Sorry I'm so late in posting the last winner of the drawings...the winner of the $20 gift certificate to the Farmer's dotter quilt retreat is Lisa! I've had bed and breakfast guests this week and this weekend was Kooper Dane's 4th birthday and we had extra family here visiting, so not much free time! Keep watching for drawings later and thanks to all of you who are new followers. Merry Christmas to all of you, if I don't get back for a few days!

5th and 6th day prize and 4th day winner!

The photos today are of my quilt retreat...you can read more about them on my website...the link is on the bedroom picture of my sidebar.
Today and tomorrow I'll be having a drawing for a $20 gift certificate towards a stay at the Farmer's Dotter quilt retreat that I have here in my home in Southwest Iowa. I live in the midwest, 2 hours away from Des Moines, Iowa, Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska, and Kansas City. I love to have quilters and bed and breakfast guests too! So if you're up for a road trip, join in the drawing! I will draw for it sometime Friday afternoon, so keep on entering until I draw!

Yesterday winner of the pattern for a tiny quilt pattern is Lee...email me your address...thanks to all for entering!

4th day prize and 3rd day winner!

Sorry I'm a little slow today...my new grandson, Kruz needed a little snuggle time with Grandma...his mom is having back troubles, so Grandpa and I are helping out.
Any way....yesterday's prize winner is Jeanne. Email me your address and I'll get the pin cushion pattern in the mail to you!
Today's prize is another pattern I've designed to look like an antique doll quilt. I love antique quilts (who doesn't!) and I design my patterns to look like antique quilts. I have quite a collection of vintage fabrics and feed sacks, so several of my kits are made out of the older textiles. I sell patterns and kits for these on Etsy and would also be willing to sell them wholesale, if anyone is interested, please email or call me.
This little quilt measures 8" x 8".
Thanks for taking the time to look and enter my drawing!

3rd day give away & 2nd day winner!

This is the pattern I will be giving away to some lucky winner today!

I'm giving away something every day this week, so keep stopping by and leaving comments so I can enter you in the drawings! I'm in the blog hop at the Quilting Gallery and there are over 240 other quilters who are also giving away prizes...lots of fun, but I warn you, it takes lots of time to look at them all, but you have until Saturday, when most of them will do their drawings.

The winner from yesterday's drawing is Sallie! She wins her choice of a cute little pin cushion that I made. Today, I'm having a drawing for the pattern to make your own, so make sure you get your name in the drawing...anyone who's a follower can enter, by just leaving me a comment, today!

2nd Day Give-away and 1st day winner!

Today's give-away is your choice of these two pin cushions that I've made from recycled materials. One is made from a piece of an antique cutter quilt and the other is made from an antique doily. Tomorrow I will give away a pattern to make one of these pincushions yourself, so check back tomorrow and leave comments both days to be eligible to win the pin cushion or pattern! Check out my last blog for more details of this 8 day blog hop give away and go to
And the winner of yesterdays drawing IS: Jennifer Gail! Congratulations Jennifer, you can email me with your choice of pattern and address. Thanks to everyone for participating! Please keep on commenting every day for more chances to win daily!<
the http://quiltinggallery.com/ for over 240 give-aways! The link to all the give aways is in my last post, also.


And the winner of yesterdays drawing IS: Jennifer Gail! Congratulations Jennifer, you can email me with your choice of pattern and address. Thanks to everyone for participating! Please keep on commenting every day for more chances to win daily!

Free Give Aways at the Blog Hop Party!

I'm participating in the blog hop party at the Quilting Gallery starting tomorrow...click on Quilting Gallery image above. More later about what I'll be giving away...gotta make sure this link works!

The list of bloggers participating in the Blog Hop Party will be made available Saturday morning, shortly after midnight, Eastern time. Return here then, to start hopping and entering the give-aways from your fellow quilters. This hop lasts from December 10th thru December 17th and I've decided to give something different away each day...ranging from retail values of $2.75 to $20.00!!!

Tomorrow, I will be giving away a free pattern of your choice. They range in price from $2.75 to $8.40. The picture at the top of this post is of one of the quilting patterns I have available. You can see all that I have available in my Etsy shop...I can't seem to get my Etsy shop to link to this post, but if you go down one post, the link is in it.

Here's the deal...I've decided I need a little help, PLEASE!...I need more followers here on my blog and more admirer's on my Etsy store, so to be eligible for the drawings you need to be a follower or admirer, PLEASE, PLEASE, then just leave me a comment every day if you want, or just on the days you like what I'm offering, to be eligible for the daily give aways. Thanks for taking the time to look and happy blog hopping!

Free shipping til December 11th!

I'll be listing a pattern soon for this pin cushion. I like to make mine out of either pieces of old quilts or doilies, but they can also be made out of new materials. I will give away a free pattern for these square pin cushions to the 1st 10 people who make an order from my Etsy shop...this offer expires December 11th. I also have free shipping til December 11th.

