Some much needed sewing time!

Hey strangers! How have y'all been??? I'm good...FINALLY GOT A FEW DAYS OFF! YAY! I have worked non stop for almost 11 days! Yesterday was my first day off out of 3. It feels soooo good to be at home! I had some quality time with my sewing machine yesterday as well! YAY!
I am almost done with my 2nd quilt....(Shy's). I haven't shown you guys much of it yet, because I wasn't sure if I was going to like it or not. But so far, so good!

See?

I used the "double slice" tutorial from Missouri Star Quilt Co. Yes this one is made from bandanas too. Shy has picked out everything to do with this, from the bandana colors, to the backing, to what "pattern" I used! I did some straight line quilting at random on this. I think it turned out good. I'm in the process of hand sewing the binding.

Here is an instagram pic of me attaching the binding onto it. For some reason I couldn't get it "squared up". I don't know what I"m doing wrong in that aspect, so it's not going to be perfect, but that's what makes it handmade, right? Just agree with me! :)

I also have the majority of my wall hanging quilted as well. I'm going to try my luck at hand quilting around the applique. I dunno how it will turn out, but I'm hoping good. I'm still trying to decide on what color I want to use, since I want the letters to kind of POP out.

Another instagram photo of me quilting. I need to figure out how to get my pics from Flikr over to here. So far, I can only figure out how to post an entire post from one photo. It doesn't work so well when you have multiple photos to post! If any of you have any suggestions on how I can do this I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR THEM! PLEASE!

I think I have a new addiction, well I know I do! FLIKR! I love it! I love browsing through all the photos and seeing everyone's creations! I have another one too, Pinterest! There is just soooooo much stuff on there, I could spend DAYS literally just pinning things!

I'm going to start working on another quilt....this one is for my step son, Dakota. He's our football player, so of course...I found a killer deal from the Fat Quarter Shop on a FQ bundle of sport fabric! I can't remember the name of the line (I know I should be ashamed!) but I'm pretty sure it's from Robert Kaufman! I'm not sure what "pattern" I'm going to use yet. I'm thinking maybe a coin quilt....or something along those lines. Nice and easy and quick!

I've been doing pretty good with my fabric diet....until...I was looking around for my colors for the Kona Rainbow Swap I'm hosting. I got on Fabric.com totally prepared to JUST get my 2 yards of Kona. I SWARE! Well, I decided to look and see their prices on some of the Flea Market Fancy that I'm inlove with. AND WHAT DO YOU KNOW???? It's on sale! I mean a good sale! Like $6.4 something a YARD! WHAT? I couldn't NOT buy it, ya know? I am pretty proud of myself, I only spent enough to get free shipping, which is $35 and up. I hit right over $35! I'll definately show you the fabrics when they come!

Anywho, I'm gonna get back to my sewing machine, I can hear her calling my name. She has been pretty lonely the past couple weeks, since I've too tired to even hold my head up let alone sew!

Until next time!

~Hope y'all are having a great day!!!~

New winner

I hate that I had to do this but....I've waited as long as I could with NO response from the winner of my 50th giveaway.
SOOOO I had to redraw! (I still haven't gotten my camera software on this new computer so I don't have any pics! Sorry!) But my random generators were VERY happy to draw me a new name!
And the NEW winner is:
MomC who said

Mom C said...

Actually, I've sewed forever but my DIL got me into piecing, FMQ and the whole quilting scene. Then blogs have opened my eyes to so much more. Finally I did get involved with our local guild and have attended several classes and retreats. But if it hadn't been for Happy Quilting Melissa, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing today.

 Congrats!!!! Please send me your info so I can pass it on to Julie ASAP!!!! (I don't want to redraw yet again!)

~Hope y'all are having a great day!!!~

My new decision

Hello EVERYONE!!!! Guess what?!?!? I got a new laptop! Well it's new to me, my sister didn't need it anymore and sold it to me! It's in great shape, and has barely even been used! YAY!!!! I can now blog properly without it freezing up on me and do all kinds of other stuff my computer wouldn't let me do!!!!
I'm going to try something new, I'm trying to figure out how to get my photos from Flikr onto a blog post, so bare with me, I don't have any pics on this computer yet, notice I did say YET! :)
And couldn't figure it out without doing 1 pic at a time, so I did it a different way!!!
I have decided that I need to go on a diet.....

From my FAV store ever! The Intrepid Thread

My first purchase from fabric.com I LOVE IT!

