Meals on Wheels Placemats

About a month ago, I read on someone's blog or a guild website (can't remember where) about a guild making holiday placemats for the Meals on Wheels program. I contacted our local office and asked if they would be interested in distributing placemats for the holidays. They were thrilled and I challenged guild members to make a placemat. A purchased placemat could be brought if time was a factor since they had only a month. I had no idea what the response would be and am so happy to report that at last nights meeting a total of 83 placemats were brought in. WOW, I am just amazed.

So, I got to work this morning and laid them all out to take a photo and here you go:



I loaded them up in my car and off I went to deliver them. I got to the building that I thought was Meals on Wheels, but the name on the building was Midland Meals - Lafayette Kitchen. Oh well, I thought, this must be the place. I took them inside and told the receptionist who I was and that I had talked with someone about a month ago. She went in search of who I might have talked to. The president and several others came out to see them and they oohed and aahed, but couldn't figure out who I talked to. Finally we discovered that they are a completely different organization from Meals on Wheels. They do the same thing, but provide meals to a much larger area. The president gave me his business card and asked for us to provide THEM with placemats next year. So, off to Meals on Wheels I went and the receptionist there knew exactly who I was and was so happy to see how many placemats we provided.

Good Job Common Threads Guild Members!

Guild Challenge and the Shhh Quilt

Last night at guild we had the reveal of our challenge quilts. Early this year we were to bring in a ziplock quart size bag of 10-20 fabric scraps no smaller than 4" square. We picked a bag and the challenge was to make something using those scraps. We could add our own fabrics and I added muslin and 1 floral print. I have shown tiny shots on my blog and now you get to see the whole thing. It didn't win any prizes, but I like it and will find a place to hang it after the holiday.

Here are my leftover scraps.



Linda's challenge quilt is here, but the photo doesn't do it justice. It is beautiful in person.

This is a shot of the "shhh, it's a secret quilt." My friend Janet made this redwork quilt and was planning to hand quilt it. Years ago, she had Debra baste it on her longarm and Janet started hand quilting it. It is a king size quilt and she soon realized that she was never going to finish it. So, when I got Mabel, she brought it over and said quilt it before the next guild quilt show. Then she says, a while later she told me to just get it quilted before she dies. Well, I don't remember her saying that and by no means do I think she's going anytime soon, but I quilted it for her as a Christmas gift and gave it to her last night. She saw very surprised, to say the least. I hope to get a good photo of her with the quilt at guild tonight.

Blogger Christmas

WOW, it was like christmas around here yesterday when I got the mail.

I won a prize from Sew, Mama, Sew for participating in the blog giveaway day and got to choose my FFF prize. I chose this lovely Mod Dot Red with Pink ~ Alexander Henry fabric and had planned to maybe give it to my good friend who loves red fabric, but now that I have it in my hands, I may want to keep this one for myself. Kristin posts lots of gift ideas on her blog, and this week kids crafts are featured.



The second prize is from Karen at Cotton Spice and it is 4 wonderful wool ornaments with beds and sequins. Such a lovely gift and it was wrapped in this yummy lime green fabric. I love them and can't wait to put them on the tree this evening! If you haven't visited her blog, you should go there right now. She has post after post of wonderful gift ideas complete with instructions.



Thanks so much to both of you and I just love reading your blogs!

Stashbusting Report - 12/15/08

Fabric Added This Week - 3 yards (wide backing for black and white)
Fabric Added Year to Date - 119.875 yards

Fabric Used This Week - 12.625 yards
Fabric Used Year to Date - 426.5 yards

YEAR TO DATE NET TOTAL: 306.625

Well, would you look at that!! Over 300 yards net!

I really don't know where all this fabric has come from and my stash doesn't look that different, although it isn't crammed in anymore, there is still a lot of it in my sewing room.

Nickel Fabric Swap

Our guild is doing a different kind of fabric swap in 2009. We have been swapping fat eighths for many years and this year we're going to try a Nickel Swap. There is a color that has been chosen for each month and the participants are to bring in 15 pairs of the appropriate color each month in their zip lock bag. Janet and I labeled zip-lock bags today and placed them in folders, one for each month, with the color on the label. We also provided a bigger ziplock bag for nickels from their stash. I'm excited about this and hope we have lots of swappers.

Hopefully, there will be a workshop in early 2010 to make our Nickel Quilts.

Turning Twenty with Photos

I pieced this turning twenty black and white quilt with photos yesterday and I really like how it turned out. It really is flat, it was just not smothed out on the floor. It will get quilted and bound this week and I hope the owner is happy with it. She is giving it to her mother for Christmas. What a nice memory for her mother! It's queen size so I used a bunch of my stash for this one.

More Frogs and A Birthday!

I suddenly realized that I don't have a baby boy quilt for my soon-to-be grandchild. I have 2 baby girl quilts, but thought I better get busy.

Before Andrew was born my friend, Dottie, gave me this cute little kit from Joann's that has minkee, fleece and cotton fabrics, including some frog fabric. I assembled it for baby Andrew, but it never got quilted. It is one of my UFOs in the slide show over there>>


I found it on Thursday and loaded it while waiting for Kale and Lynn to come for his birthday dinner. I still had the Froggy pantograph on the table and how convenient is that?


I did a couple rows and then when they arrived, Lynn tried it and she did a wonderful job. She said she has pieced some blocks, but that is her quilting experience, so I'm very impressed. I can see some quilting time for the 2 of us if their repationship lasts.



We had a nice dinner, courtesy of Arni's, and they took his cake home with them because it got really late.