Pieced and Appliqued Flannel Rag Quilt

 Flannel rag quilts are so soft and I love to make them for family and friends.

They are perfect for a beginner or an experienced quilter.

Today I'm over on Thermoweb's Blog to share this free pattern to make your own pieced and appliqued flannel rag quilt.

When Dear Stella introduced the Winter Cabin Flannel fabric, I knew right away it would be perfect for a cozy quilt in my cabin. It is the softest flannel fabric I have ever touched.

Can you say "butter"?

I used HeatnBond Soft Stretch Lite for the applique trees. 

 It stays soft and is perfect for flannel fabric.

But you can find out about that and all you need to make this Cozy Cabin Quilt

by clicking HERE.

Stay warm!

Sharing the Cabin with the Millers

It's THAT time of year.

The one time of year we do not want visitors.

We have plenty.

We fight miller moths every year at this time.

Some years are worse than others.

This looks like it's going to be a bad one.

We spray to get ready for them because we know they are coming, but it only helps so much.

People say the moths are on their way to Colorado

and just passing through.

Did I invite them?  NO!

We love our screened in porch

except for this.

During the day, the shop vac and the vacuum cleaner run full time.

They get in the house, by the way.

I don't know how they do it, but they get into everything.

At night, soapy water traps.

Aren't you glad you aren't here....

The picture above was not edited.  Do you see the way the flash grabbed one of the millers and made it look like a huge one at the top of the white light shield?

Luckily, this only lasts for about a week and then we can clean up this mess and get ready for 

SUMMER!!!

I can't even believe I shared this....

YUCK!!!!!

I'm so glad I cleaned windows.  Laughing and crying at the same time.

HELP!!

Cabin Coolaid, Fat Quarter Shop

Cabin Coolaid quilt and pillow

 

 

 

I really wanted to try the Fat Quarter Shop's FREE Shortcut Quilts pattern, Layer Cake Lemonade which was released last week. (Speaking of the Fat Quarter Shop, the giveaway winner is announced  below). The top was a finish last week and today I present Cabin Coolaid as a finish with a pillow made from the scraps. I just happened to have two short stacks of Riley Blake, Elk Ridge fabric in my stash and it was just enough to make another manly project for MOvember. This is the last brown project I'm starting for awhile, by the way. 

 

 

This quilt is perfect for my "man cave" of a house (cabin) where nothing famine fits in.  My hubby loves this rustic style quilt, of course. 

 

 

There aren't a lot of scraps from the construction of the quilt, but there was enough to make a 16" cushion cover with a little leftover fabric from the Football Stadium quilt.  I quilted the pillow and quilt with leaves and vines with free motion on my domestic with thread I recieved from my friend Jen over at Glinda Quilts.

 

 

Thank you, my friend.  I really liked this thread and it was perfect for these projects.

 

 

 

 

The quilt is 48" x 61" and is perfect for cuddling up in front of the fireplace in a cabin during the winter.

 

There is a big sale at the Fat Quarter Shop for black Friday, 25% off site wide.

 

It's time to announce the winner of the Fat Quarter Shop gift certificate!  The Quilting Gallery organized a hop to say thank you for all the wonderful blog readers across the globe and the Fat Quarter Shop sponsored a giveaway here at Creatin' in the Sticks.The winner will receive a $20.00 gift card.  The winner is.....

 

Cherry

 

I will email you, congratulations!

Thank you Fat Quarter Shop for sponsoring this giveaway!

 

 Happy Black Friday,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Linking up with Amanda Jean over at Crazy Mom Quilts.

 



Cardinal Inspiration and a Great Picture at My Backdoor

It's been 16 days since his arrival.  I haven't needed an alarm clock.  Mr. Cardinal has been tapping at my sliding glass door at first light until the sun goes down.  He sees his reflection and is fighting with that bird in the window. 



Cardinal in my window

I was thinking about covering the door with a sheet to hide his reflection, but I have grown a little attached.  He is quite entertaining, except for the poop.  This morning it occurred to me that I had a little cardinal fabric in my stash and I should create something in my cardinal's honor.

I made a pillow using Postcard Garden fabrics from Red Rooster Fabrics that I picked up on the 520 mile quilt shop hop I went on back in April.

 

It's a 14" cushion with the cardinal postcard and a 4 patch appliqued onto the brown fabric with blanket stitching.  The quilting is straight line and I made my own piping for the edge.

 

I spent the rest of today trying to get the perfect picture of my pillow and the Cardinal.  He actually came over to it....

 

 

And then...

 

 

 

I think I'll see how long he stays.  I'm becoming quite the bird watcher. 

 

Have a great weekend,

 





One Deck, Two Deck, Three Deck, Four

What a weekend and we still aren't done.  I took a weekend away from all sewing and everything else and re stained decks.   It was quite a job, but they are looking great.

Here are all four decks.

The first three are done with the exception of putting the lattice back up on the bottom of the third one. The lattice is stained and ready to put up. Number four is actually a screened in porch, but the screens all had to come down in order to stain the front of the railing.  One more evening of staining and we should be set to put everything back in order.  Hurray!

I have been staining non stop since Friday morning and I am exhausted.  The problem is (as you know) the laundry is piled, the mowing is in need, no groceries in the house, bills need paid, and I want to sew.  lol

I am getting back to it, but we need to announce the winner of the giveaway for the "It's For the Birds Blog Hop".  Without further ado, the winner is:

 

Congratulations Charlotte!  I'll be in touch.

 



charlotteMay 15, 2013 at 4:17 AM

Love the ducks. What a nice job!

 

 

 

So much to do, but see you soon,

 





Mother's Day Came Early

I had a very nice surprise visit from my son and his girlfriend this weekend and I put them to work. 

