Andover Fabrics Downton Abbey Tea Party + Giveaway!

Posted on February 19, 2014 by nwquiltedcat

Good morning, everyone!

I had a little panic moment when my pictures from this event would not download from my camera card to my computer! Fortunately, I found a workaround and I was able to retrieve the pictures – yea!

Last weekend, I was so excited to be able to attend a Downton Abbey themed tea and trunk show by Andover Fabrics and hosted by Fabric Depot. This was a ticketed event that had been scheduled for the weekend before but got postponed due to a snow and ice storm in Portland.

Each place setting was beautifully decorated and we could choose between a Creme de la Earl Grey tea or a Forest Park tea. I went with the Earl Grey and it was delicious! We also enjoyed delicate little bite-sized treats to go with our tea!

Tea Party Setting

Tea Party Treats

During the tea, attendees were invited to show a panel of judges any sewn creations that they had made using the Downton Abbey fabric line by Andover. I saw many beautiful and elegant dresses, hats, and bags that definitely fit the period of the show. Since I don’t really sew garments, I decided to create a little table topper using the Rock Candy pattern by Jaybird Quilts. You can read about it in my earlier post here. I believe that I had the only quilty type project to show the judges.

Towards the end of the tea, the prizes were announced and I won second place (most creative) for my little table topper! The prize was a $50 gift certificate to Fabric Depot that I, of course, spent when the tea concluded.

Here’s a picture of my prize and my entry:

Most Creative Prize

Rocky Candy Table Topper

I had so much fun at this event and found myself purchasing more Downton Abbey fabric! I want to make a bag and possibly a small quilt wall-hanging.

The trunk show included some completed quilts and bags using the fabric line. I took a few pictures so you could enjoy all of the wonderful creations.

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Fabric Depot has posted a summary of this event with more photos on their blog here. There is a picture of my hands and the judges’ hands holding my little table topper about half-way through the blog post.

And now for the giveaway! To enter the giveaway, just leave a comment on this post. Be sure that I can contact you if you win! The giveaway will be open until Monday, February 24th at 8:00 a.m., Pacific Time. I’ll use a random number generator to choose a winner. If you are a follower, you can earn an extra entry by letting me know how you follow my blog. I will mail internationally so everyone can enter.

The prize is a pack of Gutermann thread designed to go with the Dowager Countess fabrics from the Downton Abbey collection. This set includes a plum thread (#942), a light grey thread (#100), and a dark grey thread (#112).

Dowager Countess Thread Pack Giveaway

Good luck!
-Jennifer

72 Flying Geese and Snow!

Posted on February 8, 2014 by nwquiltedcat

Happy wintery Saturday!

We haven’t had much snow for the past several winters in Oregon, but we are making up for it now! Over the past 2 days, the snow has been pretty constant and we are nearing the 1-foot accumulation mark. The snow looks so pretty falling down from the sky, but I am glad that we only experience this much snow every 4 or 5 years.

While I was sewing some flying geese today, my 8-year-old noticed a flock of beautiful fluffed up robins trying to take shelter in a tree in our background. I took these pictures through the window of an upstairs bedroom. So beautiful!

Robins in the Snow

Fluffed Up Robins

For the Star Light Star Bright QAL hosted by Melissa, our assignment this week was to sew flying geese. I am making the 9 block baby sized quilt so I needed to stitch together 72 pairs of flying geese! These geese went together so quickly using Melissa’s no-waste method.

Here are my flying geese all lined up!

Star Light Star Bright Flying Geese

If you want to know what fabrics I’m using for the QAL, you can read about my selections here.

Since we’re snowed in today, I’m going to keep sewing on my chevron units for Bonnie Hunter’s Celtic Solstice quilt. I hope to get these units finished up this weekend.

Enjoy the snow!
~Jennifer

Wake Up to Kona on the Beach + Giveaway!

Posted on January 19, 2014 by nwquiltedcat

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Happy Monday, everyone!

Today is my day to share the project that I made for the Wake Up to Kona blog hop, and I’m so excited! I’d like to give a big thanks to Madame Samm, our wonderful hostess and supporter of all things quilty and our great cheerleader, Carol, who inspires us all.

We have great sponsors for this blog hop – Amanda Murphy (author of Quilt Essentials), Robert Kaufman (all those delicious Kona solids), and Aurifil threads that keep us in stitches!

For my project, I started with Kona black as my background color and added this delicious grouping of colors:

Beautiful Kona solids!

