Grow Your Blog

Congratulations to Brittany, of Pickles Quilting!  Brittany is the winner of the giveaway.  I'm off to my sewing/reading room to gather items that I think she will enjoy.  Thanks so much for joining in this giveaway!  The comments were so much fun. I've discovered several new to me blogs.  

In the evenings whle Dear Hubby watches TV, I read blogs.  This past year I've definitely read more blogs than actually writing blog posts.  My non-blogging definitely began when I agreed to co-chair the Programs Job for my local quilt guild (Gwinnett Quilters' Guild)  It has been lots of fun, lots of communicating and lots of personal growth.  I'm hoping to blog sometimes about the wonderful quilt teachers I've met because of this venture (Amy Bradley, Marie Bostwick, Mary Lou Weidman, Edytah Sitar, Muriel Pfaff, Jennifer Jangles, Paula Barnes, Lisa Bongean, Kathy Brown .....)   In addition to my guild work, we are currently living in two homes.  My dear hubby will retire in 3 months. At that point, the last phase of our moves will be completed. We sold our home in July, moved necessities into a rental home and moved the majority of our life to our retirement home at the lake.   We are at the rental house during the week and our retirement house on the weekend.  It's a hour and a half drive each way. We are leaving the suburbs of Atlanta for small town living. Our new home is near the Georgia/South Carolina border in the quaint town of Hartwell.  It's a new adventure for us, but one with many blessings!

In some of my blog readings, I ran across Grow Your Blog (http://vicki-2bagsfull.blogspot.com/2014/01/welcome-to-grow-your-blog-2014.html) Blog Party.  WOW!!!  Hundreds of blogs with many different areas of focus are in this hop.  It will take weeks to visit them all, but what fun !   Lots of new blogs to visit and new ones to follow!

I adore  blog giveaways. I enjoy hosting them and participating in entering them.  For this blog hop, I will have a giveaway.  I'm stealing this idea from another blogger.  I'll choose a winner on February 15th. To enter, tell me a bit about you. What are your interests, what do you like to read, what do you collect or just something to guide me. I'll select the giveaway prize on your interests.  If you like to read, I'll send you a book I enjoyed. If you are a fabric-holic like me, I'll send you some fabric some my stash.  If you are a cook, I'll send some of my DH's recipes (he's an awesome cook).  Get the idea? I'll try to cater the giveaway to your interests.  

Thanks so much for visiting my blog!  I'm off to a quilting retreat this week.  I'll read your posts, but won't be able to respond until next weekend.  Take care, dear friends!

Becky

The Quilting Booklady

Sew Mama Sew Give-away

It's giveaway week at Sew Mama Sew blog.  Blog giveaways are great fun.  It's a quick and fast way to meet new bloggers and discover new blogs.  If this is your first visit to my blog, WELCOME!  I've been on a bit of a blog holiday and hope to quickly get back to regular blogging.  Dear hubby and I have recently moved to the northeast corner of the state of Georgia.  We have a new Hometown. We are exploring the area, taking in new events, and meeting new folks. To celebrate our new Hometown, my giveaway includes two charm packs of  HOMETOWN by Sweetwater for Moda.  

Charm packs lend themselves to lots of projects. One of my favorite projects for charm pack  is the Schnibbles patterns by Miss Rosie's Quilt Co.   This weekend has been cold and rainy. The Schnibble pattern  Winter White seemed the perfect pattern for Hometown and the weather in my new hometown.

To enter the giveaway, leave a comment  telling me the name of your hometown and something about it.  For a second chance, leave an additional comment  about  your favorite Christmas movie.   Giveaway will end on Friday, December 13th.  The winner will be notified by email on Saturday , December 14th. International entries are welcome.

Visit the giveaway page at Sew Mama Sew. There are two categories of giveaways, supplies  and handmade items.  Good luck and enjoy visiting the many, many blogs!

Dusting off the Blog

Let's see if I even remember how to use Blogger :)  I'm trying this on my Ipad, so..... you may never actually see this :)  Lots of changes, lots to share with you. Hope you will reconnect and join me!  Merry Christmas!  

Let's start at the beginning...  We have moved.  Well stage one and two of our move has occurred. Stage three will happen in April.  Rather out of the blue, DH and I decided to look at homes. We lived in the Atlanta metro area and liked the idea of getting out of the business and traffic of the metro area.  We looked in several areas near our metro area, but decided to move 100 miles to a small town near the Georgia/South Carolina border and near Lake Hartwell, a man-made lake.  This is one of the views from our back porch, my favorite place to sit and drink coffee.  We purchased our retirement home in April. Our home sold in July. We moved most of our possessions to the new home in July. DH doesn't retire until April of 2014 so we are in a rental house during the week. During the weekend, we are at the retirement house.  Confusing, I know.  The boxes are mostly unpacked. Still have a couple in my new sewing room.  Maybe, knowing I want to show you the sewing room will encourage me to unpack and place the final items.  There is lots of mental organizing in trying to remember what items we need to transport between the houses.  This weekend, I forgot my warm pj's.  I do need another pair but for now I'm bringing the one pair back and forth.  Lots of instances of , "It's at the other house." We are loving discovering our new town.  There is an active retirement population as well as families who have been here for decades.  We are actually in a neighborhood. Our home has lake views on three sides, but we do not have a lake lot.  Even though we are in a neighborhood, we are out of town - "country-like."  There are cows across the street on a large estate.  "Town" is 4 miles away.  A city with everything we need and then some is 30 minutes away.  The best thing is that the local quilt shop is 3 miles from our new home. There is also a second shop fifteen minutes away.  Life is Good!

