Pincushion Swap - April (4/17/2014)

Hi hi!  Last month I joined up with Bea's Pincushion Swap and was super excited when she sent out our assigned swap partners. She has been doing this since about 2012 and keeps pictures of all the swapped pincushions on her blog here and here.  How fun are they?!

My partner to make a pincushion for was Laura this month and she mentioned she loves to garden and grow vegetables and flowers.  I knew I had a paper pieced pattern bouncing around in my sewing room somewhere from Regina Grewe that would be just right.  Paired with some fun butterfly fabric for the focus fabric and voila!  

Out came this watering can for Laura.  I picked up a little set of botanical notecards and a little Oregon pin from a store downtown and sent it off to NC.

My partner to receive a pincushion from in April was Nancy and I was really hoping she had one of her bunnies left for me - they are too stinking cute.  When I opened my package, I did the happy dance with Oakleigh!  She sent me my very own bunny - woo hoo!!!

Out in the garden it went...and was immediately eyed by Annie as a new toy to carry around.  That was immediately stopped by a cookie tossed in the other direction and the bunny was forgotten for the moment.  Nancy also included a great FQ of lime green batik - yummy :o)

I haven't been sewing much this week - it is my Mom's Spring Break and she has been up from California visiting.  We've still got the Spring Beer and Wine Festival in Portland and Easter to celebrate, so there is still a lot to do!!!  In the meantime, here is what I got to see while the bunny was having its photo shoot.

woof woof meow

Spring is here! (4/14/2014)

Hi hi!  I hope all has been well for everyone :o)  I took a very much needed break from the blog during the winter - there was so much going on!  I didn't stop sewing though and I hope to get you all caught up soon :o)

I'll start off with a little mosaic of what I did right before the holidays ramped up - tested blocks for Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks Volume 8.  I started testing for them on Volume 7 and had a great time so when they asked for volunteers for 8, I jumped at the chance!  Here's what I tested with my group of testers:

Aren't these blocks fun?!  So many of them evoked different memories when I did them.  The top center, the ukelele and flowers, reminded me of our trip to Hawaii last Christmas and New Years - just me and Josh.  The one next to it, the hive, it reminded me of spending a couple of summers in high school at BYU's Provo campus going to Education Week with my best friend and her family.  The sunflower - my favorite flower.  The block right below it, the up and down arrows, reminds me of a horse blanket and riding a horse named Grouse bare back for hours on end as a little kid in the Northern California foothills.

Too much fun I tell ya!  The Tree of Love, I quilted up and sent off to Karin in Norway as a mug rug for a Valentine's Day mug rug swap over on iPernity and the red and black block was made twice because I think I know everything and refused to use the templates the first time around.  The first block got ripped up and sewn back together into another mug rug for a swap at my guild and is now happily in a black and red kitchen!

I've since tested for Volume 9 and will post those after the magazine comes out - can't wait, there are some great patterns in there!!!  I've got two customer quilts under my belt and two other baby/baby momma quilts finished since my last post, as well as a couple swaps and other fun things.  I'll be posting again!  

But until then, here is what I get to look at every morning.  A little pup love!

woof woof meow!!!

Wicked Punkin Cats (10/29/2013)

Hi hi!  Welcome to my day on the Wicked Blog Hop!  Thanks for hopping with us today!!!  First, I want to say thank you, thank you, to the most Wickedest Wendy from Why Knot Kwilt and Mdm Samm from Sew We Quilt for putting this blog hop together AGAIN!  You two ladies, as usual, rock!!!!

And here are the other bloggers I am sharing the day with, make sure you stop by their Wicked places and check out their scary-cool stuff!

Quilt To The Edge

Stitchduchess Crazy & Sane Quilting World

Pampered Pettit

Feltfree på Åsly

Quilt Matters

Life, Quilts and a Cat Too

Sunshine Girl

Secretly Stitching

Englating

Seams Like a Dream

AnnieOak Designs  (you are here!)

Last year, I really went all out - I had a lot of fun and played with my Juki and FMQ skills.  I still haven't seen Wicked or managed to read any of the related books, but maybe someday.  I AM still on cloud nine that they released The Wizard of Oz on blue ray though, I can finally see Judy Garland in HD - swoon ;)

This year, I went simpler and made something for myself - a little mug rug.  I got the idea from Martha (who I'm sharing today with over at Quilt to the Edge) when she put Carol Doak's free pattern in our Guild newsletter.  I've had this printed for a while, but when she put it in our newsletter for a little fun thing for members, I knew it would be for this hop!

The cutting directions were super easy and when I went to put the pieces on the paper and start sewing, I got a little concerned that there was going to be a lot of waste.  I hate waste.  Especially with my paper piecing - I'm very particular about my paper piecing.  But, I did what the directions said and it works - I needed the bigger pieces because the pieces of the pattern were so small.  If I had cut the fabric that small I would have been cursing up a storm and then I really would have been wicked. 

I put three of the little punkin cats together and then cut the rest of the scraps up for some filler around them to make a bigger mug rug.  Each punkin cat finishes at 3" x 3" so I needed to make it a little bigger!  Do  you like them?  They're all basted and half quilted on my machine, I just needed to get back to the computer and get them out to you before I was turned into a pumpkin myself!  Thanks for visiting and don't forget to visit everyone else and share the bloggy love!