And this is a HUGE mixture of recent purchases (the folded squares is from the 10 inch Kona swap)

You see? I definately need a diet! I am buying WAAAAAY too much fabric, and not using it fast enough! So I have decided I'm not buying any more fabric, except for what I NEED, like for a specific project or whatever. Now if there is a killer sale going on, I may bend my rules, other than that NO MORE! At least not until I start using more of what I have! I just work all the time and never have any time for SEWING!

But I have some good news, once September comes I will be cutting my hours back at work, my hubby got a job! YAY! *jumps for joy* Sooo after vacation, I'll be part time! I've been waiting for this day to come for TWO YEARS!

This is another purchase I just got in the mail! I love Zip It, the prices are amazing and quality? TOP NOTCH!
Anyways, I have gotten some sewing done in the past few days.

Look at that!!!! Can you believe it? I have a PERFECT corner (well as close to perfect as I will ever get!) This is the corner of my HST Pillow that I FINISHED!

Isn't she pretty? I did an envelope back, but I don't think I did it right! I think I have WAAAAY to much of an overlap. Something I definately need to think about next time! Do you guys have a certain way to tell how much of an overlap you will need for your pillows?

I got this baby basted, just need to quilt it!

This is what the back looks like, even though I doubt I'll ever see it since it will be on my wall, I still wanted it to be pretty!!!!

This is a blanket I'm working on for myself....I've been working on it for a few months now (kinda because I ummm, put it up in a tote, and completely forgot about it?) But it's out now! All I have left to do is add the brown borders on each of the granny squares I just finished it up and then add them all together to complete it!!!!

I've almost got enough people to start my swap!!! YAY! I only need I think like 4 or 5 more so if you are interested click the button for the Kona Rainbow Charm Swap and come sign up to swap with me!

So have you all seen all the fun stuff going on in blogland recently?
There is some awesome quilt alongs gettin ready to start!!!! Not 100% sure if I'm going to do them yet, but I love the designs and I WILL DO THEM asap!!!!!

Until next time
~Hope y'all are having a great day!~

Kona Rainbow Charm Swap

Signups are now open for the Kona Rainbow Charm Swap!!!!

Click Here to signup!!!!

Something Exciting going on this way!

Hello ALL!!!! I'm so excited! I've been thinking and pondering and scheming and I have finally came up with a plan!!!!!!!! WAHOO!!!! *does a little happy dance*
Do you want to know what it is? I bet you do!!! Because if I know you guys, YOU ALL LOVE FABRIC almost as much as me, yes I said ALMOST, no I'm not crazy, I just don't know if anyone could possibly love fabric as much as I do. It seems as though since I began my quilting/sewing journey I breathe, eat, and sleep FABRIC! (okay enough with my ramblings and let me get on with the good stuff!)

Who loves Rainbows????? *jumping up and down* I DO I DO!

Who loves KONA cotton????? *jumping up and down and waving frantically* ME ME ME ME!!!!!!

Who loves the look of a quilted project with the colors of the rainbow???? *getting tired of jumping around* Okay if you guys have answered ME ME ME to these questions, then this is the right place for you to be!
Introducing:

Oh yes, that's right I'm hosting my own fabric swap!

Of these beauties!!! (not ALL those colors, but you do get the point right?)

(The pic above is an example of some of the colors that we COULD get! Aren't they GORGEOUS?!?!?!?)This isn't exactly the kind of swap I was talking about, but I need to get my feet wet right? It doesn't seem like it's going to be TOOOOOOO challenging, or time consuming. (which the time part is great right now since I've got a lot going on!)
Let me give you a little info on this swap!
There will be a total of 28 member (including myself), so I have 27 spots open. It will go on a first come, first serve basis. (If I get over 27 entries I will have a couple of people on standby incase life gets in the way of one of the other members and they are not able to complete their obligation)
Signups will start tomorrow (Monday, July 16th). How do you sign up? Well that's a good question... I will start a Flikr group tomorrow (not sure what time I'm hoping before 5pm EST) and I will have a thread there for Signups. The first 27 to sign up with the info needed will be in. This swap is only open to US residents at this time (sorry to everyone else, I'm just getting started and don't want to get too overwhelmed!)
Once I have all the members I will then assign colors based on the rainbow.
You will then have until August 20th to have your charm packs cut up and mailed to me!
All details will be posted in the group!
I wish I could say add my button to your blog, but I dunno about all that HTML stuff! BUUUUT, what I'm going to do is put it on my sidebar and link to this post and you guys are MORE THAN WELCOME to do the same!
If all goes well, I might be doing this again, and again.
Hopefully this will help me get to know some of my readers better and also I would LOVE for all the newbies like me to join up with this! We will have so much fun!!!!!
If I get through this without any problems I'm looking into starting a swap of some sort of handmade goods (like pillow covers, pot holders, wall hangings, pouches, etc) , I would LOVE to do some personal swaps (if anyone is interested email me!!!)  If any of you all would be interested in participating in that kind of swap please let me know, you can either leave it in the comments or email me  (craftnursequilt(at)gmail(dot)com)
I hope y'all are as excited as me and that y'all will be waiting on the post tomorrow with the link to the Flikr group to come and sign up! (I will make a seperate post for this and I will probably edit this post with the link as well!)
**Fingers crossed all goes well**

