Thursday, September 11, 2014

Summer Sewing! (& Giveaway)

September, already!?!

After a summer of sewing among other things - it's such a pleasure to take a minute for a little Sew & Tell on the "See You in September" blog hop!  We're to display three projects made this summer, with at least one article made with Riley Blake Designs' gingham prints. A big thanks to Mdm. Samm at Sew We Quilt who organized this wonderful hop and sweet Shari at Living With Purpose for cheering us all along!  It's been a great motivator for me, especially with the push to "Save the RBD Gingham!!"   I've been trying to knock out some UFOs.  Now, it's tough to narrow it down to only three projects!!  How about three... categories???  Ok, read on.

1)  Saving RBD Gingham!
Many of you know that I do some contract work for Riley Blake Designs.  You can find my "Sewing (& Quilting) Basics" tutorials in a series of Cutting Corners sponsored by Riley Blake Designs.  Cindy (co-owner of RBD) invited me to help her put together a series of How-to-Quilt videos based on those tutorials. (Only slightly mortifying!)  It has also been my assignment to feature and promote their Basics line of fabrics - the solids, shades, dots, chevrons, and of course, ginghams!

Here I am at Quilt Market last year to demonstrate some quick Make & Take projects.  I spy gingham! (lanyard, bag, backing and borders on the Bullseye Baby quilt, orange-peel runner and I even made my gingham shirt.)


Cutting Corners with Riley Blake DesignsSome of my recent RBD tutorials have focused on vintage stitchery techniques using different sizes of gingham.
 
The 1/2" gingham check is perfect size for Smocking.  For Shirring and Chicken Scratch, I like the 1/4".  Embroidery and Cross-Stitch are so easy to learn and practice on the 1/8" gingham checks.  Ruching works well with the smaller checks, too.  I like all the sizes.

Here's a little collection of Gingham Stitchery.  I plan to use all my samples in quilt blocks.

And my actual Gingham project?  An Orange Peel Table Runner.  After teaching the technique several times, I ended up with a nice little pile of extra circles.  I decided to add them to my existing runner.


 I tried it as a square, 
 as separate place mats, 

and finally, decided on the long runner.  

Gingham-y Goodness!


If you'd like, you can see the video instructions HERE.  (You can probably tell how terrified I am in front of the camera, argh!  But just turn the sound off, and you can see how we made it!)  I could keep adding blocks to make it a larger quilt, but this runner fits my dining table nicely!  

#2)  Tree Skirts!  I've been playing with my EQ7 quilt design software a lot this summer, learning new things every week.  Here's this year's version of my Star Medallion Tree Skirt.  Can't wait to see it made up in these fabulous fabrics.

And my actual project?  Star Weave Tree Skirt ~ Done!
This and the original Star Medallion Tree Skirt patterns are available on my Craftsy Store.  It's never too soon to get ready for Christmas!

And last, but not least...
3)   Round Robin quilts!
Have you ever participated in a Round Robin Exchange?  Form a group, and each person supplies a center block.  The next person will add a border, send it to the next person to add another border and so on.  Sometimes the group will establish rules, and sometimes anything goes.  When your quilt has made the rounds, your block has grown to a decent size wall-hanging with several borders.


Here's my "Little Ruby" that took a 'round the world trip to Montana, Australia, Georgia, Paris, New York, a detour to Ontario Canada, then North Carolina! The rules for this RR were to add simple 2" to 2-1/2" borders.   Little doo-dads were added along the way - a bit of ribbon, a few charms, along with some super-cute fabrics and fun piecing.  Oh, how I love her, hanging in my sewing room!
"Cherish, Love, Joy."  That ribbon sent from my sweet friend Samm summs it up.
Right now I'm working on another Round Robin I call "Around the Block."  My cute friend Amber sketched it out and I've been working on the pattern all summer long.  Let's just say, I've learned alot about designing with applique'!  Giveaway:  If this piques your interest, I'm giving away a center block and embellishing supplies along with the pattern (as soon as it's ready) for this adorable (trust me) wall hanging, and a tree skirt pattern of your choice.

