Mini Christmas Quilt

I thought that today I'd show you a little quilt I made for Christmas, with - gasp - applique! It really is cute, and easy to make with all your little scraps. I have a thing for lime green, so that's what made it into my mini-quilt:)
Some appliqued holly and berries topped it off, and it's still sitting on the shelf it lived on all December. I don't think I want to take it down! I have a Spring one pieced, so I suppose I should finish that one up.

We had a lovely relaxing Christmas, and I hope yours was wonderful too. I will be blogging about it over at my family blog later today. Edited to add that I have done the Christmas blog post - you can go read it here!

And the winner is.....

Rhonda said: "Oh, oh pick me, pick me! I love the pink one." So Rhonda, the pink one, and the 2 girly cuffs are yours:)

And just because I had a poor lonely blue polka dot one left over, I thought I'd get hubby to pull another name. I was hoping it would be someone who actually wanted the blue one, and as the random-pulling-out-of-a-box gods would have it, it was! So Sherri, the blue one will be coming your way:)

Ladies, send me your details asap and I'll get these out to you.

To everyone else, I wish I had 24 to give away - I appreciate so much that you stopped by and took the time to write kind words. Thank you all so much!

Oh, and don't you love that I woke up hubby to pull the names??? Just to make this post quilt-related, there is a quilt on top of him!

I won, and so can you... (Giveaway time!)

I have been lucky enough to win a couple of giveaways recently and only now have got around to blogging about them. I don't have any excuse for not blogging about the first one, which was about a month ago, but the last one I just received at the end of last week, and then we had the big ice-storm you may have heard about, (if not, I blogged about it here) and we were without power for a day, and just got the internet back yesterday. Sounds like a good excuse to me!!

Anyway, enough rambling, onto the business at hand. And just a hint...you might want to read right to the end of this post:)

First I won this wonderful lot from Late Bloomer Quilts. Included was a great tea towel from Moda, this pretty cool stuff called 'Lickity Grip', and I got to choose one of her patterns. I chose the bag pattern because I think I have a good chance of getting it made, perhaps even this year. Plus I have seen it made up in real life, and it is just lovely! So thank you so much Elizabeth! I love it all!

Secondly, I won this adorable makeup bag from Lisa at Musings from the Mama Bear during the Sew Mama Sew big giveaway day. Well Lisa must have known how badly I needed this. My makeup is already in it, and my old one was immediately taken over by my 8 year old girl who has dreams of wearing makeup. And for now, that's all they are. Dreams! Thank you soooooo much Lisa! I really truely love it!

Now, since I have been the recipient of some goodies of late, it's my turn to return the gesture. Just leave a comment on this post by tomorrow night, Wednesday night, and I'll randomly pick a name to win a little purse which I made. They were quite popular at the craft fair I vended recently, and just the right size to put your change in, or even your cell phone. Yes mine fits, I tried:) And you have a choice....
The blue polka dot one is made with batting, so is soft, and the Amy Butler fabric one is made with Craft Fuse, so is firmer. And if a little purse isn't enough of a girly fix for you, I'll add a couple of girly cuffs. They fit my 8 year old Sofia perfectly and she LOVES to wear them. The pink one even has vintage ric rac. They would make a great stocking stuffer for a little girl. There will be a whole bunch in Sofia's stocking this year. I might tell her Mrs Claus sews just like Mum does!

Just leave a comment, and say which purse you would choose, (you get both the cuffs)and it could be on the way to you in time for Christmas!

New Family Blog

I told you in the last post that I would keep you posted (yes pun totally intended) on the new family blog, and I went ahead and did it. If you would like to check it out, you are most welcome, even if you aren't family or known friends. If you are reading this blog, and haven't left a nasty comment, then I consider you a friend!!

It is called, "Martinez Family Journal" and you can get to it here.

Craft Fair Fun

Our kids' school had a craft fair this last Saturday, put on by the PTO to raise money for the school. My neighbor is the PTO president and since she knows that I do quilty and crafty stuff, she asked me if I'd do a table. Of course I would! So I have been making things for the past few weeks for the craft fair. I posted a bit about it here and here. I didn't end up doing anything with the cute little houses - they are still on my design wall waiting for inspiration to strike!

I did make this wallhanging though... ...and I am terrible because I fell in love with it and just couldn't sell it! It came home with me and lives on our living room wall:) How do you people who make and sell your wonderful creations bear to part with them?!

I ended up making colored pencil rolls, coin purses, bracelet cuffs, and taking orders for the monogram framed letters I make. We didn't have many people come to the craft fair, and the school is quite disappointed. Usually there are a lot of people and the school makes a good amount of money, but I think they barely covered costs. The lady vending next to me does a lot of craft fairs and told me that it's been very slow at every fair. I guess the state of the economy has even trickled down to the humble craft fair! Having said all that, I still made out OK, and sold enough to cover my booth fees and costs of what I sold plus extra, so I was happy. Happier still was my girl Sofia. I found about 15 headbands that I had made last year, and told her that if she sold them she could keep the money. So she sat with me at our little table and desperately hoped that someone would buy them. She was left with about 5, so she was a very happy camper:)

I absolutely fell in love with my little coin purses. My heart broke a little every time I sold one, as I just wanted to keep them all! Especially when I put my cellphone in one and discovered that it's a perfect fit. Luckily I have some left over. So tell me, is it wrong to have two in my bag? One for my cellphone and one for my change?!! I'm sure I could find something to put in a third...and a fourth... And I should say, I was greatly inspired by Kathy Mack at Pink Chalk Studio and her cute little purses. Adorable! And notice the little tags on my purses? Great tutorial at SewTakeAHike.

Did you notice my banner hanging behind us? I decided last minute that I just had to make one, so at 3am the night before the fair, I whipped it up, and I am in love with it! I chose all my favorite fabrics for the triangles and just fused simple black letters. No fancy applique going on here, but hey, it WAS 3am! A few months ago I thought of the name 'Quilt Relish' and it's stuck with me since then. I even registered an Etsy store with the name - I don't have anything in there yet, but I'm working on it;) I just liked the idea of using the word 'Relish', as there are so many meanings to it. As quilters we 'relish' what we do, and like relish in a jar, quilting is made up of all sorts of bits and pieces...a bit of this, a bit of that, and we add whatever we have around to our quilts! Hence the name.

We have had a lot of fun family things go on this last week including birthdays and a baptism. I think I am going to start up a new blog, one where I will post about family happenings. I really want to keep this one more about quilting, but I don't want to stop posting about home life. This way I can keep both going. I'll keep you posted for sure!