Bloggers' Quilt Festival!

I entered my New Mexico quilt into this festival~

New Mexico Quilt

I made this quilt because I live in New Mexico and wanted a Southwestern quilt for our bedroom. It's special to me because my husband really loves this quilt. I love bright colors and wanted to use some of my Southwest print fabrics that I had. Although they read solid from a distance the orange, green and purple fabrics are Southwest prints. The black really made those colors pop. I adapted this quilt from a Michelle Watts' design, which she calls Midnight in Santa Fe. (Michelle is also a New Mexican quilter and quilt designer).

Since I made my quilt smaller than Michelle's original design, and I also placed my last border in a different postion on my quilt and didn't make the zigzag border like she has on her quilt. I also introduced another color into the center of the little cross in my last border, where her pattern has it all one color. I like to change at least a little bit of a pattern if I use one. I learned that I need to quilt in the ditch first before doing the free motion quilting to anchor the quilt in place.

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Something New: PayPal

I added a PayPal button to the Alphabet Pattern that I am selling (see Items for Sale above). I am totally new at this and I am in the learning process here, so please be patient if things don't work properly, and please let me know if something isn't right. I have no idea how this works or even if it will work. I am hoping I will understand this at my end, but right now it's a complete mystery to me. If you have a blog/website where you sell things and use PayPal, I'd love some tips, pointers, and help in learning about how this works. I am trying to sell the pattern as a pdf, but this is where I don't understand how it works. I have a pdf of the pattern on my computer, so when you purchase the pattern I must have your email address in order to email it to you once I receive your payment through PayPal. However, I am not sure how long this takes and so I have absolutely no clue how you would receive the pattern in your inbox instantly.  Rest assured if you purchase this pattern you will receive it, just how long it takes I don't know. I am testing this whole PayPal thing out with just this pattern for now to see how it works before adding anything else to be purchased using PayPal. Of course if I don't even sell any patterns I will never know whether it works or not.

It's always a little scary to try something new and I thought about doing this for a long time, but I just wasn't sure how. The PayPal website tells you how to set up an account, but they don't really explain all that much as far as I can see. I have had an account with them for purchasing items for myself and of course it works that way, but I don't know how it works for selling on my end. When I sell something that needs to be physically shipped, I suppose I would be sent all that information through PayPal?

I hope you can help me through this new venture with some of your insight and helpful comments. Thanks so much and wish me luck.
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String Quilt in Progress

I made a lot of string quilt blocks using up those never ending piles of scraps I have and the blocks sat stacked up on my table for about a year. I finally decided I would do a quilt-as-you-go in rows, since this is a king size quilt. So I got down on my hands and knees 2 days ago and I pin-basted 5 rows (one single row and 4 double block rows). This is so large as you can see by the photograph, that the row on the far left ran into the table and chair and couldn't be placed down flat on the floor. I wasn't about to wrestle this monster under my sewing machine to quilt it and this is why I am doing a quilt-as-you-go in rows.

I linked this to the May-for-Me Thursday linkys. Also see the top tab under Weekly Linky Parties.

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Prickly Pear Cactus Flowers

I went for a walk yesterday morning and the prickly pear cactus flowers were closed because it wasn't warm enough outside.

Closed prickly pear cactus flowers.

I went out later in the early afternoon and most of the flowers were all open and the bees were buzzing from flower-to-flower. The flowers range in color from yellow to a pale apricot color.

I just love this shade of yellow and how delicate the flowers look amongst the thorns of the cactus.

This is a cholla cactus and the buds are forming.

Closer look at the cholla cactus buds. These beauties will bloom into the prettiest shade of fuchsia.

I gathered prickly pear cactus apples last year and made a dye for dying some wool yarn. I also made a second dying which came out pinker. I knit this vest in the lighter yarn that was dyed from the cactus juice.
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Bee Mug & Matching Mug Rug

I made a mug rug to match my mug. Several years ago we bought a set of 6 mugs at Costco and 2 are bees, 2 are dragonflies and 2 are lady bugs. I think I will make more mug rugs to match the other 2 as well. I appliqued and embroidered the bees. I happened to have some small pieces of the 2 blue fabrics and they worked perfectly for this. I made this using just scraps.

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Strawberry Bag

I made a tote bag that scrunches into the corner of the bag, when not being used and becomes a...

...strawberry when the rest of the tote is stuffed inside. Then I can add a carabiner clip and attach it to the outside of my purse so that I can always have a bag available when I need to use it.

I made several more to give as gifts to friends and family. I'll post those later as I give them to each person. Don't want any of them to see them ahead of time you know.

To purchase this pattern to make your own Strawberry Bag, please go to my Craftsy Store (see sidebar).
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Happy Birthday Susan!

My friend Susan's birthday is today. This is what I sent her~

This is the "gift wrapping" for the presents (below) that I made for Susan.

This is the fabric for the main body of the drawstring bag. Perfect fabric, isn't it?

This started out as a mug rug. I wanted to make wool felt appliques on a cotton fabric background. I added a felt wavy border but that wasn't quite right, so I added some rick rack and French knots on top of the rick rack. It still needed something and so I added the lace all around it. Now I am not sure if it would even work as a mug rug or a small placemat or a wall quilt? I suppose Susan will have to decide how to use it.

Closer look at the wool embroidered appliques.

And the no-calorie cupcake, with sprinkles on top.

Susan loves sea turtles and so I made this large turtle pincushion. I stuffed with poly stuffing and then added a lot of crushed walnut shells to weight it down. It could also be used as a toy for any future granchildren Susan might have.

Front view.

Belly view. I sewed my label on by hand as an after thought.

Top view. I added the button on top just for fun.

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