"Everybody, I have an announcement to make. I have an announcement."

(Annie)

I have to say that I had fun anticipating the winner of this giveaway, because I know each one of you dearly. I wanted each one of you to win, but of course there could only be one winner. So I woke B up this morning with the honor of drawing one of your names out of a hat.

He chose...

So, Lindalu from Bunko - you are the winner of a new Golden Crow Brag Book! Call me or email me at http://www.adctd2qultng@gmail.com/ and we'll talk about how we can make this book perfect for you. Congrats!

It was a good day ~

Does anyone else feel like screaming from the roof tops after you've finished (the long overdue) cleaning of the bathrooms!?!

Oh, it feels so nice!

Well, I'm not just posting to tell you all that I actually cleaned my bathrooms today. I also:

*made pancakes for the kidlets

*got the kitchen sparkling clean

*showered (that doesn't always happen. But, I realized that I didn't do that yesterday, so figured it was probably best to keep the non-shower days to a one day maximum) [unless I'm camping or sick, which I welcome just for the fact that I don't have to get ready. Does anyone else hate getting ready as much as I do?]

*dropped off not one, but two wall hangings to a fantastic quilter that said she could squeeze me in this week. I am so excited about this (one of the perks of working at a quilt store - "It's for the store." Which it is. It really is.) These two wall hangings are similar to each other, just different colors. The design is one that I'm going to publish along with a bigger quilt pattern that is just about done. (I'm not showing anything yet. Just waiting to get the patterns & covers finished, etc.)

*surprised B, by picking him up from school with Frosty's in hand for him, M and another little friend that I babysit on Tuesdays. We ate our Frosty's while enjoying the warm sunshine and then the kids played for about an hour on the jungle gym outside B's classroom. It was fun watching him play tag with all of the afternooners that were just arriving.

*CLEANED MY BATHROOMS - YAY!

*Folded a huge mound of clothing that was on my bed.

* Now I need to go make dinner and then fold two more loads of laundry. If, my dryer will work properly and actually dry the clothes within the 52 minutes that I have specified it to dry them in.

Oh, I love feeling like I actually accomplished something! Now, let's see if my clean house can last until tomorrow. And (a big bonus) now that I've gotten some projects and cleaning done, I will be all ready to whip up one of my Golden Crow Brag Books for the winner of my Giveaway (see below.) I'll try to get that done before I head off to Montana next week. Today is the last day to get entered into my giveaway. Contest ends tonight at midnight.

Oh, one last thing. I am such a bad friend - I have been meaning to call, write, e-mail, etc. a birthday note to my dear friend Sarah Anne Poyfair Rader. I know it's belated now. I know I am a slacker (and now all of you know too:). But, I am going to call you Sarah. Until then, I just thought I would send out a "Shout Out" to you for turning 31 on Saturday. Hope it was a good one!

Sarah Anne Rader & me. Friends since the first grade. Love & missin' ya Sarah!

From me to you!

Well, I've been thinking it over and yes, I think I'll do it. Since I won the giveaway that was going on over at Fig Tree Quilts yesterday I am feeling a little bit spoiled. I want to give back. So, I am going to do my own giveaway. The prize is one of my "Golden Crow Brag Books" (that name is not official, but that's what I was going to call them if I ever got them up and going on Etsy.)

Your brag book will be completely personalized for you and it's about a $75 value. If you want to see some pictures of some of the other one's I've made you can click here and here. It's a 7" x 5" book with 10 pages inside (5 front and back.) Just leave me a comment by midnight on Tuesday if you would like a chance at winning. That's all you have to do. I'll let you know the winner Wednesday morning.