Leave a comment below telling about your favorite summer outdoor activity as a kid.  Giveaway ends on Tuesday, September 16th at 5:00 pm.
UPDATE:  Contest over and winner notified.  CONGRATULATIONS, BarbCarol!!!
Thanks to everyone for playing along!  I loved reading about what you love to do in the Summertime!

Be sure to visit all my Hop Sisters today - they're amazing!  If you've missed the previous hoppers, see Shari's master list HEREThanks for stopping by!
 >>  Quiltscapes  <<

67 comments:

  1. My favorite activity during summer when I was a kid was swimming in the ocean, and that was cold!

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  2. I am wowed. I have to say you are an inspiration! All your projects are splendid. Red is my favorite color.

    My favorite thing to do as a kid. Laying in the grass and watching the clouds drift overhead.

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  3. you have given me such an appreciation of your talent, your use of colour your zest for life...wow...your orange peel is sweet as can be..your tree skirt, and rr love those reds....you were one busy lady on top of singing in life..you are musical on every level.....even in your stitchings...x

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  4. Well, at least we managed to keep one size of gingham; I love, love, love chicken scratch. Never thought of doing cross stitch on gingham...but now that I know you can...LOL Great projects love your orange peel table runner; another pattern to add to my collection of things to try. My favourite thing to do as a kid was lie in bed (hey, when you're young you spend much time in bed) and listen at night to the crickets and in the morning to the birds and/or the bumble bees buzzing under my window (best done at the summer cabin)...those sounds never cease to bring back childhood memories!

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  5. Hi Deonn.
    You are a pro! Thanks for sharing your talent with us ♥
    The tablerunner is so beautiful, I will try you tutorial, looks so great!
    Your treeskirts are so beautiful, and the round robin went very nice.
    Thanks for the chance to win.
    Bente

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  6. oh yeah, that was your quilt! I loved adding the last border. I want to do another round robin....
    when I was a kid in DK I often went to my friend's summer house near the beach, we'd ride our bikes everywhere! or go crab fishing or go get ice cream cones.

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  7. You never cease to amaze me with your ability to create amazing things and now you're making videos, too! What a woman! I think you look great in the video and loved watching how you made the circles. Your projects are gorgeous and so inspiring!

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  8. I love all your gingham Deonn - even a gingham skirt! The table runner is adorable and perfect for spring....it's just so fresh looking. I haven't done a round robin but you've inspired me! blessings, marlene

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  9. My favorite thing was collecting all sorts of kitchen utensils and pots while on my walks to and from the lake. I brought them home to my 'store' (a pile of wood). Fun! Love all the gingham.

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  10. I love those gingham peels. The different fabrics are terrific in them.

    I've never done a round robin, but I like the way yours has come out. I'll look forward to seeing the new one.

    LOVE your tree skirt! That is so pretty.

    Summer as a kid always meant swimming in the river. Great fun.

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  11. I am going to check out the video on the orange peels. I like the colors you used. My favortie outdoor summer activity as a kid was going to the park or to the local beach to swim.

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  12. I love your tree skirt patterns. My favorite outdoor activity was playing soft ball. Thanks!

    Please click on the delaineelliott above for my email link.

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  13. I have watched MANY of your tutorials, and enjoyed your blog and projects for a while now. Such a talent! It is always inspiring to come by. My favorite summer activity as a child growing up? That would be playing hide seek at night with all the neighborhood kids. We lived for the moment it was dark enough to get started. Thanks for the opportunity. Enjoy your day!

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  14. A Round Robin is a great idea. Hope to start one for a new Quilt of Valor. Summer as a child....fishing with my father.

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  15. Love your table runner! Thanks for making the video so I can make some for me...or gifts!! Your tree skirt is amazing! My favorite activity as a child was exploring the forest and creek at our cabin in the woods...perfect peace there!

