Computers are the Devil

I have decided that computers are the DEVIL!!!  Seriously.  I hate them.  All of them.  And all of their little electronic device friends that conspire to make my life miserable every time I try to use them.  As far as I'm concerned they can all just blow up while I'm trying to sleep tonight.  

I really wanted to post the pattern for my Swirly Dresden.  This one...

But instead I spent 3 hours fighting with a Mac, a Linux computer, a Windows Virtual Box inside the Linux computer, a printer and a scanner!  GAH!  And I'm not even any closer to having a pattern for you.  If I only had a sledge hammer....

Ok, I feel a little better.  Here's my question for all you crafty computer people who work with paper pieced patterns.  What's the best program to use to make my hand drawn pattern into a computer generated pattern.  I tried Illustrator but the circles are killing me.   I just want it to look nice and not like a kindergartener drew it.  I don't think that's asking too much. 

I need to be able to scan it in and then "trace it" in a program.  Which brings me to my next nightmare.  Why is it that my scanner will scan each item at different sizes?  What the french toast???  It's going to be the death of me.  Really.  I promise.  Or, I'm going to kill it.  But someone or something is going to get hurt very soon.  

Oh geez...I thought I felt better but the more I type about it the angrier I get.  It's bringing back all those bad memories of the 3 hours of my life I wasted.  Why don't I have a sledge hammer?  I really need one....

Any help is greatly appreciated and would probably be rewarded with a huge THANK YOU from all the electronic devices in my house.  For they know you will have prolonged their electronic usefulness for at least one more day.

Your desperate friend who is a much better quilter than computer guru,  

Dare to Dresden Blog Hop {Plus a Giveaway}

Today is the day!  It's my day on the Dare to Dresden blog hop hosted by Madame Samm and Christine from Quilt Monster in My Closet!  A huge thank you to both of them for organizing this event.  

This is my first time to participate in one of Madame Samm's hops so I'm super duper excited.  I thought this would be a super simple project for me.  Boy was I wrong!  My brain just did not want to cooperate.  I think I tried to hard to come up with something "different."  I really didn't want to make a traditional Dresden.  

I do have a couple blocks to share.  I'm not sure I love either one of them but I think that's ok.  I'm sure I'm not the first person to make something they don't love.  We can't always be successful at everything, right?  The first one is probably my favorite.

What do you all think?  It's not bad but just not exactly what I had pictured in my brain.  

Here's attempt number two.  Warning...this one is definitely not a traditional Dresden.  I had to paper piece this one.  

Hannah said this one reminds her of something out of Candy Land.  I like the concept of this one but I need to tweak it.  It isn't exactly what I had pictured either.  

I do have one project that I'm super proud of...The Cube pincushion.  I think I must have used up all my Dresden energy when I created this one.  

Hopefully you can see the Dresdens on the corners.  You can find a tutorial for The Cube here or download the PDF here.

I hope you all aren't too disappointed with my Dresdens.  I kinda feel like I let you guys down but hopefully not.

Make sure you check out all the other hoppers...

January 28^th, 2013

A Reformed Heath'n

Meadowbrook

Rosemary B @ “that Other Blog”

Stitch Duchess' Crazy & Sane Quilting World

Grammie Q’s

Bumbleberry Stitches

Sunshine Girl

Spiral

Butjenter Quilter

Blooming Where I am Planted

Quilting Lodge {This is me!}

The Tilted Quilt

Life in the Scrapatch

Pretty Bobbins
In The Boon Docks

Sew Much and More

Threading My Way
Pink Ribbon Quilts
Thimble Mouse & Spouse

And I have one last nugget of goodness...we're giving away an EZ Dresden ruler to one lucky winner.  This is a very handy little ruler when it comes to making Dresdens!

You don't have to be a follower to win, although we'd love to have you stick around and get to know us.  Just leave us a comment to enter.  You can earn an extra comment if you want to pin a tutorial or quilt from our blog or tweet the giveaway.  Just leave separate comments.

I hope you all enjoyed my weird Dresden blocks.   

Hello Frugal Friday

Happy Friday!  Are you ready for some Frugal Friday fun?  Here's how it works.  I'll post pictures and details of what's available.  If you see something you like just leave a comment.  I'll need email addresses for invoicing purposes ~ so if you're a no reply blogger you might miss out.  There's only one available item for each picture so first person to comment gets it.  Each item is numbered so you can reference that in the comments.  That should eliminate any confusion on which item you would like.   

