Silent & Sometimes Silly Sunday!

National Quilting Day Coming Soon!!

Have you heard about this website?

Every day for the month of March different quilt shops will be blogging and having giveaways!  Is this cool or what!

Just click on the logo button below and you will reach the page and find many, many neat things to enjoy!  Your local quilt shop might even be a part of this!

Enjoy!

 

A Little Giggle...

Beat The Winter Blues Blog Hop & Give-Away!

Welcome to everyone hopping around in blog land for the Beat The Winter Blues Blog Hop & Give-Away Sponsored by The Quilting Gallery!!!

If you are new here, welcome and please be sure you click to "follow" my blog just over there on the left hand side of my blog where it says "Join This Site"!  Or you can sign up to follow our blog by email - also located in the right hand column!  Or - join our email list - located over in the left hand column! We are on Facebook also as you can tell by looking at that right hand column again. And you can also join our "circle of friends" on Google+Followers!  Pretty Fun Stuff!

To be a part of our giveaway you don't have to join any of the above mentioned things - but to make this blog hop give-away extra sweet - I'm going to do a special giveaway if you help us get to 6000 likes on our FaceBook page.  We are just now tipping over he 5,000 mark!  Would you "Like" us on Facebook?  I promise the extra give-away will be extra sweet!

On my blog I talk a lot about reproduction fabrics, patterns, antique quilts etc,  I am a pattern designer in the quilting world and I've written hundreds of patterns and authored 4 soon to be 6 quilting related books!  I like to chit chat and share what I do in my normal life on a typical day -  mostly quilt!  I share my pets and my kids cute and funny moments too sometimes, but I really try to keep my blog all about quilting.  I offer a free pattern or two now and than, plus I also announce sales and give-aways here too!

Now, Let's get on with the fun stuff:

My Give-Away For The Quilter's Blog Hop Party:

Do you like to English Paper Piece or want to learn?

Well I'm giving away all of the above papers and/or mylar templates for you to English Paper Piece.  I have done it and it's really easy - but I just prefer to hand stitch my quilts!

Also included in this give-away is this book:

This book is titled Piecing It All Together by JoAnne Louis and Chris Moline.  There are 10 english paper piecing projects in the book plus basic instruction on how to paper piece.

And wait - I'm not finished yet!

Above are a few more papers and three finished flower garden blocks.  Not shown in the picture are three more sets of fabrics to make three more blocks.  This was actually a project I started a few years ago and never finished.  It was originally going to be a table runner from a Blackbird Designs book that I cannot find and cannot seem to locate on their website!  Anyhow - these are too cute to be left sitting here and I know someone will get a kick out of finishing a project with them!

To enter he give-away: share your favorite quilting tip in the comments section below on this blog-post.  What's the one thing you now know that you wish you knew when you first started quilting?  What's the best advice you would give to a new quilter?  Winner will be randomly chosen on March 14th, 2013.

After you have commented here, move on to some more give aways!

Click on the Blog Hop Party logo below to visit the list of participating bloggers:

Beat The Winter Blues Blog Hop & Give-Away!

My New Book, Coming Soon!!!

After a lot of hard work, and a lot of quiet time here on my blog and in my general life while working on this book, here are some sneak peeks at my upcoming book with Kansas City Star.  The "yet to be named" book will be out in June of this year.

I almost have the name picked out, but I've asked my editor who is so creative with words to help me out a bit.  Kimber Mitchell is my editor on this book, as she was with my first book with Kansas City Star.  You can find her wonderful blog here:

Heirlooms By Ashton House

So, here are a few sneak peeks at the projects included in my next book!  Enjoy!

Our Newest Addition To The Family!

Please welcome our newest addition to the family.  This is Miss Dahlila - just a bundle of energy and silliness!  She worked really hard with me this morning plowing the driveway and shoveling all that snow! This afternoon she and Miss Bella will be my companions in the quilting studio.

Dahlila was born December 31, 2012, right here in our home.  We are fostering her Momma Bridget (who gave birth less than 24 hours after we took her in!) and her seven pups.  The remaining 6 pups will be up for adoption very soon through a great Non Profit Animal Rescue program here in Joliet, IL.

If you are in the area and interested in adopting or fostering a dog or pup or even donating to this fantastic organization, please visit their website

H.A.R.T.

I promise, you will be seeing much more of Miss Dahlila in the future! 

Work, work, work....

I'm busily working away on my next book - here is my few for the last few days and the next few to come. Yep - kind of boring??? 

I'm thinking about putting a mini fridge in my office and bringing the coffee pot in here too.  That's do-able - don't ya think???

Happy Quilting everyone!

A finish or two!

I'm so excited I finished the binding on this quilt early this morning and washed and dried it to get that gorgeous krinkled antique look!





Here's a picture of a corner - I think that brown fabric looks pretty good on here!

So then I moved on to finish hand quilting this four or five year old UFO.





Silly me - it only had about a half hours worth of work left to do on it! Why in the world did I put it back in the UFO pile? Anyhow - it's finished except for the binding. Lesson learned - store your binding fabric if possible with the UFO quilt! I had to order a piece of Kona because I could not find any of that deep dark brown in my
stash to finish it off! I'm so bummed!


Here's a couple close ups of my "almost" finished quilt!








Tara
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Teeny, Tiny!

Yesterday I spent my afternoon tinkering around and making a gazillion 1" finished size half square triangles! This morning I'll finish making another 44 that I need to complete for this project that will appear in my new wool book that will make its debut in July of this year!

I had to "remember" to slow the speed down on my machine piecing while working on such small pieces. Do you ever do that when going from working with larger shapes and then move on to much smaller shapes? I find, for myself at least, if I slow down the speed of my piecing on small shapes - the finished result is much better!

Happy Quilting!


Tara
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Fun At The Quilt Merchant!

Yesterday I had such a good time at The Dear Jane meeting. We are nearing the end of our sessions - if I would have kept up on making the blocks, my quilt would nearly be finished! That's ok though - a Dear Jane quilt is a long term project for sure!

Here are some of the outer border blocks done by my neighbor at the club! I'm sorry - I didn't catch her name, but what a talented gal!

Here is our fearless group leader on the right Miss Valerie! And on the left, the former owner of the quilt shop, Miss Docia!

 

Here is a beautiful quilt top completed by another Dear Janer that she brought in for show and tell. This was a class/BOM offered at The Quilt Merchant this past year. It's a pattern by Patchwork by Busyfingers!

 

Here is one of my pattern designs on display in the shop!

 

And then here are three of my pennyrug designs on display in the shop! How exciting!

The new owner of The Quilt Merchant is such a sweetheart! She has moved here all the way from France! Her name is Valerie Langue and you can visit her blog here:

Journey Of A Quilt Lover

If you are local (the shop is located in Winfield, IL) stop in and welcome her. If you cannot make it into the shop, visit the website and shop away and be sure to sign up on their email newsletter list for upcoming events, news etc.!

 

The Quilt Merchant

 

 

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