The colors are: #110 Peony, #141 Carnation, #1062 Candy Pink, #1066 Cerise, #24 Petunia, #1484 Lupine, #1383 Violet, #188 Hibiscus, #1005 Aqua, #1009 Azure, #442 Capri, and #1064 Caribbean.

Next, I selected the Night Sky pattern by Jaybird Quilts for its striking beauty! This quilt uses her sidekick ruler to create the triangle and diamond shapes that are used in the construction of the quilt. Each starbust (or starfish?) has 4 different shades of a color group.

I pieced the entire quilt top using Aurifil threads, 50 wt (#2000 light sand color and #2692 black color).

I used Superior Threads So Fine #50 in Genoa Gray because I really wanted the quilting to stand out against the black background.

We took the finished quilt to the beautiful Oregon Coast this weekend to take some photographs. I had my hubby and son be my scouting location/photography assistants, and I think they did a wonderful job.

Since my cats aren’t too keen on traveling, my dog (and best hiking buddy) became my cat quilt inspector stunt-double. (Yes, he earned extra dog cookies for his hard work!).

Here are some pictures of my finished Night Sky quilt using Kona cotton solids:

Me and Hubby Holding Night Sky (dog legs too)

Night Sky with My Dog (cat quilt inspector stunt-double)

Me holding the quilt in the wind!

Night Sky Quilt – starbursts resemble starfish!

Night Sky Quilt – backside

These last two pictures show the free-motion quilting that I did using the Genoa Gray thread. The quilting alone took me 12 hours! I did a swirly pattern in the black background and did some straight-edge echo quilting in the colored starbursts.

While I was doing the quilting, I ran out of thread – yikes! I called local quilt stores within an hour of my house, but no one had the same thread in stock. Fortunately, I was able to order the thread from Superior Threads directly via 2-day shipping and completed it in time.

I really love how the free-motion swirls accent the Night Sky stars:

Night Sky Quilting Detail

Closeup of the quilting

I hope you enjoyed my project and please check out the other bloggers on the last 2 days of the hop!
January 20th
More Stars in Comanche
Buzzing and Bumbling
Quilting Quietly
Grammie Q’s
The Quilted Cat (you are here!)
The Quilting Queen Online
Lauraluvsloons
Sew Incredibly Crazy

January 21st
Just Sew Sue
Pigtales and Quilts
Miss Priss Quilts
Charlottes Creation
Childlike Fascination
Renee Luvs Quilting
Cherry Blossoms
Sew We Quilt

I am giving away 4 Kona cotton solid fat quarters! Just leave me a comment to enter. If you follow my blog, let me know how you follow for a second entry. I will ship internationally.

Wake Up to Kona Giveaway

Happy quilting!
~Jennifer

A Frozen Fog Wonderland

Posted on December 12, 2013 by nwquiltedcat

This morning was a frozen wintery wonderland in my town! Although this post is not quilt related, these pictures seem so eerily beautiful so I wanted to share them with you.

Freezing Fog Landscape

Barn in Frozen Landscape

Frozen Road

Frozen Sidewalk

Hoarfrost

Frozen Tree

Enjoy,
~Jennifer

Sunrise – iPhone Picture

Posted on October 30, 2013 by nwquiltedcat

We had a beautiful sunrise this morning in western Oregon! I took an early morning walk and captured this iPhone picture around 7:30. I wished I had my real camera!

Sunrise

As for quilty projects, I hope to work a little bit more on the Toes in the Sand BOM later this afternoon. I’ve also joined the Black Tie Boogie Blog Hop from November 19th to 29th and am planning out my rooster and chicken themed project!

Have a great day!
~Jennifer

Modern Trees QAL Top Finished and Beach Pic

Posted on October 13, 2013 by nwquiltedcat

Happy Sunday everyone!

This weekend, I worked on completing my table runner top for the Modern Trees QAL, hosted by Christa at Christa Quilts!

Rather than making a quilt sized project, I decided to make 5 improv tree blocks so I could have a cute little wintery table runner. I added a dark blue inner border which really complements the trees well. The next step will be to add the backing and do basting. Since my project is so small, I’ll probably do the machine quilting at the same time so stay tuned!

Here’s a look at the Modern Tree QAL table runner top:

Modern Tree QAL Table Runner

Yesterday, I took a drive with my hubby and son to the Oregon Coast to pick up several more Sew Oregon quilt shop hop stamps on my passport. The weather was surprising nice – no wind and about 60 degrees! We took a picnic blanket and ate lunch on the beach near Haystack Rock. The tide was still out far enough that many families and children were exploring the exposed tidepools.

Here’s a pic of the “Needles” rock formations just to the left of Haystack Rock (not pictured).