Shipping...this is a little tricky.  I will not ever charge you all more than actual shipping.  It's hard for me to give actual costs here without knowing if you will purchase more than one tidbit.  Therefore here are some basic guidelines (US customers only):

1. In order to ship First Class the order has to weigh less than 13 ounces {that's about 2 yards of fabric}
2. First Class Shipping is based on location but usually costs less than $3.50
3. A Flat Rate Priority Envelope is $4.95 and I can fit up to 7 yards, mix & match, in there.
4. If you should pay more than the actual shipping I will refund the difference.
5. FREE Shipping on all patterns   

If you have any questions you can email me anytime at QuiltingLodge@gmail.com.  Please note...international shipping charges are much higher.  Please email me if you are outside the US and you would like a shipping quote.

Let's take a look at today's goodies...

(1)$6.50 Moda Sweet Sixteen Batik 1.5 yards  SOLD	(2)$6.50 Moda Sweet Sixteen Batik 1.5 yards  SOLD
(3)$5.50 Moda Simply Color 1 yard  SOLD	(4)$5.50 Moda Simply Color 1 yard  SOLD
(5)$5.50 Moda Marmalade  1 yard  SOLD	(6)$5.50 Moda Marmalade  1 yard  SOLD
(7)$4.50 Moda Marmalade 3/4 yard SOLD	(8)$5.00 Moda Marmalade  7/8 yard SOLD

Please, please leave your email address in the comment if there's any chance you are a no-reply blogger.  Otherwise, I have no way of contacting you and I would hate for you all to think I'm not responding when, in fact, I can't.

Just a little note for our International customers...the post office is raising postage rates effective January 27th.  Unfortunately, it's a significant increase in Priority rates for International customers ($7.00 increase for each flat rate envelope).  Domestic rates will be increasing as well.  Boo.

If you all haven't been checking out all the Dare to Dresden posts you are missing out!  There are some wonderful ideas out there.  My day is Monday so make sure you stop by to check it out.      

One More Quilt is Completely Finished!

I must say I'm on a roll this month with finishing up quilts.  I have actually put binding on 4 quilts this month.  Mr. Fugly was the last one on my list and I got him finished on Sunday!  WooHoo!  

Now it's time to quilt more tops.  However, I think I've decided it would be easier to bind them as I go.  Throwing them to the side to avoid binding didn't work out so well.  It just made me hate binding even more since I had so many to do.  I figured I might as well finish all of them and stop putting it off.  

I had to use a solid brown for the binding.  This is one of the quilts that I neglected to keep fabric for binding.  So, I had to improvise.   

I'm pretty happy with the quilting.  I don't really know what you would call what I did.  I just made it up as I went.  Not to bad for the first time doing those pointy things.  And I must say I love the variegated thread.  King Tut rocks!

I did machine stitch the binding down.  I'm just a tad bit lazy and I wasn't sure what I'm doing with this one so I decided to machine stitch it.  I really don't mind machine stitched binding.  

Tomorrow will be yet another day of trying to figure out something to make for the Dare to Dresden Blog Hop...my day is Monday and so far I've got nothing!  Yep...nothing.  That can't be good.  I'm starting to stress.  I guess it's a good thing I work well under pressure.  Wish me luck.  I think I need it.    

We Have a Winner

This post will be short and sweet.  I'll probably be back later today  with some pictures of something I finished up Sunday.  I just haven't been outside yet to take pictures.  I'm secretly waiting for it to warm up.  

A big thank you to everyone who entered my birthday giveaway for the Simply Color junior jelly roll.  Mr Random randomly selected lucky number 65!

65. Four dogs and one quilter said...

Happy Birthday! Hope you have a wonderful day without setting anything on fire.

One of these days I'll figure out how to post a picture of Mr Random.  For some reason, it seems to be beyond my blogging skill level.  

Oh...Congrats Four Dogs and One Quilter!  I'll be sending you an email. 

A Busy Day Shopping

Thank you so much for all the awesome birthday wishes!  I had some really good laughs reading all the comments.  And I'm happy to report there were no fires, grass, forest or otherwise.  {wink wink}  

I even exercised some self control and refrained from flinging myself off the cliff.  I did not have self control over the cake.  Hannah made my birthday cake with homemade buttercream icing.  All I can say is...yum!

I spent most of the day today at the Moda Warehouse.  Talk about exhausting.  It takes me about 2.5 hours to get there.  Then lots of hours shopping finished with a 2.5 hour drive home.  I was ready for bed when I got home but I'm still up blogging because I'm a little crazy.  

I took a couple pictures when I was there today.  I thought it would be fun to share pictures of the ginormous warehouse.  A person could get in some serious trouble in this place!

This is just part of the fabric side.  The rows go on and on for what seems like miles.  

I've pretty much mastered the fabric side of the warehouse.  All the bolts are pretty much in numerical order.  The notions side is another story.  I usually walk around in circles for hours looking for things.  I think I probably logged 5 miles today looking for a couple things.  But that's ok...I need the exercise.  

