My Memories Giveaway

I swear, if my head were not attached, it would roll away! I know I said I'd do this on October 1. Sorry, I am a few days late. And to makeit worse, I cannot for the life of me get the widget from random number geneator to give me the result to display!

Anyways, the winner is #3, Sue: "I would love a chance to win this software ! There are so many ways I could use this ! I would love to make calendars & quilt labels and ......". I'll be contacting you soon with download information.

Thanks to all that played.

My Memories Giveaway

I was approached recently about testing the My Memories Suite digital scrapbooking software. I jumped at the chance. In past years I have created many digital photo pages, and had them printed into my kids's photobooks. Though I have been lax the last couple years about keeping up, maybe this is the push I need to make those fun pages for the family's history.

The software is www.mymemories.com. And before I tell you more, I'll say that I will be giving away a copy of the software to one reader (name drawn at random on Oct 1). More on the drawing in a moment. I have used a different scrapbooking software previously so it was fun to Beta test a competitor's product. I made the rather simple page shown above (you know...gotta always push that business!!). There are many scrapbook pages to choose from, even ones that look like quilt patterns! There's lots of pre-arranged pages to use, or you can create your own. Borders, text, clipart, etc...lots of fun for all!

So how can one of you get your copy of this software??? Simple. Go to the site given above, have a look and leave me a comment with a valid email addy telling me why you'd love to win this software. I'll randomly select a person on October 1st.

If you happen not to win, and still want to purchase the software, tell them promo code "MSV210D" to get $10 off.

freebies Updated Sunday

Sunday Update... Here's some rogue block sets I have to add to the nearlyfree offerings if you want them. 1. 5 orange and pink, 12-1/2" - top left is slightly larger $5 2. 7 This and that, all 12-1/2" $5

3. there are 7 - 12-1/2" give or take, assorted black & whites $5

4. 15 string blocks on foundation, 12-1/2. Good fabrics. $10

5. 12 nine patch in shades of pink, peach and purple 12-1/2" $7.50

Email if you want any. If you have a box coming, they can be added to the box if I hear from you before tomorrow for no add'l shipping. Theseare great for donation quilts.

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Update... I am awaiting payment from 2 people. I have 7 (SEVEN!) flat rate boxes packaged up and ready to schlep to the PO Monday. Yea...my sewing studio has never been so "lean"!! (OK, if you don't count that there are another 4-500 yards of folded cuts on the shelves :-) It's good to have the strip bin empty, since I haven't touched it in a year, and my color coded scrao boxes to the point where each will close.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have heard from several about wanting scraps. I have cleared out yet another 66qt bin of various scraps and strips so I have plenty for at least 2 more flat rate boxes. Price $5 plus shipping. Email me with the size box, your Paypal addy for billing and mailing address to save time. I need to mail these by Monday or they will wait a week since I am leaving on Tues for here!! I have also discovered a couple of mini's that are each approx 18"-20" square, all made from Kaffe fabricsa couple years ago. I can put them into the boxes of scraps if you decide you like them. $5 each. Note they do lay flat - just need an ironing.

I also have this twin quilt top shown here, that is made from Freespirit fabrics. I'll let it go for $40 plus shipping.

Mostly Free For the Taking

OK, mostly free. I have been cleaning out my sewing space in anticipation of the start of my home addition. I have loads of things (and more to come) to offload to the desiring person. A few of these I will ask for a small payment, but seriously, not much :-) 1. Mayn collection bags of scraps. These are good sized pieces. There may be pieced blocks or partially pieced things. They'd be greast for the person that does scrap quilts, or donation quilts. There's pieces of batiks and regular cottons. Many recent modern prints. Price: $5 plus shipping. Note I have enough for at least 2 boxes.

