The Anticipation is Over...

My little quilt from the DQS5 swap arrived yesterday. It had to travel all the way from Canada!

It's a cute little red and gold Christmas quilt.

My swap partner also included some chocolates, yum! and 2 ornaments for my tree: a star and a reindeer. I mentioned that I like red, and she delivered! I love it, thanks Renee for making it just for me!

It Arrived!

My DQS5 doll quilt arrived at its destination! Heidi wrote twice about receiving it on her blog, here and here. I'm so happy that it arrived safely and that she is enjoying it. She already has it hanging up in her craft room!

My partner for the mini quilt in a bag swap received my bag of goodies. I sent my bag a little while before the deadline, she has until the end of November to send me her bag. So I'll have plenty of time to work on her mini quilt December and January.

Meanwhile I've been working on my jelly roll quilt that I started when I was at my sister's.

I'm adding the white to make the quilt bigger. I'm torn between the way it looked without the white and and how it looks with. But it does need to get bigger. So I'm just going to keep going. Don't get me wrong, I do like it, I just like it both ways.

Election Day

Look what arrived just in time for Election Day! This very patriotic little quilt is all mine. Dorothy from Vermont made it for me for "Another Little Quilt Swap - round 2." I love it!



I was just at the post office sending my ALSQ2 quilt off to it's new owner...





I just love the idea of all these little quilts being sent back and forth. Now I've completed ALQS2, I'm almost done (just need a label) for DQS5 (due Dec 1). I wouldn't want to be without a swap :0), so I signed up for "The Challenge In A Bag Mini Quilt Swap." The due date isn't until Jan 26. This one is a little different from the swaps I've been doing.

All the swappers are paired up. So partners are not a secret this time. We fill up a bag with fabric and embellishments and send it off to our partner by Nov 30. We then make a mini quilt with the contents of the other person's bag, and send the finished quilt back to it's owner by Jan 26. What a fun challenge to use someone else's fabric and embellishments to make them a little quilt.
I am thinking of sending some of the fabric from my ALQS2 quilt along with some buttons from my stash, and some embroidery thread. Maybe I'll stop at the store tomorrow and see if there's anything else I can add to the bag. I hope my partner will enjoy working with the stuff I pick out!

Be sure to make some time to get to the polls today!

No Time for Bike Rides Today!

Took this picture as I was driving around town this week. I was taken by the blue skies, the white clouds, and the curvy road.

Today was a busy day of PSAT testing and a cross country race for the high schooler, primary program practice (the real thing is at church tomorrow) and Harvest Festival at school for the girl, birthday shopping and party for the middle child, talk prep for the hubby, grocery shopping and driving to and fro for him and me. Even with all that we actually got to go out to dinner without the kids today!

Here's K at the Harvest Festival She's such a climber! She actually ended up getting all the way to the top multiple times. Look at her in those black boots! This is actually the only picture I took at the Harvest Festival because my camera ran out of battery! She also won 2nd place in the hoola hoop contest. I guess climbing is in my kids' genes. I heard that middle son entertained the birthday kids by climbing up the basketball hoop pole at the party, something she also did earlier in the week at the park. I guess I should start taking them to the rock climbing gym!

This week I did get a little done on my Fall/Halloween table runner. I took all the charm squares and matched them up, lights and darks. Then sewed half square triangles. I layed them all out on the floor and played with them. And this is the pattern I came up with:

Now I'm working on sewing all the squares together. I'll give you another look when I get it all done.

I finally made it to the store today to pick up some off-white fabric for the jelly roll quilt I started at my sister's. And I got some new fabric so I could work on my ALQS quilt...I'm hoping the new fabric will motivate me to get it done! Oh, here they are fresh from the dryer...

I'll probably also use one of these to bind my DQS5 quilt. Looks like I've got enough projects to keep me busy for a little while!

Doll Quilts - ALQS2 or DQS5

I'm signed up for 2 doll quilt swaps right now. The first one is Another Little Quilt Swap Round 2. The deadline is Nov 10. The one I just signed up for is Doll Quilt Swap Round 5. The deadline is December 1st. I wasn't going to sign up for DQS5, but the sign-ups were while I was at my sister's, and we talked each other into signing up. You should have seen us all giddy trying to send our info right away so we could get in before it filled up!

My plan for ALQS2 was to take the left over fabric from my jelly roll quilt and use it to make a little quilt for my partner. So when I got home from my sister's I whipped this baby up one night. Here are some sneak peeks:

I had so much fun! I didn't really have very much of a plan, I just started sewing pieces of fabric together log cabin style, taking a step back and adding some more. It just came together as I went. I am pleased with the result! And the quilting was so fun too. I took the same approach and let the quilt tell me how I should quilt it. (does that sound crazy? :o) )

Anyway, now that I have received my partner info for DQS5 I think I might give this little quilt to him/her instead, and make a different quilt for my first swap partner. I get to hold on to it for a while though and pretend like it's mine, since the deadline isn't until Dec 1!

What was I worried about? I can handle 2 swaps at once :o). I better get started (again) on my ALQS2 quilt!