It's a "Wild" Life 2018 Block of the Month

Once upon a time 5 quilt designers got together and decided to design a 

Block of the Month.

AND

Today is the FIRST day!!

We've been working hard to design a super fun quilt for 2018!

Amy at Sew Incredibly Crazy has the first pattern release today!

February

Sew Incredibly Crazy

Maple Leaves - Block #1

I'm using fabric from my stash this year.

These blocks are perfect for extra fabric laying around.

Think rustic, but wild and colorful.

Think wide open skies, green pastures, blue streams, and fun critters.

If you want to make this quilt from your stash but want to keep the background the same,

you'll need about 4 yards of background fabric.

Here is the list of designers 

who will be participating in the rest

this years hop.

March

Creatin' in the Sticks  ME!!

April 

Just Let Me Quilt

May

Moosestash Quilting

June

Life in the Scrapatch

July

Creatin' in the Sticks  ME!!

August

Sew Incredibly Crazy

September

Just Let Me Quilt

October

Moosestash Quilting

November

Life in the Scrapatch

December

Just Let Me Quilt

January

Sew Incredibly Crazy

All the blocks are free

for the month that they 

have been released.

After that, there

will be a small fee.

Come

quilt along with us.

There will be a 

monthly prize drawing 

for those

who finish the blocks

from great sponsors!

This month's sponsor is 

Make a block and link it up over at Amy's blog to enter.

Join us for a "Wild" Life!

And 

if you haven't already,

 join the
Facebook group

you can find it HERE.  

Let's get a little "WILD" together!

LOVE Letter Pillows

Spread  LOVE with these super fun letter pillows.

Today I am over on the Thermoweb blog to show you how.

Use the LOVE letters for cushions or put them on a shelf to show your LOVE.   They are especially super cute in the Vintage Berries fabric collection by Sweet Bee Designs and will fit right in with my new farmhouse decor.  Moreover, this pattern is fat quarter friendly.

The LOVE letter pillows are really quick to make and you can use just regular 2 1/2" strips for the sides with no problem.  If you want to cut bias strips, you go right ahead...

I purchased bias cut piping, but you could make your own piping too.

Find the tutorial and pattern link over at Thermoweb.

Spread LOVE!!!

Happy Kansas Day! Home Pillow Cover Tutorial

Kansas became the34th state in the Union on January 29, 1861

and today is the 157th anniversary.

Happy birthday, Kansas!

Today is a great day to learn more about the state of Kansas

and

make a sweet pillow to show the love for my home.

This is the year I am redecorating a little and this pillow is perfect for the farmhouse decor.

It's so simple to make pillows like these.

Just print your state onto a StitchNSew EZ Print Quilt Block Sheet.

Pin the sheet to fabric and stitch right on the sheet.

I made a quilt sandwich with my background fabric, batting, and muslin

 before I started stitching.

This one was stitched with a triple stitch on my sewing machine.

Then, just tear away the quilt sheet.

You can print any words you want without having to reverse them.

Just stitch them the same way.

I cut and added a heart with HeatnBond lite right where Dodge City (my home) is on the map

then stitched around it with black Aurifil 50 wt thread.

This pillow cover has a 16" insert. 

The background started at 19" square and I sewed it to the envelope back with 1/2" french seams.

Just sharing my love for home...

Want more love?

Carol at Just Let Me Quilt is hosting a blog hop next week.

I'll be posting a quilt for the hop on February 6th.

You don't have to wait until next week for more love,

tomorrow I have some love letters to share.

See you soon.

"Mayor - No Joke" - Project Quilting Season 9, Project 1

This is the first challenge of Season 9 of

Project Quilting.

I'm so excited to join in this challenge, "Hometown Proud."

My entry:

Susanna Salter

Mayor - No Joke

Susanna Madora Salter was elected mayor of Argonia, Kansas in 1887,

(my hometown)
the first elected woman Mayor of the United States,
and so far as most people knew, the first woman elected to preside over any town in the world.

Hometown Proud!!!!  I think this meets the challenge.

Kim at Persimon Dreams hosts Project Quilting.

She announces a challenge and you have one week to create something quilty.

Prizes can be won and it's a great way to meet new blogging friends.

Challenge 1: Hometown Proud

The Rules:

1. Be inspired by the best of your community - what makes you town special?  We don't care if it's where you live or where you have lived.  This part is open to interpretation but in the description of your quilt, please include the name of the town and why you chose it.

2.  Incomplete or unfinished does not qualify.  Every challenge piece must be a FINISHED project seen through from inception to completion during the challenge timeline (January 7 through January 14, 2018).  Each piece must stand alone as DONE to count toward prizes.

3.  Please remember that these projects need to be created during the week of the challenge.  (started on or after January 7, finished by January 14).

