It's my month for the KC Scrappy Bee!

Hi!  I thought I'd share with you what I have planned for the KC Scrappy Bee in the month of December. 

Idea

I don’t think you guys have any idea how much I love Christmas. I really, really, really LOVE Christmas. A LOT! I love the season, the shopping, and the traditions. I have wanted to make a fun Christmas quilt for myself for a very long time, but just haven’t gotten to it. I thought this would be the perfect project to have my bee help me with.

Fabric

I’d like all the blocks have a white background to make the colors really pop.  I’m giving each of my fellow bee members two fabrics: one red and one tealy-turquoise colored.







The color scheme I have in mind is kind of a fresh & cheery Christmas. I was envisioning these kinds of colors, but my bee members should feel free to add anything that fits the fresh & cheery description.



Size

My size request is a little bit odd… I’d like to lay this quilt out on a 4x4 grid. Each block just needs to fit into that grid. That means blocks that finish at 4x4, 4x8, 8x8, and 12x16 all work!

Design

Anything Christmas works for me! It could make a gingerbread house, gingerbread man, elf, candy cane, Santa, reindeer, present, mistletoe, Christmas tree, stockings, or anything else they can think of.

Links

These are some links I provided them with:
They could adapt this pattern:
http://www.quiltsoup.com/Hip_Holidays_free_pattern.pdf

I’m in love with this little elf; not so much the mushroom.
http://artisania.wordpress.com/2008/08/01/sewing-more-complex-paper-pieced-patterns/

I’ve saved some cute Christmasy things in my favorites on flickr. Here is the link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sewbotslaboratory/favorites/

I’ve also made a mosaic of some of the blocks and quilts I found online I liked.


1. Santa Block, 2. Windblown snowman mini quilt, 3. Aurora's Xmas quilt from Frolic charm pack, 4. Caroll's Block, 5. Small Santa Quilt, 6. Sept Block, 7. The quilt is done!, 8. one more block to go., 9. { a very merry! }, 10. Santa's Elf, 11. Lil' St. Nick, 12. WIP 7 - SewConnected 2 Quilt, 13. Mrs. Claus, 14. for Beth, 15. Tree and gnome, 16. building a neighborhood

The links below the mosaic are to the original photos.  You can click on the links to see them. 

I can't wait to see what they each come up with!

Robot Quilt - Block #3

Remember the robot quilt I was making for my husband?  Well... I've been pushing the bee blocks back to the last minute the past few months leaving me little time to spit out the second set in robot fabric.  I did have the time to make a robot block with Hannah's blocks, though.  Jason was so excited to see that I hadn't forgotten about his quilt.  :)


I think he's kind of cute.  The robot fabric is so cheerful.  :)

Hannah's Blocks for the KC Scrappy Bee

The KC Scrappy Bee is still going strong.  Tonight, we will turn in our 7th blocks to Hannah.  She requested  10" concentric square blocks using white, grey, light blue, and yellow. 

I couldn't find any yellow in my stash yesterday that I liked with the grey and the blue, so I skipped the yellow all together.  I think they turned out fresh & clean. 



Hannah gave us each a bit of the grey fabric.  The whites and blue are from my stash. 



I think I have to agree with Nikki, though... I'm not a seam-presser-opener.  :)

Yahoo! I finally did it!

Guys!  I finally did it.  I made myself an Etsy store!  I'm a shop owner!



You can see my shop here.  Or you can go to Etsy and look me up by my name: SewbotsLab. 

Here's a few of the things you can find in my shop:


Santa Bags! I have a few for sale currently.


I have several of these cute little owl ornaments ready to ship out to you.


Carry your casseroles to all your holiday dinners in style!


Who doesn't need a tote bag?

So, go check it out!

Briarcliff Village Fireworks

Jason and I walked down to the Briarcliff Village last weekend to watch the fireworks and the lighting ceremony.  One of the main reasons I wanted to go was to try to photograph the fireworks.  I took a class at Photographx Unlimited a while back where I learned to use my camera, the Canon Rebel XSi, out of the "green zone" or auto zone.  One of the fun things I learned how to photograph is fireworks.  This was the first time we got to try it since it rained on the Fourth of July and we haven't gone to any since.  Unfortunately, we got ourselves all set up on the parking garage thinking the bursts would be happening to our North.  Instead, they shot the display off to our Southwest.  We ran down the stairs and out on a landing of the garage to get a better vantage spot.  Oh, well... we'll know for next year.  :)




I think the fireworks above look like a dandelion. 










