I’m really excited to be a part of the Quilting Gallery’s big St. Patty’s Day Blog Hop Party.  If this is your first time here I just want to welcome you to my blog!  I’ll just give you a quick overview of the major things that happen on here: (and yes – I will ship internationally…)

Project QUILTING

The biggest thing that happens on my blog is ‘Project QUILTING’.  To find out more about Project QUILTING click HERE.  This is actually perfect timing since the FINAL challenge of Season 3 is going to be posted this Sunday, March 18th at NOON.  There are so many great PRIZES and it’s not too late for you to have a chance to win one (or even the grand prize!).

The FINAL Challenge is POSTED!  Ziggin and Zaggin

Home Sweet Home Quilt Along

I’m also currently running a really fun Quilt Along where each block has to have either a tree, a house, or both incorporated into the block design.  16 block tutorials will be posted by different quilters by the time this quilt along is complete.  12 are already up but it wouldn’t take too long to catch up  - AND in the end you’ll have an adorable, whimsical house and tree quilt to cherish. 
Not only am I hosting a quilt along on my blog but I have become addicted with working on other quilt alongs as well.  You get to follow along as my blocks grow into quilts and find out what I had trouble with, great new tricks I’ve learned, and see what colors I decide to go with. 

Etsy

I’m an avid seller (KimsCraftyApple and TheApple)  and supporter on etsy so I do post tips/tricks/tutorials to help you on your way to be a successful etsy seller.  I also enjoy featuring great items I find on there. 

Family and Orchard

I do have separate blogs for my family and orchard (yes, I own an apple orchard) but sometimes the news is just too great I can’t help but to share it on here too!
Be sure to subscribe to my newsletter, Like me on Facebook, follow my boards on pinterest and follow me on twitter - so you don’t miss out on all the fun that happens on KimsCraftyApple.

GIVEAWAY!

So – what am I giving away? Well – I’m going to give one lucky winner $25 in credit to either (or both) of my etsy shops - KimsCraftyApple and TheApple. And it’s simple to be entered!

Required for ENTRY:  All you have to do is leave me a comment telling me which one of the fabric and textile art items in my etsy shop is your favorite:  Click HERE  Be sure to include your email in your comment so I can notify you of your prize!  If I can't get a hold of you I will redraw!

If you want to be entered more than once – these are some bonus entry options:

• subscribe to my newsletter
• Like me on Facebook (I would love it if you said 'Hi!!)
• Like Project QUILTING on Facebook
• follow my boards on pinterest 
• follow me on twitter AND tweet about this giveaway

That’s it – just let me know you’re favorite piece of mine for your entry.  If you really want my prize and are going for bonus entries – there are five opportunities for you!

***OPEN to everyone – I will ship internationally!****
The winner will be selected randomly on Sunday, March 25th.

Be sure to click on the link to see all the other AMAZING giveaways being offered with this party!  http://quiltinggallery.com/quilters-fun/quilters-blog-hop-party/

Don't miss out on the FINAL Project QUILTING Challenge:  http://kimscraftyapple.blogspot.com/2012/03/project-quilting-season-3-challenge-6.html

I was doing a little blog surfing last night once the girls were in bed and I read about a friend of mine’s newest endeavor – Blogger’s BINGO.  In order to join in the fun all you have to do is make your own BINGO card. 
I have a secret – I LOVE BINGO!  When Jared and I were on our honeymoon in Jamaica they had Bingo everyday by the pool at 4 and I always made sure we were there for it – and yes, I won a bottle of rum! 
It didn’t take me long to head downstairs to work on my very own BINGO card!
Here are all my squares pieced together.








 
And since I had gotten that far I figured I might as well put a border on it, sandwich it and quilt it before I went to bed too.  I just think it’s so cute and I had fun finding all the novelty prints for my card.  I bound it this morning while playing some Monopoly with the girls.

So here are the prints I found!

