Bowls with Borders Blog Hop and A Giveaway

Everywhere I look lately..... I either see bowls....or the mess I have made from making my Bowls with Borders.  If you've been following this blog hop then I'm sure you know where the pattern came from and who's idea this all was (who got me into this mess...lol).  If not, I'll put all the wonderful credits at the close of this post.

Suffice to say,  it has been years since I've done any paper piecing.   With my state of mind lately (menopause)  I'm surprised that I  remembered what foundation paper piecing is much less that I once knew how to do it.    What's a woman to do?  Call Waldo* of course!!!   One phone call and she was here within 30 minutes.  After Waldo*  refreshed her memory....she then refreshed mine...LOL.  

The ideas for this Blog Hop came fast and furious.  I thought about doing several in very different patters and calling it "Something for Everyone".  Then I thought about doing one where the bowls curled around and did a loop and I would call that one  "Time to do the Dishes."  Of course I thought about kids bowls...that would be fun...or ethnic bowls....and on and on and on.  Then lightening struck.....I need to have this done by Friday...Yikes!!! 

Here are a few of of the Bowls with Borders that I created .....

Although I liked both of the one's pictured above.......this is the one I decided to go with......

 (the photos below show the colors more accurately)

It was the first one I made and it was the one I liked the best.  It is not quilted or bound (yet) but what is a gal to do when she is finishing another quilt, making a table runner, running kids all over tarnation and packing for a trip?

Do you want to see some close ups?  Ok.....here ya go:

Took the idea for these flowers from the book Blooming Possibilities by Abbey Lane Quilts.  I added some beads and buttons to the centers of the flowers.

To give the bowls some pizazz I added a few stitches, silk ribbon and some beads.

 My favorite were the iridescent beads on the purple fabric. 

A few more beads....and I was finished.  I have to say I was very surprised by how much fun I had making this piece.   I'm sure glad I chose to participate!!!

There are so many participants .....take a few minutes and click around and see the other Bowls with Borders ....I think you'll see some very fun ideas and meet some potential new friends.

Today's participants are :

Beate from Gabrielles Atelier
Sharon-Quilt Sheddy

Lilypad Quilting

Searching Out Simple

Scrapbook Chick A Doodle
Ark Angel Creations
Polka Dot Classic

PRSD4Tim2

Little Mushroom Cap

Thanks Carol....Madame Samm and the pattern designer, Regina Grewe ...it takes a great team to get this many bowls all stacked up.

To see all the Bowls with Borders...check out Madam Samm's Pinterest page HERE.

 

If you leave a comment on today's post and you are a follower of the IHAN ® blog,  you may be the lucky winner of a package of Carol Doak's foundation Paper for Paper Piecing.

 

Foundation Paper by Carol Doak

 

AND

 

 

A pair of Famore Titanium Ergo-Spring Action Snips

The winner will be drawn by the random number generator and announced on the IHAN ® blogI at the end of the Blog Hop on Aug. 29th.  (The Bowls with Borders Blog Hop ends Aug.28th). 

Thanks for visiting !

Smiles,
Kelly

 *Waldo is my girlfriend Rosemary.  She turns up in photos all the time so I call her Waldo...after the Waldo Book Series.

Catching Up- Raegen's Purse & Camp Gosip

I know I'm days behind in my posts....so I'm going to do my best to catch everyone up quickly.

Raegen, my friend and neighbor, had a project due for 4 H last week and she had selected this pattern:

 

"The Madison Bag" by Two Peas in a Pod Designs

Raegen is 17 and some sewing experience but not a lot. She had no problems understanding the pattern and I thought it was a great pattern as patterns go.

 She wanted her purse quilted. Here she is drawing the lines to sew on.  I giggled because Raegen was concerned the Sewline Air Erasable Pen  would not disappear.  Much to her amazement, the lines did disappear (these are the times I'm so glad I know which products are the best for particular projects :).

 It is fun to see a young person sewing at my machine.

After two sessions over two days....her Madison bag was finished.  It's not an overstatement to say she loved it and was tickled pink.

As a matter of fact, she was jumping for joy!

Raegen didn't want an embellishment on the front of her purse.  I thought she might like to see what one would look like so I made a flower from the Blooming Possibilities book by Abbey Lane Quilts.  You may remember when I blogged about it HERE. 

I thought the flower looked excellent.  Apparently my taste is not the same as that of a 17 year old, so now I wear the flower on my green blouse :)

I know some of you may appreciate the "normal" activities of the IHAN clan.  You may recall last year when the boys went to camp at the Toledo Zoo.  I posted about it here.