2. soft pink sheet. I know people tell you not to use sheets with your quilts, but seriously, I longarm quilt and have absolutely no issues with sheets as backings. This is not particularly high thread count, which is where these issues may occur. $5 plus shipping

3. 7 fat quarters. Good quiltshop striped fabric. $4 plus shipping

4. coordinating prints (42" wide) - top to bottom...peach bows Benartex 2 pieces at 34" each, ivory RJR stripes one at 56" and one at 28", ivory bows Benartex 1 piece 34". All fabrics $15 plus shipping

5. one vintage sheet, pretty floral $5 plus shipping

6. 6 fat quarters, good quilt shop quality $4 plus shipping

7. Two Runners (16.5"x51") made from canvas (both sides) - Is this Amy Butler from last year?? I have forgotten. They are both quilted already and just need you to bind them - $8 each plus shipping. SOLD

8. cotton corduroy, dusty plummish-brown 2-3/4 yards $5 plus shipping

9. flannels - Sesame Street is 1-1/4 yard, dots is about 1/4yd, rest are scraps.

pay shipping and they are yours. 10. Pieces of 14 and 18 ivory cross stitch fabric. Free, pay shipping

11. free - just shipping

12. free - just shipping

13. goose cross stitch, free - just shipping

14. Fleece scraps - perfect for the person that makes the donation pieced fleece quilts. Lots here. Free, pay shipping

For anyone interested, leave a comment or email me directly msolomo1@maine.rr.com

A Tisket A Tasket and a Giveaway

This quilt was finished recently. I have bound it in the green fabric and added a hanging sleeve too. I am very happy with the overall look of the blocks, all of which have different backgrounds befitting the seasonal sampler blocks.

I absolutely love the deep burgundy floral border. It doesn't at all look 1980's-ish as many florals do. Rather than compete with the florals, I quilted the border simply with a beadboard pattern. It is clean and simplifies the quilt, where the blocks and sashing have much going on. Here's a look at a few of my favorite blocks...

July...complete with the Canadian flag (client is not from the US!)

My personal favorite, June...with nice rays of sunshine shining through the pretty flowers.
April, with a sweet bunny rabbit and eggs.

October, with a black cat and pumpkin. I added the spiders hanging from the spider webs in the background.

And November, with a pretty feathery background.

And I have just learned of a fantastic giveaway over at Jackie's site. Have you ever wanted the AccuCutter?...I sure have. Boy would I love to get this. Go have a look - the giveaway is for a few more days.

Have a good week!~

Giveaway of Grand Proportions

Go see Jane each day this week for a fantastic chance to win great things!!

A Giveaway Winner!

Before I announce the winner, I want to solicit the readers and ask a favor. I am in need of a 3"x3" piece of Sandy Gervais's Crazy Eight Circles & Dots in Berry (aka red). If anybody has this and could spare the 3" piece, I'd be ever so grateful!! Please email me if so...I have a square I have to remove from a quilt because my very stupid cat ripped it with her claw!

I realized today it was time to use the old random number generator and select a winner of my drawing from the Online Quilt Festival. If I was just a little more clever, I could show you the results...(oh well!)

And the winner of a quilting of any quilt up to a lap quilt size (approx 60"x60") is...#7 (Shawn). If you happen to see this, please email me at msolomo1@maine.rr.com. I will also try to contact you. As I said before, I will quilt any top within that size for you, but not until January 1, 2010. So sorry about that, but I have many tops right now in need of doing as well as the need to get onto some Christmas presents!

For those of you that did not win, I will be hosting a quilting extravaganza probably starting next month where I will hold a grand opening of my long arm quilting business. I will be taking quilts of all sizes for quilting at a steal of a deal (for a limitted time only). So, stay tuned for more information! And you can see my quilts as they are being quilted on either my new website or at my etsy shoppe.

Blogger's Quilt Festival

Greetings Quilters!

First off, thanks for stopping by my humble blog. There are tons of fantastic quilts being showcased on the Blogger's Quilt Festival, hosted so wonderfully by Amy at http://www.parkcitygirl.blogspot.com/. This is a fun event and I am excited to be a part of it yet again. I have a great post to share with you, and at the end of some fun pictures, there is a giveaway, so don't miss it. So without further adu, let the show begin!


Over the last year or so, I have made a lot of quilts. I have been active in many swaps, both those that make mini quilts and those that make just blocks. I usually make quilts for baby gifts or Christmas presents. Most of the quilts I have made are linked on the sidebar to the right. The quilts, however, that I am most proud of are the ones I am showing you here today.


