Author: sarah

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One of those days….

you know the kind.  When The kids won’t stop fighting.  When The sun won’t come out.  When every project you start you mess up.

Well, the only cure I know for that is a good old fashion purse shopping (or fabric shopping or pattern shopping or chocolate shopping)  What, you don’t devote whole shopping trips to chocolate?  Can we even be friends anymore?  🙂

Anyway, I found this purse. (yes, it is Sandi Henderson fabric…..yes, it is oil cloth. Yes, it is HUGE and  NO I won’t give it to you!)   I fell in love.  I brought it home.  And I feel better!  🙂

img_6540Isn’t it darling?  Thank you.  Thank you very much.

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The Amazing Dissapearing Nine Patch!

p2200001I was browsing the web recently and found a tutorial on line for the “Disappearing Nine Patch”!  I just had to try it…and guess what..?? It works and it is so easy! It makes you feel like a million bucks!

For this project I used one Hello Betty Charm Pack.

The first thing you do is lay them all out and organize them into nine patches. Traditionally, the nine patch has five darks and four lights. I just matched up squares I thought would look good together, sewed them together and I think it turned out really nice.

Next you take your rotary cutter and cut your nine patch in half, then in half again….and you will have this….

p2200002p2200003Now you can turn your squares…and there you have it…the disappearing nine patch!  Be creative…you can do this any way you want to. There are several different ways to lay this out. I will be trying different patterns and will post them when they are ready! So here’s the layout we finally decided on for this quilt….p2200016I am adding borders and will show you a picture of that when I am done, and before I quilt it!!

Can I just say that I LOVE this quilt!  It looks like a ton of work, but it isn’t!!

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Use Your Stash for a Good Cause

Hey everyone! I have some exciting news. The MSQC can now add Quilts for Kids– Kansas City Chapter to it’s list of undertakings! If you’re not familiar with the charity, let me give you a little rundown!

Quilts for Kids is a non-profit organization started in 2000. The whole idea is to use up your stash to make fun and happy quilts for kids who are in the hospital for extended stays. (Ex. Kids with cancer or Babies in NICU) They are partnered with the Children’s Miracle Network and Downy’s Touch of Comfort to provide children who are staying in CMN Hospitals (like Children’s Mercy for you KC folks) with something special to call their own while having to stay in such a sterile environment.

However, because the quilts have to hold up to Hospital standards, there are a few guidelines…

SIZE: 36″ Square NICU quilts or approximately 38″ x 45″ crib/lap quilts.

FABRICS: 100% cotton (regular or flannel). NO polar fleece. The kids love brightly colored, kid friendly fabrics. Remember, some of these kids are going through chemo, so please try to color coordinate your quilts.

BATTING: 1/8″ – 1/4″ LOW LOFT batting – can be polyester, cotton or a blend as long as it is LOW LOFT!

All quilts must be machine pieced and machine quilted. The quilts require a lot of machine quilting since they go through a washer and dryer cycle daily. Don’t forget to quilt in the borders!

PLEASE DO NOT HAND TIE THE QUILTS. Hand tied quilts can be a potential choking hazard and do not hold up to the daily washings they go through.

WASH AND DRY ALL QUILTS before submitting them for delivery.

We will be having a night every month devoted to making quilts for this cause but I wanted to give you the info just in case you wanted to get started now since the date isn’t set yet. Also, I know there is a special tag that has to be sewn on to the back before quilting to ensure the hospitals that it meets the Q4K guidelines. We will have those for you at the shop soon!

I’m so excited to be a part of this and can’t wait to get together and do some good doing what we love!

~Misty

P.S. If you’re interested in making a cash donation to Q4K go HERE.

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Fat Quarter Friday!!!!

Losing the fat quarter

Hey Ladies!! Dang it’s cold this week!
A good week to be sitting around quilting isn’t it 🙂

I don’t know about you but I move a lot slower in the cold. 😆
This is not such a bad thing though.  I know in, say, step aerobics we’re supposed to be up and going, kick boxing, pick up the pace, but every type of exercise has it’s place for the slow and careful exercise.  Particularly when toning muscles using weight lifting.  OK I can see every brain just shut down.  Come on!  This works for actual weights, cans of soup, or even body weight!  Body weight is how it’s used in most exercise programs. Think about leg lifts it’s not how many you can do in a minute or even sit-ups, if you are doing a ton it will start to burn but try doing a few slowly, burns faster and more doesn’t it.
I try to remind my self of this occasionally, I’ll remind myself to go slowly and keep my muscles tight… in yoga they call it keeping your muscles active.
By the way, I tried a yoga class this week… holy cow… fell over more than once and felt like I was killing myself about 5 minutes in.  I wasn’t even coordinated enough to feel like I’d done very much exercise, and that has nothing to do with the fact that I quit after about 10 minutes.  Oh well, I’ll run today I can at least do that, mostly 🙂  So any way, thoughts for today and our cold weather…
slow repetitions
To help in doing your slow repetitions get yourself a catch phrase, such as I’m building my body for life or this weight is going away, that you can say during half a repetition.  So you say this weight is going away as your leg goes up and hold then this weight is going away as it comes down.  And remember the idea is slowly.  None of this shortening the phrase stuff, like changing it to “the weight’s gone, the weight’s gone, weight’s gone, gone, gone….”etc. You know better than that.  Your mother taught you better, shame on you for thinking it. 🙂
So anyway,  even though we’re moving slower let’s not let the cold get the better of us!

Good luck and keep moving!
Hey anybody losing weight yet we’re 2 weeks in, what say ye?

Hey I just wanted to add… that anyone who wants to participate in  our forum chat to join us!   We all want to know how your doing 🙂  And it’s so helpful to have that support!

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Fabric Free For all … in the Forum! :)

Hang on to your britches everyone, because starting now, we will be giving away a free (that’s right FREE!) quilting gift every single week to one lucky forum member. How do you win it you ask? Let me explain, no there is too much, let me sum up…

Each week we will post a new thread/topic under the Weekly Giveaway forum (about halfway down the page). The thread will either contain a question or ask you to share an experience you’ve had, give us y0ur opinion, something like that. All you have to do is respond to the question or request in the thread and you are automatically eligible to win the weekly giveaway (this week is a Ruby’s Flower Garden Charm Pack). Because there are currently just 19 forum members, you have a good chance to win. Once the giveaway is announced, you will have until the following Thursday at midnight (so about a week) to post your reply. Every Friday we will announce the previous week’s winner and release a new thread for you to respond to.

So come on over and join the conversation 😀