FREE Giveaway! New Online Quilt Magazine

I'm SO excited! There is a new Quilt magazine coming out January1, 2011 and it's going to be ALL online! No more stacks of magazines sitting around. I HATE throwing magazines away, they are such a good inspiration.  The colors may not be appealing anymore, but the patterns can inspire new ways.  And now, with an online magazine, you can keep them all digitally, to peruse whenever you want. And that also means we can search at the click of a few strokes on a keyboard and not spend HOURS looking for a pattern you just KNOW you had, somewhere in a magazine! (ask me how I know that one!)

The Quilt Pattern Magazine, started by Cindy McCoy of Quilt Campus, will debut on January 1, 2011.  Another good thing?  It's only $11.99 per year for 13 issues!  Guaranteed to have at least 5 patterns per issue and a BOM for applique and another one for piecing.

Oh, and it's SO green! Isn't that great--no more wasting trees.  And you can have the magazine in minutes from when it's ready. No more waiting for the mail. Or running to the store.

AND I was given ONE FREE subscription to give away to my readers!  All you have to do is go to their website,

The Quilt Pattern Magazine

 check out the preview version and then come back here and make a comment on what you think.  On January 1, I'll choose by a Random Number Generator one of the commenter's names!  Please make sure I have your email so I can contact you when you win!

One more way to win!  Go to the various blogs on the Blog Tour and leave comments on their blogs as well to increase your chances of winning.

Merry Christmas

 ⁸ And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. ⁹ An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. ¹⁰ But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. ¹¹ Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. ¹² This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
 ¹³ Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
 ¹⁴ “Glory to God in the highest heaven,
   and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

-Luke 2:8-14 (New International Version

Merry Christmas. Thank you God for your most precious gift to us. 

Winter Wonderland Party

  I love hosting parties, especially with a theme. It makes it so much easier to decorate, come up with a menu and all the little extras.  I like doing it for my family, but doing it for special quilting friends is the best of all. I want to thank my students each year by serving them a great meal and with all the little extras that make it special.

We started off with an ugly FQ swap, playing a game with the RIGHT family story. Whatever UGLY FQ you ended up with was yours. We found out that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but some were just plain ugly!

Next was a pretty FQ swap, this time played Chinese style (you can pick a gift to open OR pick someone else's gift).  There was a lot of swapping going on!

We also played a game, swapping little gifts. It was a fun time. Then we moved over to the house for lunch. 

Winter Wonderland Party Theme

My menu was mostly white things...and forgot to take pictures when I put the food out. Too much to remember!

 Winter Wonderland Party Menu

Appetizers:

Crudites and Dip

Beefy Cheeseball and Crackers

Sip of Shrimp Bisque

Main Course:

Creamy Baked Chicken

Fluffy Steamed Rice

Winter Veggie Salad

Frosty Grapes

Homemade Rolls

Desserts:

Coconut Cream Cake

Velvety Cake Balls

Buckeyes

Afternoon Tea:

Dutch Almond Pastry

Vanilla Chai Tea

Tables were set with a silvery blue ribbon run down through the center of the table. I placed 3 mirrors along the ribbon, spaced evenly.  I placed clear vases filled with aqua, soft blue, silver and white ornaments of different sizes on the mirrors. I also picked small tree limbs up in the woods and painted them white and put in the vases with the ornaments.  Filling up the rest of the ribbon space were little tea lights. 

I used silver charger plates and my blue snowflake plates. I placed a white napkin on each plate, fluffing it up, trying to resemble a cloud.  At each place setting, I gave each guest a small favor of a clear ornament with a feather inside, with a little poem attached:

The Legend of the Feather

I am the Angel Feather

Sent from God above

To serve as a reminder

Of His precious love. 

I'm from your Guardian Angel, 

That the Lord assigned to you.

She dropped it in her struggles

As she protected you. 

Each time you almost stumble,

Each time you nearly fall, 

Thank God and all his angels

For answering your call. 

This was set up in our great room, right off our kitchen. I just moved a few chairs to the side and set up tables in front of the tree. 

sorry--the photo turned out a bit dark. But did you notice outside? There is snow out there as well! 

Beverage Center

I had Artic Freeze (aka Blue Hawaiin Punch!) and Hypnotiq.  Not only is it a yummy fruity girly type of drink, isn't the color to die for?  It fit perfectly in my theme! I also had a pitcher of ice water, but how exciting is that?  :)

Dessert Table

My prize winning Coconut Cream Cake, along with Bakerella's Velvety Cake Pops, Buckeyes, White Chocolate Dipped Pretzels along with assorted chocolate candies rounded out the meal (and us!). 

 Living and loving it!

Later in the day, I served my most favorite Christmas recipe, Bonquet, (aka Dutch almond pastry--or also known as Dutch letters) and Vanilla Chai Tea for Afternoon Tea, in case anyone was hungry. They weren't, but they still ate it! Funny how we are, isn't it?

 Thanks to all my wonderful students for allowing me the opportunity to teach you quilting all year and then serve you!

Round Robin quiltlet, up close

I just love how my little quiltlet turned out!  It was really fun working on these this past year.  Forcing us to work outside our comfort zone, in either colors or techniques or styles.  And yet, how they all came together.  Here are better details on mine.

this is my block that started it. I chose "JOY" as my theme (it was my 'word' for the year) and I wanted it done in aquas and lime green.  This is a 4 1/2" unfinished block.

Mary added a reverse appliqued JOY

Cheryl added the fence with a few birds sitting on it...

Lisa added the musical note..saying the one thing that kept running through her head when she got my box was, "I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart..." which led her to do the note. The birds were added later by Linda. 

Candy added the next heart with embroidery

Linda added the cute little 3D birds and also the ones on the musical note 

and don't you think this little guy is just.the cutest?  It looks like he tripped and fell..I love it!

Mishelle added the little beads here and there and the borders and then Jeanne quilted it and did the binding.

Thanks Bias Buddies for a job well done!  

A Bias Buddies Christmas

My quilt group, Bias Buddies, had our annual Christmas dinner and Round Robin Revealing. Usually at Christmas, we have a block exchange, decided by a committee a few months before Christmas. Last year however, we decided to do a Round Robin (similar to the one I did a few times with the Round Robin Bloggers). We all had to start with a 4 1/2" finished block and pass it on to the next person, who had a prescribed size to make, using the owner's choice of colors and theme. Every six weeks or so, we swapped boxes, working on each other's quilts all year long. The last person had to quilt and bind it and add a sleeve. The coordinator of the exchange made labels for all of our quilts, that we all signed. Here's our revealed quilts...

Mary and her beach theme...

Jeanne and her Blue/white dishes theme

Cheryl and her fall theme

Mishelle and her soft greens/yellows theme

Lisa and her soft Romantic theme

Linda and her Monterrey Medallion in aqua and gold theme

Candy wanted everyone to make their favorite block in their favorite colors. And we are a very diverse group as far as likes and dislikes! hats off to Lisa for pulling them all together!

(okay, for the life of me I can't figure out why this won't import corrected. It's correct in my photo albums, but when I try to add photos, it's still sideways. I can't figure it out and I don't want to leave her out, so you'll have to tilt your head! sorry 'bout that!)

and mine..the theme I chose was 'Joy' and lime, aqua, black and white were my colors..

I loved how they each turned out. And I really love mine! I'll show more details in the next post.