B

• Blue Shoes
• Blue Care Bear that glows in the dark
• Blue Penguins
• Blue Monkey
• Blue Bee

I

• Yellow Cow in Underwear
• Yellow Jalepeno
• Yellow Dragonfly
• Yellow Bubbles
• Yellow Coffee

N

• Red Sports Balls
• Red Dog
• X- free space
• Red Wis consin W
• Red Mushroom

G

• Green Giraffe
• Green Butterfly
• Green Tractor
• Green Cat
• Green Bird

O

• Purple Fireworks
• Purple Flowers
• Purple Frog taking a bubble bath
• Purple Leopard Skin
• Purple Stars

It really helped that I had recently sorted all my scraps by color into transparent containers.  I could just grab a container in the color I needed and search around for the right size fussy cut prints. 

Here are the Four Blogger’s running the fun this May!  Be sure to check out there blogs for information on the BINGO Game, instructions on how to put your very own card together, a list of fabulous prizes, and MORE!

• Tonya at Hillbilly Handiworks
• Sharon at Vrooman's Quilts
• Snoodles at Lily Pad Quilting
• Marcia at Crafty Sewing & Quilting

If you’re just tuning in to the Mystery Monday be sure to take a look a back at

Choosing Your Fabrics

Steps 1 & 2

Steps 3 & 4

It’s going to be an easy week for you this week even though it looks like 3 big steps. Trust me – it won’t be too bad.

Step 5. Cut 6-inch squares B on both diagonals to create 32 triangles.Step 6. Cut 4-inch squares B on one diagonal to create 4 triangles. (***Note that you only cut these squares ONE time – I messed this up the first time around.)

Step 7. Crosscut 4 1/2-inch strips C into 320 rectangles 1-1/2” by 4-1/2” (sorry no picture for this one)

Step 8. Crosscut 1 1/2” strips E into 140 square 1-1/2” x 1-1/2”

See you next Monday!

The latest Off Season Challenge comes from Chris Daly of Dye Candy. Chris was one of our sponsors for last season and if you haven’t seen her shop yet I definitely recommend a visit.

She offers gorgeous hand-dyed fabrics in all types of yardage

and beautiful miniature quilt jewelry. It’s definitely a must see shop for quilters!

Okay – onto the challenge.

Flower Splash from MoranArtandQuilts

FLORA

The theme of of the third off season challenge is "Flora". Size, Color, method and techniques are the participants choice. However the piece should be a quilt.

Quilted Wall Hanging in rainbow with Floral Applique from SieberDesigns

To read more about Project Quilting Here: http://kimscraftyapple.blogspot.com/2010/04/project-quilting.html and join the facebook group: www.facebook.com/projectquilting

THE RULES:

1. Have FUN! These off season challenges aren’t about winning a prize – they’re about being inspired to create something you may not have in the past. There are a lot of ways to interpret this challenge – let’s see if you can in a way no one else does!
2. Please remember that these projects need to be created during the time frame of the challenge.
3. If you need advice/tips/help (or you just want to give us all a sneak peak) with your project as you work on it feel free to post pictures to the flickr group: Project QUILTING WIP: http://www.flickr.com/groups/1430386@N24/
4. POST your entries with a description of your creative process, including where you are (ie, I create in Madison, WI) and the size of your project by Sunday, July 10th, 2011, at noon, CDT, to this flickr group – Project QUILTING with KimsCraftyApple: http://www.flickr.com/groups/1401824@N21/ OR email a picture/description of your completed project to {lapaceksorchard at gmail dot com} with PROJECT QUILTING in the subject line . (just over 3 weeks to finish the challenge)
5. Since we’re in ‘off season’ we aren’t having prizes/judges etc BUT if you do want people to truly critique (the good and the bad) your project post it to the Flickr Group: Project QUILTING – Critiques
6. If you have an idea for an ‘off season’ challenge which includes a miniature feature about you on my blog please email me at {lapaceksorchard at gmail dot com}.