Here's a little sandy O for ya!

woof woof moew!

What I've Been Up To... (7/25/2013)

Hi hi!  When it gets hot outside, it gets hot in my sewing room - no matter that the AC is on.  Plus, when it is hot, it isn't raining so in Oregon, you don't stay in much.  I know I haven't.  I dumped my iPhone pictures and have a picture heavy post for you to catch you up on what I have been up to (mostly).  Warning: these are phone photos so they aren't the clearest.

Put in the irrigation for 9 raised beds and 4 half barrels.

Put together two Lifetime Adirondack chairs for the patio.

Molly helped.

Put together an applique I found at Marbled Arts.

Finished piecing the center for Little A's quilt - borders to come.

Made vegan samosa filling from Fat Free Vegan Kitchen.

Made beefless stew from Fat Free Vegan Kitchen.

Ran into Kat VonD at PDX on my way to visit my Mom.

Waited in line at the Cheese Board Collective in Berkeley.

That line was for this.

And this was 5 minutes later.

This was dinner from the Cheese Board - 6 hours in traffic there and back, totally worth it.

Made an apple tart.

Had some Two Towns Ciderhouse "Rhubarbarian" while watching Game of Thrones - You know nothing Jon Snow!

Had a layover in Baltimore.

On our way to here.  Emerald Isle, North Carolina.

Played in the surf with the kiddos the first night.

Ate breakfast like this every day - for a week (ignore the beer cans the boys have).

Went to bed with this every night.

Made a retirement gift - messenger bag of my own design with the pony pattern from Regina.

Went to the beach (in Oregon) with Josh and the girls - they're waaaaaay back there.

Here they come.

Almost here!

Here we come Mom!

Oh wait, the water!

Ok, cold enough.

Throw the bumper Dad!

Sat while the dogs watched us eat lunch.

Ate ice cream while O passed out in our laps.

Made Veggie Ramen.

Picked 33 pounds of blueberries at Springbank Farm here in Lebanon.

Dug up a ton of roots and bark dust.

To put down sand and lay stone.

Shamed Annie - not even ripe yet!!!

Made a blueberry pie.

Made a glass paperweight at Jennifer L Sears Glass Art Studio in Lincoln City.

And more.  Just gonna have to find the pictures.  Here's a little bit of what Molly does when I work in the yard.

You'd think I put these chairs together for her.  She did help I guess...

woof woof meow!

Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks Volume 7 Testing (6/5/2013)

Hi hi!  I wanted to share this with you a month ago, but life happened and pow! time went out the door.  Last fall my friend Martha told me about testing for QM 100 Blocks Volume 7 and I sent off an email to the editor letting her know I was interested.  I got picked up and started getting blocks to test.  What a fun group of blocks!  There were a few that I wouldn't have tried on my own (and won't again) but I had a good time trying the different techniques and what not.  Below is a mosaic of the 12 blocks I tested for Volume 7.

The top three are my personal favorites.  I used the trimmings from the first one for my mug rug here, the second is a Melissa Corry block (and we all know how I feel about Happy Quilting) and Scooter Girl is going to be a gift to a real Scooter Girl.

The house was my least favorite - simply because I don't like needle turn applique and I tried to do it on this one.  I think I would have liked it more if I had just done raw-edge like scooter girl.

The orange and black circles were fun - you use a free motion quilting zig-zag technique on the edges so you get a really neat looking stitch pattern on each circle.

The Penny the Penguin block will be a pillow for my SIL who likes penguins - just need to put some black buttons on the eyes and sew it up!.

Again, I had a blast testing for Volume 7 and as a tester I got my very own copy of Volume 7 for my library.  I also got a second copy which is going in the Travelling Stash box as a bonus giveaway here.

Just wanted to finally get this on the blog and I hope you all have a chance to check out Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks Volume 7 - so much fun!  Here is Martha's post with her blocks.

And some shy Bug love.

woof woof meow!

QUBM and MMMRR peeks (1/29/2015)

Hi hi!  I just sent off the last rounds of the Quilt U Be Mine Round Robin to my two groups.  I had a blast doing all the rows!  I can't wait to see the reveal on Valentine's Day.  I also can't wait to see my two mini quilts.  I sent off the exact same block to both groups so it will be interesting to see what the differences are in each (or similiarities?).

For some reason I only took pictures of the last two additions that I made.  By far my three favorites though!  The first is a Dresden fan row.  Didn't get enough of the Dresdens when I did Dare to Dresden.

The second and third are both paper pieced rows.  They took me most of the weekend to do, but I still really liked doing them and am very excited for the lady who gets them - I could frame them and put them on my wall by themselves!

I am also sending off my center block for the Modern Mini Mystery Round Robin 2013.  I've been staring at a box of batiks from my Safari Quilt that I dug out of the closet a few weeks ago.  When I saw the pictures that Heidi over at Fabric Mutt took at the Road To California Quilt Show, I was inspired by one of the quilts to make my wonky centered block.  And those batiks were calling to me, and the giraffe fabric was REALLY screaming at me.  This is what came out.  I love it!

I hope the other ladies in my group enjoy working with it - I can't wait to see what happens to this one too :o)  Off to work on the baby quilt for my sister in law - lucky baby, all these great batiks, I want it!  I'll just settle for being the first to drool on it instead ;o).

woof woof meow