...

How pretty. I would love to be entered into you drawing. So glad OWOH brought me to your blog. :-)
Michelle

CONGRATULATIONS MICHELLE, I'll email you to work out the details.

Cheers! Beck

My weekend accomplishment

…included nothing sewing related.

It turned out to be a family weekend. My quilting finishes will have to wait. Instead, today, I tried to channel Bakerella. I think, however, she had better things to do with her own family than to lend me a psychic hand.

I’ve been watching and following Bakerella’s site for a while now, loving the creativity and cuteness and how perfect it all looked but knowing it would be messy and annoying for me to make so I refrained. Still, the kids liked her ideas too and I wanted to do something different and fun.

It tasted pretty good and very sweet. One is enough for a while so have others around to serve these to. Mine is particularly sweet due to my frosting combination. I am sure the original recipe on Bakerella’s website is not nearly as sweet.

First, Bakerella recommends using regular cake mix and cream cheese frosting. I used lemon cake mix and a homemade frosting (8 tablespoons butter, 4 cups powdered sugar, 8 tablespoons orange juice). The frosting made this as sweet as it was and as moist. Next time I think I’ll cut back and not use all the frosting because it was almost too moist. I made the cake, let it cool, then crumbled it and mixed it and the frosting. Then rolled out small balls of cake and let them set in the freezer for a couple hours. After that, I melted some chocolate.

and coated the cake balls. Then I added candy hearts.

They were looking a bit wonky.

Here’s a hint, make sure that chocolate doesn’t start getting hard (and it does do that really quick!)

Now they are set and I’m trimming the excess chocolate to help make them look better.

Stacked them up for a nice picture and served to the kids.

YUM!!! (Even if it was just as messy and annoying -for this slightly OCD person when it comes to getting sticky fingers- to make.)

Oh yeah, I also made fudge for the hubby cause, well, he likes my fudge!

Sew and Tell Friday

My sew and tell Friday results in the following. I had a striped fabric from JoAnn's clearance bin, I think, and decided I needed to do a table topper for Valentine's Day. I created these two toppers from the one piece. I will be quilting them tomorrow morning.

Check out what others have done this week and add your own by going to Amy Lou Who's blog here.

REMINDER it's a quiltathon weekend!

Just a reminder ladies and gentlemen, it's another of the quiltathon weekends (Feb 13 & 14)

Judy Laquidara of Patchwork Times hosts a place to put updates so check out her blog tomorrow to add your updates.

In the meantime, warn your family, plan your weekend dinners and use the cold weather as a great excuse to tackle those projects! I'm starting tonight so you should have some fun things to look at since I'm close to a couple finishes.

Cheers!

Mail call!

I got a package with some goodies in the mail today. Granted, I ordered all of it from Inchworm Fabrics, but it arrived!

A Moda Jelly Roll, a couple of fat quarters (very pretty, too!) and Barb's Baby Octopus pattern (Bejeweled Quilts by Barb)???

Can you see the pattern? Nope, because she sent the pattern in a little pocket. How cute is that? And I love the fabric... I am wondering if this is a sample of the fabric I drool over at Barb's own Artfire store.

But anyway, you saw one side of the pocket, here's the other!  Thanks Inchworm Fabrics, I'm very happy.

I've been transformed

I'm such a dork. How many times have I said  I have to do things the hard way, that I can't just learn from others.  Nope, not me.

I still seem to have a problem settling on a good quilt plan before I load a quilt.  Or, if I do have a quilt plan, I don't stick with it. I start it.

I scrap it.  I start a new one.

I scrap it and rip it.

I start another.  I scrap it. I feel a change coming over me.

Ribbit

I'm tired.  2 hours of this.  Ribbit

Excuse me, I'm going a little crazy.   RIB-BIT!

Perhaps if I had a friend with me, if someone could just understand...

Or maybe I should just adopt his attitude and start singing,

"...someday I'll find it, the rainbow connection..."   

I will magically break my block and get a good quilting idea.

Hey! It worked, I have a new one to try. For the moment, I'm back to being me...

Well, I didn't win but...

6th out of 14 in my first ever quilt contest ain't bad! :)

http://quiltinggallery.com/2010/02/05/vote-now-snow-ice-cold-brrrrr/

Keep checking the site each weekend for other contests and vote on your favorites!

Cheers! Beck

PHEW! She likes it!

First, if you haven't entered yet, don't forget about my giveaway during the One World One Heart blogging event! Entries will be accepted until Feb. 14, 11:50pm CT.

Second, wish me luck as voting starts tomorrow for the virtual quilt contest at Quilting Bloggers. I am excited to see my penguins quilt's competition! :)

Finally and most importantly, Mary received her quilt today and she likes the quilting! She's the winner of my first giveaway and similiar to my current one, I quilted a completed top to a fleeced back. We worked out thread color but she left the quilting motif to me and once I saw the snowflake fleece, I knew what to do. I came up with mittens and hats interspersed with large meandering.  Mary will be adding her own binding but here's the quilting up close.  I think the pictures weill get bigger if you click on them.

I lost 3 lbs!

but then watched the football playoffs and gained them back with the never ending munchie buffet at our house.  Then, since I already gained it back, well, I didn't bother working to take them off again.

BUT I am back on the wagon.  I bought some munchie goodies for Superbowl. Water chesnuts to wrap with bacon (the bad munchie), tomotoes to roast with fresh basil and a little mozzerella (and I mean a little), cut up fresh veggies, healthy crackers for me and chips for the kids (which I can pass up.)

I will cook some sort of dinner (maybe ham?) that can sit around that day for wraps (me) or sandwiches. So it will be lunch and dinner and I'll have salad already made.

As for this week, I'm back on track with better portions and better food choices.  Exercise to start...sometime. ;)

Are you trying to live a better lifestyle? Lose weight? Exercise more or start?  If so, how's it going?

J loves color

You know, I'm beginning to think 50% of J's sewing/quilting interest is knowing I post about it/him on this blog. He always comes to see who's commented. So, if you can leave a comment, I'm sure he (and I will) appreciate it.
The latest: a pillow case to go with his lap quilt and his bed quilt.  Here's the pillow case:

He participated in a lot of the sewing on this one. He's getting more comfortable sewing those straight seams!

The lap quilt he designed and helped sew 2 summers ago:

The bed quilt with every "cool" fabric he could find in my stash from last year:

Oh, and for those that don't know, the quiltlet at the top of my page was designed by both of us and made by both of us as a teacher's gift this year. The teacher also loves rainbow colors and he had been planning it since October.

Way to go, J, I'm very proud of you!