Giveaway Winner & A Cute Story

It's time to announce the winner of my giveaway for the Red, White & Blue Blog Hop -- 

Mr. Random Generator picked a winner for the patriotic fabrics & pattern!   Here's a reminder of what was up for grabs....

So who won????

******  Drum Roll please!  ******

And the winner is:

Cheryl’s Teapots2Quilting!!!  Congratulations Cheryl!!!  An email has been sent to you so you can forward your snail mail address and get your goodies quickly =^..^=

I really want to thank Madame Samm and Jane at Jane’s Fabrics & Quilts for putting together the Red, White & Blue Blog Hop!  I hope you all had as much fun as I did seeing so many creative ways to celebrate America in quilts :*)

I still haven’t gotten a chance to get into my sewing studio and get anything done since before I left to visit family in Carolina last week!  No sewing for me for way too long!  I did buy some new toys for my studio today though, and all at 50% off too - gotta love a sale :*) ….

Jars for my scraps!  Angela at SoScrappy inspired me with her crumbs in jars separated by color which looked so pretty!  Right now I have all my small scraps in this bucket…

They are all jumbled together and it's really difficult to find anything.  In order to work with one color, I have to dump everything out and dig through it.  No more!!!!  I bought enough jars to have one for each color.  Now, on Rainbow Scrappy Saturdays, I can just pull down the jar with that month’s color and get to work creating, instead of spending an hour digging through my crumb bucket for the right color scraps – I love it!!! 

I have larger pieces in bigger bins and I don’t think they will all fit in the jars, but we’ll see.  It will be fun getting this part of my sewing room organized :*)

The other thing I bought is also to help organize me.  

It’s a lazy susan tool organizer!  

Doesn't it look smart sitting there next to my machine?  I had these tools spread out in different places before, most of them in this blue partitioned basket.  It worked okay but I couldn't get everything in it, and it left a little to be desired in the looks department if you know what I mean :*) 

But now I have all my tools together in one place, and right at hand as I’m working at the machine.  Perfect!!!  I’m hoping it works out as well as I think it will.

I also set up my Jo-Lite over the machine, and I am very happy with it!!!  

By the way, I got quite a few requests for more information about the light, so I dug out my card and checked to be sure it was okay to share the info with you here.  Willie Prazak is the designer of the light, and he was delighted that you are interested in his wonderful product!  He designed the light after watching his wife (a quilter of course!) try to get the proper amount of lighting in her sewing area.  She told him the many different ways each light fell short of what she needed, he took notes, and voila!  Next thing you know, he had designed a light that met all of her needs in one compact and versatile package!  You can see more about the light on my post HERE.

If you’d like to contact Willie, here is his contact info:

Willie Prazak

Giles Creek Productions

Email:  willie8213@bellsouth.net

Phone: 615-355-9564

Cell:     615-427-2746

And now for the Funny Story.....

Before I finish up this post, I’d like to share a funny story from the other day.  Remember I went to the TVQA Assembly Day event last Saturday?  And I told you I had to be at Walmart, ready to be picked up by the bus by 5AM?  Well, when I got there, one other girl was there and neither one of us could see the bus anywhere.  We were concerned because it was only 5 minutes before time for it to be leaving for the next pickup stop, so it should have been there.  I pulled up beside her, rolled down my passenger window and talked to her through the window about what we should do since the bus was apparently not there yet.  We decided to go ahead and park further out to the back of the lot and wait for it.

Once we got to the back of the lot, we were able to see the bus!  All the way over on the other side of the lot where the tractor-trailers park!  We hustled over there and made it just in time!  I grabbed my stuff, made double-sure I had locked the car up, and hopped on the bus.  It was going to be a fun day and I was happy!!!

