FNSI results: 1st quilt complete!!

Well here it is – my first quilt that I started end of April is finally done!  I would have had it done a few weeks ago, but I couldn’t find my walking foot to do the binding so I had to go and get another one (luckily with a 40% off coupon) but it was the wrong one, I was so disappointed when I found that out last night.  But…when I started to think more about the last time I used it, which happened to be about 3 weeks ago, I tried to recall anything out of the ordinary that may have been on the dining table at the time I quilted it and I remembered my little Longaberger basket that I was putting random things in and there it was!  I am ashamed to say how long I looked for this and the weird places.  Oh well…all is well that ends well!  So last night was the two yr anniversary of the Friday Night Sew In hosted by Heidi and Bobbi and I was really looking forward to it!!  **Edited to Add** I actually won the drawing!  I am going to get this awesome Christmas charm pack "Flurry by Kate Spain" and as Heidi put it, a 'quilting ruler gadget thingy' I am so excited!  Thanks Heidi!!
I cut, sewed and ironed the orange binding and got more than 1/2 the hand sewing of the binding on last night before I forced myself to go to bed at 1:00 a.m. and was so excited to finish, I got up after just 6 hrs of sleep, took an outdoor shower, cleaned up the kitchen, made my morning tea and finished it up this morning!  I am really happy with how it turned out and don’t think it looks that bad for being my first one!  I am almost ready to start my next one, which will be a winter rag quilt with blues, white, browns and a splash of red!  Ooh, I can’t wait!  

I decided I would venture to make my own label after reading Becca’s post about labeling your quilt this week (did you know she is continuing her quilt class on her blog?  so excited about that!) I happened to be prepared for this too, I can’t believe it!
Edited this post to add the photos of me holding the blanket off our deck.  John was not at home yesterday for me to do it which is why my first photo has it on the couch.  This is a better was to share it with you I think! 




About a month ago, John got me some iron on image transfer paper from Amazon and I put it to good use last night!  It was easy to use.  Here is what it looks like, you can use it in your printer, stamp on it, color.
I stamped a cherry blossom image (because I love them…see my blog banner) from The Journey by There She Goes stamps in rich cocoa memento ink. Then I colored the blossoms with copic markers and cut it out.

Then, it takes just about 10 seconds for a smaller image, with your iron set to the highest setting to adhere to your fabric.  I used a heavyweight cotton.  Then, I wrote the name of my quilt, my name and the date with permanent makers.  See above photo.  So fun! 

**Last weekend was our quilt shop bus trip and we had SO much fun!!  We met some really great ladies, chatted a lot, shopped a lot (all 28 ladies spent a whopping $8,000+ in 2 days at 6 quilt shops!) I am happy to say although I spent more than I thought I would, I was way under the average!  I will be sharing more of what I bought over the weeks, months as I make things with my purchases.  Unfortunately, this is the only picture from the whole trip and it was right before we left – we were celebrating Christmas in July which explains the elves hats, our bus mom Cheryl gave us.  We also got fun goodie boxes filled with ornament kits, a needle book we could sew and everything we needed to get them completed such as needles, thread, snips.  I made one ornament so far that I’ll share in a future post as this post is so incredibly long!  We just did NOT have enough time to take photos since our shopping time was pretty limited in the shops.  We tried to make the best use of our time as possible!  Stephanie is very new to sewing and I’m so glad we took this trip together, because as I told her that evening, spending time with her was the BEST part of our trip.  Our girls weekend happened to start the day before though, we met for lunch and got pedicures and manicures – it was nice!!
Here is one of the many things I purchased at the shop in Victoria – a quick apron kit.  It was just $10 although I’m pretty sure the fabric only cost about 1/2 that, but I got the pattern to make more!  I started working on this Wednesday night and finished it up last night before I found my walking foot!  I adore this fabric, I wish I had written the name down or purchased more of it. 
Here it is completed – the hand towel is a little off center, but once it’s on, I don’t think anyone will be able to tell.  Sorry about the poor photo, I didn’t look cute enough to put it on and model it for you!
Thanks for stopping by and I promise to share some cards soon-I bet some of you may be wondering if I still stamp…

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