Do you? I do!

EQ that is!  I started with EQ5, and updated to EQ6 (thank you DH!) Now, EQ7 is going to be released very soon!  It's a fabulous product that lets you do so much.  Careful though, it is so addictive, and so easy to generate quilt designs, you may never touch your fabric stash again!  The lovely folks over at the EQ blog - doyoueq? - are actually going to be giving 10 copies of EQ7 to 10 lucky bloggers so that they can give them away to some lucky readers!  AND they will be giving those same bloggers a copy for themselves! Pretty cool, what?  You can see all the details and what you need to do to enter your blog by going here.
Here are a couple of quilts I've designed using EQ6(and actually made!)
Summer Sunset in Vancouver

Winter Frost

Mother's Day is coming

I woke up Monday morning and decided that I wanted to make my mother a bag for Mother's Day.  Grabbed my "fast & furious, quilting as you go" book, by Gudrun Erla, and a few short hours later:

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, and I will use this pattern again!

and to go inside, I made a Little Wallet!


Now, to get them all wrapped up and in the mail tomorrow!


(Oh, and that Little Wallet is so fun and quick to make - there will be several more before I pass the pattern card along!)

Giveaway spotted!

hurry on over and check out A Good Yarn's 100th post giveaway!

you won't be disappointed!

(and don't forget my giveaway on my last post!)

Generosity Project Giveaway

Last post when I showed you sweet Tilly,

(isn't she just the cutest pincushon?!  Thank you so much Melissa!)

I indicated she came to me as a result of me signing up for the Generosity Project on Melissa of Ardea's Nest's blog.

Well, now that I have received my giftie from Melissa, it's time for me to keep the generosity flowing and offer it to some of you dear readers!

This project has been going on for a little while, and I'm just going to use the info that Melissa posted on her site that she took from her Generosity partner Sharon's site, who in turn had taken it from Creative Lenna's site!  As has been said before, why re-write what is already good!?

“This offer does have some restrictions and limitations so please read carefully…

I make no guarantees that you will like what I make. No refunds… and no exchanges!!!! What I create will be just for you, and handmade with love from me. It will be created sometime in the next year (May 2010 to April 2011) and sent to you, and when you receive it, you will need to let me know it has arrived.

I will not give you any clue what it’s going to be. It will be something made in the real world that I’ll decorate and send to you through our respective postal systems. It will not be something cyber. It will be handmade, it could be any size, and it will be created from my heart in any medium I choose. I may take my time or I may make it quickly. I reserve the right to do whatever comes to mind when I create something for you!"

I am leaving it up to you as to how many people you would like to send on to. I am going to go with 3 because I don't want to stress myself out over this, but I do want to spread some generosity around, and I am giving myself a whole year in which to do it.  If you sign up, wait until you receive your gift and see what your life looks like at that moment. Create your own time frame and number of recipients. This is about creating a chain of generosity, so I hope you can give to at least one other person, but if you find yourself at a moment in time when you can not, then that's OK, too. And I'm not going to leave you out if you want to participate, but haven't got a blog. If that is the case, then perhaps you can just surprise a few folks with gifts and the suggestion that they do the same. In fact, that would get the chain going outside blogland, too!!

So, if you're still with me after that long post - sorry about the lack of eye candy - in order to be the recipient of something handmade by me for you - remember, it could be anything, and you could get it at any time within the next year! - please leave me a comment indicating you'd like to participate, and please make sure that I have some way of contacting you if you are a "noreply blogger".  I will do a random draw from all the comments to this post on MAY 1, 2010 to pick the three winners. 
I do hope everyone who reads this, whether they enter the contest or not, considers doing a little something to keep the generosity flowing!

Cheers,
Janet

Hello Ms. Postie!

I've had a very busy couple of weeks for mail deliveries!  I just recently received my Potholder Pass2 goodies (here) and now I've had lots more goodness showup at my door!

A little while back Sarah of Sarah's Prim Treasures had a Hot Potato giveaway of this cute Little Wallet Sewing Card pattern by Valori Wells and I won!  The idea of this particular giveaway is that the winner gets the pattern and can make it once or twice, (try stopping at once I've heard!) before passing it on in a giveaway WITHIN a month of receiving it!  So stay tuned for all the info on this giveway and your chance to win this cute Little Wallet pattern, coming by the middle of May.