My son and his girlfriend with the smile they put on our propane tank



But wait, here is the before, during, and after.... It's amazing what creative people can do with a little paint.

 

Those tanks were such an eye sore before.  Now, every time I look out my kitchen window I will see that smile and think of the kids. 

My grandmother had gas tanks with smiles on her farm and I always thought it was such a happy sight.  Now my son has recreated that memory for me.  Happy Mother's Day to me..early...

My son has to work next weekend and decided to come this weekend instead.  He lives 5 hours away and it is quite a little trip so I feel very blessed.

My son, Randy and his girlfriend, Andie

Now, I wonder what little thing chore my daughter will want to do next weekend...lol  She is planning on spending Mother's Day with me here.  Not a bad gig for me.

Hope you have had as good a weekend as I,

New Year with SNOW. A dyers dream..

There is snow in my backyard.  SNOW + FABRIC = Afternoon DELIGHT!

 I have a fabric dyeing kit from Hands on Hand Dyes just waiting to come out of the box and I'm going out to the sewing room to get started. I will post tomorrow to show off the results.

Congratulations to my friend, Jennifer over at Glinda Quilts, on her 1 year blogging anniversary and 100th blog post.  My quilting friend across the pond is an inspiration and has a lot of blogging fun.  She has a great giveaway going on for the celebration.

Deer tracks and tumble weeds

Even tumble weeds look better with a layer of snow.

I'm off to gather snow and dye fabric,

Burlap Wreath for the "BRRR" Season

It's is actually getting cold here.  It's been so warm it's hardly seemed like Christmas time.  Maybe we'll see some snow tomorrow, well the weather man says we have a 40 percent chance which means there is a 60 percent chance it probably won't.

Today I worked on a copycat challenge.  I call it that, but the directions for the wreath were in the magazine.  I made it mine though....

Burlap Wreath with Felt Roses

The directions for the wreath are on page 67 of the magazine "Mary Janes Farm" Dec-Jan 2013 edition.  The magazine's version of the wreath is on the cover.  A friend brought this magazine to me last week and I was instantly in love.  A subscription for this mag is on my wish list for Christmas.

Living in a cabin where everything is brown, I opted to use red burlap and instead of ribbon roses, I made mine out of felt. 

All you do is wire one end of a 4" burlap strip to the back of the wire wreath in the middle and wrap the burlap around to the front and back through the middle.  Keep adding strips and wrapping the middle and outside of the wreath until it's nice and full.

When the burlap is all wrapped, add ribbon and fabric roses.  Done.  Fast and perfect for the porch.  It goes very well with my burlap wrapped tree.

It's starting to feel a little like Christmas,


 












Linking up with:

2012 holiday knock-off decor party at Debbie Doos Cherishedbliss - A Crafty Christmas Link Party
  

     

Front Door Makeover

In my wildest dreams, I will replace the front door on my house with a beautiful wood door.  For now, painting it will have to do.  It's amazing what paint and color can do. 

 

 

The before:

White Door..boring

And After:

Green Door...warm and inviting

Picking the paint color was a piece of cake.  Hubby and I took a piece of the green metal roof from the cabin with us to the hardware store and color matched it.  The color is Robinhood Green. 

Just discovered Picmonkey.com

Three coats later and it looks great.  So much more inviting.  We painted both entry doors to the house and the garage door.  Why were all the doors white?  Color on doors, check.

I've been crazy busy trying to catch up my BOM class at Craftsy.com. 



Linking up with:

 

 

debbie-debbiedoos

sewmanyways

Our First Vegetable Garden

First off, I've always thought my thumbs are black.  I seem to lack the skills of a gardener.  This year I've been determined to change that.  I'm learning gardening 101 by trial, error, error again, look it up on the Internet, ask questions of green thumbers (why isn't that a word?), try it their way, error again, pull it up, plant something else, watch bugs enjoy, spray the crap out of things, plant again, error again, man it's working, and look on the Internet again.  Experience seems to be the best learning tool of all.  If failure breeds success, next year I should be off the charts.

We have fence around the garden to keep dogs and deer out.  The birds seem to love it.  They use the sprinkler as a bird bath and the worms are keeping them fed.  We have strawberries in an old horse tank next to the garden.  The birds ate my first strawberry, so we now have netting over the strawberries and we have harvested 2.  YES 2 whole strawberries.  lol

Garden June 3, 2012

I started with spinach, but the bugs really chowed down on it, so I pulled it up.  I like spinach but not leaves with bug holes in them...  I planted cabbage and broccoli which seem to be doing fine. I've planted tomatoes, cucumbers, yellow and green squash, peppers, dill, watermelon, and pumpkins.  I have marigolds on one side, because someone told me rabbits hate marigolds.  I thought it was worth trying to keep out the rabbits.  OR I could just put the chicken wire I purchased around the bottom of the fence.  I don't think there are any rabbits around here that could jump the 6 feet it would take to get over the fence.....

Our first harvest

The first thing we consumed from the garden this year was this itty bitty strawberry.  Hubby and I split it.  Tasty.  That was June 3rd.  Success.  Oh yeah.  This is what $15.00 worth of strawberry plants gets ya..........

Harvesting broccoli June 10, 2012

This morning I was out watering the garden and started wondering about the broccoli.  It was starting to look ready.  I checked this web site, "Gardening Know How" and learned we definitely needed to harvest it.  The hot wind was taking it's toll and turning the broccoli yellow.  I hate this wind!

Our second harvest

The second harvest looks a little better.  ha  YES, That is another strawberry and yes, we will split it.

This gardening thing is starting to be fun.  Stay tuned.

Learning and loving it,



Linking up with: