And the Winner Is...

I hope my readers had as happy a Valentine's Day as I did. I got to sew all day! And then my DH made dinner for us. He treats me so well. :- )

I've added a little bit to Janet's Intuition block. The sawtooth strip down the right side, some horizontal flying geese units across the bottom, and a strip of pieced greens across the top.

Not much, but it's a start. I made quite a few blocks yesterday; I'll show them in another post. It remains to be seen whether any of them end up in Janet's quilt.

And now, for the news about two dozen of you have been waiting for, the winner of my white Love Token...

Everyone's name went onto a ticket for each comment you'd left.

And the lucky winner is Joyce!

It will be a while before Joyce actually sees her prize in person since she's about to fly over to Australia but the beauty of fiber art is that it doesn't spoil or go rotten!

Merry February

I sort of went on a reading retreat over the last few days. I've read my Nook into the red zone at least twice. But I did finish embellishing my piece for January's "white" challenge. Then I backed it and turned it:

Talk about a challenge! In fact, I had to stop midway and make myself take a few deep breaths. Mostly it turned okay but there were a few beads that loosened up during the process. That was discouraging. I tightened up the ones I could.

Still, I think it turned out fairly well. It looks really nice against Janet's intuitive block. :- )

What I'd like to do is offer up this love token to one of my readers in a give away. Leave me a (nice!) comment on this post or on any other post I make between now and February 14. On that day I will put everyone's name in a drawing once for each comment you've left. You don't need to have a blog to enter, you just need to have a valid email address so I can contact you for a mailing address when you win. ;- )

Housing Project

I worked on my Intuition Quilt for a couple of days straight then had to take a break. I've got three sections in process.

They're much farther along than this now but this was the picture that was handy.

Yesterday there was a squishy envelope in the mailbox. It was from Beth. Happy, happy, happy! The blocks from the Cyber Neighborhood give away!

Every last one is wonderful in its' own way. It took me just a bit to figure out where the house was in the last block (lower right corner). Teepees! That's going to be fun to play with.

My first thought was to put all the blocks together into one quilt top. Now I'm not so sure. Each one could be developed into a quilt of it's own. And somewhere in the depths of my studio closet there's a collection of houses and buildings from my first ever friendship quilt. When I received them I hadn't a clue how to go about setting them. I have more experience under my belt now. This may be the year they come out of the closet and get sewn into a top. And I might just include a couple of blocks from my new cyber friends! (Or maybe all of them!)

Someone, I forget who, sent Beth these little patches to share as she saw fit. There must have been enough to go all the way around because I got one of them along with the houses.

Check out the face on the gable!

Rather than keeping this for myself I may include it on one of the final pages of my Sketchbook Project. This is going to be completed and put in the mail just under the postmark deadline.

It's been fun to work on. I've learned that I really enjoy using chalk pastels and blending colors. I would still rather work with a needle on fabric though. This project has also awakened the creative writer in me. I composed several haiku to accompany the visuals in the sketchbook. Right now I couldn't say whether I'll do this again. It was fun but it was also sort of distracting; it kept me from working as much on things I would rather work on. I keep hoping that one of these days I'll find myself with more energy or more discipline or something that will make it possible for me to get twice as much done as I do currently. ;- )

A Very Pink Post

I have been remiss in not pointing out the fact that you can now put your name in the hat for this year's Pink Artists Drawing. For every $10 you donate your name will be entered twice! The drawing will be held on October 15. The big prize, of course, is the Pink Artists' Quilt which you can see here. But there have been many additional pieces of art created so there can be many other winners as well. Check out the Prize Wheel goodies here.

You may recall that I made this needlebook for the Prize Wheel.

Yes, it could be yours for only a $10 donation! And you can easily donate through Paypal or by sending a money order directly to Monica (who will then see that the funds get forwarded to the Susan G. Komen Foundation). All the information you need can be found in the left sidebar of Monica's blog. She's even installed a Paypal button to make donating easy-peasy. :- ) Go on now- click over there right now, before you get distracted!

Pink Artists Raffle Donation

First of all, let me offer my apologies for not getting back to you sooner. Not only did I not do any handwork over the weekend, I had a few bad days in other ways. Hopefully that's over with now and I'll have a nice long streak of good days.

So let me show you what I made for the Pink Artists raffle:

It's a needlebook. That pink behind the face and crown isn't quite true in this picture (wonder how that happened?) but the colors in the next photo are reasonably accurate. The picture above is of the front, the one below is the back. Can you tell how much fun I had embellishing this?


The pages are wool felt, and the inside of both the front and back covers are pockets where you can stash extra thread or a pair of folding scissors or whatever you may need in a stitching emergency. With a bit of finnagling even a credit card will fit in the pockets! (The pink is an upper flap and the black print is the pocket part.)