A few days ago, Ms Postie was delivering another package for me - this one from

Melissa, of Ardea's Nest.  Isn't she cute?  Meet Tilly, who lived up to a turtle's reputation by taking her good sweet time to arrive (!!!), but she made it in one piece and has taken up residence next to my sewing machine where she can oversee everything I'm working on.

Tilly is the result of a Generosity Project that Melissa has kept going, which it will now be my turn to keep the ball rolling.  Details will follow in a separate post.

Then yesterday, Ms. Postie had still another package for me!  This one from Bea, and this one contained the WinterTime Mini quilt from the swap hosted by the Michele at the Quilting Gallery.  This one was also a bit slow in arriving, but it, too, was well worth the wait!

this really cute litte mini quilt and

a whole pile of goodies!  I got fabric and floss, charms and embellishments, some gorgeous glass buttons - see them at the front there?  Bea also included a couple of pins from her Patchwork Guild.  A truly wonderful package!

So thank you all for making my mail very memorable this past little while!  It sure makes getting bills so much more fun when there are other things there besides!

I haven't been completely slacking off this week - I did manage to finally finish my Winter Frost quilt (posted here, here and here).  That makes another April OPAM finish, and my first Spring to Finish finish.  Did you see the new button in my sidebar?  Jacquie at Tallgrass Prairie Studio has got a little Spring time motivation going on - go check it out!

and I've been working on my next 4x6ers postcard swap - here's a sneak peek

Hope you've had a great week, too!

Happy quilting

Now for something completely different

 - no feathers!  I signed up for Victoria from Bumble Beans Self Portarit challenge  Say Cheese - not sure what I was thinking, but oh I do love a challenge!
I started with this picture of myself,

and ended up with this fabric self portrait!  (don't look too close - in fact, it looks better the further away you can get from it!)

To read more about what I did, see this post and to see others versions, please go to the Say Cheese blog.

Around here, you never know What Comes Next?

Happy quilting!

Feathers!

It's Friday Night Sew-in time!

Just finished for the night, but am pretty happy with what I accomplished.  I've promised myself that I am going to finish the quilting on this one before I really dive into the next several projects that are buzzing in my brain.  I realized that not one of my OPAM finishes this year was from my UFO list and that has got to change!  This one I had expected to have finished before Christmas, but was distracted - which happens easy enough!

I'm just finishing off the borders  - the main feathers are done, just adding a few fill-ins in the open spaces.  It will be nice to have it done!

Happy Quilting!

Spoiled!

in the mail today

containing this

but wait, there's more!

I was spoiled!  Isn't it all so pretty? Thank you Jen!  Potholder Pass2 has arrived!

Improv

I've been having fun this week!  My husband was complaining that everything I was making these days was going off in a swap or donation, and nothing was staying at home.  So, since I had just finished a couple of donation quilts, and the scraps were still on my cutting table, I randomly grabbed and pieced these potholders for him - not that he does much of the cooking these days :)!  (He's too busy renovating my kitchen for me!)

Then, since I was having so much fun, and I had a stack of pinks and yellows and oranges sitting about - I had just participated in a 3.5" square swap with a Flickr friend, and my fabrics were still in a pile beside my cutting table, I started having fun with those.  Let me tell you, these are not my usual choice of colours to work with - I might work a little bit into another quilt, but to use only these colours is a bit unheard of for me!  But I had fun!  Wonky Log Cabins resulted, and I had to choose my sashing

I choose the blue to maximize the contrast.

I had fun quilting a big flower in the middle of the blocks, and then leaves and flowers throughout the sashing.

 

(I'm just loving that late afternoon glow on this one!)

I had this new, very springlike table runner done by Friday afternoon!
While not my usual colours, I am liking it!

And, just because I'm feeling daring, I've decided to join Victoria at Bumble Beans Quilts challenge to do fabric portraits. Pretty scary stuff!  We'll see how that goes!
What have you done that's outside your normal lately?
Happy quilting!

3 April Finishes

Pinwheels

Donation quilts - win/win - much appreciated by their receivers, and I get a chance to practise my free motion quilting!

Paisley

Squared

The Stack

Happy Quilting!

Play time!

It's been a wonderful couple of days filled with FMQ play - I've been practising my FMQ on three donation quilts - here's some pictures of what I've done so far.  Please excuse the threads - I'll be burying them tonight.

16 blocks, 16 different fill patterns around the pinwheels

Lots of open space to play!

Before the weekend is over, I hope to have them all done, including bindings, and will show some full pictures.
Tomorrow, though, includes some painting and patching, and Easter Dinner with my sister!
Yum!
Happy quilting!