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  16. Orange peel table runner...well I just loved it...and I had never seen gray gingham before! I remember our dog had puppies one summer. I loved playing with them but it was so sad to give them away to new homes...sniff...oh well...yessewingisfun@yahoo.com

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  17. Love your stitchery with the gingham. I love to do stitchery. I hope RB continues to produce gingham as it is difficult to find and always a classic. From time to time, in the past, I've wanted gingham to do a project, but was unable to find it. I used gingham in my classroom for curtains in rainbow colors when I first started teaching, in the 70's, but after that it disappeared. I guess you could say that sewing was my favorite summer activity because as a teacher, it was the only time I had to sew. Thanks for sharing your projects.
    Rosemary

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  18. Lovely projects, the table runner is so effective. A special summer memory is reading Just William books in the garden.

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  19. Great projects! I LOVE the tree skirt. We loved making tents over the clothes line and played all day in them. Occasionally we got to sleep the night in them.

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  20. Your Orange peel is fantastic! Love all of your projects.

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  21. Great projects - I love the orange peel!
    As children we loved making dens all summer long!

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  22. So beautiful....I am so inspired....

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  23. I loved to ride my bike in the summer. Also loved to read. In fact, I read so much that my eyes were suffering, and the optometrist banned me from reading books one whole summer. It was terrible, but today I can still see, so I guess it was worth the agony.

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  24. Ph, I lIke your projects! You sure did Ryan Blake's gingham proud! I tried to watch your video on making Orange Peels, but I don't have enough reception for Internet here at my house. I need to wait to get somewhere else.

    My childhood, we never went on any vacation. My parents couldn't afford it. We lived way out on the country, no neighbors, so I guess my favorite was when a cousin came to visit.

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  25. When I was younger, I remember flying kites with my brother during the summer. We lived on a farm and had wide open spaces to play. kthurn@bektel.com

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  26. My Favorite Childhood Memory is playing until Dark and hoping that I wasn't the 1st to have to leave the fun to go home when my parents called. I loved playing childhood games like hide and seek with my Neighbors. We had a Weeping Willow that we loved to swing on. The nearby railroad tracks were a fascination with the pretty sparkly rocks to collect. We put pennies on the rails that got smashed too.

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  27. Great projects, Deonn! I love chicken scratch on gingham and someday would love to make a quilt with these type of blocks. I really like how your made your orange peel blocks. They look so nice in a table runner. But my favorite is the tree skirt. It is so fantastic. Great job!
    When I was a child, we lived out in the country so I only had my brothers and sister to play with. We would play tag or kick-the-can and other games. My sister and I loved to "bake" goodies from the mud we had in our playhouse. Thank you for sharing and for the great giveaway.

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  28. making whole house out of pinestraw

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  29. What great projects you have shared. I like the thinking out of the box with the table runner. My favorite activity was running through the sprinklers, or swimming at a friends house if I was lucky enough to be invited!

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  30. OK! you have some stitch'n talent! Love your orange peels and especially the tree skirt ! Thanks for sharing!

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  31. What great projects! Your runner turned out beautifully, and your tree skirts are amazing! Love them all. :)

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  32. I love your round robin quilt. I did a round robin several years ago. I wanted mine to be lap size, not wall size. I use it every winter.

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  33. Beautiful projects. I'm in love with your orange peel table runner, but I'm partial to bright, happy colors. When I was a kid I loved playing outside with my friends. We'd go bike riding, play badminton, catching fireflies, go walking through the woods which was one block from my house, and waiting for the ice cream man to arrive. : )

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  34. I wasn't too much of an outdoor girl when I was a kid. Loved to sew inside too much! But sure do remember going to the lake almost every weekend from Memorial Weekend thru Labor Day weekend and swimming, swimming, swimming, riding bikes with my cousins, and playing kick the can. Beautiful projects. Love the orange peel table runner. Have never participated in a Round Robin but would love to.

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  35. I so enjoy your posts and the RB Cutting Corners; you always have such great ideas and fun things to share. I loved that table runner with all those different sizes of RB gingham. (Can you not encourage RB to keep all of the sizes?!!) The stitching ideas with reg. emb., chicken scratch, etc. was educational. I admit I'm feeling so enthusiastic about RB gingham that I think I must find a source and buy all the gingham I can find before it's tooo late.

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  36. My favorite outdoor activity as a child was to go fishing with grandpa and grandma. Now I love to take my grandchildren fishing and camping. Love your tutorials. My grandmothers taught me how to smock and chicken scratch embroidery on gingham when I was about 9 or 10 yeas old. And I still remember how. I actually have made several projects with it.

