It's My 5th Year Blogging Anniversary!

First off, I want to thank all my followers and readers for helping me get to here on Blogland.  I so am so grateful for your advice, prayers when needed, help and encouragement you've provided over the years to help me grow in one of the things I love most - quilting!  As I scrolled through the 910 posts I've published, I reminisced on what I've been up to in that time.  Here are some favorites:

2009  Em's Quilt   


2010 My Bullseye Quilt


2011 My first designed pattern


2012 2nd one I designed and made


2013 Begun my Love Entwined Adventure

Again thank you for all your encouragement and sharing you have done over the years. So to celebrate, let's have a giveaway!  Since it's for five years, let's have five winners.  This is open to all worldwide. To be eligible, please be sure that I can reach you by having your email available to me.  That includes those on blogger. The last two giveaways, I've had to really work to find an email for my winners.  This time, sorry, if I can't find it easily, I'm just going to pick a new winner.  So, to enter 1. leave me a comment telling me which part of the quilting process you enjoy most - from cutting to binding and all the steps in between - and which of the prizes you are most interested in winning.  Another chance is 2.  follow me and then tell me how you are doing so or are already a follower. AND 3.  link to my Hexie Weekend post (It's the previous one) any eye candy you'd like to share. HW is every Friday. I'll add your link to the comments list considered for the giveaways.   Lastly, for those who write a post about this giveaway and include my link, I have a giveaway just for you ( a $25 gift certificate from the Fat Quarter Shop).  You're welcome to use any photo on my blog for this post. Once you've made it and placed the link to this post in it, come back here and leave a comment telling me so. I'll go read your post and put your comment in a special pool and let you know you're listed.

So how long should this giveaway run?  How about til next Hexie Weekend - that's March 7th. So the giveaways will close on March 6th at midnight.  I'll pick the winners and announce them the 7th.  Thanks for playing.  I'm so glad you have come by and said hello!

So here are the giveaways - hope there's something you'd like to come your way:
1.

Eleven 1/4 yards x WOF - would make a great Christmas quilt that has embroidery blocks

Two luscious charm packs from Moda

Two fat quarter friendly patterns and two spools of thread
a varigated C&C for Machine quilting and a Robison Anton for piecing

Three Half yards of fabric

Every crumb block maker should read this book. A
very thorough and interesting take on scraps.

Hexie Weekend and a Finish!

Before I show you my hexies, here's the lap quilt I made using Jenny Doan's Self Binding Receiving Blanket tutorial.  Go here to read about it.  This one is going to a local Breast Cancer Center. I was wondering if it would work as a rectangle - Jenny made a square one - and yes, it does work as long as you mark those centers. It measures around 38 by 46.  I'll be making more like this one.

I only had about a 5" square of waste using this method.

Here's the back.

It took me about 20 minutes to make not counting washing the flannel so that it would shrink.

Now for Hexies.  I took out that piece Deanna gave me and decided to sew it to the background.

I cut a wide border for around this 20" by 19" group of hexies.

This photo is more true to the colors of the pieces.

I decided to machine applique it to the background using a tiny zig zag
stitch, a 60/8 sharp needle with pale green Invisifil thread and Bottom Line in the bobbin.

So that's it - a finish and progress on one of my hexies.  What have you been working on?  Linky below (this week ends 3/6, Thursday, near midnight). Remember it doesn't have to be hexies. Billie and I like all sorts of projects.  And this week by linking, you're automatically entered in my blog anniversary giveaway.  That post coming up next.

An InLinkz Link-up

I'm linking to Amanda Jean's Finish it Up Friday, Richard's Link a Finish and TGIFF. Lots of creativity there.

Applique Tuesday

Well, I should have been doing applique!  I got as far as printing the pattern for Block 2 of the Benjamin Biggs Wedding Quilt and a bit more bias stems made for LE - not much!  Instead I spent my little quilty time trying out a Jenny Doan tutorial on a self binding recieving blanket.  I'm thinking if I can master it (and like Jenny said: it only takes about 10 minutes), and figure out how to add batting, St. Anne's would have more quilts faster for our clients.  I tried a smaller one and the mitered corners didn't come out too well. I can't figure out what I did wrong - probably in the cutting or maybe I didn't fold it right. ?? However I managed to salvage something from my test run.

 One corner worked.  The others had some fullness. So I wound up folding that fullness under and sewing the miters down.

 It's good enough for me to use as a napkin.

Or maybe as a placemat?  I seem to remember seeing a post by someone that used this method to add binding to a quilt.  If you know of one, please let me know.

Okay, not applique, so I'd love you to leave me a comment on yours so I can go to your blog and sigh over it. Look forward to hearing from you!

Friday Feb 28th - Giveaways, too!

I'm linking to Connie's Linky Tuesday, Esther's Wow, and Lorna's Let's Be Social.