I had a great day attending the Florida Cabin Fever Quilter’s Guild Quilt Fever Show 2013 held in Orlando on Feb 1st and 2nd. I was very impressed with the variety and outstanding quilting demonstrated by these talented quilters.
I had some favourites…The Quilt Diva, The Bug Jar Quilt and the New York Beauty….maybe these were my favourites as I am in the progress of each of these and none are finished yet…These finished ones gave me inspiration to get mine done!
Dear Hubby….so sweet. A dozen roses and a few bottles of coolers waiting for me. No vase in our hotel room so a empty spaghetti sauce jar had to do. What a sweetheart and so unexpected which was even better.
He’s probably just buttering me up for another NHL hockey game!
I’m well on my way to completing my Wading Canada Geese picture quilt. All the pieces got traced, cut and in their appropriate baggies, then I started building the geese plus their reflections, one at a time. In no time I had all my ducks in a row…so to speak….geese that is. Look forward to moving on and getting them in the water where they belong!
What would be the chances!
Dear Hubby and I are staying near Lutz in Florida for the month and the second evening or so we opted for a short walk around the area near our hotel…..Low and behold…..a quilt shop!, within 500 feet of our hotel. Dear Hubby can be a jackass sometimes and as we were walking he says…”hey look…scrap and sew”….I thought he was being a jerk and just teasing as I’m always looking for quilt shops and he’s always trying to get as far away as he can from them. He was serious!
It was Scrap and Sew!
I did take a short stroll over the next day and had a look for myself…nice shop, a good selection of fabric and machines. I did pick up a few fat quarters for an I spy quilt that I’m anticipating. When I first posted that we were travelling to Florida, I got a nice message from Jocelyn of Happy Cottage Quilter, you can find her here http://happycottagequilter.blogspot.com/, who offered to help me find quilt shops near Tampa and mentioned this store in her list….LOL…who would have thought that it would be in my neighbourhood!
We’ve left Orlando and are now staying in Lutz, north of Tampa, but still close enough to drive to the Lightning NHL games . Dear Hubby and I are complete opposites, but somehow we seem to come together and find a balance that works for us. If I go to his beloved hockey games he takes me to my beloved quilt shops….it just works!
So…here we are at his beloved hockey game….by the way, The Lightning is not our team, the Canadiens are, but we are happy to be here and seeing some games in the process.
The flag thing was really wonderful to see at the game, they have it move by the fans during the singing of the national anthem.
Can’t believe I’m actually finished cutting all the pieces for the Wading Canada Geese picture quilt I’ll be teaching in the spring at Kindred Spirits Quilt Co. My hands were actually cramping…tons of pieces to cut…. teeny, wheeny little pieces too. I’m a huge baggie fan, so each color and each segment area went into a different baggie as I cut, which should make it easier to decipher when I start getting it together. I think the secret to this one is organization with a capital O.
Well enough procrastinating….It’s about time I got going on this class project for Kindred Spirits Quilt Co. I have had this pattern since I went out west last summer. I love the pattern, however there are literally hundreds of pieces to trace, cut and apply to complete it. It’s called Wading Canada Geese. The pattern spoke to me as where we live these lovely creatures are in abundance. In the evenings during the summer and fall, I can hear them as they make their way across the sky outside our back door.
I buckled down and got right to tracing, and tracing and tracing….almost going “loonie” during the process.
Now all I have to do is cut all these pieces out! _)!*_$*_$&!_*$_
From where we were staying…and what I did when I got there!
Just a short drive from our hotel in Orlando was the Sewing Studio. While Dear Hubby had his afternoon nap I headed over and spent about an hour getting my fill again. A very nice shop….The button selection is amazing…every type, shape and color imaginable.
Great selection of fabric, including batiks and they are very focused on machine embroidery with lots of samples and supplies.
I did pick up a few goodies. The Bon Appetite fabric was a great find…I have a few fat quarters of matching co-ordinates at home, so I picked up enough to add for a border around a runner. I’m continuing to build my stash for the Crazy Dogs BOM and picked up cute fabric with dog paws on it, a nice grey piece that will make into some sort of breed, and a zipper so that I can work on my Little Monster pillow while I’m here.
FINESTO!
Now what to do with it? This should really go to someone special…and I know exactly who that special little person is.
Our goddaughter, and Dear Hubby’s niece Julianne had a beautiful little girl, Charlotte, almost a year ago. She turns one next month and this will make a wonderful birthday present for her. I love to give things to Julianne as she really appreciates the work, time and expense that goes into special gifts such as this. I embroidered Charlotte’s name into the sashing of the quilt so it would be a special keepsake through the years.
Special thanks go to Little Miss Shabby whose creativeness and talent inspired this wonderful BOM and thanks to her for sharing all this goodness with other quilters….how generous. You can find her at
These are my blocks from the free BOM offered by Little Miss Shabby called Birdie Stitches. I really slacked off with these, leaving myself with four blocks uncompleted for literally months. It was hard to try and motivate myself to get back at them and get them done after that long of a hiatus.
When I first started this BOM , I looked at my stash and found a jelly roll from the line of Gypsy Rose, added matching cream fabric from a basics line and just ran with it.
Here are the finished July, August and September blocks…
Finally finished up my Birdie Stitches BOM offered by Little Miss Shabby. It turned out so cute and it feels so good to get another project complete. I’ve changed the patterns to applique from embroidery as my embroidery skills are non existent. Some of the blocks I had to change up a bit to utilize the applique that I wanted to do, so some are not exact to what she had patterned.
Some I just plain cheated on with my embroidery machine…I’m so lazy!
Here are April, May and June’s blocks.
A little birdie told me that I needed to get my rear in gear and get this quilt done. This is Little Miss Shabby’s free BOM called Birdie Stitches that I have been working on for what seems forever. I love Block of the Months, however if you don’t keep up, then can suddenly overwhelm you, when you have 2,3,4 or more blocks to catch up on…which was the case with myself.
My New Year’s resolution was to finish up my UFO’s which I have been working on diligently….and now here is another one that I have completed. Little Miss Shabby offered this BOM as an embroidery block, however, while I love the look of embroidery, I’m no good at it. I loved her design so opted to take the pattern and modify it to applique. I also added a bit of machine embroidery into the mix as well.
Here are blocks January, February and March complete…more calendar months to show off tomorrow!
Bianca has done a fabulous job on her log cabin…soooo pretty. Bianca was in my Log Cabin Class at Kindred Spirits Quilt Co. and she did amazing…..this is only her second quilt! I love her color choices and it turned out wonderful. She tells me this one is for her Mom. Great job Bianca…I’m so proud of you!
I love this log cabin! It’s Debbie’s from my Log Cabin Class at Kindred Spirits Quilt Co. I’m partial to the warm tones of browns and beiges, and maybe that’s why I really like this one. I really like the centre square warmth that is accented with her first border. She’s not quite finished as she has a fabulous dark brown patterned outer border to put on yet. This quilt is for her daughter….lucky girl!
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