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  37. My favorite outdoor activity as a kid was hiking around the country near our small town with my brother. We considered our selves real naturalists and collected all manner of natural articles including birds eggs! I am ashamed of that now!

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  38. Love your orange peel quilt! I have always wanted to try that technique....one of these days. Your star quilt is fab and I love the round robin quilt. I have participated in many RR's and swaps with friends around the world since 2003. I cherish each and every block or item I have received in return.

    My favorite summer activity as a child was anxiously waiting to see my granddaddy's blue car pull in to the driveway to whisk me away to the farm for 2 weeks out of the summer! I so enjoyed visiting my grandparents farm and spending time with them. Granddaddy would come in to our bedroom early in the mornings and reach up under the covers at the foot of the bed and start pulling our toes saying, "wee, wee little pigs, time to get up". of course we would squeal and say "stop granddaddy", but truth is, we would hear him coming down the hall and snuggle deeper under the covers pretending to be asleep just so he would do what he always did. We could smell granny's breakfast cooking all the way down the hall. Wonderful memories.

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  39. Like the table runner very much! we have no summer here at all. Its a perpetual summer (live in the tropics)

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  40. Had this very nice comment all typed up and when I logged in it went poof. :>I
    It was something like this. Deonn, the table runner is so nice and unique. I'll have to view directions to find how to finish all those circular edges. Thanks for sharing
    Oh, summers as a child were wonderful. Growing up in a rural area gave me an abundance of thing to do, playing house in the corn crib with kitty cat babies, roaming and playing with my dog as a constant companion, horse riding, bike riding, and of course fighting with my brother. LOL Oh, to go back just one day and relive that joyous life.

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  41. Oh me n my crew (my brother and our best buddy) owned our small town! ;0) we rode our bikes all over town we would throw rocks in the river (The Mississippi) we were a little rotten and loved to jump the fence to the old closed pool and we would catch the frogs that lived in there and just hang out! (However MAN did we get in trouble when we were finally caught!!!
    Now I prefer to camp... but the catching frog thing has not changed!! Lol I catch them my 13 year old son plays with them and then we set them free!!

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  42. As a kid, my daily exercise (even if I didn't realize it) was jumping rope for hours!

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  43. Always love your works of art, Deonn. Your stitching is just precious on the gingham. We all could learn a lot from vintage stitching. Thanks for the inspiration. I love to use that "orange peel" method for flannel as well. The gingham is so precious in your runner. Your tree skirt is a beauty and, yes, I need to get started on Christmas. When I was a kid, all I wanted to do in the summer was swim. I'm a summertime girl.

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  44. I love your stitching on the gingham and the orange peel table runner. Absolutely fabulous round robin quilt as well. Your tree skirt has given me ideas for a skirt of my own. Thank you.

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  45. I am really lovin' that table runner. The colors just say picnic all over it. Once things calm down around here, I'm going to dig out some gingham to stitch on--your pieces are very inspiring.

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  46. Hi, Deonn! My favorite outdoor summer activity was playing Kick the Can with all the neighborhood kids...and there were a lot of us! I also loved riding my bike and discovering new neighborhoods beyond my immediate home. Thanks for sharing some of your summertime sewing with us.

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  47. My friends and I would ride our bikes to the park to go swimming every day in the summer. If we couldn't go to the pool, we would play in the sprinklers. What fun! -- soparkaveataoldotcom

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  48. I love your orange peel topper. What a happy runner.

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  49. The projects are amazing. I love the Orange Peel runner. I need to watch the tutorial. That looks fun. Your sewing machine wall hanging is amazing. It is wonderful and it certainly has been around the world. What a great idea for inspiration! Your Christmas tree skirt is wonderful. I wish I still put up a tree. I can hardly wait to see your Star Medallion quilt made. It would be a beautiful table topper, too. As far as fun summer activities, I think it was great fun to hunt lighting bugs and put them in a jar. We'd run and run through the yard. We did this at home and each of our grandparent's homes, too. Thanks for participating and sharing a bit of your summer.