And yes, indeed, as I shared in my last post HERE, it was a fun day!!!  However, as I dragged myself into to my car at the end of the long bus ride home, I glanced over at the passenger seat and noticed something strange.  The jacket I had left on the seat was sopping, wringing WET!!!  Oh no!  I had left the window down!  I was in such a big hurry to make the bus and never even gave that open window a second thought.  And on the worst day possible too, because we had about 3 inches of rain that day, torrential downpours all day!!!  The passenger side of my car was soaked!  I actually sat there for a few minutes not sure what to do.

All the way home, I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to tell my husband that I was stupid enough to leave the window down.  I knew he wouldn’t be mad at me – he’s the most understanding man in the world.  But damaging a car is a big deal!  When I walked in the door, he was sitting at the computer and knew immediately by the look on my face that something was wrong.  I spilled the beans, waiting for his reaction. 

And then he actually smiled at me!  I was dumbfounded to say the least.  He said, “I’ll come out and look at it in a minute, but first I need to tell you a story.”  It seems, he had been putting new brakes on our other car earlier in the day, and left it in the driveway when he was done.  He went inside when it started raining and spent several hours working on a few projects in the house.  When he went back out to the car to run an errand, he realized HE HAD LEFT THE WINDOW DOWN!!!   LOL!!!  Both of us did it, and on the same day!!!  So instead of being upset, we both had a great laugh and got busy drying out our cars.  =^..^=

Know anyone who would like to buy a used car cheap?  Hahaha – just kidding!  Both cars seem to have come out just fine with no damage - thankfully!!!

Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

=^..^=

Stash Report Sunday....

      - As Promised…. The Stash Enhancement Report!

It's so good to be home and back to blogging again!!!  Did you miss me?  I tried to keep up with reading your blogs while traveling, but I'm sure I missed a few.  Hopefully, the eye candy in this post will make up for my prolonged absence =^..^=

While I was gone, I had a blast adding some yummy new fabrics to my stash – TWO great shopping trips in the past week! - and I am really excited to share some pictures with you!  Many of you have been quick to remind me that it is my stash and I can add to it if I want to :*)  So from here on out, my Sunday report shall be known as the Stash Enhancement Report.  (If I ever figure out how to make a button, I’ll design a cute button for my sidebar =^..^=)

I do, however, want to keep in line with the spirit of the Sunday Stash Report over at Judy’s Patchwork Times.  It is important to me that I keep an eye on what is coming in and going out; that’s just good management of my resources.  And I want to have a good handle on how those fabrics coming in are being used (or not used!)  This will help me know how to buy fabrics that grow my stash in functional ways, as well as what might need to be thinned out because I’m just not using those fabrics for some reason.

So where did I go shopping to get these yummy fabrics?  

First, I planned a visit to Mary Jo’s in Gastonia during my trip to Carolina last week.  

When I walked into the store, they had rearranged everything!  I had to ask where to find the fat quarters :*)  But they still had the most wonderful inventory of all types of fabrics imaginable!  It is like being in a fabric wonderland!  If you go to this link, they have a video tour on their website:   http://maryjos.com/about/tour.aspx

I was a little disappointed, however, that their prices had risen so much!  Mary Jo's is known for two things - huge inventory and great prices.  Just last year, their price on the highest priced fabrics like batiks was about $7 a yard.  The norm for most of their fabrics was $6 to $6.50.  They still have a few fabrics at that price, but you really have to look for them, and I think they are the fabrics they would like to move out quickly.  Now most of their fabrics have been marked up to $9 and $9.50 a yard.  Some were even $10.  That’s high for Mary Jo’s, so I didn’t go quite as crazy there as I would have normally.   All in all, I think I did a great job of picking and choosing some favorites to bring home without breaking the bank, mostly fq's and half yard cuts :*)

Some of the Eye Candy from Mary Jo's!!!

These are from a collection called Marblehead by Ro Gregg
This pictures does not do these stunning fabrics justice!

