What's on the line? ......... and a little bit of a giveaway........

Edit......... The winner has been notified. As soon as I get her e-mail reply, I'll post her name!
And the winner's name is Sarah who wrote........
Oh Sandi! you're so sweet to us lol. Well I counted fifteen mug rugs out on the line. I think I'll follow the link for the teapot and teacup ones as I know a few people those would suit to a T ;o) Thanks and have a good one. Sarah


That's right. There's an opportunity for a giveaway if you read all the way to the end of this post. First, though, check out what's on the line today..........

It's many mug rugs!  I just thought it would be fun to show you my current collection of mug rugs. I didn't make all of them. Some are from swaps. Here's a couple of close-ups.........

That coffee-themed one on the left was my second mug rug. The first one I made like that was a gift for my son's girlfriend. The next mug rug is scraps left from a tablemat and mug rugs that I made for my daughter. You can check out those items here ......  ChristmasGiftMugRugs
That third mug rug hanging up there on the line is all I could come up with for our Kindred Kwilter's Challenge project. And I didn't use enough of it, so I didn't actually "meet the challenge". It did get me interested in working with batiks, though, and a trip to Firefly Quilt Shop and the purchase of a few batik fat quarters led to the batik flower mug rugs. You can find detailed info on them at this post.........BatikMugRug
And much of this mug rug collection can be blamed on Michele over at Quilting Gallery and the Mug Rug Swap she hosted. Just go here .... TeacupAndTeapotMugRug  ... to see where the teapot and teacup mug rugs came from.........a long way around the world for sure!
I had some Valentine scraps so I had to make the two Valentine mug rugs. The topic of mug rugs was a hot conversation in the Season's BOM group so I organized a swap. I not only got a mug rug from my partner but also from three other members of the group........."just because". I love "just because" gifts. :-) Renita made that cute cat mug rug and you can see it in this post......... Renita'sMugRug

Here's the kitty mug rug that I made for my partner Regina and since one wasn't enough.........

I made her a tulip one, too, and then liked it so much that I made one for me!

Then I made one for my friend, Dorothy, and then one for my sister........... click here to see them... MugRugs
Obviously, I am not the only one addicted to making these things because here's one from Denny in PA and it's perfect in my bathroom. Yes, I now have a mug rug in every room I occupy in the house. :-) Don't you love that sheep fabric? I'm seeing a mug rug in it.........

And another mug rug from PA came from Katie and she is also a crazy quilter so she sent those gorgeous trims that will end up in my crazy quilt blocks!

And my actual swap was Kathy in Georgia and just look at all those goodies she sent me! She teaches at a local shop and has a pattern she designed for a mug rug! She embroidered the little heart with needle and thread running through it. So sweet!

Am I lucky or what? All these mug rugs and I was so inspired that I just had to make all those mug rugs for my guests at my DayTreat event.............

Each one is different but all are made from Jacquelynne's SewingRoomSocial fabrics. And so finally...........if you've read this far............you can earn a chance to win the goodies in this photo below...........

These are just a few of the items that were extras at my DayTreat.........a pretty green candy dish, some "Sewing Room Social" Charm Squares, butterfly bath salts, a little bowl of candies, some notecards, a fat quarter of one of the 30's fabrics that I am using in my CandyDish quilt blocks, a pattern from Jean Devereux with her sweet ceramic buttons and .......ta da..........a mug rug, of course! Just leave a comment on this post with your name and make sure you have an e-mail link. Just one requirement for this giveaway........tell me how many mug rugs are hanging on the line in the first picture. :-) Winner will be announce on Friday at 6:00 p.m.

Have a great Monday! See you next post with info on how I used my GO!Baby to make those mug rugs!

Sandi

A visit to the Deep Valley Quilt Guild show.........

Last Saturday, I went to Mankato, MN for the Deep Valley Quilter's Show. It was a great way to spend a very cold and windy afternoon. Actually, even if it had been sunny and lovely, I'd have been there anyway. But since it was cold and gloomy outside, the wonderfully colorful quilts were just like sunshine!  As I entered the exhibit, I checked with show staff to make sure it was okay to take photos and also to post them here. They said that should be just fine. If, though, you are a maker of any of these quilts and don't want your photo posted here, please let me know.
These are just a few of the quilts that I photographed as there were so many that I can't post them all here.

I thought I'd start with this frog themed quilt made by Courtney Schaefer who is one of the co-chairs for the show. The fabrics were those she got in her Cocoon kit bought at Firefly Quilt Shop. They sponsor a challenge where you purchase a bag that has four one yard cuts of fabric in it and you must make a quilt with almost all of the fabrics. Sometimes it's a challenge but Courtney did a great job with the fabrics she got in her bag. I'm not sure you can see it but swatches of the four fabrics pinned to the lower right corner of the quilt.

