My Day for the Kitchen Stitches Blog Hop and a Giveaway!

 Today is my day for doing a project from our new book 'Kitchen Stitches'.

I chose to do the cartwheel napkins by Amy Ellis. I had these great napkins given to me made out of a  beautiful linen,  and I wanted to spice them up a bit.  I picked out some fun Riley Blake fabric by The Quilted Fish and went to town.

 It was really fun working on a small project that I could actually use when I was done!  They went together really fast and will be perfect for Valentine's Day.

In case you haven't checked out the other gals that participated, here they are:

2/3  Heather at The Sewing Loft 

2/4  Becky at the Patchwork Posse and  Kim at My Go-Go life

2/5   Amy at FormWork Designs and  Deby at So Sew Easy

2/6  Rebecca at Ruby Blue Quilts  and Jackie at Jackie's Art Quilts (that's me=)

2/7  Melissa at Happy Melissa Quilting

2/8  Kari at Fresh Cut Quilts

Now because I love everyone that reads my blog, if you would like  a chance to win one of these books, just leave a comment.  If you would like a second chance, let me know you are a follower.  I will make a draw on Sunday February 16th.

Kitchen Stitches Blog Hop

This is going to be a fun week.  Some of us that contributed to the book are doing a blog hop!   But just to make it really fun, we picked another designer's pattern to make and we are doing it in the theme of Valentine's Day!

Here is the schedule and hop around to the blogs to see what we are all up to.   I have heard there may be a giveaway or two!   

I will be back on Feb 6th with my project, and a giveaway for you=)

2/3  Heather at The Sewing Loft 

2/4  Becky at the Patchwork Posse and  Kim at My Go-Go life

2/5   Amy at FormWork Designs and  Deby at So Sew Easy

2/6  Rebecca at Ruby Blue Quilts  and Jackie at Jackie's Art Quilts (that's me=)

2/7  Melissa at Happy Melissa Quilting

2/8  Kari at Fresh Cut Quilts

I will be back on Feb 6th with my project, and a giveaway for you=)

For The Boys Blog Hop

I love participating in Madame Samm's blog hops!  I am back in the 'For The Boys' blog hop.  How could I pass it up?  I have two adorable little men in my life that are my greatest source of joy.

I wanted to create something quilted that I know they would not only like visually but would be practical.   Using Amanda Herring's newest fabric line  of Riley Blake Fabrics called 'Twice As Nice', I created two sweet placemats for my little munchkins.

Now I may have mentioned once or a hundred times that I love embellishing and in my top 5 embellishment list is ric rac!   So you will see some of that popping into these placemats, just to give a personal mom touch=)

Go and check out the other awesome bloggers to see what they have up!

Dachsies with Moxie

Patchouli Moon Studio

It Seems to Be Sew....

Scrappy n Happy

Loves to Quilt 

Michelle's Romantic Tangle

Factotum of Arts 

Jackie's Art Quilts  (you are here=)

Living with purpose

Pin It Blog Hop

I was super pumped when I was able to participate in the Pin It Blog Hop.
In case you didn't know I am in love with dots and circles.   Having said that, I wanted to do a whimsical little pin cushion that would make me smile when I used it.

As you can see below, there is a funny looking turtle meandering around in the grass below.   He has the sweetest little hat on made of a button, pompom and little flower.

Wait!  That is no regular turtle, that is a pin cushion for the Pin It Blog Hop=)  It took a few tries at the design, but I finally figured it out.  

Here is an aerial shot of my little polka dotted friend.

If you are wondering about his colourful legs, they are lego blocks!  He had to have fun colours for legs to match his funky shell.

The other awesome bloggers that are participating in today's portion of the Pin It Blog Hop are below.   Go and check them out, I know their pin cushions will be adorable. Make sure you leave them a comment telling them so=)

Vroomans Quilts

More Stars in Comanche

Dancing Thru-Threads

What About Rheema?

Stekje

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

Just Let Me Quilt

Patchouli Moon Studio

Bea Quilter

Quilting Lines

1 Piece 2-Mary

Quiltingbydawn

Nati's little things

Marjorie's Busy Corner

krislovesfabric

BQuiltin Studio

How I Started Quilting Blog Hop

One of my very first online blog friends was Cheryl.  We corresponded pretty regularily back then and she has become someone I call a friend, even though we have never met.   She rose to quilting stardom pretty fast as she does some really amazing things with lights in her quilts, her unique comic spin on quilts and generally a pretty talented girl.   In her rise, she met Pokey Bolton along the way.   You may remember I had a gargantuan  slight idolazation of Ms. Bolton.  (yes I do know idolization is not a word, but it really does work here.)  Anyway, Cheryl got her to sign a postcard for me and mailed it to me!  Is that not awesome?

Now Cheryl has invited me to join her 'How I Started Quilting Blog Hop'.   I am supposed to tell you how I got started and hopefully show you some improvements I have made along the way.

My first quilt was a Trip Around the World.   I gave it to my brother for his camp.   I used POLYESTER!   This is a picture of a quilt I made shortly after that using all fabric from Australia.
Look at the free motion quilting on the back.

Can my stitches be any bigger?   And how big did I do the fmq?   Oh my it is embarrassing just showing it=)

This is the front of the quilt.. It is all fused and I didn't even quilt the fusing at all.  So there are big blank patches on the quilt with no quilting on it.  

I like to think I have improved, here is one of my latest quilts.  This one is called ' A Walk Through Time' and was juried into the National Juried Show in 2013 in Canada.

Here are the other awesome bloggers in this Blog Hop.  Go and check them out=)


 August 1st  Cyndi Souder

August 2nd Becky Glasby

August 3rd  Cheryl Sleboda

August 4th  Barb Forrister

August 5th Me=)

August 6th Tracy Mooney

August 7th Lisa Chin

August 8th Laura Krasinski

August 9th Catherine Redford

August 10th Sylvia Lewis

Put A Stamp On It

I am so excited to be a part of Madame Samm's blog hop 'Put A Stamp On It'!  This lady is the queen of quilting blog hops.  Literally.The.Queen.   She totally rocks.

Each blog hop has a cheerleader and this one is Thearica from Pigtales and Quilts.  She is just the best for organizing us for this hop.

I participated in a hop a while ago, then was waiting patiently to join in again.... and here we go.

This is my little stamp.   We had to have a theme.  Well that was a no brainer.   Polka dots and lots of 'em!  Notice the flowers, leaves and background all have polka dots...sigh, so heavenly=)

Get this, I even did trapunto on the flower design!  I pulled out all the stops on this one.   The flowers are actually not one piece of fabric, but several pieces fussy cut and then the leaves are all different polka dot fabrics I have.   Yes, I have alot, but not nearly enough!  I used my super fancy thread to do some fun thread painting on the flowers.

My country is Canada, so I added that, and the number 26?   I was born on the 26th and just love that number to bits!

Here are the fellow blog hoppers who are participating today.  Please go check out their adorable stamps and be sure to leave a comment=)

More Stars in Comanche

Dachsies With Moxie

Notion Nanny

13 Woodhouse Road

Heikes Quilt

Traveling Quilter

What About Rheema?

FromThis to That

Sew We Quilt

This was super fun.   Thanks Madame Samm for making quilting extra exciting!