Modern Flowers from KimsCraftyApple

The girls are at the sitter and I’m giving my voice a good 7 hours of rest – so I figured I might as well work on the 11th Block for the Bloggers Block-A-Palooza. This one comes from the FatQuarterly.

And here is Block #11! I mixed together my batiks, commercial prints and some hand-dyed fabric that I dyed myself. I really love the drama all different fabrics create in this block. My stuffy head did create some ripping but not as much as I had for Block #10…

When I saw this weeks Iron Craft Challenge – Get Cozy I knew that if I could find the time I would participate. I’ve seen coffee cozies everywhere – I’ve even bought one for myself – but I hadn’t played around with making them.

I thought about how to put a ‘twist’ on my cozy, and I finally decided to go with the orphan block route. Orphan blocks are quilt blocks that either didn’t work as planned for the quilt, or an extra one that ended up not being necessary for that particular quilt. Because it’s hard to throw good things away, quilters tend to get piles of these blocks. The big question is – what to do with them? In the past I have made table runners out of mine and even some cute ‘Orphan’ Owls. I thought some of the smaller, skinnier ones I had around would make perfect cozies! Here’s what I came up with:

Here’s the first of my Americana series. I had a long pieced strip of blue, red, and beige that I’m guessing was going to be a border at one point. My cozy pattern fit just perfectly. To add an extra touch, I used beautiful beads I purchased from TessaAnn.

The second Americana cozy I created (it was a really long strip…I could probably make 3 or 4 more of these style yet…) I also probably went a bit overboard with the ‘insulation’ of the cozy. I used a layer of insul-bright insulation between the quilt block and the flannel back. With this, if you were in a jam and couldn’t find a pot holder, you could use your coffee cozy! I’m thinking this was probably a bit unnecessary…Here’s a more muted, rustic coffee cozy using scraps of Geese in the Field Blocks.

And here’s the cozy I’m going to enter as my piece for the challenge – my

Purple and White Pinwheel Quilt Orphan Block with a Ruffle Coffee Cozy. I made the ruffle while experimenting with my new ruffler foot and it seemed to go perfectly with these orphan blocks. I just couldn’t resist!

I’m excited to see what next week’s challenge is! I love how inspiring they have all been!

To see the other cozies created check out the flickr pool: http://www.flickr.com/groups/1525156@N25/pool/

Here are a few links that will help you on future quilting projects and photographing those projects. Please share with me any links/tutorials you think should be added to this list! I’ll continue to update as I receive more input from you all!
Beginning Quilting and Further:

• The 3 B’s – Borders, Backing and Binding
• Easy Peasy Machine Binding
• Blocking Quilts
• Matching Seams
• Quilt Spacer Border Calculations
• How to Bind Inside Corners
• Learn How to Paper Piece

Photography:

• Get to Know your Camera
• Setting up a Mini Studio on a Budget

Miscellaneous

• Judy Martin’s Classroom
• April Tips
• Fun Stuff for Quilters
• How to Make a Texture Background for your Quilt
• Fearless Quilting on the FatQuarterly

with an average score (the lowest of the 8 removed) of 8.98 goes to…

LoveBugStudios!

1. Thailand1, 2. RoadTrip1, 3. comingofage11, 4. 9pins2, 5. projectquilting, 6. United Concensus - Front, 7. Quilting To Do - Front, 8. eco7, 9. crookedhouse1

Congrats Ebony! You will be taking home a FANTASTIC GRAND PRIZE PACKAGE of:

A $50 Gift Certificate to the Fat Quarter Shop!

A $50 gift certificate to FabricNQuilts.

A Bali Pop from FabricFascination! If you haven’t heard of Bali Pops before it’s a 40 piece package from Hoffman Fabrics, cut into 2 1/2" x 44" strips[6 x 112 cm]. How amazing!

A set of handmade buttons from TessaAnn! You will be winning the same Cherry Blossom Buttons that I happened to have on hand for the Apple Blossom Challenge – they were the perfect addition to my challenge piece (IMHO).