Here's an inside shot of the first one I made, that I use myself. I don't use those folding scissors much anymore since I'm home nearly all the time now, but back in the day I used to carry this with me to work so I could sit and stitch during the slow moments.

I've always like the Slip-N-Snip folding scissors. They're stouter and sharper than the cheaper versions.

Last year the Pink Artists raised over $3,000 for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. This will be my small contribution to the effort to meet or exceed that amount this year. As soon as I know the details of how you can enter to win this needlebook or any of the other handmade art that is coming in I'll be sure to let you know!

Second Toy Drop

Here's the little ball I made for The Toy Society:


And another view:

I used to make these balls for my own children some 20 years ago. The patches for this ball were still in my stash from way back then. The fabric is that polyester sort-of-flannel stuff they make for children's sleepwear. I must have cut the pieces just right because this ball turned out almost perfectly round. If you cut them going the wrong way on the grain of woven fabrics they sometimes come out kind of wonky. Too bad I don't remember which is the right way! (Of course I didn't mark it on my pattern piece.)

I left this toy near the front door of a health clinic in my own town on my way back from delivering the Foodie Quilt. Stopping at the dentist's office for the first drop gave me the idea to leave the ball here. I'd never been to this particular building before so I didn't know what I would find in terms of places to leave the toy. There wasn't much of an entrance. As you can see, I ended up tying it up in a young tree. It will at least be more visible than the dog I left on the backside of the statue.

I could see one of the clients in the clinic watching me through the narrow window when I took this picture so I'm pretty confident this toy will have been taken to a new home by now.

:- )

First Toy Drop

I read about The Toy Society over on Carol's blog a short while ago and then went to check it out for myself on their blog and Flickr site. What a cool project! I immediately knew I had to play along. But what toy to make? I checked out the links to free patterns on The Toy Society's blog. I went through the doll and stuffed animal patterns in my stash. Hmmm...

In the end I designed my own little puppy dog. Just a pancake style toy but with floppy ears that hang loose.

Now, where to leave it? Making that decision actually took longer than it took to make the toy. I had to drive over to a nearby town to deliver the Foodie Quilt today so I took the dog with me, all bagged and tagged. This town has an annual chain saw carving contest as part of its' Fourth of July festivities. A lot of the shop owners have purchased the various carvings; there are statues and benches and all of it is wonderful.

On one corner there's a dental clinic that's virtually hemmed in by wooden statues. Going to the dentist was always a scary proposition for me when I was a kid (to be honest, it still is) so I thought a new little companion might help someone cope today.

Unfortunately I had to tuck the bag in around the backside of this particular statue. I just hope it was spotted and collected before the rain began this afternoon!

It was a bit of a challenge for me to make this drop inconspicuously. I already stand out from the crowd because of the face mask I wear when I go out in public. The carvings gave me an excuse of sorts for taking pictures but I still felt very obvious as I fooled around trying to leave the toy behind. There weren't many people out and about at the time but the street was full of parked cars so I was afraid someone would show up any minute and catch me in the act.

I made a soft ball and dropped it off today too. Stay tuned for that story...

Happiness is Hot Water and Bluebirds

Who'd a thunk that having a new water heater installed in the attached garage would take me down for two days? Apparently enough of the fumes from whatever chemicals the plumber used seeped into our living spaces to incapacitate me. Go figure.

For those who may be interested, we ended up just replacing the existing water heater with a new one. Turns out that since we already had an electric tank in place going tank-less wouldn't improve our efficiency enough to offset the extra cost and inconveniences. That made the decision much easier to make.

These are the stragglers of the scrappy blocks I'd been making...


There are a few batik blocks too but I haven't photographed them yet. I had a very pleasant surprise in the mail and photographed it instead.

Remember the Birds of Change Exchange and the give-away I did? Well, others also hosted give-aways and I won one!

These delightful little bluebirds are from Kristin over at kleas. They even came with their own nest! Both birds are made from recycled materials: the bigger, darker bird out of velvet and the smaller bird out of a knit. My favorite parts are the tails and crests made out of real feathers.

Kristin does a lot of different crafts and teaches at a preschool in her area. The kid in me would love to be one of the students in her class. Reading about their activities even fired up my middle-aged brain!

And the Winners Are...

I'd say my first-ever give away was a success. Partly because I enjoyed making the little birds so much, and partly because of the warm reception they've had. A sincere "Thank you!" to everyone who participated by visiting my blog and leaving such nice comments.

I considered several options for selecting the winners of the two birds. Because there were so many entries I finally decided to use this random number generator. Saved me from having to copy over a bunch of names or numbers on little scraps of paper!