Snow Sewing ....Ellijay 2013

 This curve in the road among my quilting friends will now be known as "Jane's Curve." What began as an innocent little "field trip" to the quilt shop Country Stitches in Blue Ridge, Georgia became a "rescue mission" for Bob and Vickie, owners of Whitepath Lodge in Ellijay, GA.  We knew that snow was predicted for the afternoon hours. I had stalked weather.com and the weather reports for over a week before our sewing retreat. No one anticipated several inches of snow in a short amount of time in the morning hours. 

In an hour or two, it went from this beautiful scenario

to this

 dreamy wonderland. The ridge and road leading to Whitepath Lodge received the most snow in the county.  Jane took awesome care of us. Her Highlander did a superhero job of trying to get us up the hill. It was that extra yard of fabric that we purchased that did her in. (LOL)

Kristie, Brenda, Jane, Carla and Becky

Thank you ladies for a "field trip" to remember! 

Happy New Year!

Rusty sharing Christmas Lights (Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt)

Happy New Year from our house to yours!  

Many blessings in 2013 for all!

Merry Christmas, Dear Friends!

Wishing you all a love-filled Christmas Day!

Quilter's Christmas Party

 SewCalGal is hosting a virtual Christmas Party. Fun!!  She has many prizes to giveaway from some very generous donors. Most importantly she is raising funds for Operation Homefront for military families in need of assistance. 

SewCalGal has requested that quilters share some of their holiday traditions. One tradition for my husband, sons and me has been the making of our bean soup mix. The first year that we were married, we discovered a recipe for a mixed dry bean soup mix in a monthly magazine. We purchased beans at our local grocery store,  packaged them in ziplock bags, reproduced the recipe and gave them to family and friends for Christmas gifts. Each year, dear hubby worked on the recipe to improve it. 

This year, we purchased 60 pounds of dried beans at one of our local international markets. We've discovered dried beans that we didn't know existed.  A soup pot is no longer large enough to hold all the beans. We now use an ice chest. This will make approximately 60 packages of our soup mix. Some years

we had to form an "assembly line" to package the beans and recipes. Lots of great memories for our family and lots of good hot bean soup for our family and friends.

Visit SewCalGal's blog to find the list of other quilters sharing their holiday traditions, buy raffle tickets or golden tickets to benefit Operation Homefront and Celebrate the Holiday Season!!!

Blog Hop Party with Give-Aways

The Quilter's Gallery  is celebrating it's 5th birthday!  Hard to believe! Michele Foster provides quilters a wonderful website with loads of information, free blocks, contests, giveaways.......   The party begins Monday, December 10th  (birthday number 5) and goes until Saturday, December 15th. Many bloggers are participating in this fun birthday celebration. It's a PARTY!!!!

Won't you join in the party? How? By visiting the participating blogs listed on the Quilter's Gallery blog and entering to win the many giveaways.  My giveaway is a colorful fat quarter tote (made from 2 fat quarters).

 I always thought this tote would work great for a small knitting projects, stitchery  or Lunch even! I'm sure a couple of other items will find their way into the bag for a  surprise. Love surprises!

 To enter the giveaway, share with me the title of your favorite Christmas book and/or novel. I have two novels that I like to reread during the holiday season. Winter Solstice by Rosamunde Pilcher

and Shepherd's Abiding by Jan Karon

Choosing a favorite children's book is almost impossible. The Night Before Christmas in all it's versions definitely is in the top 10 :) 

Happy Birthday, Quilter's Blog!!!!  Have a fun blog hop!

Traveling Stash Box #2 Giveaway - Winner

Congratulations to Helen who blogs at Time for Mimi ! The Traveling Stash Box # 2 is headed her way.

I just love the Traveling Stash!  This is the third one that I've been lucky enough to win. There's something about the whole "trash to treasure" concept that appeals to me. This is Traveling Stash Box # 2 that I won from SewCalGal

The box includes fabric....

notions, thread, patches, pins....

charms from Hawaiian Shirts (I was so tempted to take these, but don't have a project in mind, so I left them in the box

patterns....

books...

