New line

Just a short post to tell you that I just listed brand new pieces of jewelry on my website.  Any guesses on what they are????  If you guessed BRACELETS, you are correct!  Here is a little sneak peek, but be sure to visit the website to see them all!

Have a great day!

Day Two

On day two of our great adventure, as I said in the last post we spent the night in Sun Prairie and visited JJ Stitches in the morning.  There is so much to see there.  When we finished up there we decided to have lunch before we hit the road.  We walked down the street to a Mexican restaurant and had a great (and super-cheap) lunch.  Then we were on our way to Menasha!  Lisa Bongean has suggested that we stop in Ripon at a primitive shop.  I had the name wrong, so we had a little trouble finding it.  We first stopped at what was supposed to be a quilt shop (according to the Quilter's Travel Companion) but was now a coffee shop, and they directed us to the primitive shop.  It was just full of very cool stuff and also had the most wonderful puppy mascot that greeted us!  After taking in all of the primitive goodness and stretching our legs a bit, we were back on the road.  We arrived in Menash early in the afternoon - I gave Lisa a call and discovered that she and the girls were at her house (formerly known as The Gathering) sewing, so we headed that direction.  Lisa gave us the full tour and told us to stay in any of the rooms that we wanted (except her bed or Luke's room!).  As many of you know, the house is just wonderful!  Here are some pictures of the bedrooms upstairs...

Nice, big, walk-in shower

 Aren't all of the quilts wonderful?  I think I could have spent the rest of the day just looking at the different fabrics in each one.  But...we wanted to get to Primitive Gatherings to check out all the goodies there. I didn't ever take any pictures of the shop - not sure why because we were there every day for the next three days!  This is what I purchased on our first trip there...

I already had the pattern and wanted to make this quilt, so where better to buy the kit of fabrics than Primitive Gatherings!  We were at the shop for quite awhile - some of the girls wanted to see my jewelry, so we got that out and they picked some pieces that they wanted.  When we finished up there we went back to Lisa's and moved all of our stuff in.  We decided to sleep downstairs in the basement - I will show you pictures of that on my next post.  It was supper time already, so we ran and grabbed a sandwich and went back to the house to stitch.  We decided to only bring hand work with us, so it was easy to get right to work.  I took my Pink Lemonade quilt to hand quilt and also some of my wool Summertime blocks.  We just hung out and chatted and stitched and all of a sudden it was almost midnight!  Waaaayyyy past my bedtime - lol!  And that was the end of Day Two.  And a wonderful day it was!!

Winners!

I dug out more treasures to add to this giveaway and split the goodies into two boxes.  I could have easily split it into 3 or 4! These boxes are heavy!  The 2 winners are:

#7 Marty (This would be "Marty the Mail Lady" - isn't it appropriate that random number generator picked her?  It's high time she gets a fun box in the mail!)
#8 Carla

I have to laugh - we must all have too much stuff because not very many people signed up to win!

Thought I would leave you with a picture of Callie - partway under a dresser, holding her favorite pink sparkle ball!  She makes me laugh!

Next time I will post more about my Wisconsin trip - I have LOTS more to show you!

Have a great day!

Traveling Stash...Giveaway...????

I planned to post more about my Wisconsin trip today, but...while making room for all my new fabric and projects, I decided that I need to get rid of a few things.  I thought about starting a traveling stash, but I don't want to have to track it and manage it. I have a box of "stuff" - there's all kinds of different things in there - I'm not taking pictures, and I 'm not listing everything because I don't have time! There is a small flimsy with backing, some pin cushions, quilt books, patterns, fabric, bags, towels...and much more!  I actually may split it into 2 boxes if there is enough interest.  As far as I'm concerned, the "winner(s)" can have it all, or use it as a start to a traveling stash that you post on your blog and send on.  Whatever makes you happy, I just know that I need more space!  If you are interested just comment on this post and I will draw using the random number generator on Sunday and ship it out to you on Monday!  All I ask is that if you are the lucky winner, you let me know what you end up doing with all your goodies.

I hate having a post without a few pics, so I will add my newest Farmer's Wife Randy's Sow-A-Long blocks...

Sorry - I didn't take the time to edit them...I was doing good just to get them finished.  I drafted my own basket block - I didn't want to applique the handle on the block that Randy gave instructions for!

Have a great day!!

Road Trip - Day One

First I want to say that our trip to Wisconsin was amazing!  My friend Kim, and I hit the road early Monday morning.  Our first stop was Vintage Threads in Dyersville, IA.  This was a very nice little shop and I actually remembered to take pictures!

I think I bought a pattern and a couple of half yards of blacks here. 

Next up was Country Sampler.  I was so in awe of everything in the shop that I forgot I even owned a camera!  What a great place - so different than all of the others.  I can show you some of my many purchases while I was there.

Sorry about the sideways pics - but I have been messing with this for 30 minutes, and I'm running out of patience!  I was even able to buy backing for Dancing With the Stars, for $5.50/yard.  They had some of the older French General fabrics on sale.



Our next stop was Mill House Quilts, where I again, did not take pictures!  But, it, too was a great shop - they have a lot of everything!  I even saw some Iowa Hawkeye fabric that I've never seen in Iowa!  They bought a nice selection of my jewelry - so it's great to have a new customer and that will give me the excuse to go back and visit them again!

Next we drove to Sun Prairie but arrived at JJ Stitches 10 minutes before they closed.  If you've been there, you know that is not enough time to take it all in.  So, we spent the night there and went back to the shop first thing in the morning.  I remembered to take pictures, can you believe it?!

