Been Puzzled

 Been Puzzled is my newest finish.  I completed this quilt to donate to my son Jared's school (that is Jared on the quilt) he goes to a Autistic school he has Asperger's Syndrome this quilt is being donated to help earn some money for needed supplies at his school

 Jared was quite happy that he got the job of laying on the quilt for me.  He is such a great kid.

 Here is the quilt hanging over the fence which I got distracted in the middle of my photo shoot when I realized.

 That our tree's are starting to bloom.  This is a mixed tree that has apricots and nectarines.  I also have a couple peach trees and a apple tree and one more apricot tree.  So far this is the only one blooming but the peach tree's are close last year a late weird winter early spring killed almost all of the peaches so I am hopping to have more luck this year.

 Now back to my quilt here is one shot no kid so you can see the whole pattern.  I forgot to take a shot up close of the binding but its a stripped pattern with little dots in it quite cute.

 After taking pictures of the quilt I ventured into the front yard to see how my wife's tulips are doing and out of the hundreds that are out their the first 2 blooms are out.

 We have a few of our daffodils still around my wife planted 75 and we only have a handful left but this is the 3rd one I have seen this year.  Its only inches off the ground so I had to take a funky angle shot of it.

 While looking for new signs of life I found these cute purple flowers growing in the lawn not in the flower bed where they were they were suppose to reside.

 But I did find a dandelion my son's favorite flower which my wife cant stand.  So while she is pregnant and not in the mood to frolic in the lawn he better go out and enjoy it.

 My wife put up her first decoration since Christmas so she is alive.  Speaking of the wife Tanya is still pregnant but desires not to be.  My guess for the baby to be born was today and Tanya's guess was yesterday so we will not be winning the quilts. (not that we were in the running) I cant remember for sure but I think we are past all my other kids guesses also.  So they say no news is good news.  But for us its no news is sad as we are sitting around with no plans waiting for Julia to join us.

Oh ya forgot to show off the back so here it is.  I had measured and bought the correct length for the back and when doing the blocks on front suggested to wife that we had extra and could border the blocks on front with left over back material.  As you can see with my 2 purple stripes I um miss calculated.  Oops!

A Win, A winner, and A Complete all in ONE!

 First off I won this prize to the right.  The picture is misleading the kindle was not in the case (that is my son's kindle) but I won this kindle case from http://yourhandmadehome.blogspot.com/  I was lucky enough to win this fantastic kindle case.  The best part is Tanya and I have been talking about buying Rebecca a Kindle for her Birthday in April so she will not only get a Kindle but a wonderful case to fit it in.

 (Keep it quiet though she does not know, hope she does not read my blog today)

The blog hop has officially come to a end.  This time around my wife was so excited she did all the heavy lifting for me (writing down all the names cutting them up and tossing them in a bowl).  She did this last night so that all she had to do was pull them today.

 Here they all are in the bowl.

 Jared reached in and grabbed one.

 Hum cant read this with out squinting.  Oh Dots and Flowers is the winner.  I did not even realize this until my wife pointed it out but I am a winner too as that was my example in my instructions.  So sadly I do not get any thing except a kiss from my wife and she has been stingy with those lately so that's a good thing.

 So after going though the list twice my wife determined that Debra Lee and Janet (not counting me) were the only 2 to guess Dots and Flowers.  So she wrote down their names and tossed them into the bowl.

 Here they are in the bowl!

At this point I am sure the drama of 100 pictures are getting to some but its all part of the process.

YEA!!!!!! Debra Lee is our winner.  Her website is Easily Distracted Debra  Go visit her site and congratulate her.  I will be emailing her shortly.

Last but not least its BINGO time.  While in may it will be BINGO time.  But you need to have your card done early so do not delay.  This is a chance for prizes and fun please come join in.  All part of May For me so go check it out and join us.

Here is my back.  My bingo text was done with my walking foot on (was too lazy to take it off) so the machine kept fighting me and some of the letters are a tad wonky but that's good for BINGO!

Link a Finish Friday #9

The Goal for me this year is 52 Finishes in 52 weeks help keep me honest and show off your own finishes at the same time its a Link A Finish Friday!!