This next quilt was the first one that really caught my eye. I am always drawn to applique quilts more than pieced quilts but ...........I love them all!

And this is Courtney's husband and their daughter. She is studying that quilt as if she is thinking........hmmm.........one day, I'll quilt, too...........

And the maker of this wine-themed quilt is the other co-chair of the show, Lynn Vogel Turbes.

And here she is pointing out her little entry in the "quilt on a stick" challenge. If you have ever been to the Minnesota State Fair, you know that many foods come on a stick..........so why not have a "quilt on a stick"?  These were all really cute and very clever!

I thought I'd be able to rad the names on the quilt tags but not so. From here on out, I don't know the names of the makers of most of these quilts. I apologize for this and also because I don't have the pattern names either. I just like all these quilts.........

This quilt was unique......Bible scenes embroidered in a gold thread...........

Black and white ........and a little bit of red all over!

I do know the maker of this quilt ........ Sandi Kleinschmidt ......... as I remember when she was buying fabrics for this quilt!

And the quilt that just really intriqued me and that I went back to see it again and again, and got my vote for "Viewer's Choice", was this one by Toni Horning. The beautiful applique and the detailed machine quilting just made this quilt a "stand-out" for me.

I like it so much that I took note of her name and here it was again on this amazing little black and white quilt.......

As noted, these are just a few of the quilts that were on display. It was a great show and I am just glad that I could go!
I will be back on Monday. We are enjoying a visit from our grandson, Jacob. There could be some eggs-tra special fun times around here this weekend. Happy Easter everyone!
Sandi

Assisting the Easter Bunny.......

Once again, members of our church, St. Paul's United Church of Christ, were more than generous in donating items for Easter Baskets for our local county food shelf. This is the third year that we have done this project. Please note that we are only assisting the Easter Bunny. Not one of us makes a claim to actually be the Easter Bunny. :-)
It was about a month ago that I made the first announcement about "assisting the Easter Bunny" again this year.  Each week after that someone would hand me a check or cash and members would bring in bags of Easter grass, plastic eggs, baskets, chocolates, etc. I had fun shopping for even more goodies with the cash and then we assembled it all on Sunday, April 10th.  I had some help from some of the youth members and their mom's and here's what it looked like as we filled the baskets..................

That's Trent, on the left, and Kayla, on the right, as we set the baskets around the table.

And here's Maddy filing the baskets with Easter grass. You should have seen the floor when we were finished. LOL! And that Easter grass clings to everything!  In the photo below, Kayla, is adding lots of candies to each basket. There were all sorts of goodies from chocolate bunnies and boxes of colors, chalk, bubbles, card games, and little stuffed Easter toys that we added to the baskets.

And see all those plastic eggs in the photo above? We filled the eggs with foil wrapped bunnies and eggs and then went around the table again adding a few to each basket.

And when all the baskets were filled, we put each one in a plastic bag and added a bow (and we snipped off the top of the bag to make it look prettier).

In just a little over an hour, with the help of these newly certified Easter Bunny Assistants, we filled 52 Easter Baskets!  The helpers are .....from left to right........Tammy and daughter, Kayla, Trent, and Maddy and her mom, Monica.

There was just one more job to do........carry them all out to my car..........

We filled that trunk space and had to put a dozen in the back seat. I delivered them all to Sibley County Food Share on Monday, April 11th and the staff was excited to get something that can mean so much to a child on Easter Sunday morning. When a parent can hardly put food on the table, there is not much left for an Easter basket. Granted, the Easter Bunny is not the real reason for Easter. But loving our brothers and sisters and sharing our abundance is surely a good thing. So while this post may have nothing to do with quilting, it has everything to do with making someone smile and you know I love to make people smile. I highly recommend that you try this in your church or any community group. It was so easy to do and then you, too, could become a Certified Easter Bunny Assistant!!

Today is Good Friday and I remember that when I was a kid, local businesses closed on Friday afternoons in observance of church services. That seems such a long time ago. I think I am getting old when I think how long ago that was. LOL!  Wishing those of you that observe Easter a blessed day on Sunday.   We don't have any plans to travel but our grandson is coming to spend the weekend. I like that. :-)  Later this evening, I'll add another post of photos (I have permission to post them) of some of the quilts at the Deep Valley Quilters Show in Mankato last weekend. They were lovely, so stop by on Saturday when you need a break and take a peek at the quilts. And next week.........fun, fun, fun with my GO! Baby and a little giveaway of some extra DayTreat goodies!  And wait til you see the cute pincushion I made from the little candy dish that I placed on everyone's mug rug that day. So easy, so I will share how you can make one, too. :-)
Have a great day!
Sandi

Fun right down to the finish..........