Poor Don, he sat on the bench at the door where they have a TV for guys like him who are lucky enough to be married to avid quilters, and waited for me to touch and drool over every fabric in the place.  LOL!!!  There was another lady whose husband kept him company.  She was also from out of town and it seemed like every time I took something to have it cut, she was at the cutting table too!  We couldn’t help but laugh about it!  It stopped just short of becoming a competition =^..^=

Then, yesterday, our Guild put together a bus trip to the 2012 TVQA Assemby Day.  TVQA stands for Tennessee Valley Quilters Association.  Their purpose is to "promote interest in and an appreciation for quilts and quiltmaking" in the Tennessee area.  Our Music City Guild is one of about 20+ guilds under its umbrella.  Each year, one or more of the guilds hosts an Assembly Day for all the guilds to gather together.  This year it was hosted by the two guilds in Scottsboro, Alabama.  When I first joined Music City and they mentioned Assembly Day during one of our meetings, I just thought they were talking about getting together to "assemble quilts" - you know, like sandwiching and quilting them.  Hahaha!  Not so!  These guilds work very hard to put on a fun program, bring in a Guest Speaker, put on an amazing Show-n-Tell, in addition to providing vendors and lunch.  This year's speaker was Daphne Greig.

I’m still not sure how long the bus trip took, because I snoozed a little on the way there and a little more on the way back :*)   Those of us from Lebanon had to be at Walmart and ready to be picked up at 5:00 AM!!!  So quite a few of us snoozed.  But Phyllis Gall, Bus Trip Planner Extraordinaire, had bananas and bagels with cream cheese to help wake us up.  On the trip back, we watched the movie, We Bought a Zoo starring Matt Damon – good movie if you’re looking for one!

There were about 10 vendors at the event, and shopping was done.  Quite a lot of shopping as a matter of fact!  I found some gorgeous batiks (which I am an absolute sucker for – every time!), and some cool Christmas fabrics too!  

And Jim from Decherd Needeworks was there with his famous bins of fat quarters for $1 each …. 

Yes you saw that right - $1 each and quilt-store quality fabric too… needless to say quite a few of those came home with me to Enhance my Stash! :*)

But the main item I planned to buy was this really cool light!  

It is called a Jo-Lite.  As you can see from the photo below, it folds up very compact so you can easily pack it for retreats where the lighting is often a little iffy :*) 

It is also very flexible and can be made to stand high or low, close or further away, tilted or straight out, whatever your lighting need, it can be positioned to work for you.  

It’s just an amazing lamp and I’m tickled to finally have one of my own! =^..^=

I also won a prize at Assembly Day, which was a wonderful surprise!  Can you see the sweet little pair of scissors tied to the ribbon?  I almost missed them until a friend pointed them out :*)

Inside was a Bali Pop - YAY!!! - the cutest ever little table-topper kit, which I loved of course because I am enjoying making them for my frame, and a really pretty pattern - so pretty in fact that I had already bought it =^..^=  So be on the lookout, this Harvest strip club pattern just might be part of a cool giveaway here on A Quilt and A Prayer one of these days!

Don’t you just LOVE this gorgeous Bali Pop????  My eyes about “popped” when I saw it LOL!!!  These strips have some very dramatic designs and a luscious range of color from blacks to browns with a few tans thrown in for contrast.  My delighted THANKS! to the Girl’s Night Out Guild in Tullahoma for this wonderful prize!!!

Actually, the girls from Music City did very well in the prize getting category, with one girl winning the grand prize of a Brother sewing machine! 

So to finish up with my stash report numbers for this week .....  I did have a small finish in my Red, White & Blue table-topper for the Blog Hop.  I figured about 1/2 yard total used for this little quilt.

And by the way, don't forget there's still one more day to get in on the giveaway, so go HERE to check it out!

Used this week: .50 yards

Used YTD 2012: 83.25 yards

Added this week: 18.50 yards

Added YTD 2012: 159.50 yards

Net Used for 2012: -76.25 yards

So how is your stash coming along?  Are you enhancing or busting?  See how others are doing HERE at Patchwork Times!  Until next week….

Hugs & Blessings,

Teresa

=^..^=