~Hope y'all are having a GREAT day!!!!!!~

The Winner of the Giveaway Announced!

I know it's taken me FOREVER to draw a winner! But I finally did it! I still can't get over the response! 445 COMMENTS!! I'm in shock, really!
So without making you guys wait through a long spill or anything here we go!
I got my "Random Generator" aka Gabe

(he's not in a great mood today, so ignore the mean face!)

His eyes are closed because I told him he couldn't cheat! LOL!

(Sorry about the blurry pic!) He's diggin deep!

So the winner is Dianne Mitzel who said:
Dianne Mitzel said...

i AM A FOLLOWER , I TOOK A BEGINNER CLASS AT THE LOCAL QUILT SHOP. THIS IS A LOVELY GIVEAWAY, HOPE I'M LUCKY THIS TIME..

Yes Dianne you are lucky this time! YAY!!!! CONGRATS! I have fabric jealousy of you right about now!
(I know what you mean about hoping you are lucky, I never get lucky!)
Thanks again to everyone who entered the giveaway and is taking a chance on following me! I really appreciate it! As soon as I get my computer back up and running good enough I will be posting more often but it is VERY frustrating to try and write a post and it take an hour cuz the computer keeps freezing or shutting down! UGH!!!!!!!! I hope I can get it fixed soon cuz this is killing me!!! It just froze sooo I'm having to finish this on my phone! Oh well! Hopefully I'll talk to u all soon! Kelie

What I've been up to

Hello all! I'm having MAJOR difficulties with blogger right at the moment! I hope this post works.
First off, let me say WOWOWOWOWOWOW WOWZA at the response to my giveaway! It's amazing! I now have 200 followers!!!!!!!! I never even thought 100 was possible let alone 200!!!! So from the bottom of my heart THANK YOU GUYS SOOOO MUCH! I'm sorry I haven't been able to respond to all of the comments but I do promise I have read each and every one of them!
I figured some of you might want to see a little of what I've been up to. Soooo, Imma tell ya!

I made my own Needle Case! And when I say my own, I mean my own, not following a tutorial or anything, I just did it!

Here is the inside of it! And the reason I made it is because I'm going to start working on the Hexy MF QAL!!!! I hope I can do it!

Here are the fabrics I have picked out for it. And I'm cutting out my own paper pieces.

Very time consuming!!

I made an Open Wide pouch from Noodlehead's tutorial! I love her tutes! They are sooooo easy to follow! (My zipper tab looks awful though!) I'll make it better next time!

This is the front of my soon to be wall hanging, that's going over my sewing machine! It's not the best in the world, but I'm pretty proud of it! It's my first time EVER doing applique! I used heat and bond, makes it A LOT EASIER!!!!

I'm working on a layout for a pillow and not sure if I really like this one or not, but I dunno, we will see! I plan on doing a lot of sewing this weekend, got a lot of finishes I need to do before I start anything else. I'm working on quilting Shy's blanket, no pics of it yet though!

I got this in an email the other day, and I LOVE IT! I'm thinking of framing it! LOL! Yeah I know I'm a dork, but I'll own up to it!
Okay, so I have a question for you guys...I'm really really wanting to do a swap of some sort. But since I'm such a newby I don't want to get in too deep! I was thinking of starting up my own one on Flikr, like a beginners swap or something. But only if I have some interest from some of you. So what do you think? Anyone wanna join a swap of some sort if I start one? Would anyone be willing to help me in organizing it? If so, please leave me a comment and let me know! Well I guess that's all for now, and if you haven't already, go enter my giveaway! ( I would link to it but my computer is on the fritz!) You have a day or 2 left!
~Hope y'all are having a great day!~

Red, White, and Blue blog hop & My 50th post GIVEAWAY!!!!!