This week I either got 1 finish (as I counted it) Or 4 depending on how you count it I finished 4 Summer Fun hot pads.

Last week I kinda mixed it up and had LAFF #8 along with a blog hop which added some interest in the quilts linked as people had to pick the quilt they liked most. I am excited to come home from work Friday night close the comments on that post and do my drawing and giveaway.  But if you have not entered and your fast you can go do so while I am still at work.

This last week the Top clicked quilt was Runaway to Bali Tied with my quilt Burst of Color  But interestingly the most "Liked" was Zig Zag Zoomed!  Thank you to all those that linked up this last week.

Now its time to link up.  You can read the silly rules (which I never remember to do) Or you can just start linking your finished quilts.  Lets see what we all got done this week.

So for the rules.

1) Who likes rules. Toss them out.
2) Add a link to your finish blog or where ever you show off your finishes (Not limited to quilts but I like them the most).
3) Visit a few of the finishes and comment or encourage them on.

Not Required but fun to do

1) Follow my blog.
2) Follow the blog of all those that link.
3) Link back to my blog.
4) No finish, go quilt and stop reading the web.

Dancing Butterfly

 Hum coming up with a good name for this one is harder then I though because other then quilting and binding, I did not take much thought in making the quilt (bought the top) I don't seem to like it as much as I really should.  I am sure it will grow on me, but my daughter Rebecca has pestered me enough about it I had to finish it.

So Dancing Butterfly is the name for good or for bad.  They look to be dancing to me.

This quilt was finished with a flannel that my wife picked out a couple months back and some polka dotted binding material we bought around the same time.  It turned out cute and for the first bigger quilt done with Spray Basting I think it turned out great.  I spent half the night tonight quilting the autism quilt, which is finished except for the binding and washing.  I was also able to get the binding on my Bingo card and its finished except for washing it. I will post that Friday night, with the winners of my blog hop give away (that reminds me, you have until I get home from work to enter if you have not already done so).

To spray or not to spray that is the question?

Today I did it again (this time with better results) I tried spray basting.  I read a blog post/ {not a tutorial} over at amylouwho about spray basting.  It made me decide to give it a try.  I went big and basted this baby quilt to the right (I'll talk more about that in a sec) My autism quilt, my may for me bingo card (see the link on side bar for more info for that), and 2 more of my fugly runners.  So a total of 5 items.  This time I took help with me, I dragged Tanya my pregnant wife out into the yard on our picnic table and we were able to do this.  I think its WAY!!!!!!!!! easier then what I was doing.  This time when I was done I went shopping and gave them time to dry a tad so they were not sticking to every thing.  I have to say I was able to quilt this baby quilt and the bingo card with Zero trouble (OK I lied the bobbin case that is messed up ate my thread and caused me to put a couple new shinny holes in it (good thing its plastic) I sanded out the rough spot, giggled a little and kept sewing. I can't wait tell the new bobbin cases show up so I don't have to keep fighting this any more.

Before any one gets too excited about this baby quilt I made, Walmart did all the hard work.  This was literally the first thing I ever bought.  I figured I could hand tie the quilt and I would be able to have a quilt made around Christmas time.  Long story short it took me 2 months to get my quilting frames (I got my mother in laws shipped up to me from southern Utah 300 miles south of me in Kanab).  It has a funny story though, we bought this off of a bolt in Walmart and the guy at the table cutting was while not so sewing smart.  The top was suppose to be 1 yard.  Some fool had cut the previous top off about 5 inches from the end and the guy measured his one yard and was about to whack my baby quilt 5 inches from the side.  we tried to show him that its a quilt top and he needed to cut it farther.  He charged me for 1 1/4 yards because I wanted more lol I just wanted my full top.

So I have a question, Do you spay baste or do you pin baste?  And why.  The {not a tutorial} was great and if you don't spray baste I suggest you to read it and then come back here and give me your thoughts (oh ya comment on hers too we all love comments) .  I am not sold one way or another, but I want to be and I need some good reasons to do it one way or the other so please give me your 2 cents on the matter.