PMQG Swap: Gifts Received from Ale!

At the PMQG meeting the bag of fabric I brought was stuffed full of Neptune fabric. There are a lot of Neptune lovers out there, when the fabric line came out in 2009 I had bought quite a bit of it because it was my favorite colors, and ocean themed! How could I not love it?

Ale did an amazing job, she said she flickr stalked me, & blog stalked me! She makes me laugh :) When I opened her package, I almost started crying. She did such a great job. And when Jen saw it, she said, “You nailed her Ale!”

She did nail me! First let’s drool all over this table runner shall we? It has linen, and hand quilting, and pinwheels! It’s so pretty, it hurts my eyes.

Then she didn’t stop there, she made me a pillow too! I know right? I am the luckiest girl ever. The pillow has all of the beautiful things the table runner does.

And on the back, look at the back…. She free motion quilted “Take me to the Sea”

Look at me, I just fainted.

Okay, so thank you Ale, I love what you made for me. Now it’s time to break out the rest of my Neptune fabric and make a quilt out of it, to match my gifts!

PMQG Swap: Wonky Stars Pillow

The Portland Modern Quilt Guild held its December meeting last night. It was really great! In October we all brought a sandwich baggy full of fabric. We then put the bags all together and we each drew one out. The idea is to take it home and make something out of it. You then bring it back to the December meeting and give it to the owner of the fabric. You are allowed to add one fabric to it. There were so many beautiful things made. Quilts, tablerunners, bags, pillows, wall hangings, it was fantastic!
I grabbed a bag full of Heather Ross scraps. I love Heather Ross fabrics, they are adorable! I knew that I wanted to make a pillow, and I’ve seen several “wonky star” pillows on Flickr that I loved, so I used them an inspiration for this project.
I was so excited about this project, I had it finished a week after I brought it home. I heard a lot of people at the meeting last night saying they had just finished theirs that day! Haha! I can’t do that, I get sooo stressed out.

The pillow is 20” x 20” and I quilted it with straight lines. I made this pillow for Lara. It’s funny because I had chosen Lara’s bag of fabric last year! I made her a Schnibbles quilt out of bright colored batiks. You can see it HERE.
I am now done with all of my Christmas gift making, you can find me relaxing and enjoying the next week now!

Beach Mat

The Portland Modern Quilt Guild meeting is tomorrow night. I am so excited to go! They asked everyone to bring a "mug rug" to the meeting. A smallish placemat is what it is. To put your mug of coffee or hot cocoa and a treat on. There are some adorable ones floating around on Flickr.

My first thought was a "mini" picture. Then of course my thoughts drifted to the beach. That is where my mind is a lot, at the beach. We love it there. So naturally I thought of surfing, my husband the addict. He loves surfing. Anyways, surfing made me think of Heather Ross, and the AWESOME surfboard she put her artwork on. I want one so bad to hang in my bedroom. As if I'd use it for surfing!

The beach hut has it's very own Mermaid surfboard! Ha, see I got my surfboard after all. Awesome right?? There you have it, my very first beach mat. Sorry, can't call it a mug rug, it's made for the beach.

You all want this board don't you?? I know I do.

PMQG exchange from Jen

For the Portland Modern Quilt Guild meeting in December I shared what I had made for my exchange partner, the Schnibbles quilt. The exchange I received was made by Jen. She is such a nice person, I was really excited that she got my bag of fabrics. She went a little crazy and made lots of fun things out of it.

She made this super great bag, it’s lime green, I love lime green! It even has a pocket on it.

Then, she made lots of little zipper pouches, and a journal cover too.

Thank you Jen for the beautiful bags and journal, they are already getting lots of use.

McGuffy Schnibbles for Lara at the PMQG

Last month at the Portland Modern Quilt Guild meeting we were asked to bring a sandwich baggy full of fabrics. The idea was to have somebody else bring home your baggy of fabric, make something out of it and only add one fabric to it. Then they bring it to the December meeting and give it to you. The bag of fabric I received was from Lara. She stuffed in that bag 80 5” x 5” squares of batik fabrics! She had wrote on the note inside that she “loves Batiks and is not ashamed” LOL! It’s okay Lara, I love batik fabrics too, they are so pretty and colorful. You all know what I like to do with 5” squares. Make Schnibbles quilts of course! 80 squares is pretty much the perfect amount to make one, so it was meant to be.

I chose the pattern McGuffy, from the book Schnibbles Times Two, I like the square in a square pattern, it’s clean and simple. It needed to be a simple pattern for this crazy fabric anyway. The fabric that I added to this quilt was the red, I had over a yard of it in my stash, so it worked for the border, binding and backing.

I used a red variegated thread to straight stitch on it. I was happy how it turned out. It’s very busy and bright, and very refreshing for me to make. Thanks for the fun fabric Lara! Jen had my fabric, and I will post photos of it next time, I am in love with what she made. The meeting last night was so much fun. There was lots of food, and the projects that everybody made their partners were AMAZING!! There were so many bags, placemats, journals, quilts, a growth chart, they were all awesome. If there is a Modern Quilt Guild in your area, I highly encourage you to attend, it is worth it.

I want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas! I will not be posting until after Christmas, we have the week off, and I plan on relaxing and enjoying my time with the kids. I hope you all can enjoy being with your friends and families this coming week. Thank you for your friendship and encouragement, I really have been blessed!

Love, Heather

This is the photo I sent out in our Christmas cards. It was taken last month up in the San Juan Islands at Friday Harbor, it was so beautiful there!