And this is the village all lit up.  We had fun trying to photograph the fireworks.  I'll definitely try it again.  :)

Modern Quilt Guild Challenge No. 1

Here's my entry for The Modern Quilt Guild's Challenge No. 1.  I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out.  My intention for this quilt is to hang it in the dining room with a pair of spurs from Harold's collection, a cowboy print we picked up at an art walk, and a copy of a newspaper advertisement from when my great grandfather sold off cattle and machinery from their farm to move back to Iowa.  I think these few pieces have a common thread that would make a nice dining decor and make us smile from time to time. 



My inspiration comes from a photograph I took on the ranch of my husband’s grandfather, Harold, the day of his funeral. The barn depicted in the quilt is a simplified hybrid visualization combining the way the ranch looks today with stories and photos from Harold’s life. A 360 degree image taken from that photo’s vantage point would show the muddy fields, the small ranch house, a windmill, fencing, and cattle. The one thing I left out was the cold sadness of the day; instead I choose to illustrate warmer times.



I also plan to enter this quilt into JoAnn's Quilt Your Colors Contest.  Because of the rules for that contest, I have left out the ranch logo you see on the barn in the photograph.  I do intend to add the logo after the contests are over and there is no copyright infringement issues.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope each of you are able to spend the day with lots of good food and family.  We'll be heading to Jason's dad's house for the festivities this year.  Hopefully, that translates into lots of snuggles with the newest nephew.  :)

Are you heading out tomorrow morning with all the crazies?  Jason and I did our pre-shopping last night.  We went and looked at a few items we were considering and ruled out going to JoAnn & Target.  Those are always our most time consuming stops.  I think we may sleep in on Black Friday!  What?! 

Anyway... enjoy your day.  Eat lots of yummy stuff and remember the things you have to be thankful for. 

I Quilted on a Long Arm!

How cool is that?!  I got to quilt on a long arm!

My mom and I took the long arm certification class at A Quilting Place in Omaha yesterday.  It was lots of fun.  We were 2 of 5 students in the class.  We each recieved a set of zippers for loading a quilt onto the machines.  Then we each got to pick out a panel to quilt a baby quilt for practice. 

So why did we take this class?  Well, you can take this 6 hour class to learn how to use the machines and then can bring in your quilts from home and rent the machines by the hour.  Jackie will also quilt them for you if you'd like, but how much fun is that?  I had a blast learning how to use the machines and am excited to try it again on some of my own projects. 

Want to see a few photos?  Okay!

Here's my mom quilting her quilt.  Notice the knee-bend, Dad.  (He says to bend your knees for just about everything.  Going ice skating?  Bend your knees!  Going skiiing?  Bend your knees?  Painting a wall?  Bend your knees!  Eating breakfast?  Bend your knees!  Okay, maybe not those last two were an exaggeration, but not by much!)



This is the panel she chose.



Aren't the chicks fun? 



Here's a photo my mom snapped of me quilting. 



Here's the quilt I chose.  It's a Daisy Kingdom panel.  Remember Daisy Kingdom?  Isn't the girl bear with the cape sweet?



Here's a close up of the quilting I did.  We used a panto (I think that's probably slang for pantograph, but I'm not sure.).  That means that I used a laser to trace a pattern that was printed on a big sheet of paper and laid out on a shelf on the machine. 



I think you can see the quilting a little better on the back.  See how nice my curves are?  That's good!  The batting is a little lofty, thus the kind of wrinkled look you see. 



I had a lot of fun learning how to use these machines.  Hopefully I'll hear back pretty soon on a few quilts I'm supposed to be doing for Fabri-Quilt.  If I get them done soon enough, I'll be able to take them up to use the longarm.  It's so much easier to use a long arm for quilting than to do it on my little babylock.  I think they come out so much smoother, too!  I can't wait to get to play on these machines again soon!

Last Wednesday I started a giveaway.  There were only 10 entries, so your odds were pretty good in winning. 



I used the random number generator to pick a winner. 



The winner of this contest is comment #5: Spooky! 

Spooky, I'm not able to get your email off of your username and don't know what your real name is to find you on facebook.  Please contact me with your mailing address so I can send the scraps out to you.  Thanks!

KCMQG Holiday Swap 2010

At the KCMQG November meeting last Thursday, we had a Holiday Swap.  The rules were you had to bring a "fabric infused" holiday item.  It didn't matter what holiday you chose and it had to be wrapped.