Over the course of the last 3 years, I have made over 100 lap-sized ~45"x65" quilts to donate to the local chapter of Project Linus. In January of 2007, this started as an effort to trim my scrap stash, which at that time was really not very large. It gave me something to sew without needing to buy fabric too! That quickly became addictive. I told my friends and family what I was doing, and within a few weeks I had a dining room full of more donated scraps! And that is how the cycle began. Last Fall, at a Linus function entitled the Book-Blanket Challenge I showed this quilt (which incidentally was my entry for the Blogger's Festival in April too!). Our local chapter was closing because the rep was stepping down and a replacement had not been found. She had been trying hard to get me to take over the position, but my life was too busy for that then. She had two large boxes of fabric which had to contain 60+ yards of top quality material which she gave me. I told her I would use that to make quilts to give back to Project Linus. And I did.
Last month, I broght 53 quilts to donate. These were made between January and September of 2009. The day before I brought them, I layed them all out on my yard for a little "quilt show". One blogger commented that it looked like a "Sea of Love". I think she was right.

Many are scrap quilts. Many are quilts I designed. Some were done to let me "test" a pattern or an idea. Some let me practice certain machine quilting techniques. Some were made from blocks acquired in various swaps.

All will be loved and cherished by the children that receive them.

They say it takes a village to raise a child. If what was done here for the children is of any similarity to that, I'd be remiss for not mentioning a few of the wonderful people that helped make this 53 quilt donation become possible. The quilt above had the indiginous Australian fabrics donated to me by Bernadette in a swap. The one below was made from swap blocks from the Broken Heart pattern by ladies of Kate's Birthday Block swap. I hosted the Spring Fling Round Robin earlier this year and received blocks to make 5 quilts from these talented ladies. The aforementioned Kate sent me 24 Jacob's Ladder blocks and another 24 Bento blocks to make another 4 quilts. Such overwhelming generousity. And I have never even met any of these people either.
It's true, I did spend a ton of time assembling, sewing, quilting and binding these. It's a labor of love, and if this is the only time in my life that I am able to make such a grand donation, I am still satisfied.

And so would you.

And yet another quilt below made from more donated fabrics from Anna Y.
The quilts here represent on the order of 275 yards of fabric & batting!
I spent much of my quilting time this last year on the quilts I showed you here, but the time has come for change -- a change in my quilting focus and a change in my personal/professional life. I am a trained and experienced mechanical engineer. Since having three kids, however, I have realized that going back to work full time is unpractical and just daunting. I want to be here at 3:30pm when they arrive home. So after much soul-searching and planning, I have opted to take a plunge off the deep end so to speak. For those of you that read this blog, you know this. But for the sake of the newcomers, I will mention that I just purchased a long arm quilting machine. And I am in the process of trying to establish a business making and machine quilting quilts (that is after my husband helps put the frame together this weekend!). I encourage you to bookmark my new business website http://www.mainelyquiltsoflove.com/. Visit often! At present, all I have shown there are a few small items and a number of quilt tops that I will quilt in the coming weeks. I will, however, be adding to this soon. Once I am taking orders, I will very likely do an internet quilting special for a while, with an extraordinary price!

As a giveaway in support of the Online Blogger's Festival, I will offer to machine quilt one person's quilt. It may be up to a large lap-size. You'll have to provide the batting and the postage, but I will quilt an all-over pattern which compliments the top. I will offer to do this anytime after January 1, 2010. I will randomly select someone at the end of the Blogger's festival. To be included, please do the following...(1) leave a comment here, and (2) blog something to your personal blog that promotes my blog and new Mainely Quilts of Love Quilting business. Thanks and have a great time spying all of the fantastic quilts.

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One last thing...I am hosting a block swap on flickr. If you are interested in a swap that will yield enough high quality blocks to make a queen sized quilt, with a monthly committment of only 2 blocks, check it out!