FabricAlaCarte has also decided on what their GRAND PRIZE will be – a $20 gift certificate to her etsy shop AND a copy of the book ROLLING Along by Nancy Martin!

One of our die hard ‘Project Quilters,’ LoveBugStudios, is donating a Spider Web Starter Kit from her destash shop – StashedCache. This is a new thing she’s going to be offering so you’ll have to stop back later for more details and to find out what a Spider Web Starter Kit IS exactly…

QuiltsbyBarb is donating a $30, non-transferrable gift certificate to her machine quilting services (expiring February 28th, 2011). The picture above is a close up of some of her work. She does such an amazing job – stop by her website, www.quiltsbybarb.com to see more of it!

Kim & Diane – A selection of original patterns and yardage of hand-dyed fabric

I just found out that there is a prize for third and second places. PennyFabricArt will be receiving

pretty little mini quilts from for a prize!

Congrats! What a fantastic job you have done!

Stay tuned this weekend to the blog to see if you win any other prizes…

Well, I hope you’re answer is the Brilliant Flowers of Autumn Quilt by KimsCraftyApple (aka ME)!

Yup, it’s true! My quilt made this week’s voter. There are lots, 40 to be exact, of fabulous fall items to choose from – make sure you take a few minutes to support your favorite item and VOTE!

You can go HERE to read about last week’s voter’s winner and runner up AND nominate your favorite CANDY themed item!

Thanks again for everyone’s support!

Once again, I recieved an email for the etsyBaby Team Challenge (have I told you I LOVE these challenges!). It went something like this:

Dear EtsyBABY members,
It's challenge time!
Cinco de Mayo Team Challenge
You may list as many as you want but only 1 entry will be eligible for the poll. The winner will get official bragging rights, lol
Please convo Jen (http://goldtonedesigns.etsy.com) with your 1 link to your entry.
Here are the following details to participate in the Challenge:
A. A (new to your shop) baby/toddler item that is fun, bright and full of energy.
B. All Items should be listed by the 2nd of May.
C. Include in the title listing : EtsyBABY Cinco de Mayo Team Challenge.
D. Add the following tag to the listing: "EBMAY05"
E. A poll to vote for your favorite "EtsyBABY Cinco de Mayo" item will be available on May 5th and will end on May 15th.
All Etsybaby members can vote just once.
Please take the opportunity to use this for a treasury and to further promote the team and the challenge.
Learn More about Cinco de Mayo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinco_de_Mayo
Thanks and GOOD LUCK!

I once again, decided to make a quilt. I just feel that quilts give me the most freedom to do what I want. I made this ‘Where’s the Point – Fireworks Quilt” for the Team etsyBABY Cinco de Mayo contest. I chose bright colors and also used some firework fabric because I read that they end the day of celebration with fireworks! It’s colorful but not exactly quite the ‘cinco de mayo’ feel I was hoping for…but I still like it!

I used ten different brightly colored fabrics for the stars and the firework fabric to frame each of them. I used the bright ‘firework-esque’ printed fabric for the backing. To finish it off I free-motion quilted a fun star and loop pattern randomly all over the quilt.

The quilt measures approximately 41” x 41”.

I modified the ‘Where’s the Point’ pattern from QuiltsbyBarb’s etsy shop just a little to make it perfect for a small child or baby!

I would love to hear what you think of it!

With all the drama on my birthday yesterday (which is a whole other story...for another time) I'm happy to say this day has been going really well!


First, Scott, from the Poynette Press just came out and did an interview and took pictures for a story on etsy.com for the paper. I'm very excited to see how that comes out! Publicity, publicity, publicity.


Then, I found out that my Patchwork Corduroy Quilt WON the etsyBABY story time challenge!



And to top it off - my Spring Flowers - Pastels Quilt was chosen by one of the editors of the FaveCraftsBlog to be featured in one of their blog articles!