 What a wonderful shop with lots of inspiring samples.  I bought a few more pieces of black and these fat quarters of the flag prints - I'm sure I can use these in jewerly in the near future!

As you can see...Day one (and the beginning of day 2) did not disappoint!  I'm tired of fighting with Blogger, so I will post more in a few days. 

Have a great day!

A finish of a different kind!

We have been waiting for the trim for our house for a VERY LOOOOOONG time!  There have been several hurdles, one of them being a contractor who does not know how to tell the truth, but that's all the further I will go with that one!  But, finally, finally, it is finished!  This is what a houseful of trim looks like when it's in a couple of piles...

Ok...Blogger is not cooperating...so there will be a lot of jumping around...I'm out of patience! Here is work in progress in my sewing room.  I can only imagine what he thinks of my stash closet!


This is looking down the hallway at a door with no trim!

Of course, Callie was on hand to help out...

 One wall of my sewing room...trimless!

 The living room window...WITH TRIM!

 The doorway from before...now finished



 Remember that sewing room window?  Here it is finished!

 And this is the other set of windows in my sewing room.  This is actually my very favorite out of all the trim - the piece along the top is really pretty.  Of course, you can't tell it from my lovely pictures!

It is so nice to have this all finished - it looks so much better - amazing the difference it made.  Since I had to drag all of the stuff out of closets so he could trim them out, we took that opportunity to get rid of lots of stuff.  I took a whole Jeep full of things to Hopefully Yours, in Burlington.  They take anything and it helps Hope Haven, which is a really good cause.  I even got the Hubby to go through his clothes, and he got rid of tons.  So now we have cleaner closets and pretty trim!

One last pic - this is some jewelry that I made using Lisa Bongean's newest fabric line - Seasonal Little Gatherings.  I know I've shown some other pictures of jewelry with this fabric - I really do love it, such great colors.  I can't wait until it hits the shops and I can buy some yardage - I've used most of my layer cake already.  

Speaking of Primitive Gatherings...I leave for there on Monday morning!  I'm so excited - can't wait!  A friend and I are taking a road trip, hitting a bunch of quilt shops on the way, then we will spend a few days in the Menasha area before we shop hop our way back home.  I will try to remember to take lots of pictures to share with you!

Have a great weekend!

Yard Sale Saturday!!

It's that time again...if you read Bonnie Hunter's blog then you've seen some of her posts about Yard Sale Saturday. She hosted this last month and it was a blast!  I'm again going to share the very few guidelines that Bonnie laid out for us:

There will be some ground rules…These items need to be QUILT RELATED. Patterns, Books, Fabric, Notions, Partial UFOs…whatever you want. This is for gently used –white elephant type items, not new-sell-at-retail-stuff or new crafts you have made to sell for Christmas. Understood? Think YARD SALE. When your item has sold, mark it sold on your blog page so people know.

You must link your post back to THIS POST, not the whole blog --- The url to use is http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2012/03/yard-sale-saturday-take-three.html

You write the post on your blog, you come back here and link it up. It is up to you to decide how you are going to interact with your buyers. I’m going to use paypal, and the selling price does not include the shipping. The shipping price will be figured depending on where the person lives, and the shipping price will be added to the purchase price.

I will also be using PayPal.  All items are on a first-come, first-serve basis.  If you want to buy any of the items you see in this post, be the first person to e-mail me (at this e-mail address: julie@meandmystitches.com).  I will send you an electronic invoice that can be paid by credit card or PayPal.  The prices listed with the items below DO NOT INCLUDE SHIPPING.  I will ship anywhere and will add the actual shipping cost to the item, so please give me your zip code when you e-mail.

First a few fabrics...

**SOLD**This is a one yard piece and was in the Saltbox Farm line by Deb Strain.  I paid $7.99, I am asking $5

 This is also by Deb Strain and is 21"  and I'm asking $3.00

 There is 1 yard of this basketball fabric - it is very vibrant and colorful.  Asking $5.00

 Another colorful basketball fabric - 1 yard - $5.00

 I love this dark red background - this is 1/3 yard - $2

Next up are some patterns...
This one was really fun to make, but I don't think that I will have the need to make another one.  My paper templates are included. Price is $4

 This is nice because it has the alphabet in it - useful for a lot of things!  Price is $5

 This one would be really good for beginners or if you want a quick quilt.  Price is $4

 This went with a panel - this one is free - you just pay for shipping.

Next some books...

I think this was one of the first books I ever bought, but have never used it.  Original price was $26.95 - I'm asking $14

I must have purchased this book before I learned that I would never be capable of machine quilting!  Original price $12.95 - now $6

 **SOLD**This is a collection of patterns with acrylic templates to go with them to make miniature log cabin and pineapple blocks.  These are made by "Quilting From the Heartland" if you want to see more you can go to their website.  I paid $22.95 and am asking $11.  The templates are still attached to the cardboard and have never been used.

 I've always been intrigued by Stack-n-Whack quilts but have never made one.  Original price $19.95, I'm asking $10.

 This is kind of a fun book if you like crazy quilts - very easy techniques.  Original price was $22.95 and I'm asking $11.



**SOLD**And last, but not least...this is a little wooden ditty that can sit on your desk at work! $4

That's all for this month.  If you have some of your own Yard Sale items to sell, post them on your blog, and be sure to link back to Bonnie! 

Happy shopping and have a great day!