Put Your Stamp On It Blog Hop

Hi hi!  Welcome to my day on the Put Your Stamp On It! blog hop!!!  First off, thank you to Mdm Samm and Thearica for putting this together and being our Cheerleaders for this hop - without you always behind, gently pushing us forward, we wouldn't be half as far as we are!  Thank you thank you!!!

 

When I saw this blog hop pop up on Sew We Quilt, I knew I wanted to jump into it.  I've been thinking a lot about a logo for AnnieOak Designs and this blog hop was a perfect opportunity to put some ideas out there.  Most of you who follow me know that my furchildren are Annie and Oakleigh (yes, cheesy but oh so fun too!).  They are most often right there with me in my sewing room or snoring on the dog bed outside the door, so it is fitting that any designs that I eventually call my own reflect two of my true loves - Annie

 

 

and Oakleigh. 

 

 

Smash'em together and you got: AnnieOak Designs.

 

For my stamp I wanted to incorporate the dogs and the oak tree as well as a little bit of me.  Annie is there - the lab silhouette.  Oakleigh is represented by the tree and the leaf - she is always everywhere unless sleeping and anyone who lives near an oak tree knows that when the leaves drop, they are EVERYWHERE.  I had to add the 13 cents since my birthday is on the 13th and it is my favorite number.  I checked and the last time 13 cents was the postage rate for a first class stamp here in the US was May 1978 and the last time a postcard was 13 cents was back in February 1985.  I fall in there somewhere :o)

 

 

Thank you for hopping with us and for visiting AnnieOak Designs today, now go check out the rest of the bloggers I am sharing the day with:

 

Robin's Fabric Nest

In The Sewing Basket

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

Just Quilt It

AnnieOak Designs  - woof!

Buzzing and Bumbling

krislovesfabric

CherrysPrairiePrimitives

Hanging On By A Thread

And, as usual a little pup lovin' for you.  This is what happens when I take too long to photograph Bug:

 

 

woof woof meow!

Traveling Stash Box Giveaway

Hi hi!  Have you seen the Traveling Stash Boxes over at Katie's blog, Snuggle Up With a Dish from Karma?

 

I was the lucky winner of Travelling Stash Box #3 from Karen over at Quilting, Losing and Tea.  It arrived and practically popped open on my kitchen table!  Here's a picture of everything.

 

 

Isn't there a TON of fun stuff in here?!?!  I didn't count everything this time, just took lots of pictures.  Here you go, some close-ups of the booty on the box:

 

Pinks and Purples - FQ

 

Blues and Browns - FQ

 

Blacks and Greys - FQ

 

Peaches and Oranges - FQ

 

Multiple big cuts

 

Notions, notions, notions

Precuts and Sewn Items

 

A 2" stack of patterns

 

Novelty FQs

This is what I took out of the box:

Some FQs, precuts, a couple of patterns and a bit'o ribbon!

This is what I added to the box:

A couple of patterns, a measuring tape, a stack of Denyse Schmidt charm squares, 6 cotton FQ and a bundle of flannel FQs.

See anything that you'd like?  I know there are a lot of things I would have loved to keep, but I had to pace myself :o)  Here are the rules for the Travelling Stash Boxes.  If you want to be entered into the drawing for this box o'fun, leave me a comment.  If you're a follower, you get an extra entry!

 

I'll leave the drawing open until 12pm PST Friday, June 21.  If I get the address by the end of the weekend, I'll get it in the mail the following Monday!

Precious' Pet Quilt

Hi hi!  I have a finish for you.  Back in February Oregon State University participated in the State of Oregon Food Drive.  In the Graduate School, we held a "Prettiest Pet Contest" and invited folks from all over campus to enter a picture of their pet that would then be voted on by the OSU community - each entry and vote required a donation of food or cash.  For the top vote-getter (pet whose picture raised the most donation value) we offered a small prize pack of a gift card to a local pet store and a custom pet quilt from AnnieOak Designs.  When the winner was announced her owner and I got together and talked about her and her personality.  Here is what I came up with for Precious:

Precious is a big fluffy grey Chow girl who loves purple, so I went with the purple and grey dot focus fabric and used a matching dark and light grey and light purple with my "Kandy" pattern since she is a big pup.  I used the dark grey for the back and binding and quilted with a light and dark purple.

