Bee Block and Vintage Singer

Here is my block for the Aqua and Red Bee for me. It's the block I've asked the other girls to make for me too. This is just about the last of my Bubble Gum Basics. Oh how I loved that fabric. I chose a few Kona solids for the background color of the blocks. Kona Coal, Medium Grey and Ash.

 For this block I used Kona Ash.

 A few weeks ago I found this little piece of awesomeness at a local thrift shop. She was $35 bucks. And like so many of these vintage machines, she runs great. So nice and solid. And I can't believe I'm saying this but it has better tension than my Bernina and I didn't even adjust it.

 She was made in 1953 in Scotland.

I love the pictures in these old manuals. Oh, i think I could have been a 50's housewife. Well wait , maybe not, I don't think I'd like cooking, doing laundry or (gasp) sewing in high heels. I'm into barefootin'.

Paper Pieced Mushroom and A Beutiful Petunia Doll From Cathy!

I've been working on some more paper piecing. I drew up this mushroom. They remind me of when my husband and I went cross country before we were married. We saw these mushrooms in Colorado. I had never seen one in real life as I don't think we have them on the east coast, so these were really exciting to see out in the wild. 

Yesterday I received this beautiful doll from Cathy. I won her giveaway. Isn't she gorgeous!!

And guess what this little doll was wearing? A little mushroom necklace. I love happy coincidences like this! The trim in her dress also had little mushies in it.

And this little hair clip too!!!!

Thank you so much Cathy! She's perfect!

Giveaway Winner and a Whimsy Table Runner

The winner of the DS Collection charm pack giveaway is Tong! Thanks to everyone who played along.

I wanted to show you a table runner I made for Easter. I used some of my Whimsy by Fig Tree & Co. yardage. I don't think my missing bag of Whimsy fabric is going to turn up. So I decided it was time to make something else with what I had left.

I also made another fabric basket from Ayumi's blog. I love her tutorial. The baskets are so sweet. And I made some fabric eggs from retro mama's blog. They were really simple and everyone loved them. I'm going to make more for next year.

Drafting Your Own Paper Pieced Pattern ... Wonky Flying Geese Tutorial

If you are looking for the giveaway, it's in the post below or click here.


 That's right paper piecing. Don't run for the hills. This tutorial is about drafting your own paper pieced wonky flying geese. It will be loads of fun. I promise.You CAN"T mess these up. 

You will need:
freezer paper
a ruler and a pencil







Cut your freezer paper down to a size you want to work with, I used 8.5 x 11.














Take your freezer paper and on the non shiny side draw a set of wavy , curvy lines spaced apart as much as you like.













Then use your ruler and draw lines across the set of wavy lines spaced any distance apart you want.










Next pick the direction you want the point of your geese to go (north or south). Using your ruler draw a line from the point of the geese to the edge of the across line you drew, like this, to make your geese.















Now what I did was find my widest point and drew lines from the top to bottom on each side of the wavy lines.

Erase your wavy lines if you want to.

Number your pieces.

I colored mine also, this was more for fun than anything but it can help keep everything straight if you have a lot of pieces.

You can make the lines really curved and change the spacing up as much as you want. Here's another one I drew.

Next use your rotary cutter and ruler and cut all of your pieces apart. Cut ON the drawn line.

Now place your fabric on back of your selected fabric making sure to leave a bit more than 1/2 inch between pieces to account for seam allowance. Press with a dry iron.

Trim up the pieces leaving 1/4 inch seam allowance on all sides.

Should look like this.

Do this to all your pieces and arrange them in there original order.

Now place piece 1 and 2 right sides together, matching up papers, and sew along the edge of the paper.












Then add piece 3 to the other side of piece 1 and sew to make a unit. 

 Keep sewing your units together. Don't remove the paper yet.












 After you have all of your geese units sewn, sew them all together they way you want them. Like your original drawing. Then you can remove your paper. You can dampen it a bit if you happen to sew into the paper a bit. (note) My block is reversed from my original drawing to fix this you can scan your original drawing and print it out on the non shiny side of the freezer paper and choosing the mirror print option before you print, or iron the freezer paper to the right side of the fabric, which I've now learned is safe and does not leave any residue on the print. I didn't bother since this was just for fun. But that's how you do it if you need to.

Giveaway! Denyse Schmidt's DS Quilt Collection Charm Pack and a Little BItty Bit of Flea Market Fancy Seeds

 Hey there! The web is a buzz about Denyse Schmidt's new line for Jo-Ann fabric. Seems not everyone can find it which is sad :(  So I thought "Hey Erin, (that's me talking to myself) why not have a little giveaway." I said "hey self, that sounds like a good idea." So here we are. I'll be giving away a charm pack of nearly the whole collection of Denyse Schmidt's new line in both colorways. I'm missing the blue floral in the Fairgrounds colorway. Also I have a little bit of Denyse Schmidt's Flea Market Fancy (4.25 x 4.25) left and I I'm sending it along to the winner. I'll keep the give away open until next Saturday, April 23rd. I'll announce the winner Monday morning. It's not necessary to do anything but leave a comment. If you want to or already do follow my blog, leave a separate comment for another entry. Good luck!

Denyse Schmidt - DS Quilt Collection @ Jo-Ann Fabric

DS Quilt Collection @ Joann Fabric. It's all over quilty blogland. Denyse Schmidt has a new line of fabric out at Joann's. I couldn't resist. I really missed out on Flea Market Fancy. If it weren't for 2 of my blog friends, Kristine and Riel, totally hooking me up with some of it, I would have never had the sweet joy of making anything with FMF :)

I was not missing out on this. Very retro. I love it!











Picnic Colorway
















Fairgrounds Colorway














I wasn't able to find two prints from the Fairgrounds Colorway. But I'm not complaining :)

Fabric Yumminess....Restashing

Not too long ago I did a major destash. I gave a few bags crammed full of fabric away to my mom. I had only what I loved left. I also stopped buying fabric for quite a few months.

Then the bug hit a couple weeks ago and I HAD to get some fabric!!!! I don't do a lot of on-line shopping but I haven't been able to find some of the fabrics that I really love at my LQS's anymore. So I caved...


It all started when I won this 1/2 yard of Heather Ross Tadpole fabric on ebay for 7 bucks.Then it just snowballed from there.


I've had many of these sitting in my cart at QuiltHome for a very long time. Some Amy Butler that I wanted to restash. My favorites. Love them.


Some Heather Ross Mendocino and Amy Butler dots.


More Heather Ross, some Joel dewberry and Heather Bailey.


Some Michael Miller aqua and red and more Amy Butler dots.


Then I went on over to Hawthorne Threads and got these adorable Tip Top elephants.


Next stop one of my local quilt shops Hayloft Fabrics for some Kona and look at those Riley Blake dots! Love them too.


Then off to Burkholder Fabrics for these. Sherbert Pips...


and Kona solids in my favorite Coal...and some Medium Grey and Ash.


I also got my hands on this Cosmo Cricket Early Bird in sea foam from Quilt Expressions. I talked to the sweetest lady there. I've been trying to get my hands on this fabric foreva!!!


Found some more Cosmo Cricket Early Bird at Fashionable Fabric.


And a little more Heather Ross Mendocino there too.


Last but certainly not least a super cute package from Kerri's shop Sew Deerly Loved. Some Japanese prints and another piece of Early Bird by Cosmo Cricket. She has some great aqua and red fabrics. I love her shop.

I'd like to say I'm finished but I have my eye on a few more things at Randi's shop Fresh-Squeezed fabrics.

Then I'm done. For a while. I think. :)