This is a picture from that post.  Yes, this is Zachary and I had learned to "let go" you might say.  I actually have this photo hanging in my kitchen to remind me to just "let go."  

This year all is well, I pull up in front of the Zoo to drop off the boys and Aaron gets out of the van.  I wanted to take a picture of each one of them in front of the Zoo sign.

Little did I know how LUCKY I was last year.  At least Zach had shoes!!!!  How a 9 1/2 year old gets into the van without shoes is beyond me....but apparently it is not beyond Aaron.  You know the camp director had not forgotten us and when I told him about Aaron's perdiciment, all he could do is laugh.  Mr. McSteamy to the rescue!

"Family Emergency" he claimed as he raced to meet us at the Zoo to deliver Aaron not one pair of shoes, but two!  I was sooooo grateful....not only that McSteamy brought the shoes, but also that Aaron chose to wear two of the same shoes :)

 The rest of the day went VERY WELL! 

 I'm so glad they are still young enough to pose for these fun photos.

I sware this was not a posed photo.  Aaron loves the aquarium and he loves the fish.  He walked right up to the tank and the fish swam up to his face and he leaned forward to give that big ole fish a smooch.  Precious times indeed.

Smiles,

Kelly

Abbey Lane Giveaway is NOW Posted

Oh yeah baby.....they got their post up last night and they are having a doozy of a giveaway going on.  Click here for your opportunity to win Blooming Possibilities and lots more fun stuff.

Smiles,
Kelly

Win Blooming Possibilities - Another Giveaway

I'm sorry I was not parting with my Blooming Possibilities that I blogged about on July 9th....I know there were lots of comments on how cool the flowers, hat and bag was/is.

So I thought I would tip you off to a big Giveaway on the Abbey Lane Blog for a chance to win  Blooming Possibilities, the hat pictured below and a flower!!! 

Click here to hop over to their blog for an opportunity to win :)

Smiles,

Kelly

Blooming Possibilities by Abbey Lane Quilts at Spring Quilt Market 2010

I had to walk into this booth and look at everything, up close, over and over.  Blooming Possibilities was one of those "something for me" books that I bought while at Quilt Market. 

Janice Liljenquist (above) and Marcea Owen are the owners of Abbey Lane Quilts and Blooming Possibilities is their first book.  What a great first book!!  I just had to have it so I bought it for myself.  Sorry, no giveaways on this one folks :(

One of the projects in Blooming Possibilities is the hat that Janice is wearing. I absolutely loved the hat and the gorgeous flower on the side. Perfect for any occasion really (ok, not a funeral...I knew that is what you were thinking....but if the person loved flowers you could.).

Look at these "Blooming" flower pins.  I think they are so much fun.  I got a bright yellow one and wore it at Market.  I also wore it yesterday on a black V-neck t-shirt.  It looked great and I had several people comment on how nice it looked.  Later in the day, Zach pulled on it to see what it was and broke it.  A needle and thread will put'er right back where she belongs!

Here are more photos of their booth.  I'm so glad they said I could take photos!!!  Their booth won an award for "Best Merchandising" at Spring Quilt Market.  You can see why too.  Everything was interesting and uncomplicated by "other" distracting decorations.  When you have fun stuff you can just put it out there and you don't really need to add all the other jazz some folks feel they need.  I'm into the "show me what you got" type displays. You can see more photos of their award winning booth on their blog, Abbey Lane Quilts dot blogspot dot com.

 
Look at that dress.  A plain dress turned into a great dress with three pins.  You know I love the flowers on the shoes and the wall hanging.  Now I'm not saying you should wear the dress, hat and shoes on the same day here!!!  Unless you are one of "those" who can pull off anything (then I hate you and so do a zillion others...lol)  I would love to have those flowers on the wall in my entry way.  I guess I have some work to do ay?

This is the Abbey Bag.  It is a pin cushion and scrap bag.  You know how I love pin cushions and this big flower is just so inviting.  I'd be tickled to pull it out at a stitch-in or a retreat and just snip and pin while it sat next to ME on the table.  Isn't it funny how the littlest things in life make ya smile?

The Abbey Bag pattern and the Blooming Possibilities are available at IHAN.  Adding more Abbey Lane Patterns to the website is on my to-do list that is a mile long.  So if there is a pattern you are interested in you can e-mail me or contact Abbey Lane Quilts.

Hope you had fun....I know I did and looking at these photos brings back some great memories.  More to come so stay tuned for the next edition of "Spring Quilt Market 2010" through the IHAN eyes.

Blooming Smiles,

Kelly