Cannon Beach, Oregon

Hope you had a great weekend!
~Jennifer

Star Surround QAL Finish, Wicked Blog Hop, and More

Posted on September 16, 2013 by nwquiltedcat

The last two weeks have been very bittersweet. My grandfather passed away on September 8th at the age of 92. Although the whole family knew this day was coming, it was still quite a sad shock!

My grandfather absolutely loved the outdoors. He was an avid hunter and fisherman throughout his life. We decided to celebrate his spirit by going camping this weekend at Scott Lake.

Here are two of my favorite photographs:

Scott Lake at Sunset

Scott Lake in Evening

For the sweet part of the past two weeks, I finished the Star Surround QAL. Thanks to Melissa at Happy Quilting for designing and hosting this fun project!

I decided to straight-line quilt to echo the star shapes in each block using my domestic sewing machine while my cat helpers sunbathed just out of view:

Quilting the Star Shapes

Here is what my final Star Surround quilt looks like all quilted and bound:

Star Surround Completed Front

Star Surround Front with Three Sisters in Background

Star Surround Closeup

Star Surround Completed Back

The back also uses fabric from the Mama Said Sew line plus a label and some more Essex Yarn Dyed in black. I hope that enjoyed looking at my completed project with central Oregon as a background!

Finally, a bit of fun and wicked news! I have joined the Wicked Blog Hop, hosted by Madame Samm at Sew We Quilt. This blog hop runs from October 22nd – 31st so I do hope you’ll come check out all the great blogs featuring wicked Halloween projects.

Have a great week and happy quilting!
~Jennifer

Glacier National Park and Star Surround QAL

Posted on September 1, 2013 by nwquiltedcat

With summer winding down here in the Pacific Northwest and the kids almost ready to go back to school, I went with my family on a last summer trip to visit Glacier National Park. We did some hiking and saw wildlife from bears to goats to cute little rodents!

Although the mountains in Glacier were a bit obscured from local wildfires, we still managed to get a few good pictures.

Here’s Swiftcurrent Lake:

Swiftcurrent Lake, Glacier National Park

We hiked up to Grinnell Lake:

Grinnell Lake, Glacier National Park

I missed a week on the Star Surround QAL project so I had to catch up on the last 2 weeks once I returned home from Glacier.

Here’s a pic of the block surrounds pieced and ready:

Star Surround Pieces

Once I completed all these building block pieces, I could then begin assembling my 9 star blocks:

9 Star Surround Blocks

The last step to get all caught up with the quilt-a-long was to assemble the stars into 3 blocks by 3 blocks to create the finished quilt top. I decided to take a picture of the complete top outside in the afternoon light when, to my surprise, my Cow cat decided to check out the quilt and give his approval:

Star Surround QAL Top

Star Surround QAL Top Indoors

I had so much fun on vacation, but I’m happy to be back home!

Here’s a last look at one of our mountain goat friends at Glacier:

Goat at Glacier National Park

Hope everyone had a great summer and here’s to a great September!
~Jennifer

Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show, Photo Gallery (post 3)

Posted on July 30, 2013 by nwquiltedcat

Hi everyone,

There were so many wonderful quilts displayed in Sisters this year. I spent about 3 hours walking around and admiring them, but still couldn’t see them all!

The light and shadows played across many of the quilts so it was difficult getting good pictures. I’ve created a slideshow with a few of the quilts so you can see some of the wonderful eye candy and maybe plan your trip to a future Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show! If you made of these quilts, please let me know and I’ll add your name.

To see the quilts that I made and displayed in the show, visit here.

Sit back, grab some coffee, and enjoy!
~Jennifer

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Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show, All About Cows! (Post 2)

Posted on July 20, 2013 by nwquiltedcat

Happy Saturday everyone!

This is my second post about the fabulous Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show from last Saturday, July 13th.

I wanted to highlight a really cute exhibit called the “Whimsical Cow Stampede” featuring cow quilts from the book, Out of the Box with Easy Blocks by Mary Lou Weidman and Melanie Bautista McFarland. This book is on my must-buy list!

These quilts all used the cow pattern with a twist!

Boo Moo and Mooy Fiesta

Red White and Moo

Zoro the Boovine

Cow Tipping

Moody Blues

PaniMoo Canal

I think these cow quilts are so adorable especially since I have a Cow cat.

We decided to have a picnic lunch outside of Sisters to escape the heat and went up to Scott Lake. You can see part of the Three Sisters in the background. This is quiet little lake with a small campground that we’ll probably camp at in the future. Just remember to bring mosquito repellent!