Shadow of the Night - Giveaway

If you enjoyed A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness then you must be anxiously anticipating her new book Shadow of the Night which continues the story of Diana Bishop and Matthew Clairmont.  Follow this link for a chance to win a signed copy of Shadow of the Night and a set of Ashmole 782 specially designed temporary tattoos, and six All Souls Trilogy-related buttons.
Shadow of the Night Giveaway link

Embroidery Projects in the Works.

For the past several months I have been working on the Aurfil thread block of the month (BOM) for 2012. All the blocks are embroidery blocks and come out on the first Thursday of the month.  I have not done embroidery in years and thought it would be fun to give a try again.  I am loving it and have started a couple of other embroidery projects as well.  The Aurifil BOM blocks that I have done so far are are:
January:

February:

March:

April is in progress:

May is traced and ready to start as soon as I finish April.

I am also working on a Redwork embroidery called Winter Wonderland.
Here is the one block I have done:

This one is in progress:

 Here is a picture of the Winter Wonderland patter by Crabapple Hill that I am working on above:

 I still have a few of the larger block to trace, but decided to wait and do those later.

Here are a couple of other patterns that I have traced and ready to go:

 I will work on the over time and then make wall hangings of them individually or use some combined in a quilt.  I have not decided. Some will be in redwork and some in blue, and a few in white as I am doing them on a blue background.  I have several blocks prepped and ready to take on our vacation to work on while sitting on the balcony relaxing or reclining on the beach.  Though I am tucking a couple of books in my bag to read as well.

Update on Quilting Projects

I have been remiss in posting due to life getting in the way. I was subbing a lot the last few weeks and posting on here fell by the way side.
I have actually gotten a lot done in the last two months, though not as much as I really would have liked to have gotten done.
I finished a couple of flimsies, or quilt tops.  One is ready to send off to the quilter

 and the other will follow soon after as I am deciding if I want to applique some flowers on it before sending it off to be quilted.

For some reason the picture flipped when I as posting it, but it works.
I am trying a new quilter in Kentucky and will post her link later as she and I have a secret project we are working on and I do not want to reveal the surprise to the special recipient just yet.
I also started a mystery quilt and at the moment I am deciding whether to do the whole quilt or to do just some sections of it and make them into wall hangings. This is the first section and I really like it as a wall hanging and may just finish it that way and do other sections of the quilt that way also.

 I have also been working on a quilt called Pick Up Sticks. Here is a picture of my progress so far.

 I have many more black and white strips to sew together and cut apart to add the little pops of color and then once those are sewn together I need to cut them into 5.5" squares and arrange them into rows. The quilt is one that caught my eye at the quilt store.
As you can see I have been busy along with all my subbing. Later today I will post an update on my other projects that are in the works.
Have a wonderful day!

Sewing Marathon

Last weekend I spent 12 hours sewing at my local quilt shop.  I feel that I accomplished my goals which were to finish the last of the hearts for Heart Crazies and to get the top for a jelly roll quilt done.
I finished 18 hearts, which have 15 seams per block, and took about 4 hours per set of nine blocks, with breaks to eat and chat.  

I also finished the top including the inner border for the jelly roll quilt and the outer borders are cut and ready to be added.

Moda Twirl Jelly Roll Quilt.  I used the black and white polka dots for the inner border and the black background with butterflies for the outer border.

All in all it was a very productive weekend, even given the time that I had to do the frog to unsew a few times on the one spot where the seams had to meet perfectly on the Heart Crazies top.

I am using the Buggy Barn Heart Crazies pattern.

Next up is to trim up all the blocks for the Heart Crazies and then figure out the layout so I can begin putting the blocks into rows.

Sad Loss

Karen Combs, a quilt teacher, had her rental car broken into in Texas and her teaching suitcase stolen.  It contained quilts from her Patchwork Illusions class and her teaching supplies.  Please read her post at Karen Comb's Blog. 
I have included a couple of the pictures from her blog, to see more please go to her blog, via the above link.

Please pass the word and if you live in Texas, especially the New Braunfels area keep an eye out for her beautiful quilts which are posted on her blog.  If you see one you can contact her at this email.