Celebration Time /Blog GIve Away & April CQJP

Does it seem to you that the days/months/years are just fly?  There just never seems to be enough time to do everything that swirls around in your brain and you are always sitting around wishing you had more time?  Yep... certainly for me.

Before I tell you about my upcoming Give Away, I thought I would share with you my April CQJP Block.  I know, I know, a little behind but as they say, life gets in the way sometimes...besides, it's summer time and what better excuse to not get things done?

For this years CQJP (Crazy Quilt Journal Porject), I decided to not go for a specific theme but rather change it up a bit and create a different color combination each month.  For the month of April I decided on pink and green.  Funny how the older you get you start to change your likes and dislikes - this color combination is starting to become one of my favorites.

Now... for the reason behind my upcoming Give Away!  As most of you who follow me know, I have been selling and filling custom dyed orders of my dyed laces on Etsy (Raviolee Dreams) for a little over a year.  I'm excited to report that I just reached my 1,000th Sale!  Many thanks go out to each one of you who have helped me hit this magic number!

And speaking of magic numbers.... although I'm not actually too thrilled about this number, on July 4th I will hit the big 60!!!! OMG!  How did I ever get here?  With lots of hard work, many trials and tribulations, lots of learning experiences and tons of love, I made it.  So... to help me celebrate I am giving you all a chance to win a Gift Certificate to Raviolee Dreams on my Birthday!  Details will follow later this week - just be sure to get your guessing game on and come take a chance.

The Bestest Mother's Day Ever & Mayflower Road

A little late in getting to my Blog to post about Mother's Day but I would like to share with ya'll what a wonderful day I had.

As most of you who follow my Blog know, my two sons both live 3,000 and 6,000 miles away from me.  It's been hard on this moms heart as I miss them terribly but realize that they have their lives and their dreams to follow and I'm extremly proud of both of them for the men they have become and the dreams that they are following.


My youngest son Jason lives in LA with my beautiful DIL Evy and my two beautiful twin grandbabies, Evita and DeAngelo.  My oldest son Erik lives in Maui and has for about 20+ years.  On Mother's Day my son Jason flew me out to celebrate the day as well as to attend the twins 3rd birthday party (May 8th).  Little did I know that there would be a huge surprise for in store for me as well.

On the Monday after I arrived, we were all planning on going to Disneyland for the day.  That morning Evy told me Jason would meet up with us later as he had to go into his office.  Well, we got to Disney, entered the beautiful Hotel California and to my surprise, not only was Jason standing there in the lobby but there was this guy walking straight at me with sunglasses on - did ya'll hear me screaming on Monday May 7th?  OMG! Jason surprised me by flying Erik in from Hawaii that morning!  I was stunned, excited and so happy as it was the first time I had seen my son Erik in 7 years - actually it was the first time in 7 years that we had all been together.  Needless to say I had the most wonderful week with my sons and cherished every minute.  I can never begin to thank both Jason & Evy for this incredible memory.

Erik, Mom, Jason

DeAngelo and Nana Nicki

Evita

Birthday Kisses

Jason and Evy

Come visit me at my little piece of heaven - I love my life on Mayflower Road

Yipeeee I won / California here I come!

I'm so excited!  Last month I signed up for a Challenge hosted by  judymurrah .  Judy sent each contestant 4 pieces of her beautiful vintage lace and challenged us to create something with it.  The prize, a pretty chest full of more vintage laces!    Now ya'll know I love lace so I had to try!

Well, this morning Judy notified me that I had won!  Lucky me! Thank you Judy for making me step outside my comfort zone.  Working with tone on tone vintage colors was a first for me and I have to admit - I loved it! 

It didn't take me long to figure out what I wanted to do with the laces.  I cut a piece of double sided peltex 8x11 and went to town.  Not quite sure what I am going to name this one but I'm thinking of putting up for sale in my Etsy Shop.

Judy's Vintage Laces

Well, In a matter of 5 hours Rob will be trying to wake me up (4:30) to get to to the airport.  Heading out to California to see my precious grandbabies.  Evita and DeAngelo will be 3 years old on May 8th - where did the time go?  This Nana can't wait to wrap them up in hugs!

Evita & DeAngelo...almost 3!

CQJP 2012 Jan, Feb & March Done!

At the beginning of year I signed up for the CQJP 2012 (Crazy Quilt Journal Project) with all intentions of creating one block a month for the year 2012.  I've had a bit of a slow start as life seems to be running its course with one thing after another happening.  Finally, with a breather, I have managed to catch up and have completed my Jan, Feb & March blocks with April's not far behind.

I decided since I wasn't going to be going with a "theme" I would create my blocks with a different color combination each month.  Some months, my favorite colors, other months...not so much.  As you can see I have yet to use my usual "blue" on a complete block but did manage to push through and use my favorite "blue" color along with my least favorite color "orange".... all in all I think the combination came out pretty cool for the month of March.

January CQJP

February CQJP

March CQJP

Thearica's Crazy Quilting Supplies Give Away!

Congratulations go to my friend Thearica on the Grand Opening of her recreated Website... crazyquiltingsupplies  To celebrate her Grand Reopening she is giving all you Crazy Quilters a chance at winning a beautiful box of fabulous Crazy Quilting Supplies so be sure to head on over, take a chance and browse her array of pretties for your next and future Crazy Quilt projects.  As a long time customer I am especially in love with the variety of beautiful Pearl 8 threads and OMG! The River Silks are to die for!!! If you are addicted to color you will have a hard time making up your mind as to which colors to buy.... me.... I'm slowly putting a collection together.

Incredible Estate Sale Finds

Early this morning I got up and headed to the beautiful town of Cohasset - the town where Witches of Eastwick was filmed.  Cohasset is about 25 minutes from where I live and is just about one of the prettiest little towns in MA.

I had heard there was going to be an Estate Sale and that the lady who has passed away was an avid quilter.  Upon arriving at the house all I could think was "it is so pretty, it is a shame that she will no longer be here to enjoy it"  Then I walked through the doors...OMG!  It was a quilters dream.  I stood there just staring at all the piles of fabrics, the boxes and boxes of fabrics, the beautiful quilts, the pretty pictures and art work, the boxes of arts and craft supplies and the pile of bags containing lace.  I stood there in awe and also with a heavy heart.  This was her life.  You could tell she loved what she did and enjoyed collecting beautiful things.  I thought to myself "is this going to be me one day - is this what will happen once I'm gone?"  All your cherished items left for strangers to pick through.

I was happy to see that there were other quilters there all admiring her quilts and treasures.  Hopefully we will all do justice to the items we bought. All sales were for Cash only...I wish I had had more money on me so I could have bought one of her art quilts.  In the end I spent every last dime I had in my purse on fabric, vintage lace, doilies, tatting, ribbon and even a pair of beautiful vintage porcelain pins.  All in all I ended up with approximately 40 yards of fabric.  Here are a few of the treasures I got.

Want to see something purty?

A couple months ago I signed up for a RR on the CQI Forum.  I had always wanted to to step outside my typical blues & greens or pink & green colors so decided to go with a Pink & Black color pallet.  The theme of the RR was Roses.  I created my 12.5" block using dupioni silk, satins, brocades, velvet and and a pretty little silky and sent it on it's way wondering how it would be returned (always love a mystery).  Well.... no surprise to me I received my block back dressed out to the max with beads, buttons, silk ribbon, beautiful stitches and even a fabulous spider!   Thank you Ely, Rita, Gerry & Lorrie for creating such a beautiful block - I just LOVE it!

Catching up on some CQ RR's & more Dyed Pretties

For the last couple of weeks I've been playing roulette with my  CQ needles,  my dyes and lots of tiles/grout for my new walk-in shower.  Yea!  The shower is finally done and I'm happy to say that I actually enjoyed my first loooong hot shower in my own home in over a week! I'll post pictures of the before and after once the walls are painted.  I'm thinking maybe I'll give myself a break from this type of hard labor until next week.  Already have my paint picked out (warm coco) and have plans on making a one-of-a-kind shower curtain - wait until you see what I've dreamed up - I can't wait to get that project started!

After my days of tiling & grouting I relaxed by catching up on some of my RR's.  3 of them are already in the mail leaving me with about 4 more to do.  Once I've completed these RR's, I need to get caught up with the TAST and CQJP projects.   I've decided to combine both and actually have January's done.. but here it is March so I guess I need to get my mojo working overtime!  After that I think I am going to give my hands some much needed rest as they have seriously been hurting over the past week.  I know I should have elected to have the surgery in January but I just didn't have the time to have my hands tied up for weeks at a time.  Tough getting old.

A weeks worth of CQ -

SRE Spider & Cabbage Roses for Kathy S

Framed Hat Lady for Kathy S

6" Vintage Valentine for Connie

Roses for Rita

Butterfly & Roses for Ely

Cabbage Rose Frame for Ely

 

6" Under the Sea for Ruby

Not sure where I got the energy but I also dyed up about 200+ pieces of new lace.  Pictures have been taken, items packaged so all I need to do now is upload them into my shop..... when I catch my breath.  Please peek into my Etsy shop during the next week for lots of new Spring Time pretties!

Pretty Spring Time Trio

Gorgeous new Rose

Is this not the most beautiful heart you've ever seen!

Can you just picture the center cut out
so this could be used as a beautiful frame!