January Hopping! & giveaway

It is hopping cold and snowy here in central Ohio,
but the hopping I'm speaking of is a Blog Hop!!

Hello and welcome to my day to share on 
the Quilt Doodle Doodles Blog Hop!
My winter-y welcome is appropriate
for the quilt that was made for this hop...

My quilt finished at just 22 inches by 26 inches.
It's machine-pieced, with wool hand-appliqued for snowmen noses, roof snow, door wreath & bow, mug steam and skate blades.

Last year, Cindy at Quilt Doodle Doodles  
offered this as a free Block Of the Month pattern 
to make a block or row each month.

I jumped right in!
But, not wanting a bed-sized quilt (approx. 70"x82"),
I choose to downsize my blocks 
so I'd end up with a wall-hanging instead.

I do admit that I thought I was half-sizing the pattern, 
but ended up smaller than half 
because my brain kind of does it's own thing sometimes. :)

The patterns that Cindy offered 

had fabric squares cut at 2 1/2 inches, finishing at 2 inches.

So to make half-sized, I should have 

cut my squares at 1 1/2 inches to finish half-sized at 1 inch.

But, oops, 

I cut my squares at half the size of her cut-size, 

so I cut at 1 1/4 inches, to finish at 3/4 inch.

Besides the down-sizing,
I made a couple of other small changes...
One change was to not put in a row of Christmas-y light bulbs.  
I made them, and love them, 
but wanted this little quilt to stay Winter-y looking,
so I could leave it displayed longer than just the Christmas season.

The second change was instead of the light bulb row,
I used the scrap corners leftover from my Snowman row

 and made these cute little pinwheels!:

Yes, each little, eight piece, white pinwheel is 3/4 of an inch!

My final change was that I re-arranged the placement of my rows to space out my light-colored rows.
Then, on to my quilting.
The whole time I was making this little quilt, 
I was thinking I would hand-quilt it.
I even had it pin-basted in preparation of hand-quilting:

Pin-basted from the back.

WRONG!  Funny, funny me.
The little pieces in this quilt are only three-quarters of an inch!!
That means that the 
seam allowances cover most of the back of each little square!
NOT conducive to hand-quilting.
Instead of hand quilting,  I started by doing some stitch-in-the-ditch on my domestic machine.
Then I loaded it onto the long-arm machine
and did a little echo quilting around the snowmen heads and candies across the top, 
with some clouds and windy-swirls thrown in around the house and trees.

I love my little finish, 
and loved the sew-along qualities of the BOM offering from Cindy.
It was fun checking in each month with others making the same pattern, seeing their progress and creativity.

You can visit today's other bloggers on the January Hop, too:

Kathy-Kathy's Quilting Blog

Nicole - quiltinglikeamaniac

Pam - Stitching Between the Lines

Jill - Hosted by Quilt Doodles
Debra - My Life Is A Stitch  (you are here)

My thanks to Cindy for offering this at no cost, for the great patterns, and hosting this Hop to share all the cuter-than-cute finishes.

Thanks to you also for visiting and doing some January Hopping!

PS - Cindy is offering a new B.O.M. for this year, so visit her blog to check it out!!
ALSO, she's having a giveaway, so when you visit her blog - just leave her a comment to enter.

PPS - Leave a comment here for me,
as I'm doing a little giveaway, too!!  
I have an extra, little string of snowmen to share!

sew along - month 8 of 10

My half-pint sized August block/row for the ongoing
Quilt Doodle Doodles sew along is DONE 
(and it's not yet midnight on the 31st - lol)!
It another cute block -
a whole row of little wrapped sweets:

mylifeisastitch.blogspot.com
August's row for QuiltDoodleDoodles sew along

Just had to make ten!

mylifeisastitch.blogspot.com
August's row for QuiltDoodleDoodles sew along

(I'm always asked, so here's my disclaimer:
Yes, my blocks are smaller than the original pattern -
each of my squares finishes at 3/4 inch 
because I've cut at one and a quarter inch, 
not the two and a half inch as Cindy's pattern has shown.)

Thanks again Cindy, for another cute pattern!

Another fun block

is finished!!

My Quilt Doodle Doodles block

for the month of May:

and I snuck it in
just under the deadline/wire... Again! :)

still April, barely and wise Pooh words

This year is a quarter over already!!!
Time is still flying by - imagine that. :)

Somewhere along the line,
I decided that I could do this,
add that,
and do more of something else...
Why did I think I'd have the time to add even more?

Is this a personal flaw or does everyone do the same?

I'm talking about the adding of another project

into the fullness of life... 

another block of the month,

another quilt project,

adding a baby shower gift,

etc., etc., etc., to the

already overflowing list of "THINGS to DO".

 

I don't think I'm alone here.

If anyone has an answer to this dilemma,

please let me know!

(: but, I won't give up all sleep :)

 

Anyway, since it IS still April,

so just under the wire,

here's my 'half-pint'*

April 'Sparkling Stars' row for 

Quilt Doodle Doodles

Block of the Month:

*I'm doing these blocks at half the size as the pattern,

so instead of using two and a half inch strips/squares,

I'm cutting at one and a quarter inches.

 

Thanks, Cindy, for another cute pattern this month!!

And in just a few days, there will be the May block -

I know...more time!

 

And in the words of the wise Pooh bear:

 

“The main problem with this great obsession

for saving time is very simple: you can't save time.

You can only spend it.

But you can spend it wisely or foolishly.”