Yep, I won!

Yep. Yep. Yep.
I won the Quilt Raffle from Dark Horse Designs blog by Nancy Geaney.

Seriously.

I had only just recently found her online, a former super-model whose blog features fabrics from Jennifer Paganelli at Sis Boom Pow. When I won, and Nancy asked me to pick my favorite color combination for this whole-cloth type quilt, I went with a brown and tealish/turquoise combo (my fav colors) that I saw on a post where she demonstrates a turkey placemat for Thanksgiving. As you can see, this beauty is just gorgeous. Getting to pick my own colors? I didn't expect that.

The backside is just gorgeous luscious blue in toile from Jennifer Paganelli's line, Flower Power. Don't these colors make you want to stand on a box with flowers in your hair and sing out loud?? And here's the best part of all. From the day I won until the day I received the quilt in the mail was 8 days. 8 days!! Wow. That's service. See how sweetly she packed it up? Notice that little potpourri sachet with the velvet ribbon. And the little kitty note card.


How did you know that my oldest, Jade, and I love lavender? Nancy, I salute you. You made me one giddy quilter, and this is now my new cuddle-up quilt for watching Survivor and The Office while I work on my applique projects. And speaking of applique projects....here's my newest project now.

So what do you think?

This project, which I'm showing you just a bit of right now (it's in progress as you see)....and, well, it's a vision I've had for a while that was inspired by the floral rugs at the Garnet Hill catalog. I thought that I'd love to do a quilt with random flowers, leaves and curlicues all over, no real rhyme or reason to their placement, per se, just a bit wild...like my cottage garden, and my dreams and how my mind works. I 'saw' this in my mind's eye, on and off, and now I'm playing with the idea of it. Just playing. It will probably be 4 blocks, with flowers & leaves that overlap the seams, for a seamless look. The background is a lovely strawberry batik covered with meandering chocolate vines...(hmm, chocolate & strawberries, so you know it's good) Well, that's the idea, ok, but I'm still just playing with it right now. I do a lot of stuff that I just fool around with and it turns out being another little pathway in my journey. A huge portion of my quilting is about the journey. More on that later.

And now, since I have not blogged in more than a week, I will leave you with another pic, my glorious and ever so beautiful birthday quilt from the quintessential online friend, Joanna the Magnificent. Go and see her blog, Applique Today, and you will see why she is the BEST. We met on Pat Sloan's yahoo group years ago, and finally in person last spring when she came to stay with me for a week. One day, we will show you some of the quilts we've designed together. One day. Maybe at Market in Houston, right Joanna? She named this baby, Fiori, which means flowers in Italian, which is partially my heritage. What kind of cool friend is this??

So more blogging to come from moi soon, especially since I won another blog contest for the 2nd Friday in a row!!!! Yes, I am SHOUTING!! Go read up with Amy at Seven Stitches to see how I just won her Wonder Bundle. Yep.

Lucky Duck, yep, I am.

~anna