Who Caught the Bouquet?

We had a total of 74 comments between our two blogs. You all have some great advice, and yes Gene we've used your tips (I'm not very good at keeping that "you're an >>> part to myself though!)

We took each comment, assigned it a number depending on the date & timestamp, and asked the bloggers friend RANDOM.ORG to tell us who won. Thelucky number is 64 and that number was assigned to to Anya the HillsCreek Quilter. Congrats to Anya and Thank You to the rest of you for your wonderful relationship tips.

Bloggers Quilt Festival Entry

I made this quilt this Sept (2009) for my Cousin's 2nd baby. (Neely was born Oct. 1st!) The family (mostly dad) are Nebraska Cornhusker Fans and since at the time they didn't know what they were having I used those colors for inspiration. Quilt is made with Churn-Dash pattern and half square triangles of various black-white, white-black and reds. Border is pieced blocks of the white/black. Bound with a solid Black. I quilted it with my walking foot quilting in the ditch on my brother machine - emphasing the light/dark diagonal. I then went around the big churn-dash. The back is a flannel black/white/red cat print.

I posted more about this quilt the night I finished it. (Click here).

Getting Creative

Tonight Greg and I went to one of the local shops for their once a month night with the artist. Looky what I made!

Christina Jackson, melted records into candy bowls

Then we decorated them. I hope Greg posts his - it's WAY cool.

This is one of those mini baskets that would hold a snack size candy bar.

And this is my Witches Hat. Says "Women who thought".

I'm looking forward to sharing more with you soon about National Domestic Violence Awareness month. Tomorrow the women's group I co-lead will be decorating their squares for this year's quilt. I'm very excited to show you how creative they all are.

Thoughtless Ramblings

We've been getting great relationship messages - it means a lot that so many of you have taken the time to participate in our anniversary giveaway. Please, please feel free to pass on word to whoever might enjoy this. I don't want to make anyone join-up if they don't find the posts interesting or are already following so many they haven't seen daylight or pee'd in a couple of days - BUT I'm hoping to do a PIF soon and as most of those who follow me - followed Greg first and have done the PIF thing already -- I could use some people who aren't already PIF'ed out. And I'll admit - we have a little healthy *cough* to-the-death*cough* competitiveness between us. eh, as long as it's light hearted right? I think we only fished 2 times last year as the previous 4 years I'd caught more fish than him. We had to add a # caught plus weight/length thing. I have an ultralight pole and can feel those iddy-bidder fishers take the bite. But he hauls in the ones that snap my rod in half! I always thought we needed a most unusual catch - he's reeled in a tackle box - with tackle still in it and a full catfish pole with reel. Not at the same location either! He's yet to get his "Lucky Bastard" tattoo - but he keeps talking about it.

Well today we went downtown for the annual Oktoberfest held by the Junior Guild. I'll admit it - I was there solely to scope out what items I'd like to have at my own craft booths next year - i.e. what can I do that would be original, better or cheaper? I know I'll hate people just like me when I finally get around to having a booth. I've got 3 friends ready to jump in with me - all who do completely different crafting so it could be interesting. There was one item that really caught my attention - I'm not going to make them as it really was their "one of a kind" deal. They had cut foam bricks and covered them with team fabrics and called them "bad call bricks" so you can throw them at the TV or whatever. I asked if they had any to throw at husbands.... well sometimes he just completely tunes me out. I threw the remote once and he got a black eye when he turned to see what I had just pitched. Had he not turned it would have just sailed behind him as I intended. I'm thinking that have a little pile of PAY ATTENTION to ME bricks wouldn't be a bad idea. Of course there's always the solution of just not throwing things.... I'm working on it.

Took a trip to the grocery store after the stroll downtown through the booths and have spent the past 8 hours processing and baking food for the next few weeks. I combined 2 squash soup recipes and the result is fantastic with butternut squash, apple and sausage!! got several mini-apple pies (baked in muffin tins). Almost Grandma's potato soup with cabbage and carrots and another batch of cabbage roll bake that Greg liked so much from the last time I made it. The little freezer is nearly full. French Bread was on sale and I thought some "crusty bread" would go GREAT with all the soups I've made up. My experiments have gone much better now that we have the slow cooker - I created some REALLY funny tasting stuff early on in our co-habitation and he was a little, um, spoon-shy, for a while. It's funny how you remember stuff by color or size and that makes it really difficult to cook like Grandma when they change the packaging or in Greg's case chili powder and cinnamon look a lot alike. Had to throw out a whole batch of stew once with that mistake. hell what do I know - maybe his mom really did make it that way?

Anniversary Bouquet

On October 12th (Columbus Day) GREG and I will have been married for 13 years. So we decided to have a FQ Bouquet Give-away!

If you leave each of us a positive relationship tip or a favorite thing about YOUR relationship - a different comment on each of our blogs - we'll give you two (2) chances to win, the nice, fresh and wonderful bouquet pictured above. It contains 13 Fat Quarters of funky prints.

Trouble thinking of a tip? Here's a couple of my favorites:

Brooke's relationship tips:

1. Share EVERYDAY with your loved one- laughter, joy, sadness, thoughts, silliness, hurts, touches, hobbies, looks, glances, space and time. It's ALL so important.

2.General Rule: For every negative you say or do - it takes 3 positives to overcome it. So compliment often no matter how small and jump in there and do those little things for your sweetie- even if it's just knowing to lay out the socks she can never seem to find in the morning or hiding "hello!" post-it's in the oddest places for him to find.

Rules, regulations, conditions, catches (Greg said we had to post these).

• 1 comment= 1 entry


• 2 comments (1 on EACH blog) = 2 entries


• must be POSITIVE tip


• we must have way to contact you, if you are a no reply blog reader leave your email address.


• give away entries must be received by 12:00 pm (central time) on October 12th.


• New followers are always welcome, but will not increase your chance of winning


• We'd love for you to blog about our bouquet and tip request but it will not help your chances of winning


• Theres a lot of conditions aren't there?


• No purchase required


• Batteries not included


• No refunds if raining


• Must be able to leave a comment (or 2)


• Crystal vase not included


• Almost done now.


• Free cat if you want one (Greg - you know I can't give up my furry babies!)


• International Bloggers welcome (we'll ship worldwide!!)


• Winner drawn October 12th after we get home from work.

CLASS QUILTS

Tonight we had our showing of our quilts from our beggining quilt class. You've already seen MINE and GREG'S but here's some from the rest of the class:


Patty's On point version 107" x 107"

Patty's original version 96" x 109"

Lorretta's - doesn't like purple but liked the fabric

Rose's - she hates it. We LOVE it.

Tohnya's - love that rosy border on it

Don't they just all look like completely different quilts depending on block placements and fabric choices?

New Blogger Giveaway!

http://fabricartist21.blogspot.com/2009/10/mini-giveaway-for-fall.html Has just joined the world of blogging as an additional creative outlet and is having a giveaway to boot. Become one of her followers and post about it on your own blog. I loved that she mentions she made over 100 quilts in her first 2 years of quilting - I can SOOOO related to that kind of passion. Lord knows the list I've got started and I can't seem to stop buying up bits of fabric!