Switching arms and a contest

I'm just sitting down to get a little moment to myself after a lot of Chaos. I just had 3 extra kids here, making a new total of 5. I normally could have handled it just fine, but the youngest one cried practically the entire time (about 3 or 4 hours, I think.) She was off and on when I was holding her (which was most of the time) and when I put her down she would definitely cry for sure. So when it came time for lunch, B offered to make it for everyone if I told him how to do it. So he warmed up dinosaur chicken nuggets in the microwave for all of them. He's such a sweetie. Later though, I think one of the kids went back for seconds because I found a plate on the floor with two frozen nuggets and about a cup or so of b-b-q sauce piled on it. Gross. Anyways, later I told B, "My arm is going to fall off. What should we do?" He simply said, "Switch arms!" Well, it was a good idea! (I meant what are we going to do about her crying and needing me to hold her the whole time, but switching arms worked too:))

Anyways, I found myself stopping at my computer with her on my lap a few different times throughout those 3 or 4 hours. Do you guys do that too? Do you get on the computer during times of stress or Chaos? Just to get a way for a minute? I do that a lot. Maybe I need to learn how to handle these kinds of moments a little better. Hmm. Something to think about.

Well, during one of my moments of "screen time" (as I say to my kids) I was checking my email and found out some good news (as the chaos was getting started.) I won a contest. And, a very fun contest to say the least. Joanna over at Fig Tree Quilts was having a contest in which she wanted name ideas for some of her upcoming patterns. I'm not sure exactly why I was one of the 5 names chosen to win (because it sounds like she's picking the winning names later), but she's sending out a pattern and all of the fabric for it to the winners.

This is her new line:

Of course I am ecstatic! The funny thing was that I found out that I won from my sister-in-law, Brittany, who wanted to know if she could borrow my lucky charm!?! I was like, what is she talking about!?! I am so not a lucky person. I never win anything (except that other fabricmatcher contest:) Which was wonderful.) So then I remembered that I needed to go check Joanna's blog (I was so anxious the night before. I was surprised that I hadn't yet thought to go check.) But anyways, that was kind of fun news and I can't wait to see all of the beautiful patterns Joanna comes up with next. She is amazing.

Well, I better go back to check on the kids...

Bye!

Free patterns

I was just surfing around Blog Land and found a few free patterns that I had to print and put in my file of projects I want to do. Hillary over at Wee Wonderfuls designed this cute little embroidery pattern which was published in Sew Hip Magazine (which is a UK magazine.)

Isn't it cute? I really enjoy embroidery when I get around to actually doing it. It looked like a small enough project that would be easy to get done in a couple days. She gives you the pattern and the instructions if you click here.

Then, I also found Free block of the month patterns from Bunny Hill Designs. If you click here then you can get the patterns. Fun right?

French Roses Quilt for M

Well, it's finally done. I think I started this quilt a couple years ago and it's finally done! Yay! It's for M's big girl bed (queen size.) Now, I just need to put a label on it, get a new bed skirt, sheets, pillow shams, paint, get a bed, etc. Oh, I know RJ loves me and all of my projects. I tell him that I actually feel cursed having such a creative mind. It kind of poses a problem sometimes...Sometimes I wish I could just let things be...but, I can't. The lists go on and on:)

Oh, by the way, let me get your opinion on this - are any of you feeling a particular paint color for this room? Would pink be too much? Would green be better? And, if you're leaning towards green (like I think I am) read on before answering.

There was actually a little (it seemed big at the time) fiasco when I had this quilt quilted. Let's just say I spent about 5 hours clipping the raw edges that the quilter had sewn over (showing the backside of all the fabrics.) So - word to the wise, if you ever have a raw edge applique quilt quilted, then tell who ever is doing the quilting that she can go over the raw edges, but not to fold over the fabrics in the process. BIG learning experience for me! But anyways, it's done now. It was a big labor of love and M will be able to keep it forever. She was practically giddy when it was time to put it on her bed. She made me laugh when she was sitting on the bed with it and she rolled her hands over the multi-colored square border saying "I love these (skip the green) and I love these!" She's obviously a pink girl. Doesn't care so much for the green. Hopefully she'll learn to accept that it has some green on it as she gets a little older.

Checked binding on the bias...got the backing 40% off (if you know me I am not a sale getter, so I was pretty proud of my purchase. Didn't even have the quilt with me when I bought the back fabric. I think it goes quite nicely.)