Link a Finish Friday #50!!!

Its the big 50! Fifty weeks of Link A Finish Friday.  I want this to be the best one yet.  In addition to any finishes for this week, I want you to link up your favorite finish EVER! Make it your own favorite, don't link up a strangers finish. Share with us your favorite of all finishes.

My favorite all time finish of my own hast to be the first quilt I made Julia.  It is Hearts and Flowers.  This quilt was the 2nd quilt I finished and the blog post was my 3rd blog post made on Jan 6th 2012, just over 1 year ago.

When you link up Put your name (or Blog name) - Favorite Finish so we can see which one's are this weeks and which are Favorites.  The finish could have been last month or from 5 years ago.  It can be linking to a blog post or to your flicker image.

It is now time for Link A Finish Friday.  Today I would like to start with a big thank you to Fat Quarter Shop who has offered to Sponsor our Link A Finish Friday with Prizes.  This month's winner (January) will win a $15 gift certificate to spend on Fat Quarter Shop. 

Please remember to thank our sponsor by visiting their store at http://www.fatquartershop.com/ their blog http://www.fatquartershop.blogspot.com/ and Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/FatQuarterShop

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.
4) Monthly random winner picked from all of the months linkups to $15 gift card from Fat Quarter Shop.

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.

More Hearts

Posted by Tanya.  Yet another rag quilt.  I had this cut out waiting to be assembled before Christmas, but had a zillon other projects to finish.

 This one in gray and pink and hearts.  These are some of my favorite colors and I love hearts.  Do you notice a trend?
They happened to be our wedding colors way back when, almost 20 years ago. Richard likes oranges, I like pinks and grays. Our 20th wedding anniversary is coming up in less than three months and we are trying to figure out something to do that won't completely break the bank, and doesn't involve too much travel as we have four kiddos to worry about. Most likely, our usual dinner and movie will end up being it.

(Richard Speaking: Oh No, I need to think of a gift?  What to get the most wonderful woman in the world?  She already has me what else could even live up to that?  Any ideas let me know!)

Work in Progress Wednesday #36

For this weeks Work in Progress Wednesday I though I would show you a few pictures from my Gray/Orange (well orange, yellow, red) Plus quilt. A few months ago at on of my SLMQG meetings during show and tell commented that the quilt I was showing was the most "Modern thing" she had seem me do.  I could have taken that as a insult.  Iinstead I took it as a challenge that I need to try some more modern things.  Well any way above was part of the next modern thing that I will show off.

Above is the bottom and below is the top (Yes I could have put them in the right order, but what fun would that be).  Tanya has been working the past few weeks on getting our Etsy Store more organized and I have been working on not feeling rushed.

Linking To

Owl Quilt Part 1

Today's post is by Tanya.

I have been trying to figure out how to sell quilts on Etsy.  We have sold a few rag quilts, but no pieced quilts yet.  I decided to make two baby quilts, one pieced and one rag out of the same fabric.  I chose the owls and jacks from Ten Little Things.  Both quilts are relatively simple and have the same green flannel for the back.

  Owls seem to be a popular item for babies right now.  Here are pictures of the rag quilt that is finished.  The pieced quilt top is finished and basted and waiting  to be quilted.  I was going to show a comparison shot, but I guess I didn't take a picture and I am too lazy to go take one. I guess another post about that one.  This one will be added to our Etsy store in the next few days.

How do you take your pictures for your blog or online store? Do you have a photo booth, a special stand for hanging quilts, have someone hold them up or what? Do you use special lights?  I would appreciate suggestions, especially ones that won't cost a fortune.  We have a pretty good camera, a tripod somewhere, editing software, but haven't had much luck with inside pictures other than closeups or folded quilts.

There is over a foot of snow on the ground at our house and the high tomorrow is 14 degrees Fahrenheit. Outside pictures are out until it warms to at least freezing. I already work out in the cold, so I don't necessary want to go out in it anymore than I have to.

I need more strings.

Well I guess I don't need strings, as much as string blocks.  I went to try and organize some of my sewing room today (since I was making the kids clean and all I figured it just seemed fair, I did also.   It started with the great intent to clean up some of the mess.  I saw all the strings laying around, some of which I bought in a bag of scraps for 3 bucks and some are scraps from projects I have done.  I made 4 initially.  Then I found a few more strings that looked good and made another 11.  So I showed Tanya my nice pile of string blocks (these are 6 1/2 squares) and she looks over and says they look too red.  Hum, I like red?  Maybe I should have used more variety. I ask her what I should have done and then she just looks over again and tells me she really does not like random.  So what do I do now, she hates them?  Oh I know.

Yep you guessed it, I just made more blocks.  My feelings is you can't make every one happy all of the time.   Over the years I have learned Tanya does not like all my wise choices (or even my unwise ones). I will keep using up all those silly scraps up that I have until I run out of them.  Overall the layout plan I am going for will be something like this.

This is something I whipped up in EQ7.  Its 9 x 12 blocks (total of 108 blocks). Seeing as I have around 30 blocks it won't be any time soon.  I will from time to time add blocks to my collection.  The blocks today that I made ended up in my homeless block box (Yes I have a box with a lot of various blocks in it now). It might take me 6 months to finish this one, but its at least started today and a little of my cleaning is done.  Oh and for any one that was wondering, while I was distracted the kids did not clean and the house is still a mess, oh well there is always tomorrow.

I will end with this cute picture of Julia. Tanya was trying to get a cute picture of Julia and out of all of her toys it was her shoe she chose to play with.