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  50. Love the orange peels. Thanks so much for sharing.

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  51. I love the orange peel table runner. I will have to make one of those. My favorite summer activity was laying on my back and looking at clouds. I loved finding pictures in the clouds. Maybe I'm just lazy.

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  52. Your projects are all so wonderful. That orange peel runner is super gorgeous! My favorite activity was playing at the beach on a hot summer day. Thanks for the chance!

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  53. I was a loner as a child, and I loved finding a hiding place among the underbrush by our lilacs and slipping away with a book. We lived on a river and I also loved to lie on the dock and listen to the waves. I can still recall that dreamy feeling. :)

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  54. I was an only child for many years and we lived on a farm. I loved riding my pony/horse, or climbing trees and reading a book when I had the opportunity.

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  55. I love the straight line quilting in the Star Weave Tree Skirt. Shows off the star pattern perfectly. I liked camping with the family and making smore's in the evening.

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  56. Love your tree skirt. Thanks for the chance to win.

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  57. I love your hand stitching! I have just been reintroduced to chicken scratch an can't wait to start it. Your table runner is wonderful and if you were nervous in the tutorial, you did a nice job covering it up. Gee, I knew we have some very talented people here but I didn't know I was among celebrities! :-) I really think I may never again get a full night's sleep as I have been finding so many things that I want to make. I'm not sure if I'll start with the table runner or the chicken scratch.

    Maybe a game of good old Kick the Can (my favorite childhood and young adulthood game) with the grandkids will be just what I need to make me feel young again so I don't get tired just thinking about all the new projects I'm going to start.

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  58. We used to love hide and seek as kids - we would stay out until the streetlights came on (moms rules). There were so many great places to hide on our street :)

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  59. My favorite summer activity as a child was to go fishing with my dad. It was great to get out on the water and spend special time with him.

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  60. Hi Deonn! Sorry I am so late to respond. I just wanted to say I enjoyed your post! It was most interest to see how your pattern translated into the actual tree skirt....which was fabulous!

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  61. Beautiful Deonn! I especially love your Orange Peel Table Runner. Awesome color!
    My most favorite outdoor summer activity was playing tennis. My friend and I played every single day. Of course, in retrospect, I can see now why that was probably not the smartest thing in the world for an overweight child to be doing. The exercise was great, but that much pounding on the court on a daily basis (we used to play for hours and hours and into the night when at the court with pay to have lights) is most likely the reason my knees are SO extremely bad too. BUT, we had so much fun and I was actually really good which shocked a lot of people. I love playing so much I took lessons from a tennis pro at what used to be called "The Wagon Wheel" which was a resort in my hometown that was very well known throughout the country. If you can remember Janet Lynn, the ice skater from the Olympics back in the 70's - that is where she trained. Sadly, the "Wheel" as we called it, had a number of suspicious fires and is now long gone. All that remains on the property is a one room schoolhouse, which is a super cute daycare, and the small church, which is where hubby and I were married.

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  62. Deonn, you are one hop sister that always inspires with your creativity. I love the orange peel runner. It is definitely a fun and cheery table runner. I watched the video and am now anxious to give it a try. The tree skirt is a winner and the RR sounds like fun. Back in the day...way back then...when I was a kid....hide and seek was always fun. We would play outside until Mom would put the porch light on and it was time to get our 'behinds' in the house. Thanks for sharing your talent and your inspiration...and the chance to play with your patterns. Happy stitching, Pauline

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  63. What amazing projects!!! Lovely, all of them! :)

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  64. I love the orange peel runner and will have to check out the video and give it a try. Your tree skirt designs are also very nice. The best part of summer for me when I was young was our annual vacation to the mountains of Colorado. Thanks for sharing your projects.

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  65. Just one word for the runner: AMAZING!

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  66. Well done, Deonn! All the items are wonderful but I believe it is the orange peel runner that had my jaw dropping the most. Glad you joined in the hop.

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  67. I love your rainbow table runner! Just adorable. Your round robin quilt is too cute. I would love something that cute gracing my sewing room walls.

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So happy you stopped by for a visit! Thank you!