Stash Score!!!

See all this gorgeous fabric?  Oh my gosh, this was my fabulous birthday find!  It took me several hours to choose from all the goodness at Fabric.com, all 34 yards of it.  You guys aren't going to believe the deal..wait for it...wait for it...

$83.14 before tax!!! Are you kidding me?!?  That works out to $2.45 a yard, holy cow!  

The day before I received this box full of goodness, my Massdrop order
of Tula Pink's Moonshine arrived.  My first Tula Pink!

You can probably tell I'm working on the Farmgirl Vintage blocks from all the gingham and polka dots in my huge fabric find.  The fabric delivery was just on time for me to work on the Autumn Star block, which I finished today.  It took four days, whew!

And here are all the blocks I've completed.

Thanks to my new quilt blogging friend, Megan, at sewstitchingcutequilts I now know about and am linking up to and showing off my fabric find over at Sunday Stash w/ Molli Sparkles, so stop on over and show your stuff off, too!

Father's Day, Birthday and Week 2 New Quilt Bloggers Hop

Hi Quilty Friends,

I hope everyone has had a great weekend.  Not only did I get to spend Father's Day with my Dad, I also celebrated my birthday with the family - my two sons and their significant others, my parents, and my wonderful husband.  What more could I ask for?

For Father's Day, I made a pillow for my dad with a picture of the 611 steam engine.  The 611 is a big deal around here, especially since it was recently refurbished and returned to Roanoke last month.

I used printable fabric in my inkjet printer to print the 611 picture and found some great Riley Blake fabric to frame it.  I thought the stars and stripes were awesome!

Here's a picture of my dad with his gifts.

Just for fun, here's a picture of me today with the ring my sweet husband gave me for my birthday.  I actually wore makeup today, I usually only manage that about once a year.

Now on to our 2015 New Quilt Bloggers Hop!  Last week I had the pleasure of introducing myself and I've made a bunch of new blogger friends.  Coming up this week in the Sew Fabulous Hive are:

Erin@ https://twinmomquilts.wordpress.com/

Anja@ anjaquilts.blogspot.ca/

Carrie B.@ choppingblockquilts.wordpress.com

Adrian@ http://quiltingfabulous.blogspot.ca/

Thanks again to our wonderful hosts who are 'sew' supportive.  Be sure to check in with them, as well, to enter Week 2 giveaways!

Yvonne @Quilting Jetgirl

Cheryl @Meadow Mist Designs

Terri Ann @Childlike Fascination

Stephanie @Late Night Quilter

Happy quilting!

WIP Wednesday

The great thing about being a newbie quilter is discovering things about my own creative style.  I've posted previously about how excited I was to receive the Farm Girl Vintage book.  I have really enjoyed working on the blocks and I think it's now my favorite quilting project!  I love picking out the fabric and putting everything together.  It still amazes me at how the fabrics are pieced to make the block design.

Yesterday I discovered that I really don't like using plain white fabric as background.  I didn't realize that until I spent an awful lot of time trying to find anything else that I could use besides 'just white'. I finally found a grey and white print fabric to use.  I think I'm going to have to eventually give in and use a plain white; the next block is the Autumn Star and there's a lot of white background.

Here's what my space looks like when I'm pulling fabric for blocks.  This is just one reason I love my studio, I can just turn off the light and leave it until tomorrow (or whenever I can get back to it).  If you look closely, you can see a Michael Miller Modern Basics fat quarter bundle that just came in from Massdrop yesterday.  (And a big thank you to one of my IG quilting buddies for introducing me to Massdrop!)  When I saw this bundle, I knew it would come in handy for my FGV blocks.  Plenty of polka dots and houndstooth!

Here are my 12" blocks so far.  I completely messed up the Apron Strings block; but I think it's my favorite and my hubby says it's definitely his.

Of course, the problem with having so much fun with these blocks is the project that's still looming on my design board, DUNH DUNH DUNH!

Luckily my son isn't in a hurry for it, especially since it's a flannel quilt and we've been in the 90s of late.  My goal is to spend part of each day in the studio sewing together at least one row to break up the frustration, LOL.

Happy quilting friends!

2015 New Quilt Bloggers Blog Hop

Aloha, I'm Jinger and I'm happy to be a member of the 2015 New Quilt Bloggers Blog Hop.  Many thanks to our Sew Fabulous hive leader, Stephanie, over at www.latenightquilter.com.

A little about me, I 've been married for 11 years to a wonderfully supportive husband.  I have two adult sons, 25 & 22 (who are still my babies, I don't care how old they are) and  I am a step-grandmother to 13 year old twins, a girl and boy.

I began seriously quilting in October 2014 after our move back from the Big Island of Hawaii to Bedford Virginia.  I had struggled with not feeling productive since my retirement, but coping with chronic illnesses prevented me from moving forward.  My sweet husband set up a studio for me in our new home, which enables me to have everything ready to just walk in and work whenever I feel up to it.  Because I'm not able to go out often, besides doctor appointments, finding quilting blogs has been really helpful to me.  I didn't find many blogs featuring newbie quilters like me, so I started this one.