Here are the items that stayed in my sewing room....

 the Little Apples charm pack, 2 Prairie Paisley fat quarters and the Hoffman sushi roll. The items that I added to the stash box from my Stash are

half yard pieces of three "dotty" fabrics, a charm pack of Jo Morton fabrics from Little Quilts Quilt Shop and some batik charms from an online fabric swap from years ago.

Here are the rule to enter the giveaway for the Traveling Stash box:
Traveling Stash Rules:

1.  Be an active blogger. Post about receiving the box on your blog in a timely manner. Post the giveaway for the box soon after receiving it.
2.  There's a note in the box that logs where it's been. Please add your info and place the note back in the box.
3.  There's a list of Rules and Guidelines in the box. Please read and follow these and return the list to the box.
4.  You may take anything you like from the box. Just replace every item with comparable quilt shop quality items equal to the amount taken.
5.  Ship the box to the next person in a reasonable amount of time.
6.  Due to the amount of postage shipping is only within the USA.

It is very important that those that enter understand that this is a Traveling Stash that they can keep what is in the box that they want, but they must fill up the box with other items that would be of interest to a fellow quilter and be of high quality.  And, they must host a giveaway on their box and ultimately pay to ship the box to the respective winner. Fortunately, the box being shipped uses a large Flat Rate box so you can pack heavy items in it, or light items, and the cost is the same.  (copied from Insights from SewCalGal's blog)



To enter to win this box all you have to do is leave a comment. I'm looking for new ideas to add to my family's Christmas stocking this year. Tell me what items Santa leaves in the Stockings at your house. Good luck! Winner will be drawn on Friday evening, December Dec. 7th!

Wishing you and  your family, a glorious Thanksgiving Day! 

Bloggers' Online Quilt Festival

Just returned from a 7 day trip to Baton Rouge and Houston. I was again fortunate to attend Quilt Market and also visit with many family and friends. Some how in all the preparations for the trip, I missed that it was Bloggers' Online Quilt Show time. This awesome online quilt show is not to be missed. There are currently over 500 quilt entries at Amy's Creative Place. My entry is called Batik Sunrise or the working name, Peg's quilt.

 I used a new technique with the Big Twister ruler and batiks which  are not my normal fabric preference. My cousin Peg and I were raised like sisters. She had older brothers. I had younger brothers. Our mothers were sisters. Recently, she and her husband Mason down-sized to a  town home. She loves batiks, but her home is mostly neutral in color. My challenge was to use batiks in a lighter tones, but also have a bit of "POP."  While in Houston this week, I delivered Batik Sunrise to Peg and Mason. How fun to gift a quilt to someone special and the quilt immediately becomes one of their treasures.

Words on Wednesday

Winner of the Traveling Stash Box

Congratulations to Joanne Lendro of Splitting Stiches blog! Joanne is the winner of the Traveling Stash Box #1.  Thanks to all the wonderful ideas of items to include in the stash box. It helped me make some decisions on what to add from my STASH!

Traveling Stash Box Has Arrived

Hi Friends! I seem to have taken an unplanned blogging break. Not sure if I am back to blogging for good. The good thing is that I am getting some sewing and reading done! Last week, this wonderful box arrived at my house. It's the Traveling Stash Box # 1. 

As you can tell from the photo, the box was stuffed with sewing goodies. It is perhaps the box with the most variety in the boxes that I have won. In addition to the fabric, patterns and books (2), the box contains panels, thread, floss, notions (machine needles, quilting gloves) Kindle Fire cover, and other wonderful stash items. This box began it's travels in January of 2011. That's almost 2 years. In fact, I found my name on the list of places that it has visited. Yes, I've had this box before, but nothing in the box was the same as when I previously received it. I thought I would have everything decided when I posted the giveway, but I'm still undecided about some items that I will take and what items I will add. Elderly parent care, bathroom renovations, son home from Disney and now in new university and other son getting married in a month - there's been some distractions:)

This is a not so good photo of the contents of the box. Every time I go through the box, I find something else that wants to stay at my home:)

 These are the items that I'm thinking of keeping. One yard cuts of fabric and a pincusion pattern

but these charm packs are awfully tempting. I have fabric to add, some notions and patterns, but haven't made it downstairs to my sewing room. Will try to add a photo of what I am adding in the next day or so.

The traveling stash begins today and will end on Sunday, September 16th at midnight. Give yourself a treat and enter to win this Traveling Stash Box. In your comments, tell me what kinds of items (be specific) that you would like to find in a traveling stash box. (Example: French General fabric, hand sewing needles, magazines)  Take care! Good luck!

Words on Wednesday

Let the good times roll!

Words on Wednesday

Giveaway Alert

My friend Brenda is giving away an entire quilt kit!!!  The  dogwood flower batik was a limited edition fabric for the Atlanta Shop Hop several years ago. Road to Romance is a fun quilt to sew. In fact the version that I sewed is the current cover quilt on the pattern.

I used dark '30's prints, green 30's solid and a background fabric with dots. Click fast to Brenda's blog and enter her giveaway.Tell her Becky sent you:)

Words on Wednesday