I'm liking this one

It took me a whole year to decide how I wanted to put together my Christmas friendship exchange blocks. But this fall I finally settled on a design and collected the fabrics to use in setting these 12 holiday blocks.

Last Sunday afternoon I put together most of the rows, and this Sunday afternoon I finished it. It is ready for quilting. I am liking this one!

A big thanks to the other 11 ladies who made blocks for this exchange. Each and every block is just beautiful.

Louise & Ruby's Trunk Show

These 2 ladies - Louise & Ruby - have been friends for decades. It shows in their trunk show performances where they dress up in their 1950's style Sunday best and share their quilts, stories, and laughter with audiences.

Louise and Ruby not only create beautiful new quilts, they also collect and repair old quilts. The trunk show begins with showing some of the wonderful treasures they've pulled from dumpsters and bought at auctions over the years. The ugliest old quilt becomes a beautiful treasure once they've repaired and cleaned it up.

And the new quilts they create are works of art. The stories and laughter, however, are the best parts of their trunk show.

Raffle Quilt

This was the raffle quilt that was featured at the Big Brother/Big Sister luncheon on Saturday. It's gorgeous! Wish I had won it! Bummer!

The focus fabric is the black print used on the border and was given to members of Heartland Quilt Guild (I'm not a member) who participated. It was a "friendship" exchange. Each of the 12 ladies made 13 blocks. They exchanged the 12 blocks with each other and the 13th set was put together into this beautiful quilt to raffle off.

It was machine quilted by a gentleman from Prairie Patchworks in Wagner, SD. The quilting is such fun. Every block is unique.

I just know that the lucky lady whose name was drawn is going to enjoy this quilt for many years.

Trunk Show & Luncheon

On Saturday I attended a fun activity for great cause. The local Big Brother/Big Sister organization held a fund raiser that included a luncheon, quilt trunk show by Louise & Ruby, a silent auction, and a raffle. A tasty soup/sandwich/dessert luncheon was served to around 70 attendees.

Our pillowcase project was also a part of the day, with pillowcases pulled over every chair back. We were asked to speak briefly about the project to encourage donations of either cases, pillows, or cash. We're about a quarter of the way to our goal for pillowcases, but have a long way to go for pillows. I have the big tote containing nearly 100 pillowcases at my house. 300 to go!

In the next couple of days I'll post about the raffle quilt and the trunk show.

Green Fairy is having a GIVEAWAY

http://greenfairyquilts.blogspot.com/

You just have to check out the gorgeous fabric the Green Fairy is giving away! It is a Moda "Breakfast at Tiffany" fat eighth bundle. Isn't it beautiful?

Sewing update

I've not stepped foot in my sewing room for over a week now. I'm going through withdrawal. My MIL turned 89 on Friday! Both of my girls came to visit her today while their husbands were busy with pheasant hunting and football. We took her to lunch and then came back to our house for the afternoon.

I did a little rearranging of my fall decorations. This big pot of fall flowers looks better on the fireplace. Now . . . if I could just keep my cat from pulling the flowers out of the pot.

Passion for education

I just returned from the South Dakota Teacher of the Year award banquet, held at the annual Systems Change Conference. First of all, a huge congratulations to the 2011 SD Teacher of the Year - Susan Turnipseed. And also congratulations to the other 5 finalists. These educators are such fine examples of the wonderful educators we have all across this state.

The theme of this year's conference is "Passion & Persistance in Education". These regional candidates all exhibit passion for their chosen career. Our speaker tonight was the National Teacher of the Year and she was inspiring. And passionate about education!

I travelled together yesterday with 2 co-workers, coming home from a school we had been working in. Our discussion in the car turned to the some of the talented teachers we see in the schools we visit. Jack commented that South Dakotans don't know what great teachers they have in this state - and that since we are 51st in ranking for teacher salaries - that the state's schools get Buicks for the cost of a Yugo! I'm thinking there are a lot of Mercedes out there in South Dakota's classrooms!!

Pin Cushion Bake-Off

I spent a fun and relaxing evening at the Pin Cushion Quilt Shop for a "bake-off". Carma and Cindy had a trunk show and demos of all pre-cut fabrics. We saw quilts, patterns, some great web resources, and lots of charm packs, jelly rolls, turnovers, and layer cakes. They've even cut some of their own from fabric lines that don't normally come in pre-cuts.

Check out http://moosequilts.blogspot.com and http://missouriquiltco.com. Or Google "jelly star quilt" on YouTube for a great tutorial.

Thanks for the inspiration ladies!!

Weekend projects

This lap sized quilt top was one of my weekend projects. I cut it out a couple of weeks ago, but just didn't get around to sewing until Sunday afternoon. The pattern is something I drew up after seeing a similar quilt at the Hill City Quilt Show - and it had a big sign saying "no photos", so I sketched instead. And then I figured out the math. I can't wait to see Sylvia, Marilyn, and Pam's versions of this lap quilt. We all bought fabric for this same project.

I'm not so crazy about all of the fabric choices. The medium print in the upper right/lower left was originally going to be a black with a tiny gold squiggle all over. I let the clerk in the Quilt Corral talk me into this purple/gold one instead. I think the black would have looked better with the black background of the large print. Oh well. . .

My other project this weekend was more pillowcases. These 2 have Dr Suess fabric and I have 2 more to finish up that are made with fish fabric. That totals 8 pillowcases so far for the Pillows for People project. I'm making a dent in my stash fabrics for these pillowcases. (But I did buy the striped border for these.)

Fall decor

Today was a good day to put out some fall decorations around the house. That includes putting away my summery quilts and putting out the fall ones.

It literally "rained" leaves today as the wind knocked off the gold leaves. It always intrigues me to see that some trees turn colors early and lose their leaves before others even begin to turn.