I've shown you plenty of pictures of the gals who came to the DayTreat but I thought maybe I should prove that I actually did work on the quilt project. After all, this was my first real quilt class and I organized this as a fun event for my quilty friends, but I wanted to learn how to make this quilt. So, after Heidi left, I began ironing my 30's fabric and cutting it into the necessary strips for cutting the triangles.

Take note of the eggs you see next to that long-legged bunny. They provided some fun just before we had our pizza. I figured everyone would deserve some more fun because after Heidi left everyone really got down to the business of sewing those triangles together.......

Connie was super-focused. She was trying to get all the blocks done and the top sewn together so she could take it to her friend, Esther for hand-quilting.

Pat wasn't under any timeline. She was having fun stitching and was the only one in the group who used the larger Kaleido ruler to make larger quilt blocks.

Barbara was also focused..........

So was Kathy but do you see that "oh, I am relaxed and enjoying myself" look on her face?

Kathy was cutting and then she and Becky would stitch and then Becky would iron........real teamwork!

Connie is smiling because she was doing her blocks in batiks like Collette did. I'm bummed because somehow I didn't get a picture of her blocks when she put them up on her design wall at the end of the evening.

Just before we ate our pizza, I announced that everyone should go over to the skinny bunnies that were sitting in the window and grab a plastic egg. Then I had them open the egg to find a number inside. Each number corresponded to the door prizes in the photo below. And I have to send a big THANK YOU to Jacquelynne at The*Noble*Wife* blog and to Jeanne Devereaux from my Seasons*BOM Yahoo group for the patterns and fabric that they sent me for use as doorprizes. I bought a few items, too, but really appreciate the extra fun they provided.

And after the prizes, it was time for more food!  And notice that cute egg candy dish in the photo below. My daughter brought it to me as a gift and because I wanted this to be a fun day for her as well as everyone else, I didn't tell her how much my theme would revolve around candy dishes.........and so we laughed that she brought me a gift of a candy dish!

I popped Take and Bake pizzas in the oven and we all sat down around a table this time to enjoy our meal. As I baked the last pizza and came in to sit down, I thought........ something is missing that I was planning for our dinner.........hmmmm.......what was it?.....

It was the little clay pot votive candles I had decorated! Duh! I remembered them just as I cleaned the table off and it hit me........what did you do with the clay pot votives, Sandi?  I had put a cover over them on the table that was behind my sewing machine and totally forgot about them. So I set them out, lined them up and surrounded them with the little packages of bath salts for everyone and then I wanted to light the candles. I had no matches. Neither did anyone else. We spend our money on fabric, I guess, not cigarettes. I was determined to light a candle so I poked a fork in the bottom of one of the candles, and held it to the edge of the stove burner til the wick lit and then I used that one lit candle to light all the rest. LOL!

Someone turned out the lights, so we could get the candlelight effect I was going for all along. More on the candle in the front at a later time. Speaking of time, it was only about 7:00 at this point but blocks were getting finished, like these from Becky and Barbara.........

And Pandora was busy chain-stitching her pieces and as it had been a long day which sometimes leads to silliness by the evening, she draped them around her and Collette.

I had not yet sewn a stitch. I had barely finished cutting my strips but I finally finished the strips and at ten to eight, I cut my first triangles!!!

Meanwhile, across the room, Connie had been stitching away and had this pile of blocks to show for her diligence. She's going to make her quilt larger than in Heidi's directions, so she has about 40 finished octagon blocks in that stack.

Several of the gals left to make the long drive home but Connie and Connie and Pat and Collette and me.......we continued to stitch and chat.........and at twenty after ten, I finished one octagon block!!!!  And I have to admit, that at this point, I was feeling a little bit tired.

I wasn't so tired, though, that it kept me from thinking about a "next time". Everyone had a great time and really enjoyed Heidi's class. When she first began she shared several other quilts she had made and this one caught my daughter's eye and several others liked it, too. So, sometime in 2012, we will have Heidi back again for a class on this quilt called "Echo". My theme has already "crystalized" and we are all ready to shop for black and white fabrics. Heidi said this class will require a two-day class so I am checking on rates at the Henderson House B & B to see about accomodations for those who come from a distance.

And in the months before Heidi returns, I will have plenty of time to take my triangles.........

and sew them into octagon blocks like these that I finished last night..........

Proof that this is going to be a comfy quilt comes from Kaiser the Wonder Beagle who decided right after I laid them on the fabric on the floor, and before I reached for my camera, decided he would lay down and take a nap..........

That's the end of our DayTreat fun! It really was an awesome day!!!
My next post will have something to do with Easter and then I'm GO!ing to get GO!ing and show you a couple of projects that I made with my little GO! Baby. I'll show you the mug rugs that I made for everyone and there might just be a little prize in it for one lucky reader. You know what I say......stay tuned. :-)
Sandi