Hopscotch, First completed bed quilt

Dogwoods and Butterflies

These two are QAYG (quilt as you go) that I made for the grandkids. The one below took me three years to compete.

I like to post what I've learned at the end of my various projects. The biggest lesson I recently learned in quilting is to use scraps to test instructions that aren't necessarily clear.  Do you find ending project tips helpful?   

In blogging I've learned to reach out to others when I have questions and not to be afraid to post about mistakes I've made.  Are you someone that enjoys offering tips to newbie quilters?

At the beginning of this post, I spoke about moving back to Virginia from Hawaii.  We do still own a condo in Kailua-Kona that we rent out on VRBO, which enables us to go back to visit at least once a year.  Here's the evening view from our lanai:

Thanks so much for stopping by my blog today!  Please visit the other featured Sew Fabulous bloggers for this week, as well:

Tessa@ www.halfsquarequilts.wordpress.com

Sandra@ http://musingsofamenopausalmelon.blogpot.ca/

Kelly@  blog.quiltingitout.com

Johanna @ Sewingtimewithbrownie.blogspot.com

Again,  many thanks to our 2015  New Quilt Bloggers Blog  Hop organizers:

Yvonne @Quilting Jetgirl

Cheryl @Meadow Mist Designs

Terri Ann @Childlike Fascination

Stephanie @Late Night Quilter

Happy quilting!

WIP Wednesday and a Call for Help

Today I'm sharing what's on my design board, what's been there for months now.  It isn't pretty at this moment.  I can't tell you how many times these chevrons have been knocked off the board, particularly the bottom ones, as you can tell.  My doggies like to keep me company in the studio and sometimes their tails wreak havoc.

One of the things I've learned since beginning this quilting adventure is that all quilt kits aren't the same.  The first kit I worked on was from Craftsy and had step by step instructions.  Silly newbie me thought that all kits would be like that, hahaha.  So, I saw this kit on sale and thought, great deal, I'll get it and eventually figure it out.  Then, my oldest son, the last "kid" (at 25)  to have a quilt made for him chose this kit for his quilt. Not  only had I not worked with chevrons before, I hadn't worked with flannel either.  The instructions didn't tell me how to put the chevrons together, so after doing some internet surfing, I found that the 'ears' should stick out 1/4".  Great... or not!  I am beginning to dread working on this quilt.  I spend so much time measuring and ironing and trying to make sure the ears are exactly 1/4" and then end up ripping out as much as I'm sewing together.  I'm so happy to have it half-way done (the left side as you can see) but I'm hoping for some suggestions to make this chevron piecing process easier.

This is the way I'm measuring each chevron ear.

Does anyone have any tips or suggestions?  I'd really appreciate some advice!

Corn and Tomatoes Block

Today was another Farmgirl Friday Sew Along.  I worked about four hours on the Corn and Tomatoes Block.  I was so careful with starching and ironing and cutting and sewing 1/4" seams. 'Sew' darn it, what happened to the points in the middle?!?  ARGH!  I'm trying to decide whether to take it apart and try again or to make a new block.  My husband says to stop  obsessing (of course).   I love my husband, he's just the best cheerleader anyone could ever ask for!

I am happy with the fabrics I chose.  I'm not used to pulling fabrics and putting them together; but I think I did a pretty good job.

I was absolutely delighted to actually accomplish putting this block together.  When I first looked at the picture, I thought how on earth am I going to do this?  There were two blocks on today's sew along schedule; but, I was exhausted after finishing this one, and it was already past dinner time. Maybe tomorrow I'll get to the next one, or maybe I'll be re-doing this one, or maybe I'll get back to work on the quilt on my design board...

Thanks for stopping by!

New Bloggers Hive

Hello fellow members!  As I'm hopping along to visit my fellow hive members' blogs, I found something I needed to do for Bloglovin' to "claim my blog" under the new Sewing category.

<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/13739821/?claim=b8hus6hfc5x">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

I had to post the above link to claim my blog.  If you're on Bloglovin' and you haven't claimed your blog yet, you may want to consider it.  Claiming your blog on Bloglovin' allows you to see your blog analytics and connects you to social media, if you wish.

Hoping to connect with everyone soon!

Farm Girl Vintage

I was so excited to receive my happy mail from Fat Quarter Shop (seriously, if you quilt, you know them fatquartershop) at the end of last week.  Don't you just love getting a box of quilty goodness? Nope, this wasn't squishy mail, but a box with beautiful fabric and what I've been waiting for, the Farm Girl Vintage book by Lori Holt of beeinmybonnet

There's been so much fun on Instagram with #farmgirlvintage, I just couldn't stand to be out of the loop any longer!  There's a sew along on Fridays at farmgirlvintagesewalong and different bloggers host each week.

I was so excited to make something from the book that I chose the Baking Day block because I thought it would make a good potholder for my kitchen.  Here's my 6" block, blue marks and all, sorry about that!  I'm going to work on finishing it, so I can start catching up with the sew along.

Now that I have an idea of how the blocks work, I'm going to switch over to 12" blocks and hopefully complete a sampler quilt.

Happy quilting!