I found lots of goodies today.  Probably too many goodies.  I would show you a picture but my treasures are still nestled in my trunk.  I was exhausted when I got home.  I think they will be sleeping in the trunk tonight.  

There's still time to enter my birthday giveaway!  A winner will be announced Wednesday.

Birthday Giveaway

Happy Birthday to me!!!!  I'm celebrating my 10th anniversary of 28.  Man I just can't believe I'm getting closer and closer to the top of the hill.  I hope I don't hurt myself when I tumble uncontrollably and not so gracefully to the bottom.  I'll probably break something.  You all better start praying now. 

I'm trying to keep my mind off the getting older issue so I think we'll have a giveaway.  After much thought and deliberation I decided on a Simply Color Junior Jelly roll full of awesome ombre fabrics.  I'm jealous because I've had my eyes on this junior jelly roll but haven't had time to do anything with it.  

 

And guess what?  I finished binding quilt number 3 yesterday!  Can you all believe that?  Three bindings in one week!  I only have one left to bind and that's Mr. Fugly.  Now if you go back and read about Mr. Fugly you will find out I was out numbered on this one.  I do not like him but almost everyone commented about how nice and modern he is.  I think maybe you people were being nice and trying to make me feel better {insert big cheesy smile here}.  

Okie dokie, it's time for the giveaway rules.  There are basically no rules, well maybe just one.  You want to win this most awesomest junior jelly roll?  Leave us a comment.  If you would like an extra entry or two, just sign up to receive our email updates, tweet, or pin something.  But remember, if you get fancy and do more than one thing leave separate comments.

I forgot to say when this ends.  Let's leave it open until 11:59 PM Tuesday January 22nd.  I'll announce the winner Wednesday.  Good Luck!

Have a happy Saturday...I've been warned that my candles will probably start a forest fire.  My husband is a funny boy.  I think I'm going to nick name him Chuckles.         

My Riley Blake Pincushion & Frugal Friday

I am soooo excited to tell you guys that I have a pincushion tutorial featured on the  Riley Blake blog today!!!!  I hope you will hop over and check it out.  Come back and let me know what you think.  Here's a a little look...

Now let's have some Frugal Friday fun!  Here's how it works.  I'll post pictures and details of what's available.  If you see something you like just leave a comment.  I'll need email addresses for invoicing purposes ~ so if you're a no reply blogger you might miss out.  There's only one available item for each picture so first person to comment gets it.  Each item is numbered so you can reference that in the comments.  That should eliminate any confusion on which item you would like.   

Shipping...this is a little tricky.  I will not ever charge you all more than actual shipping.  It's hard for me to give actual costs here without knowing if you will purchase more than one tidbit.  Therefore here are some basic guidelines (US customers only):

1. In order to ship First Class the order has to weigh less than 13 ounces {that's about 2 yards of fabric}
2. First Class Shipping is based on location but usually costs less than $3.50
3. A Flat Rate Priority Envelope is $4.95 and I can fit up to 7 yards, mix & match, in there.
4. If you should pay more than the actual shipping I will refund the difference.
5. FREE Shipping on all patterns   

If you have any questions you can email me anytime at QuiltingLodge@gmail.com.  Please note...international shipping charges are much higher.  Please email me if you are outside the US and you would like a shipping quote.

Let's take a look at today's goodies...

(1) $6.00 Moda Sunkissed grey flowers 1.5 yards	(2) $6.00 Moda Sunkissed 1.5 yards  SOLD
(3) $3.00 Riley Blake Large Chevron 12" x WOF  SOLD	(4) $4.50 Riley Blake Large Chevron 1/2 yard  SOLD
(5) $5.50 Valori Wells Wrenly 1 yard	(6) $5.50 Valori Wells Wrenly 1 yard
(7) $5.50 Valori Wells Wrenly 1 yard	(8) $5.50 Valori Wells Wrenly 1 yard

 

Please, please leave your email address in the comment if there's any chance you are a no-reply blogger.  Otherwise, I have no way of contacting you and I would hate for you all to think I'm not responding when, in fact, I can't.  

I hope everyone has a great weekend!  Come back tomorrow....we're celebrating a birthday around here! 

My January Goals

The last two days I have been focused on my January goals for the A Lovely Year of Finishes hosted by Melissa {Sew BitterSweet Designs} and Shanna {Fiber of All Sorts}.  Guess what?  I finished!!!  This has to be a first for me.  It's only January 16th and I have finished the goal I set for January.  I'm so proud of myself.  

My goal was to finish two of the quilts that have been hanging out in the "we need binding" stack.  I did one yesterday and one today!  Yippie skippie!  I was quickly reminded of how much I hate working with binding.  It is simply my least favorite part of quilting.  

Here's a look at my quilts...100% finished!!!

