Holy Cupcakes!!

Well my awesome box of cupcake amazingness came in the mail today!!! I'm crowning Cheryl "Swap Queen"!!! I felt my heart beat faster as I got this first peek:
If you read my blog you know I am infatuated with the Swell line by Moda and so I would have been quite content if this had been the only item in my box...cupcake or no :) I just love it!!!
But let me tell you it was not anywhere near the only item in this box chock full of goodies!!
Sitting in the swell purse was this sweet little cupcake Annie. She was surrounded by pink tissue wrapped goodies. Cheryl was most thoughtful in making sure she could breathe while in transit :) I love her!Look at this adorable wall hanging...which came complete with hanger! This is going in my sewing room. I love it!I hope no one gets tired of the phrase "I love it" 'cause you're gonna be hearing it a lot, I absolutely LOVE, love, love everything she sent!!!
Next up is this too cute sewing basket. It closes up and looks like a giant yo-yo! Inside was this little cupcake measuring tape with little hearts....I love it!! I don't know how she managed to find all these fun little goodies....look at that bath fizz tablet, that great tea towel under it all.
And how about these tea lights, and that frame , cute card and even a nail file!
Oh and a great cupcake calendar that you can see in the top photo.
Ahhhh yes I am in cupcake heaven :) Am I spoiled or what? Cheryl you did an amazing job!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!!! You are the bestest swap partner a girl could want :)
And thank you to Sharon for organizing this fun swap and giving me such a fun partner!!!!

Real Quick

Just popping in real quick. Janine will be here soon for our weekly sewing night so I've gotta be fast, my sewing room is a disaster and I'd like for her to at least have a place to set her sewing machine, am I considerate or what? Last week I had a friend come over to sew for the whole day, she has 7 children and doesn't get out much and never gets to sew, so her goal was to finish a quilt top in a day. She bought a batik jelly roll and we looked at patterns that didn't take a lot of extra background or cutting and when the day was through she had her wish. Just needs borders and quilting and we're going to plan a day in the fall to finish it up. It's Jellystone park done in batiks and it came out so pretty...good work Heide!!Another friend came over Monday with her daughter so I could teach her to bind a quilt and before she left, handed me gift certificate for Rosies. As soon as they left I hightailed it over there and added some more yummy fabric to this stack of (mostly) Kaffe Fassett goodness! Thanks Sharon :)I've been wanting to start a quilt with this fabric for a while but it's so different from my usual style, I've been wobbling over which pattern to use---when I saw this pattern

in this book I figured it would be a perfect way to get my feet wet and get a feel for how the colors play together.
I sent out my cupcake swap stuff on Saturday but she hasn't gotten it yet. Here's a little tease until it gets there Cheryl :)
Carol put this pattern in the mail for me
after I swooned over the quilt she made (and Sharon quilted) and donated for the Sew for the Cure at the Country Loft. I was in there for a class and Kathy brought it out to show me. I had to show it again isn't it beautiful?
I told her she's like my fairy godmother, it's the second time I've wished for something and "poof" there it is in my mailbox from her :) I'm thinking of making it using either Flirtor Ava Rose. If you want to see this already in a quilt look here at what Doe did with it-it's gorgeous!They're both beautiful lines. O.k. I'm off to clean this mess!
Have a great week :)

