Last Day of the HOP…and the WINNER IS….

Well today is the LAST day of the ‘Country Girl Modern’!  We had fun and hope you did too!  Thanks to Jo and Kelli for including this Country Girl in their Hop… I have to say it, I am turning a wee bit Modern! 

Now for the fun part…Mr. Random Generator picked #12 who happens to be~

Trisha V

Thank you Paulette for a nice review. I love it when some time & thought go into the reviews! I also follow Jo's blog and I have certainly discovered some new bloggers to follow oh this hop. Like you! Enjoy perusing your blog adventures.

That Mr. Generator knows what he is doing as he picked a follower of Jo’s!  How special is that!  Congratulations Trisha V.!  Please send me your snail’s mail address and I will see that your copy is sent to you, pronto!

Now all of YOU need to hop one more time…over to Jo’s, where she is having a HUGE BLOW OUT Give Away!  Lots of Yummy stuff in her loot bag…including an autographed copy of ‘Country Girl Modern’…NOW GO!  And if all else fails you can ALWAYS order the book!:o))

Have a magical Monday and Happy Stitching!~P

PS…Trish V., I have NO email link back to YOU…so I have no way of contacting you of your win!  If I don’t hear from you by tonight (8pm) I will pick some one else.  This is so frustrating…:o(

Day # 8 of the “Country Girl Modern” Blog Hop and Give AWAY!!

First off I want to thank Jo and Kelli for asking me to be in their Country Girl Modern Blog Hop to help review and promote their new book, “Country Girl Modern”!  What an honour, what a thrill!

If you don’t know Jo Kramer and her daughter Kelli Hanken, then you need to go HERE and READ… and start at the beginning…back in 2009!  Jo writes the popular quilting blog “Jo’s Country Junction,” a blog that I have been enjoying for years! 

Just look at these two ladies!  They could be ‘Ivory Girls’…now I KNOW I’m dating myself… but do you remember the Ivory commercial where you had to guess which ‘girl’ was the mom…WELL, can you guess which one is the mom here?  Yes, they COULD be Ivory girls!!  So cute with their quilt tucked up under their chins!

I digress… let’s get back to their blog and “Country Girl Modern”…

Now WHY did I call Jo’s Country Junction a ‘quilting blog’? It is SEW much more than that!  Jo talks about life on the farm, living with five grown children…and now that the kids are gone, life as an empty nester. She provides us with recipes, stories of community, restoring a heritage house, good books…and bad, the joys of owning a dog…and the sorrows.  I have ‘attended’ all of the kids’ weddings and shared in their successes!  With Jo, you know that you will be entertained with an honest to goodness glimpse into her life!  Did I mention that she loves a good thrift shop find, ‘Bargains’ being her middle name!  You’ve got to love this blog!!  Throw in Quilts and Quilting and a Quilting DAUGHTER and you have got one Dynamite Blog! 

It seems like yesterday when Kelli and Jo had their first quilt featured on Moda Bakeshop…then they hit the Magazine Circuit…So when they told us there was a book in the works, it was no surprise to me!  I KNEW it was only a matter of time before this dynamic duo hit the big time!

So without further adieu…let me introduce… “COUNTRY GIRL MODERN”!   A great title, for a great book!

The first thing that I noticed about “Country Girl Modern” was the feel…it feels like a quality book…you know… ‘THAT FEEL’!  You want to savour it!  The photography is wonderful…the quilts are artfully displayed in a country setting and then photographed up close and personal showing the WHOLE QUILT!

There is even a close-up picture of the fabric used in each quilt!

I slowly turned each page, reading the introductory story to each quilt…I loved that…making each quilt a personal experience!!  Each wonderful quilt was like sampling goods in a bakery!  YUM!

And I loved the way they provided a full colour photo of the actual finished quilt!  Nothing is left to guess work!

I KNEW I had to MAKE one of these quilts because as they say……the proof is in the puddin’!  I NEEDED to test ‘er out!  There were so many quilts that I liked…but which one to make first? 

I LOVED this one…and this one too! 

BUT it was this one…the last one in the book that made my heart sing!  I love scrappy stars!!  It’s called “Thanks to YOU” because the bright fabric in this quilt was provided by Jo’s blog readers!  How sweet is THAT!

As soon as I saw THIS QUILT…I knew this was the one for ME!! 