       

I really really wish I had saved some of the striped fabric for the border.  But I didn't so I had to use the black fabric with little poppies.  I like it.  You all might not remember but this is the pattern my teenage daughter, Hannah, designed.  She was 14 at the time.  

Next up...the Circus quilt.  I used the lime green blender fabric for the binding on this one.  I like how this one turned out too.  This pattern was designed mostly by mom with a little help from me. 

You have to love Texas in January.  Everything in the back yard is dead and brown.  It looks lovely in my pictures.  Don't you think???

I did learn a very important lesson today.  I really should decide on the binding fabric for a quilt while I have all the fabric in stock.  DUH!  I have 2 quilts that I didn't bother to save fabric for binding and now the fabric is gone.  Completely gone.  So, I had to figure out plan B.  Nothing like scrambling to find something to match.  Or maybe I shouldn't wait 1.5 years to bind my quilts.  Hmmm...that might be a better plan.

I have a quick question for all you wonderful quilters.  Do you sell your finished quilts?  If so, where is a good place to do that?  I'm thinking about selling the Circus Quilt but I'm not sure where I would list it or advertise it.  Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.   

Throwing in the Towel

Well, that's it.  I had to throw in the towel.  Surrender.  Wave the white flag.  I just did not have enough time to finish my Project Quilting Challenge piece.  The deadline was today at noon.  You should really pop over to Flickr and check out all the awesome projects that were submitted. 

But...all is not lost.  I now have an idea for my next quilt that's based on the blocks from the challenge.  I do plan on finishing what I started even though I'm still not sure what exactly it will be.  A wall hanging maybe.  Or table topper.  Hmmmm...I'm just not sure.  Here's a look at my blocks after I put 4 together.  

  

I really LOVE the top left block with the solid pink outer ring.  It's my favorite!

I've been a busy little bee over the weekend.  Lots of website maintenance and computer work.  YUCK!  But, that just means I'll be ready to start the week out sewing!  I really need to get started on my January goals since the month is basically half over.  Where does the time go???

I hope you all have a fantastic weekend.  And make sure to keep an eye out...there might be a giveaway in the near future.  Someone has a birthday coming up.  I really wish it wasn't me ~ I hate getting OLD!     

The Return of Frugal Friday & A Little Texas Teardrops

Happy Friday People!!!  Before I show off the Frugal Friday goodies I have a little homework for everyone.  I entered Texas Teardrops in the Show and Tell over at Quilting Gallery.  Let's look at it one more time just because I love it.  

If you decide to vote for my quilt, thank you.  If not, I banish you forever.  Just kidding!  I'm not that crazy.     

Without further ado, it's time for the return of Frugal Friday.  Here's how it works.  I'll post pictures and details of what's available.  If you see something you like just leave a comment.  I'll need email addresses for invoicing purposes ~ so if you're a no reply blogger you might miss out.  There's only one available item for each picture so first person to comment gets it.  Each item is numbered so you can reference that in the comments.  That should eliminate any confusion on which item you would like.   

Shipping...this is a little tricky.  I will not ever charge you all more than actual shipping.  It's hard for me to give actual costs here without knowing if you will purchase more than one tidbit.  Therefore here are some basic guidelines (US customers only):

1. In order to ship First Class the order has to weigh less than 13 ounces {that's about 2 yards of fabric}
2. First Class Shipping is based on location but usually costs less than $3.50
3. A Flat Rate Priority Envelope is $4.95 and I can fit up to 7 yards, mix & match, in there.
4. If you should pay more than the actual shipping I will refund the difference.
5. FREE Shipping on all patterns   

If you have any questions you can email me anytime at QuiltingLodge@gmail.com.  Please note...international shipping charges are much higher.  Please email me if you are outside the US and you would like a shipping quote.

Let's take a look at today's goodies...

(1) $6.50 Hoffman Batik  1.5 yards  SOLD	(2) $6.50 Hoffman Batik  1.5 yards  SOLD
(3) $5.00 Tula Pink Parisville Dusk  1 yard	(4) $5.00 Tula Pink Parisville Pomegranate  1 yard
(5) $2.50 Moda Amelia 16" x WOF  SOLD	(6) $4.50 Moda Amelia  1 yard  SOLD
(7) $5.50 Moda Sunkissed Pink Gingham  1.25 yards  SOLD	(8) $3.75 Moda Amelia  3/4 yards

Please, please leave your email address in the comment if there's any chance you are a no-reply blogger.  Otherwise, I have no way of contacting you and I would hate for you all to think I'm not responding when, in fact, I can't.

In other news, I have my Project quilting blocks put together.  Now I need to find time to quilt and bind them before the Sunday at noon deadline.  Man, it's going to be a busy weekend around here!

Have a great weekend!