Quilty "Thank You" Times Two

My first "Thank You" goes out to Pam at Mad About Patchwork for the Birthday Bundle of Basic Gray's Persimmon Giveaway. I was the big winner! Oh yeah!

It was pretty fitting since we share the same birth year, my sister's name is Pam, I used to live on Persimmon Street and I grew up in Washington State about 30 miles from Oregon. That last one is a bit of a stretch but as soon as I read the the word "MarionBerry" I thought of my home state. When I read the rest of what Pam wrote I realized why.

So here are all the pretties:

I know exactly what Im going to do with this bundle but it's a big secret for now. Shhhh...

My second Quilty "Thank You" goes out to my Mother-in-law who sent my still un-quilted First Quilt back home with my Hubs. He and Son #1 were up in PA for his Dad's birthday. I couldn't go because I was scheduled for jury duty. Which, by the way, I got out of because I am blessed to live in a low crime county and we were all excused! 

The quilt came home because my SIL is swamped with kid activities. She is in the thick of it with two teens and one preteen and she is an avid quilter who already has a collection of tops waiting for their ride on her long arm. Maybe I was a bit presumptuous when I sent it up for her to quilt even if my intension was for it to be donated. Guess I should have asked first.

Well, I am so glad it is back. I had regrets shortly after it left my hands since I immediately caught the quilting addiction and developed the skill to handle it myself. Plus, I didn't have any photos to share on my blog. Now I do, so, here she is along with the pillow sham I made for practice.

She's all pinned and marked from 1995. I do think I will add some more pins before I tackle her. Plus, I need to pick out the old stitches. The ones you see look good but there are some folds that didn't make the photo.

She is a Twin Nine Patch set On point in big box fabric but not as ugly as I remembered. She will still be donated and hopefully someone will fall in love and take her home to snuggle.

You might remember that our HVAC unit died while we still had hot weather. I decided not to plan any large projects for a bit because it is so hot wrestling with fabric. I have been working on smalls and have several under my belt. Here are a couple of recent projects:

First up, a name tag sample for my traditional guild. I am on the membership committee and we are to make tags for new members. I made it for myself to use for both my guilds so it wouldn't go to waste if it didn't make the traditional guild cut. I used this tutorial from Monkey Beans. I think it is adorable but it took three tries. The pattern faces to the right even if her sample doesn't. I had one of the pieces on backwards in my first try to make it face left. Didn't notice the mistake until I had added more pieces and trimmed. I started over and that's when I realized my mistake was the result of me trying to force flip the pattern. I traced the pieces on the other side of the paper and all went well the third time.

I used some scraps of Bluebird Park and even included a bit of birdie selvage since my Hubs favorite nicknames for me is Mommie Bird.

Here's the back humming bird. She's orange, my favorite.

Another secret project. 

We had our new furnace installed last week and I am itching to start tackling some Bigs again. That Persimmon bundle is victim number one!

Thanks for visiting!

Linking up with:

TGIFF on Quilt Matters

Confessions of a Fabric Addict's Can I Get a Whoop Whoop.

Stitch by Stitch Anything Goes Monday

She Can Do's Craftastic Monday.