I read the instructions carefully…there are lots of pictures, diagrams and steps!  Loved The Quick Reference Chart provided for each and every quilt! 

Easy to read, easy to follow…and LOVED, LOVED, LOVED the results!

Before long…this thready mess turned to…

…THESE!!

Did I just hear some “OHHHS” and “AHHHHS” coming from blogland?

Seriously, the EASIEST pattern EVER and it produced the cutest stars EVER!  And each star is different with a slight wonkiness to it!

The stars are small and actually TWINKLE…I swear…THEY DO!!

So there you have it!!  I am in love with this quilt…four stars done…217 to go…and I am going to enjoy making every single one!!  They are FUN and easy to make…and look at how dang cute they are!  (The background fabrics are beige scraps and the stars are made from ‘Richmond Reds’ by Barbara Brackman for Moda)  What’s not to love!!

Being last on the Hop, I was worried that I wouldn’t have anything to say…silly ME!!  If you missed any of the quilters who participated in the HOP then you NEED to go visiting and make sure that you LEAVE A COMMENT as we all get to GIVE AWAY a copy of “COUNTRY GIRL MODERN”!

March 7th~ Country Threads  http://country-threads-chicken-scratch.com/

March 8th~ Michelle's Romantic Tangle http://mychellem.blogspot.com/

March 9th~ Julie K Quilts http://juliekquilts.blogspot.com/

March 10th~Patchwork Times http://www.patchworktimes.com/

March 11th~Quilt Hollow  http://www.quilthollow.com/

March 12th~ Moda's Cutting Table http://blog.modafabrics.com/

March 12th Confessions of a Fabric Addicthttp://www.confessionsofafabricaddict.blogspot.com/

March 13th~Quiltville  http://quiltville.blogspot.com/

March 14th~ Sweet P Quilting and Creations http://sweetp-paulette.blogspot.com/

YIKES!!  Look at little ol’ ME, rubbing shoulders with the great Bonnie Hunter, Carrie Nelson and Mary Etherington…to name just a few!!   How neat is that!! I REALLY am seeing STARS! :o)

Now for the fun part…as I said, I get to GIVE AWAY a copy to one lucky winner!  Just leave a comment on this post, make sure there is a way to contact you and keep your fingers and toes crossed!! Mr. Random Generator will be put to the test on Match 16th…this Monday when he selects the winning number! 

Make sure to hop on over to Jo’s Blog, leave a comment there too, as she is having a Give Away of her own!  You are going to be VERY busy this fine Saturday morning!!

So get hopping…and make sure to tell Jo and Kelli that I sent you! 

Let’s go to the hop…oh baby…let’s go to the HOP!

Have a Super Saturday and Happy Hopping!!

Gee’s Bend Quilts

 Woolie Mammoth Blog and Poppyprint Blog both did a blog posting on Gee’s Bend quilts or mentioned Gees Bends quilts…I had never heard of them before and then low and behold, we have our own Gee’s Bend quilter show up at our very own Clubhouse on Wednesday!  For once, thanks to Anna and Krista, I had a wee small inkling as to what she was talking about!!

For those of you still in the dark this is what I found on Wikipedia to help explain what Gee’s Bends quilts are~

The Quilts of Gee's Bend are quilts created by a group of women and their ancestors who live or have lived in the isolated area of Gee’s Bend, Alabama. The Quilts of Gee's Bend are considered to be one of the most unique and important African-American visual and cultural contributions to the the history of art within the United States.  Female slaves pieced together strips of cloth to make bedcovers. Throughout the years and into the 20th century, Gee's Bend women made quilts to keep themselves and their children warm in unheated shacks that lacked running water, telephones and electricity. Along the way they developed a distinctive style, noted for its lively improvisations and geometric simplicity.

 

This quilt certainly is all of that!  Very distinctive style in lively bright colours in simple geometric shapes!  Lovely to see in REAL LIFE!  You just never know what you are going to see in the Clubhouse on our Wednesday’s together!  Unfortunately I didn’t get to talk to the quilter and never got her name.  DARN!  (While she was chatting with the rest of the quilters, I had whipped back to the RV and she was gone when I got back!)

But it was exciting to actually see the quilt and hear a bit about it…

Thanks for stopping by…now maybe if a Gee’s Bend quilt drops in your lap you will know a bit more about what you are looking at!

Have a Fun Friday and Happy Stitching!~P