It's here, it's here, it's finally HERE! Yes, HERE! At my blog!!!! WOW!
Okay, can you tell I'm excited! I've been working on some stuff for you! For those of you stopping by for the Red, White, and Blue blog hop Thanks for coming and I hope you enjoy what you see and please stay a while, make yourself at home and definately ENJOY! This is my first blog hop EVER and I still can't believe I'm doing this! Don't be too hard on me! :)
Oh yeah, if you didn't know TODAY MAKES MY 50TH POST! (I've got something REALLY special for those of you who stick around!) hehe
Okay, before we get started with pics and blocks and such go check out my fellow hoppers!
Mrs. Pickles
Craft Nurse Quilt (you are here)
Dexter Days
Judith Handmade Treasures
Insanity Defense

And if you want to see the rest of the awesomeness click on the button on my sidebar to go to Jane's blog as she has the full schedule posted!
As the new quilter that I am I don't have any fancy blocks for you, but they are still pretty! I've been doing the Skill Builder Sampler and the Beginners Quilt Along! I hope you like them!
Now, here we go!!!!!!!

I love this fabric!

Pretty!!!!

Now that I think about it, I think I should've toned this down just a bit and added a white block or two, but oh well! I like it still!! These are all from the Beginners Quilt Along, if you want to join in on the fun click on the button on my sidebar!

Pretty Pinwheel Parade!!!! I made it from the tutorial on V&Co's blog which you can click here to go to and you will find it! It was part of the skill builder sampler. I need to square it up a bit but I LOVE THIS BLOCK!

Last but definately not least is my bow tie block! I think it turned out really good!
That's all I got for you guys, I didn't finish them yet.....notice I did say yet! I have plans for each and every block, just not had the time to carry out those plans! (Been working A LOT!)
Sooooooooooooooooo..........................................Have y'all ever heard of

The Intrepid Thread?
Well if you haven't it's this AMAZING online store that is owned by the AMAZING Julie! I absolutely L-O-V-E this store and Julie! She goes ABOVE AND BEYOND with her customer service. I've never experienced that kind of customer service ANYWHERE else! You ask a question, and she's ON IT! I've never EVER had to wait and wait and wait and wait on an answer! Her prices are great, her fabric is top of the line! And her shipping? Well, let's just say we live A LONG WAYS away from each other, and it takes like 3 days to get here EVERY TIME! It's always wrapped up in a cute little package and ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS comes with a HANDWRITTEN note from JULIE! She makes me feel like my transaction means something to her. Which to me, is important. I don't want to be dollar signs to someone, I want to be a customer. And she values her customers and you can tell it! (No she did not pay me off to say any of this I PROMISE!!!)
So, the reason I'm telling you about this....

Do you like this fabric? Most of it is from the line Lillybelle. (WHICH I LOVE) How would one of you like to have some? I know I would LOVE TO! Well, Julie is going to let one of my followers/readers have the chance to WIN this beautiful bundle she put together JUST FOR THIS POST! (SEEE???? I told you she is AMAZING!)
Now, the rules
#1 you do have to be a follower of mine
# 2 you have to answer me this, (if you don't answer the question your entry will not be valid!) When you first started quilting what helped you the most? (my answer to this would be the quilting blogging community, their tutorials, and advice, they gave me the inspiration to keep on going!!!!)
If you want a bonus entry, you can over to The Intrepid Thread and tell me which fabric you LOVE and why you love it (seperate comment)
If you want another bonus entry you can go to The Intrepid Thread's blog and become a follower of Julie's and then leave me another comment telling me you did/are!!!!!!
So, that gives you THREE chances to win this GORGEOUS bundle of fabric! THREE!!!!! Easy Peasy huh? (you do have to be a follower of mine to enter the giveaway!)
If you are a no reply blogger please make sure I have a way of contacting you in your comment!
You have until next Thursday July 12th midnight (EST) to enter! I will have my "random generators"

draw the winner shortly after and will be announced here on my blog!

Hope you enjoy the blog hop! I know I've had a COMPLETE blast with it and can't wait until I'm able to do it again!!!!!!!!







~Hope y'all are having a great day!!!!!!!!!!~

It's finally here!

It's finally here everyone!!!

It starts today and goes on for a a couple weeks since there is over ONE HUNDRED bloggers that have signed up!!!!! So go check out all the different Red White & Blue blocks that are being created for it! Just click here and it will take you to the Jane's blog where she has a complete list of all the bloggers! My day isn't until the 5th, so that means I have FOUR more days to make some more blocks! WAHOO!!!!!! :) I hope you guys will stop back by on the 5th to see what I have in store for you!
Hope y'all are having a great day!