I made a mini quilt I titled "Trick? or Treat?" It measures 12"x36" and is all machine quilted by me.


See the little people? They are debating whether there will be a treat waiting for them at this spooky house on top of the giant hill. They're a little scared and think it's probably not a treat, but a trick. It must be a trick waiting because who in their right mind will walk up this really steep hill to a scary house? What do you think? Trick? or Treat?

Oh, and just in case you can't tell, they're in costume.  That's a fairy, a princess, and a devil. 



This the back.  Cute fabric, eh?  I got it for 75% off at Hancock's.  Sweet!



Here's the label I made for the  back.  Can you tell it's a tombstone?

Shea, the KCMQG Vice President and writer of the blog, Empty Bobbins ended up with it.  I ended up bringing home the gift that Shea brought.  It's this cute little bunting that says Ho Ho Ho. 



I have it taped to the walls of my studio in the corner above my ironing board.  I think it might end up on the fireplace when we get a little bit closer to Christmas. 

Thanks, Shea!  I really love this little thing!  It is adorable and I can't wait to hang it up somewhere where everyone can enjoy it!

Happy birthday, Dad! Let's celebrate with a giveaway!

Happy birthday, Dad!  I love you!


Aren't my parents cute?  I think so.  :)

So, because it's my dad's birthday today, we're going to do a giveaway.  Here's what I'm going to give to one lucky reader:



These are all the scraps leftover from the "Gifts from the Garden" Quilt I made for Fabri-Quilt a while ago.  All of these scraps are from the Urban Garden fabric line.  Together they just about fill a gallon-sized ziploc bag.  You remember this quilt right?


They are some really pretty fabrics. Here's a close-up shot of a block I made just in case you don't believe me.



So, you want the scraps?  I knew you did!  Here's how to enter:

1.  Since all the fabric came from Fabri-Quilt, I thought we should involve their website.  Go visit their website and find one fabric line that you really like.  It can be from either Fabri-Quilt or Paintbrush Studios.  Come back here and leave a comment telling me which line you like the best, why, and what you would make with it. 

2.  Want a second chance to win?  Write a post about this giveaway on your own blog.  Come back here and leave a comment telling me where to find it.

3.  Find me on facebook.  Come back here and leave me a comment saying that you "liked" me.  :)

4.  Tweet a link to my giveaway.  Guess the next step... Leave another comment!

Okay, so giveaway is going to be open for a week.  I'll draw a winner using the random number generator on Wednesday, November 17th.  Leave one comment per entry by 8:00 am C.S.T. to be entered.  If you combine each entry, it only counts as one.  Good luck!

A Most Sincere Christmas.

Have you seen what Lizzy House has been up to lately?  She's orchestrating a trade for Christmas.  I think it's a really cool idea!  She's calling it:


The deal is this: we all have stuff we don't want or need.  Why not trade with someone else for something you can give as a gift?  You could trade some vintage Pyrex for fabric to make a doll for your niece.  You could trade fabric for yarn to knit your mom a sweater.  The possibilities are endless. 

Cool idea, eh?  Check out the flickr group to see what this is all about.

Blocks for Jaime

Jaime wanted us to use our thinking caps for last month's project in the KC Scrappy Bee.  She gave each of us several scraps left over from her garment making projects.  The only thing I added from my stash was the solid brown I used as the background for both blocks. 



Jaime requested we include circles in our blocks.  I used the six-minute circle technique to make my circles.  It's a really fun method to do and is pretty easy, too!




Hope you like them Jaime!  I had fun making them!

Can't wait to get started on Hannah's block for next month!

Sewbot's Favorites - November 6, 2010

This week my favorite thing is trips to Omaha.  On our last trip, I convinced my parents and Jason to go down to the park on Sunday morning and get donuts.  It's kind of a Sunday tradition.  Jason had never been, though.  It was time he got to participate. 

Another yearly tradition is photos by the planters at the park.  Here's some of this year's photos.


My Mom, Dad, Spencer, & Chloe. 


Jason and I.


I couldn't decide which of these two photos to share with you, so I went with both. 

Lasagna Spirals

This is a new favorite recipe in our house.  I saw them make it on The Early Show and went to their website for the recipe.


The last time I made these, I split the batch in two.  One to make now and one to freeze.  I just leave the cheese off the top on the one I freeze and add it before putting it into the oven. 


Do you see all that yummy goodness?  You should try this recipe.  It's delicious.  :)