Nothing Heals the Soul like Discounted Retail Therapy

If my husband really knew what I do during the day, he'd go to his grave. With great dreams of making up several quilt tops in the next 4-8 weeks, I decided I needed to acquire a little fabric. In all reality, I probably didn't "need" to, but I discovered a fantastic online shop, and couldn't resist. Four days later, I had eighteen new yards of yumminess. Best of all, none of it was over $3.50/yard! If you have never visited Whittles, it's worth your time. The Beach fabrics I bought were not from there, and were not quite as good of a deal, but I was so tickled to find the Friendship by the Sea prints that $7 per yard seemed awesome.

Marcus Alfresco prints

some Freespirit Chocolate Lollipop and Freshcut

(may favorites....) Rowan Carla Miller peacock & other prints and a couple Andover Eden floral/butterfly prints - Lousy picture, but GORGEOUS fabrics

a few stash builders in black & red & whites and a lovely Martha Negley on the end

...and to my "beach" fabrics - some I found locally for $3/yard

The Elizabeth Studios (left) Friendship By the Sea, which are so sweet, will be the essence of a couple picnic/beach blankets I plan to make. The panel below, which I have 2 yards of is also from this line. I found the beachy huts print at Joann's. It's a very nice quality print snagged up at their 40% discount, and coordinates with the other beachy fabrics really well.

Some months ago I won a runner up giveaway from Anna. In May I think, a package arrived, postmarked from Singapore. I was intrigued since I was not expecting anything (the giveaway had been 4-6 months prior). She sent me a bunch of Noah's Ark prints from Debbie Mumm. There were 3-4 fat quarters and 2 lovely panels. Finally (in my quest to move out some novelties, and to make my Project Linus goal of 52 quilts), I pulled out these fabrics and made this.

Now, I am not religious whatsoever, and I don't think that these donated quilts ought to have any religious affiliation either. But I also think that many children can relate to the story of Noah's Ark and appreciate this. Making this quilt also gave me an excuse to try out some great new thread. Lisa sent me a 1200yd spool of thread last month, and I wasn't sure when I'd use it since I didn't have a quilt in blue or gray in the que to be quilted. It came from here. After I quilted the Noah's Ark quilt, and completely loved the thread I searched out where to find more of it. Much to me complete surprise, these spools of thread are only $2 each!. I have been using King Tut (40 wt) and often Coats&Clark 50wt from Joann's, mostly because the latter is easy for me to get whenever I need it. I love the way the King Tut looks, but I sometimes have tension issues on my machine with the 40wt threads, so it becomes a bit of a Love-Hate relationship. Now the Connecting Threads thread is a 40wt, and the variagated is not as nice as the King Tut's in that the colors change every few inches, but I think I could really like quilting with the solid colors, and the price is perfect!

It was kind of sunny when I took this, but here is the back of Noah's quilt...

...On another note...

I should call this the Mis-Adventures in Margaret's Long Arm Quilting.

Last weekend I took 2 flimsies to try quilting on the HQ16, which I may end up purchasing. Before you read further, know that these are LOUD, and not the most lovely of flimsies. THey are total scrappies, with an objective of using up that gosh ugly yellow (actually a Henry Glass) fabric. It is on the back of both quilts too. These will be donation quilts, but they are far from my favorite concoctions.

On this one (actually the 2nd one quilted), I used a clam-shell groovy board. It was definitely harder to get into each point neatly than I thought. There's a closeup next. You can see at some of the points where I did not get them sharp. It actually took longer than the next quilt, which is free quilted. All in all, not too bad though. I guess.

And here was the 1st quilt done on the LA. More icky brown and yellow, and a novelty deer print that I am happy to see go. I free quilted this one, and tried to quilt it similarly to the Noah's Ark quilt so that I could compare them. It turned out pretty well, and was not that hard either. The biggest difference in these 2 quilts and ones done on my machine is how much more taught the backs are. The quilt frame-rack does a very nice job of keeping the backing smooth.

In time I know I will get my curves smoother, but it's not bad for the first try. Now, to wash these three quilts and bag them up for their new owners.
****Giveaway!!!****...of the most awesome kind...

And lastly, since I don't want to decrease my chances of winning this too much, I have posted about it last. Kellie (aka DontLookNow) is giving this away! It is amazing like all of her quilts and pillows. Have a look if you want it in your home. Me...I think it'd look smashing in my daughter's room (or mine!!).