Now, to finish the day...a sale would be perfect :)

Today I'm going to talk a little bit about my "Squarey Quilt" (actual pattern name is 'Window Panes' but I've always called it my squarey quilt). I RARELY keep things for myself. Initially I was going to make this quilt for my brother (sorry Brian) but I just fell in love with it and had to keep it. Unfortunately for my brother, he has yet to get a quilt. (Waiting for him to get married or turn 35...)

The pattern called for black background fabric...since I can never follow a pattern or recipe (never ask me to make bread) EXACTLY...the first thing I altered was that I was going to use dark blue as my background. Once again, I headed over to Diane's basement and I dyed my fabric. I dyed the dark blue and some other various colored fabric.

When choosing the other fabric, I chose from some fabric that I had dyed, some that Diane had dyed and some commercial fabric. I love mixing hand-dyes with commercial. I just think it gives a quilt an amazing look.

Once my fabric was dyed and wash out. I started to cut my fabric for the quilt and piece my squares together. We have a King Size bed so the end result for this quilt was going to be quite large.

Have I ever mentioned before just how much I LOVE color. I love all colors and I especially love putting them next to each other and combine them with colors one would typically not think of to combine. Two of my favorite color combinations in this quilt are the toned down lime green with the navy blue and the lovely orange with the blue. I just think they look absolutely fabulous next to each other!

When I was done with the top of this quilt I sent it off to my aunt-in-law, Barb to quilt. She did a fabulous random pattern with a swirl in the center of each square. It is absolutely perfect for this quilt. To save myself a head-ache I also just had her use one of her large pieces of fabric for the back of the quilt. I just sent her the top and she took care of the rest!

When the quilt was returned to me I bound it with a variegated binding that I made from the left over pieces of the squares. It tied the inside and outside together quite well.

I am still in love with this quilt and am so glad I never parted with it!

I have chosen to enter my woven quilt into the virtual quilt festival because of a few reasons:

1) It took me four years to complete it
2) I love the color
3) It's a technique you don't see very often!

I hope you enjoy reading about this quilt! Since publishing this post, I did decide to remove the beading and I entered it into a quilt show. It was really fun seeing my work hanging up for everyone to view and people were amazed that it was really woven!

I also was a guest blogger for Quilting Gallery and I wrote: Woven Wonder - a Tutorial? if you are interested in reading more details as to how I completed this project.

I also hope you take some time (I think I've become obsessed with looking through the quilts) to see everyone else's work...there is some Amazing talent out there!

- update 4/19/09

My first step was to dye really long pieces of fabric that I would have quilted together by Barb. I headed over to Diane's basement, cut long pieces of fabric and dyed away. I had a lot of fun!

Barb decided to host Easter at her house that year and she was kind enough to let me try out her long arm quilting machine. Now THAT was a lot of fun! I think I quilted two of my panels together for this quilt. Barb did the rest of them.

A year later, I finally pulled the quilted fabric out of the bag and cut strips out of them. I then bound each edge of the strips and started to weave. Once I had it together how I wanted it...trust me, it took quite awhile and a little help from my hubby to have it square...I loosely stitched each intersection together so it would keep it's shape while I was binding the outer edge.

Now that the whole quilt was bound and put together I cute out my loosely stitched intersections and realized that it just wasn't going to stay together. Every time I pulled it out of the bag I spent an hour re-laying it out smoothly...hmmmm...how could I fix this? I sent it back to Barb and she quilted at each intersection. Doing this helped to keep the quilt in the square shape but kept it's 'woven' quality.

I have started to embellish this quilt with beads several times. My latest plan was to embroider it with circles of beads...I'm now thinking I may not even do that. I might just take these beads off as well, and use it as a quilt.

This quilt is amazingly warm...it's two quilts put together...AND it's reversible...both sides are equally cool!

I would love to hear your opinion about whether I should do the beading or not do the beading.

In the end, I think it is easier and less time consuming to just suck it up and match my corners!