I was *THISCLOSE* ...

... to making the deadline.  But ::sigh:: events conspired against me and I missed it.

And what was it that I missed?  Well, for 2 weeks, starting this past April 2nd, Megan of Canoe Ridge Creations announced that she was starting a  "Festival of Half-Square Triangles". On April 2, 2012, there would be a series of quilting blogs to visit. Each blog would present a project using Half Square Triangles. After the second week, quilters would link up their Half Square Triangle projects (subject to the appropriate rules). Winners would be picked from the projects submitted and the Fat Quarter Shop would award some very nice prizes.

As it turned out, it was the LAST project presented on the LAST day that caught my interest.  It was a very interesting geometric design by Katy Jones of Monkey Do, which was made into a ginormous 24" throw pillow using just one humungous quilt block.

Instead of making a pillow, I decided to make a quilt .... mainly because I had a LOT of half square triangles leftover from a previous project.  I figured that a quilt just might use them up and then I wouldn't have to look at them any longer.  Voilà ... "Ninja Throwing Stars" quilt was created!

I actually was able to piece the top completely in about 25 hours, spread out over 1 week.  I had 2 days to do the quilting, but since I was using a pantograph, I figured I wouldn't have any problems.

HAH!

If you ever want to hear God laugh, just tell Him of your plans.  :-)   I *almost* got the quilting done on Saturday but didn't.  I *did* get it finished the next day, as well as finishing up the rest of the quilt .. squaring it up, binding it AND making a webpage for it.  BUT ... the deadline passed me by and when I was ready to blog about it .... the linky part of the Festival was closed.  ::sigh::

¡Qué lástima!    ¡Qué mala suerte!

That picture is just a teaser! For all the gory details, links and more pictures, please visit my web page for the Ninja Throwing Stars quilt.

Wowsers .... a Liebster Award!

Have you seen/heard of the Liebster Award?  The word "Liebster" is of German origin, meaning "Beloved, Dearest, or Favorite" and it's a blog award given to "exceptional" blogs with fewer than 200 followers.  It's a way of recognizing small blogs that other bloggers find interesting and bringing those small blogs to the attention of everyone else.

Well, by golly ... I recently received this honor!  I am simply flabbergasted that anyone would think enough of my blog to bestow the Liebster Award!  Thank you, Pamela (of Pamela Quilts ) for your good taste thinking that my blog was worthy of this award! .  :-)

For those who decide to accept the award, the Liebster Rules are:

1. Post about your win on your blog.
2. Link back to the blogger who presented you with the award.
3. Copy and paste the award to your blog.
4. Present the Liebster Award to 5 blogs that have less than 200 followers that you think deserve to be recognized.
5. Let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.

[note: apparently like everyone else, I am also unable to discover whoever originated this award.  Everyone is following the same rules, but whoever created this award is a complete mystery.  Come out, come out, where ever you are!    *YOU* should be acknowledged also!]

Now comes the hard part - deciding on 5 blogs to pass the honor to!  It turned out that the most DIFFICULT part was finding out the number of followers a blog had!   Sometimes the blog itself will show how many followers it has .. that's the easiest way.  But not all blogs do that.  But, I persevered; it turns out it's VERY simple ... at least in Google Reader!   There is a drill-down arrow to the right of the blog name.  One of the selections is "View details and subscriptions" ... BINGO!  That will show how many subscribers there are for that blog .. at least through Google Reader.    BUT ... the blog follower number may not be the same as the Google Reader subscriber number!!   One blog that I just love reading had a low Google Reader subscriber number but a follower number that was over the 200 limit.  Oh no!!  ::sigh::   I'm going to be so embarrassed when I find out there's a Really Easy Way to do this.  :-)

So, with the limited resources available to me and with the research I've done,  here are my awardees.  All of them have inspired me in one way or another ... piecing designs, quilting designs, techniques, tutorials, methodology, and/or their general philosophy.  I hope you, Dear Reader, will enjoy reading these blogs as well.

* Finishing lines
* One More Quilt
* Quilt Stitching and Sew On 
* Silly Goose Quilts 
* Timber Hill Threads 

a Petite Purse

... and boy, do I mean petite!

Like most crafters, I do projects other than strictly one hobby.  My background is garment sewing and I just plain, ol' like sewing in general.

Sew4Home's blog recently had a small purse as a project.  I didn't fully appreciate just how SMALL their "small" was until I made it.  To be sure, right up front they did say it was a 5" purse, but .. hey ... who really knows what size 5 inches is?  :-)

Dear Daughter #2 liked the picture, as presented in the Sew4Home's blog, so I put my current quilting project on temporary hold to work on the Petite Purse.

You can read about it and see more pictures on its webpage, a Petite Purse.