Jeans For Jared Part 2

Some of you that have been following along for a while might remember my post, Jeans For Jared one of the first quilts I started to make.  It was a  patch work quilt made out of Levis the picture to the right shows the image from that post over 2 months ago.  I can not believe 2 months has come and gone.  Jared has not let me forget his Jeans.  A few other bloggers have sent me some jeans scraps.  I thought I had posted about them, but can't seem to search my own site and find them.  Any way thank you for all those of you that have sent me some scraps.  About a week ago I got a big kick in the butt from Elizabeth at Such a Sew and Sew she offered me a box of jeans if I would pay the shipping.  I have not yet blogged about it this last week (been a bit busy getting all the last minute things done to be ready for the baby), but Jared has not give me 2 seconds of time between yelling Jeans for Jared work on my quilt.

Along with the pants from Elizabeth I have some from my mother and brother so I hope that I can get a good chuck of it sewed this week and maybe get it finished sooner than later.  The plan is to hand tie the quilt and put green minky on the back if we can find it.  That is Jared's favorite color.

Today was what my wife and I hoped to be last Dr apt before the baby comes.  Sadly the Dr told my wife that she was still only dilated to a 1 and that she needed to come back next Monday.  She was hoping to be told that she is much farther along with a chance to have her this week some time (which if you saw my family's baby guesses is when we thought she would come). While its possible to have the baby before the next Dr apt, its highly doubtful and my wife is quite depressed about it.

 On a more happy note the 4 quilts are done for my contest and their is nothing I need to do to be ready for the baby other then to wait.

 I handed the quilts to my son James and told him to take them outside and get some pictures with them together. What he came up with made me giggle.

 He tossed all 4 out on the lawn and then walked around them taking pictures from different angles.

Any way as a reminder if you pick the correct birth date and time or pick the correct birth weight for Julia's birth one of these 4 quilts will be yours.  The 2 winners will each get to send me their first and second choices (in case they both want the same quilt).

Then I will ship the quilt to you anywhere in the world.  It will be hard to part with these quilts, I have grown attached to them.  I think having Julia in my arms will make it a little easier to give away.  For those that are curious the 2 remaining quilts, will be donated to the Girls Camp Auction.  This is held each year to raise money for the girls at church to go to girls camp .  My daughter Rebecca is part of this group.

Summer Fun hot pads

A week or so ago I got a large box of fabric from a neighbor of mine. It was fabric from their mothers old quilting stash.  I was very happy to take it off their hands.  I have been going though the box looking for things to do and found a lot of fabric that I called plaid.  Well my wife tells me that I am wrong that its actually called gingham.  Well I told her I am a guy and I can call it what I wanted. She punched me.  I seem to irritate her well when pregnant. LOL.

So any one that guessed the 18 for the birth day your wrong. (Wife tells me I should be more tactful.  Its been a long week.)  My wife is still waiting for the day to fast approach.  Her next appointment is tomorrow and we are hoping for better news about her body being ready.

My wife was laughing when I was making them.  As I show you my process you might laugh too.  I have this 4 1/2 inch diamond ruler and while I have wanted to use it since the day I got it.  So I took the Plaid (ya ya Gingham) that was while spring/summer colors and started cutting up diamonds out of them.  The whole time my wife sat on the couch moaning about Julia kicking her.  Once I got done sewing them into rows I sewed them into a giant Diamond.

Then the fun began as both the wife and daughter started to pester me about what the heck I was doing.  All I knew is I wanted to make hot pads to practice more FMQ on.  Any way I diced and sliced the giant diamond into 8 hot pads roughly 8 1/2 inches in size and 1 mug rug.  I had read on a blog about the joys of basting with that nice spay glue stuff.  So I took 4 of them and on the front porch I glued them together.  Now this is the point where reading instructions may have come in handy.  But I am a man and what fun are instructions.  If men read instructions, how would all the doctors keep in business.  No I did not hurt myself but freshly glued together hot pads and my wonderful sewing machine do not mix well. (That stuff sure is sticky).  I managed to break 5 needles and damage the bobbin holder on my sewing machine.  I gummed up everything.  Sigh.  Someone that is smart on this spray basting, please let me know the proper way to do things.

In the process of breaking all the needles I managed to mess up the bobbin holder.  Not to be discouraged, I got sand paper out and um repaired the holes I stuck into the bobbin holder, by sanding out all the nicks that were catching on the thread.  Needless to say I have ordered a replacement bobbin holder as mine is toast (though I did get them quilted and bound but never could get the FMQ done as I messed it all up.

Though one last note for the night and the means to to the madness I have 2 pot holders in the wash and as soon as they are dry I am taking them and the box that the fabric came in (they wanted that back) and a thank you card to the neighbor.  So it all ends a good day.  Oh and since I added the picture and forgot to mention it I received one of my 2 block swaps last week.  I updated my block swap tab above on the menu and added the 2 blocks I sent and this one that I received.

So wish us all luck that the baby will come soon.  And remember I will post a picture or 2 of the baby here when born but I will post a ton on her blog at http://juliadawnhealey.blogspot.com/

Autism Charity Quilt

My son Jared (and his older brother James in the past) goes to Spectrum Academy a charter school for Children with Autism.  Both of my sons are on the spectrum.  They are both diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome which is a high functioning form of autism.  One of the symbols of autism they use is the puzzle piece, because they come in all shapes and sizes and are all just a little different.  All are special and wonderful.

The quilt that I have created the top for today will be for a silent auction to raise money for his charter school to put on activities and get needed supplies.  The quilt top was loosely designed from quilts found by my friend Google and my wife Tanya.  When completed it will have the same thing on the back that is around the out side edge the little puzzle pieces.

I also got my May For Me Bingo Card top completed today A tad smaller then the Puzzle above it was a lot of fun to pick the pieces.  My family plans to make 3 of these.  My wife and my daughter are also making cards they have picked most of their pieces but not as fast as I am at sewing them up.

Don't forget to go enter the blog hop giveaway on yesterdays post and also the Quilt giveaway for guessing Julia's Birthday and Birth Weight you can find links on the right hand side of my blog at the top.

Blog Hop Party Giveaway & LAFF#8

Blog Hop Over


The prize for today’s giveaway is a $25 gift card to your choice of fabric stores that can be bought online.   It could be Fat Quarter Shop or it could be Jo-Ann Fabric & Crafts. It is your choice. I just have to be able to purchase it online and have it emailed to you or have the ability to send a physical gift card to you.   This can be even international so those not near me can get a gift card in their own area to spend. (2nd giveaway already going on today read below for links to that also so its a bonus giveaway day)

Today is also Friday so today's Giveaway is going to be mixed with my Link A Finish Friday this is my 8th week in a row.  I am new to quilting and set a goal to finish 52 projects in 52 weeks.  And I am on the right track with 23 finishes already this year (note only been quilting 3 months so pretty amazing if I say so my self).

More Blogs with Giveaways like mine can be found

OK for the rules of today's Giveaway.  Contest starts March 16th and lasting until March 23rd when I get home from work.


1) Be a blog follower either though GFC, RSS, or Email.  Mention how you follow.
2) Pick your favorite Finish from LAFF #7 or This week LAFF #8 I will put the linky code of both on this post so that you can easily see them.


So example entry


"I follow through GFC and my favorite quilt is Dots and Flowers on last weeks LAFF#7."


Note no way to contact you and you can't win.  I must be able to contact you for you to win.


The quilt name is the most important.  I will take all quilt names and put those names into a bowl and let Jared my 7 year old fish one out.  So for example if he drew out "Blue Zipper Bag" from last week.  All of you that picked that quilt will then be put into the bowl and one lucky winner will be picked out.


This is my rebellion on pure random number generators.  I just hate random numbers.  So no real magic too it.  Though the twist is if you don't like the quilts listed you can link your quilt finishes from this last week and pick your own quilt.  No reason for you to like mine, you can like your own.


Last but not least above I said their is 2 contests running right now.  My wife Tanya is pregnant with a baby  girl who's name will be Julia.  Up until she is born I am having a contest that if you win you get your choice of one of 4 quilts.  The rules for those 2 giveaways are on the 2 pages linked here Guess Julia's Birth Day and Time and the 2nd of the bonus giveaways is Guess Julia's Birth Weight

LAFF #8 This Weeks
LAFF #7 Last Weeks

Burst of Color - A Giveaway Quilt

Not that the sky played nice with me today, but my newest quilt Burst of Color was taken outside into the sun cloudy sky for some pictures.  I finished this quilt on Tuesday night at 9pm and then washed it and took it to work and during lunch found a park to take pictures.

The wind made it difficult to sit any where and take a picture.  Flat on the ground worked well and then on the table could not get it to hang the way I wanted.  Every few minutes..

Whoosh and off the table it would fly.  Oh well I gave it a try to take better pictures.

I did find a pretty rock to fold it up and take pictures on.  I still need to work harder at this taking picture stuff , but these are better then some.

Another shot on the rock.














Along with the quilt finish, I also received 2 packages in the mail. The first package I am not going to take pictures of because the results are a surprise.  But I will talk about it.  May For Me info here More info here the gist of the matter is we are playing Bingo.  Marcia's Crafty Sewing & Quilting Blog offered a week or so ago if you sent her a envelop with stamps she would send you some material to help out in making the bingo cards.  So the secret for today is what those materials are, but I will now have to craft up my bingo card and get ready for this.

Oh look I found a link button on Hillbilly Handiwork's to a info page for you to get all the details.

Now on to the next package I found on the door step today (OK my desk, kids bring mail in and shake them all first, before Iget home).  I got a package from http://thepewteracorn.blogspot.com/ A month ago we had a FUGLY giveaway and I scored and won a few different items.  I did not manage to get any thing fugly though.

This package had some Christmas fabric, a panel that's sitting on top and then a bunch of fabric most of which has text and writing and novelty stuff.  This excites me.  For one reason, I don't have much fabric like this.  Two its just in time for the May For Me mentioned above.  I am going to make a cute bingo card out of some of the items listed on this.  And a lot of other cool things my mind is turning on how to use this up.

Speaking of winning there is a huge blog hop party going on this weekend and into next week.  I am going to be involved in this giveaway and would suggest that you stop by and win something from me.  Even more important, throw your name into the hat to win at all of the different sites that are giving and if you have a blog Join in yourself.  Your blog needs to be added soon if you plan to make their master list.

Linking too