4.  Your project does not need to be a traditional quilt, but must meet at least one of these requirements:

1. include patchwork
2. inclued applique
3. have 3 layers stitched together by hand or machine

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

You may not recognize this picture, but if anyone from my hometown recognizes

 Susanna Salter from my quilt picture, I will be pleased.

I've always admired
Susanna Salter
 and how she overcame a big joke by bullies 
 to become my hometown's most famous.  
(I won't write the whole story here, but it's worth reading)

When the great women's suffrage leader, Susan B Anothony, was introduced to Susanna Salter at the Kansaas Women's Equal Suffrage Association convention in 1887, she slapped Mrs. Salter on the shoulder and exclaimed,
 "Why, you look just like any other woman, don't you?"

Looks can be deceiving.  This woman made an impact on my little town, the USA, and the world.

I even wrote a research paper in college about her 
so when this challenge was announced 
I decided to tackle
 a portrait quilt of her.  

A first for me.

Here are the steps I took to make this quilt a reality:

There are only a few pictures of Susanna Salter on the internet and in books I have.
This one is not copyrighted or the copyright is expired, either way I did research to make sure I could use it.

I cropped it and took out some details to make it a little simpler to make my template pieces.

I pulled white, gray, and black scraps and chose the values I would need.

Which means I can share this post with 

Oh Scrap over at Quilting is More Fun than Housework.

With tracing paper I made templates and then traced the templates onto HeatNBond Lite and fused the pieces to a white background.

Here's a few pictures as she came to life with fabric.

I added a faux piping and border then picked out a bunch of shades of my favorite 
Aurifil 50 wt thread.

I was very nervous to quilt it, but I managed to do it with very little regret.  
There are always things I would change, but I'm very happy with my first attempt at quilting the portrait.

Susanna Salter

Mayor - No Joke

Project Quilting Season 9, Challenge 1 - Hometown Proud

My hometown is Argonia, Kansas where I grew up and we are proud to have a

 museum of the home of Susanna Salter, the first elected woman Mayor in Argonia and the first elected woman Mayor in the United States

Made by Carla in Dodge City, Kansas

http://www.createinthesticks.blogspot.com/

Size:  14" x 16"

Fusible Applique Portrait, Thread Painting, Faux Piping, 
Freemotion quilting on a domestic- by me

It's with pride I will hang this new quilt on my wall and be inspired by this great lady.
(I found my old research paper and will keep it handy to be inspired by her story).

You can see all the other challenge projects and vote for your favorites starting at noon central on

January 14th

by clicking 

HERE
This one is #68



It's been a crazy week, (I became a grandma this week)
but I managed to finish with 12 hours to spare.

Little Miss Snow Princess Dress

It's Fashion Friday over at Thermoweb
and
I have a special little outfit to share.


Making little clothes adds such joy to the season for me and Thermoweb has all the fusible tools to make garment sewing quick and easy.   
If you love to sew clothing and haven't tried 
HeatNBond Soft Stretch
you'll be amazed how easy sewing knits becomes.
This little outfit is a mix of stretchy knit and soft cotton fabric
and
I'm over at Thermoweb today with tips and tricks to make it easy.

Applique isn't just for quilts.
Use your Aurifil 50 wt. thread (#2024) to stitch the dress and appliques
and
this little dressy outfit will sew up in no time.  
It will make any little girl feel like a snow princess
with Blend Fabric's Snowflake Waltz.

Expect to see more little dresses and things here.
Our first grandbaby arrived this week and I am ready to make....

This is my baby girl with her baby girl.
LOVE

Special Moments

I've been absent this week for a very special reason.

Our family grew this week by one as we welcomed our first grandbaby.

My daughter is well and her little family is so sweet.

I'm enjoying a little time helping out.

Life is so sweet right now.

Blocks - A 30 Quilt Blocks in 30 Days Finish

I've made a few quilt tops with the

30 Quilt Blocks in 30 Days Challenge,

but now I can show a finished quilt.

This is all 30 of the blocks in the quilt I'm calling Blocks.

The finished size is 65" x 75"

The layout:

All 30 blocks are in order starting in the upper left hand corner going down with 5 columns of 6 blocks.

The borders:

The quilt is framed by 3 borders. 

 The first border is a thin 1 1/2" unfinished white border.

The second border is made of 3" unfinished squares of colors and white.

The third border is constructed of 4 1/4" unfinished squares of all the colors in the quilt.

The quilting:

With all the squareness of this quilt I chose a circle quilting pattern

 and let the Handi Quilter Pro Stitcher take care of the quilting. 

(I'm still learning the program)

But this isn't the end of the 30 Quilt Blocks in 30 Days Challenge!

I'm excited to announce I am hosting a blog hop!!

Let's jump out of our comfort zones in 2018 and have some fun!