To really make it her quilt I put in a little "P" for Precious on it - every girls likes monogrammed swag right?!?!

Then I added some paw prints for her.  In the "P" and the paw prints I did a pebbled quilting to give it a little texture and to match what paws really feel like.

 

I love the back - you can really see the quilting (with flannel you tend to lose a lot of quilting once it is washed so I focus on the colors and pattern on the front with these pet quilt patterns).  I used a light grey for my bottom line so it popped out on the back.

When I started to think about the quilting for this pet quilt, I knew it was a project I wanted to use Christa's FMQ tutorial for her flower motif.  It was fun once I got the hang of it :o)  I definitely need to get me one of those lovely Supreme Sliders for my Juki, FMQ is a little bit of a chore.  The flowers were fun to do!

The pebbling turned out just as fun on the back as the front!

Here are the paws and flowers - fun fun!

So, I am off to take this to work and hopefully will have a picture of Precious and her quilt to post soon!

 

Here's a little bit of pup love - O enjoying a good stretch.

 

woof woof meow!

MMMRR Round 4 Sneak Peek

Hi hi!  I am part of the Modern Mystery Mini Round Robin hosted by Michele at Quilts from My Crayon Box.  This round was a toughy for me, there was a lot going on with the block and I finally just decided that a simple plain border would be best.  I decided to do a flange border and then a single non-pieced border with a fun butterfly pattern in it to tie everything all together.  Here's a peek.

 

 

Here is a peek of the flange and butterfly border with a couple other borders from some of the other ladies.

 

 

I have one block left to put the border on and the goal is to get that one done before our Emerald Isle trip.  Thanks to Michele again for organizing this - you rock!

 

Here's a little Lolly Cat for you, she blends into the dog bed and I've missed her there a couple of times!

 

 

woof woof meow!

Travelling Stash is on its way!

Hi hi!  Well, the Travelling Stash Box has a new owner - Kristy from Catydid Designs!  I'll be sending it off as soon as I get the info :o)  She is also going to get the extra copy of QuiltMaker's 100 Blocks Volume 7 as a little gifty from me!

 

Quilting Ranny over at Purple Cottage Quilts has a stash box too, but her giveaway ends soon - check it out here!

 

Have a great day!!  What are you up to?

 

 

woof woof meow

Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks Volume 7 Testing

Hi hi!  I wanted to share this with you a month ago, but life happened and pow! time went out the door.  Last fall my friend Martha told me about testing for QM 100 Blocks Volume 7 and I sent off an email to the editor letting her know I was interested.  I got picked up and started getting blocks to test.  What a fun group of blocks!  There were a few that I wouldn't have tried on my own (and won't again) but I had a good time trying the different techniques and what not.  Below is a mosaic of the 12 blocks I tested for Volume 7.

 

 

The top three are my personal favorites.  I used the trimmings from the first one for my mug rug here, the second is a Melissa Corry block (and we all know how I feel about Happy Quilting) and Scooter Girl is going to be a gift to a real Scooter Girl.

The house was my least favorite - simply because I don't like needle turn applique and I tried to do it on this one.  I think I would have liked it more if I had just done raw-edge like scooter girl.

The orange and black circles were fun - you use a free motion quilting zig-zag technique on the edges so you get a really neat looking stitch pattern on each circle.

The Penny the Penguin block will be a pillow for my SIL who likes penguins - just need to put some black buttons on the eyes and sew it up!.

 

Again, I had a blast testing for Volume 7 and as a tester I got my very own copy of Volume 7 for my library.  I also got a second copy which is going in the Travelling Stash box as a bonus giveaway here.

 

Just wanted to finally get this on the blog and I hope you all have a chance to check out Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks Volume 7 - so much fun!  Here is Martha's post with her blocks.

 

And some shy Bug love.

 

 

woof woof meow!