This and That

Last week started off pretty good--Monday night Janine came over and we made some progress on our Country Loft and Designer Mystery BOM's, then Tuesday I got Hopscotch pinned and ready to quilt I decided to piece a quick jelly roll top before doing anymore quilting--I really want to get my Red White and Bold and Prairie Paisley done before the end of Summer...plus I need to finish the Summer Stash Challenge and I figured this would be the one. I decided on a revised Bento Box for the Red, White and Bold. Anyway I got about halfway through the blocks when disaster struck...my sewing machine froze :( I was pretty bummed, especially since I had the rest of the week free to sew...sniff. Anyway I was up bright and early Wednesday and had her at the shop pretty much as they opened their doors, I had high hopes and brought a book with me so I could read while they fixed it ...yeah right...they said about a week!!!! I seriously had a moment of panic (I need a back up machine) and felt a little bereft... Well Janine and her family went out of town this weekend and when she dropped off her little dog Sophie Wed. night she also brought not one but two sewing machines for me to use while they were gone...now that's a good friend :) I broke the rules and went ahead and finished the other half of the blocks on a different sewing machine and I think I'll pay for it when I sew the rows together but whatever. I had two little guest doggies this weekend aren't they cute?
They're supposed to stay off the down comforter and on either of those other blankets I have given them....Rudy's struggling with this boundary :) My Sophie (yes Janine and I both have dogs named Sophie and no it wasn't on purpose) is not sure what to make of these little tiny dogs and is just a bit out of joint that she can't join them on my bed (she's a Newfoundland and weighs about 120 pounds that's why)Sophie and the sewing machines left today so I decided to start a stitchery that I got at the Country Loft last Christmas. I was thinking I needed a light box because my eyes are getting so bad (and I didn't want to wait for daylight and use a window) so I looked around to see what I could improvise. Now maybe everyone already does this but I was feeling pretty clever when I set up my acrylic sewing table and my Ott lamp like this:And it worked great
So I'm off to stitch :)

More Quilt Festival

I found the missing photo's from Quilt Festival!!! I'm bummed though because out of my 3-4 favorite booths I apparently didn't get pictures from one :( Last post I posted the pictures of the Quilt Soup booth (I was rushing through that post and I forgot to mention that) I love Barbara's patterns and bought 2...I went back so many times debating whether or not to get the kit for this: I have so many of the fabrics already that I hated to repeat them, so I just have to search for the oranges mainly. The picture really doesn't do this quilt justice! Her eye for color is amazing!
Brenda of Little Acorn is also a favorite designer. I have her book Comfort and Joy and her new one is on my wish list. Her hand-dyed wool is gorgeous I don't even do anything with wool and I needed one in every color :) I am planning on a class at Country Loft just to learn what to do with it! Her booth was pure eye-candy!
The booths were so crowded it was really hard to get decent pictures. I don't know what it is but I think most of my favorite designers are from Arizona...maybe all that sunshine. Another favorite booth was Quilted Quickies:
I bought her book, Quilted Potpourri, and it's full of cute stuff. One of my favorite local shops-Cozy Quilts-was there and I totally neglected to take any pictures, I guess because I'm always in there...still I feel bad, they had a great booth. They were showcasing the new bali pops by Hoffman-I will just have to go in and take some pictures in the shop. The other booth that was a favorite was The Vintage Spool, Verna was so sweet and when I told her how much I admired her patterns but that I was applique phobic she asked where did I live and then recommended a local teacher whose method she thought I'd like. Her quilts are amazing and I'm sad that I didn't take any pictures. Here's Sowing Sisters another San Diego shop that specializes in Kaffe Fasset/Amy Butler type fabric.And some misc. pictures of stuff I liked. This was an amazing quilt in person...lots of sparkle
I loved all the creative ideas using wool felt balls at Artgirlz--I just wish I had taken more than one picture
O.k. I think that's it for booths. All the vendors were so sweet about picture taking, I asked permission and told them it would be on a blog and without exception they all said yes. So many nice people at this show. Now for some of the show quilts. There was one section where we couldn't take pictures, very well marked, I wanted to take a picture just to show all the "no picture" taking signs but that could have been misconstrued so I refrained :) So many beautiful quilts and unfortunately my battery started to die at the end but here are some of them.
This one was made of tiny squares each representing one pixel of a photo of The Last Supper
This one really looked like an oil painting because of the texture the quilting gave it (double click it to enlarge)

I have to show you my latest fabric crush :) Ava Rose by Grand Revival-yummy!and this vintage kitchen print by Michael Miller
2 new books I've been enjoying
And I finished quilting Sunshineand my beach quilt ( and it went camping with me).
I love the border fabric, I just wish I had bought more so I could have made it bigger.I have been having the hardest time deciding on a border for my Hopscotch quilt and then at festival I saw this one similar (you can see it the back far corner) with a picket fence border and I knew that was just what it needed. So that's what I'm off to finish working on now.