• 13Mar
    Categories: brilliant ideas, Everything! Comments Off on Village Garden Month 3

    Mr. Roosevelt’s Neck Tie

     

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    Here’s the third block in the Village Garden Free Block of the Month from My Quilt Village.  I love this block.  It’s so colorful, and was sooooo easy to piece!  Click here to see the completed quilt in bright fabrics.  If you want to make it in Wash Tub Prints like my sample, click here for a kit.  Here’s what the three blocks we’ve done so far look like.  As you can see, I haven’t done my final trimming!  

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    If you’re making these block of the month blocks, I’d love to see your photos.  Please share!

  • 15Jan
    Categories: brilliant ideas, fabric design, quilting Comments Off on Village Garden BOM

    Aren’t girlfriends great?  I’m blessed to have a lot of them, both in my personal and professional life.  One of my best “circle of friends” and I blog together over at My Quilt Village.  We’re all shop owners or designers in the quilting world.  At last Quilt Market, Karen Montgomery thought it would be fun to add a Block of the Month to our blog.  And that girl came prepared!  She brought us a nine block design that she had done.

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    We’ve divided up the blocks, and each month one of us is responsible for posting the pattern for the next block and some chat about it!  The first one is already up on the My Quilt Village site and I’m responsible for February.  (Oh, please, please let me remember.   That’s only 16 days away.  Mental note, mental note!)

    The quilt is a happy mix of simple pieced and applique blocks.  The picture here is of Karen M’s quilt.  Of course I’m going to make my own version of the quilt using some fabulous 1930’s fabrics.  Since Karen M. has a sample all done, I don’t really need to make all the blocks, but it’s such a cute quilt, and I’d love to see it in my fabrics, so I’m committed!  The first block went together in a jiffy, and for the applique blocks I’ll be doing some fusible and a buttonhole stitch on my Elna, so that will go fast, too.  Here’s the first block done up in my fabrics.

    Not to get all salesman-y here, but if you’d like to make a 1930’s version of this quilt, too, I’ve put together some kits with everything you need.  There are 10 fat quarters of my prints for the blocks and frames, Super Ivory for the background, my green Square-Dot for the corner stones, and the blue Trillium for the binding.  Click here to get to the online catalog.  I love that the pattern uses fat quarters, and there is enough fabric in the fat quarters to do the cool square frames around the blocks.  If you decide to do this, I want pictures!

     

  • 08Jan
    Categories: Everything!, fabric design Comments Off on We Have A Winner

    We have a winner for the Twinkler!

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      I used a random number generator this morning–that was fun, by the way–and our winner is Judy J from Sedro-Wooley.  

      Congratulations, Judy.  

      The drawing was lots of fun and I made a lot of new bloggy friends.  I appreciate all of you taking the time to comment.  I hope you’ll do it again soon.

  • 31Dec
    Categories: brilliant ideas, Everything!, musings Comments Off on New Years Resolutions

    It is that time again–time to make some New Year’s Resolutions.  Well, this year, I’m only going to make one–GET ORGANIZED!

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    You see, it’s just not fair.  In my family, my sister got all of the organizational genes–and I mean ALL of them–leaving none for me.  If you ask Sally if she has a nut pick, she would say, “Sure, it’s in the third drawer down between the egg separator and the pastry bag,” and, of course, it would be right there.  On the other hand, if you asked me if I had a nut pick, I’d say, “Yeah, in fact I might have two or three of them, because I have to keep buying new ones when I can’t find them.”  Then I would proceed to pull out every drawer in my kitchen and start rifling through them.  Eventually, you would just give up and crack your nuts with your teeth.  But not this year!  This year, I’m going to get organized.  Toward this end, I bought a book!  It’s called One Year to an Organized Life.  ONE YEAR?????  I was hoping to get it done in an afternoon.  Heck, I would even devote a whole weekend to organizing, but one year????  Oh well, a new year is coming, and I’m filled with the belief that anything is possible in a new year, so I bought the book.  I’ve even started reading the book.  It makes some good points.  I just hope this doesn’t turn out like the Jane Fonda Fiasco.  Back in the eighties, when Jane was touting her workout routine, I fell for it.  I wanted to be fit.  I bought the tape.  I plugged it into my VCR.  I sat in my chair and watched that tape everyday for weeks and I still didn’t look as fit as Jane Fonda.  I plan to keep reading my new book, and I hope that by the time I get to the end of it, my house (and life) will be organized–and when you ask for a nut pick, I’ll say, “Why yes, I do have a nut pick, but who cracks their own nuts?  Don’t you know you can buy them already shelled?”

    Something to give away…..


    I’ve been wanting to do a Give Away on my blog, and the time seems right.  I had so much fun making Twinklers out of my 1930’s fabrics for Christmas, that I’ve decided to give one away.  I’m going to give away one made from my new Daisy A Day fabrics.  All you have to do is leave me a comment before January 7th.  I’ll pick from among the names and send you this pretty Twinkler.

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    I’m Karen Snyder and I approve this message!

  • 29Dec
    Categories: Everything!, quilting Comments Off on Mini Quilts

    It has become after Christmas for my nephew Cole to stay with me for a few days.  Each time he’s here, we make a quilt for another of his stuffed animals.  This is Kody.  He got a quilt this year.  Cole chose the blue and orange fabrics with no input from me–honest!  These fabrics are from my new Daisy A Day line.  The boy has good taste!

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    Here’s Cole with Kody and Luna.

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     When we sew together, Cole operates the presser foot and narrates for the “audience.”  This is practice for both of us when we get our own tv show.  How does Quilting with Karen sound?  ”Coming to you live from Studio Anna Lena, this is Karen Snyder under the direction of Cole Paxton……..”  Too bad we weren’t really taping, we are quite entertaining!  At least we think so.

    Last Christmas Luna (Leilani Lahianaluna) got her quilt.  As a native of Maui, she needs a quilt in this Pacific Northwest climate–especially since she’s still wearing her grass skirt!  For this quilt, Cole went through my “strings” of fabric from my first Wash Tub lines of fabric.  He’s very good at matching the colors for his quilts with the particular animal it’s for!

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    I’m Karen Snyder and I approve this message!