And now the moment you've all been waiting for...

This little bird will be winging its way to Stacysews:



And this one will be flying off to live with Quiltdivajulie!

Now I've got to catch the other birds and get them into their shipping container for their trip to CreativeKismet, the originator of this exchange and give-away. I meant to do that a couple of days ago but got waylaid by chemical exposures. Getting these little guys to the post office may be an adventure in and of itself. This affliction is teaching me how to ask for help, that's for sure.

Whew!

I didn't expect such a big response to my give-away! How gratifying :- )

As a result I decided to make a second green bird to give away:

I'll announce the two winners on Sunday. Good luck to everyone who entered! And remember, you have until Saturday at 7 (Pacific time) to put your name in the hat.

I have finished the preemie quilt for January:

Of course I had no more of either of the prints I used in the original Shoo Fly blocks. It was a real challenge to find something else that would work with the existing top. I'm actually pretty happy with the way it turned out. It has an overall red, white, and blue look that I think is very appropriate for this historic month.

See you on Sunday!

Birds of Change Give-Away

What a day! I was afraid I wouldn't be able to tear myself away from the television coverage of the inauguration and subsequent activities to even do this post! But my little flock is ready to take flight, and they are anxious to get underway.

( You should be able to click on this picture for a closer look.)

All the birds are pieced on both sides. For example, this is one side of the yellow bird...


And this is the other side:

Sometimes I used the same fabrics on both sides of the birds, sometimes I didn't. They were made out of my recently re-organized scrap bags (sorted by color). I really had a lot of fun making these.

I knew I wanted to give one bird away on my blog, but which one? After much deliberation I finally decided to hold back this green bird to offer up to one of my blog readers.

Leave a comment - on this post only please! - by Saturday 24 January, 7 pm Pacific Time, and I will enter you in a drawing to win this bird. I'll need to be able to get back to you via email to let you know you're the winner, so be sure to fill out the comment form accurately. :- )

Oh, I almost forgot! There's a list of other blogs giving away Birds of Change over at CreativeKismet. I hope you win the one you want - as long as it isn't also the one I want!

It's A Bird!

Come into the birthing room for a sneak peek at one member of my little flock as it makes its way into the world:

It's all so surgical. I even use hemostats to help with the delivery. ;- )

I'll be sending most of my nestlings to Regina at Creative Kismet for the Birds of Change Exchange. Remember to stop by on the 20th though (that's only a few days away!) because I'll be taking applications (via comments) for a new home for one particular winged messenger.

Meanwhile, I thought I'd show you one of the few gifts I made this Christmas. Remember the Dilbert tie I found at the thrift shop? I first showed it in this post. Well, I turned it into a decorative pillow for my sister. Dilbert is one of those cartoons she really identifies with. I didn't think the black and red color scheme would work in her home decor all that well but she loves the pillow. Score!

And the back...

We've received our tasks for week two of Jump Start January. I swear, it's like Diane is holding a mirror up to my face that shows me all the things I've never seen in myself before! Amazing.

She Ain't Kidding!

We've had one session and already I've had a breakthrough! I'm referring, of course, to the Jump Start January workshop I signed up for with creativity coach Diane Reardon.

I've known about life coaches and creativity coaches for some time now. I just never thought I would ever use one. I didn't think it would be a justifiable expense (can you say "low self esteem?"). Boy, was I ever proved wrong! I feel like a whole new person. A part of me that I thought was defective has been properly diagnosed and I have every expectation of a full recovery. It will require time and effort on my part of course, but the beauty of it is that now that effort will be fun, not a chore! Diane was able to help me open a door that, try as I might, I could never find the key to previously. There's a fresh new breeze ruffling the leaves around the Magpie's Nest. What joy. :- )

I have not done any actual sewing for a couple of days. But I have signed up to participate in the Birds of Change Exchange. Something about that opportunity grabbed my interest and wouldn't let go. Well, obviously the bird theme. I seem to have a thing these days for birds and bird related items. Not birds of prey, but nearly any other kind of bird species. I've always been fascinated by birds but they have really come to the forefront on my consciousness lately. So I guess this exchange seemed appropriate.

The deal is that I will make 5 ornament size birds in the medium of my choice (duh - fabric!), send them to the coordinator, and she will swap them out with birds created by other participants so that eventually I will receive 5 different birds back. I will also be making a 6th bird to give away here on my blog. Not all of the swappers will be participating in this little game, but those who are will be listed on Regina's blog. Mark your calendars for January 20 'cause that's the big day. I'll show you the birds I'm making and you can leave a comment to be entered in the drawing for the give-away. Hope to see you then!

By the way, our immediate area seems to have escaped the brunt of the flooding issues currently plaguing Washington and Oregon. Whew!