Please click on this link://http://www.etsy.com/shop/thefarmersdotter to check out my Etsy shop. Keep watching for new listings and thanks for taking the time to look!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you! This postcard was sent in 1912 to Miss Verna Hamilton, Hamburg Iowa....from Marguerite. I just love old postcards.

I am thankful for being raised on the farm...it was a great place to grow up. This is my dad and uncle Truman, probably in the mid thirties, in the front yard of my grandma's house. My grandma always used to make homemade noodles for our family get togethers, so that's what I'm taking to our family dinner tomorrow.

Sneak peek at my new Etsy shop!

Click on this link:thefarmersdotter to see my things for sale on Etsy! It's not quite the way I want it yet, but guess I'll let you all take a sneak peek. This 17" X 21" doll quilt kit, and/or pattern is one of the things I have listed. Please take a look and let me know what you think... thanks for taking the time to look! I'll make a more permanent link later, hopefully.

Rednesday!

Linking to Rednesday at: suelovescherries.blogspot.com. I just love old quilts, polka dots and red too! I'm thinking of trying to have linking party with anything antique quilt related or vintage polka dots, preferably in quilts, but anything antique would be great too. Anybody interested? I've never done my own linking party before...so if anyone has any suggestions, let me know.

I took this picture of an antique quilt somewhere in my travels and I'm not really sure where...probably in an antique store in Missouri. I love the red and white, and the ties in green make it look so Christmasy. I quite often take pictures of old quilts, thinking I might later make one similar to it. This one would be pretty easy to duplicate, with all the great reproductions.

Take your time Tuesday

As I sit here writing this blog I see a deer walking at the back of our little timber. All the leaves are off of the trees now, so I'm seeing them more often. Always fun to enjoy nature.

Today I'm linking to a new blog that I just found: sohappy. I found her through another new blog: quiltsalott.blogspot.com/. It's always fun to see what others are working on!

The photo above is one of my hand-made, recycled projects...I love to reduce, reuse and recycle! I made this from an antique arm-chair cover...like I was ever going to use that! I've also used old doilies and parts of cutter quilts. If you're interested in making one or need some supplies for it, email me...I love to get personal emails! farmersdotter@frontiernet.net

Invite to quilt club or later

7 twin-sized beds for guests. 2 1/2 bathrooms. Lots of quilts and fun things to look at!

I'm having my quilt club meeting tonight here at my house. We have about 20 members and usually have between 5-10 show up. Just wanted to send any of you within driving distance a special invitation...know this is the last minute, but guess that's the way I work sometimes! I would love to have you and some of your friends come and visit sometime. I'm thinking if I could get any of you to come here, you might just love it enough to come and stay! If it doesn't work out tonight, almost anytime in the next few weeks would be great! (Gonna go south after Christmas for a few weeks) Pardon the expression, but I like to kill 2 or 3 birds with one stone, meaning I like to clean the house once and make it do for 2 or 3 things! Let me know if you're interested! 712-523-3508 or farmersdotter@frontiernet.net
Beds are available if anyone wants to spend the night tonight!

More Corduroy!

I am a cosmetologist part time and this is a picture of my shop...I am a lucky girl again.


#1 lucky: This antique barber chair and barber back-bar was my hubby's grandfather (Glen)and great grandfather (Ed) Lock's. When we moved to this home and I had more room, I was able to buy these from my hubby's grandpa. I love to collect almost anything old, so it's great to have such a piece of history as this.


#2 lucky today! One of my customers this morning came bearing me a wonderful gift....a couple boxes of fabrics!! Woohoo! Can't get much better than that. People are so good to me! Thanks Mel for the goodies! He loves to go to auctions. Below is the 1st box. Shamrocks for a lucky girl!

Next box of assorted squares and 4 patches...maybe 50's era? I need someone to come visit me and sort through my stash and get it organized in era's.

#3 lucky: MORE corduroy on 11-11-11. How cool is that! Sometimes things just happen for a reason , don't they?

I'd be willing to swap some of this corduroy with some of you if you'd like...email me and we'll see what we can work out. There's about 2 yards of it.

Make sure and check out my other corduroy posts!

More Corduroy for 11-11-11

Here's another unfinished project at my house. I picked it up at a garage sale a few years ago and maybe someday I'll get crazy enough to finish this Crazy quilt!....or it may go to Etsy or Ebay some day!


Click here: niftyquilts.blogspot.com/
to see lots of other examples of fun corduroy quilts.





Corduroy AND polka dots...gotta love it!

Happy 11-11-11 and Corduroy Day!

OOPS! Our grand-dog liked this quilt too!

Click here: http://niftyquilts.blogspot.com/ to see the Corduroy Appreciation Day quilts on display for 11-11-11. She has such a great blog and always has so many fun quilts to show...and she just started quilting in about 2005! Here are my corduroy quilts and stories....

I made this simple corduroy quilt about 10 years ago for my son and his future wife...she liked purple and I thought it would keep them nice and warm. I used the brick pattern because it's easy and fast. It was one of my 1st attempts at machine quilting. I went to get it today and was told not to keep it too long, as it's one they use in the winter months to keep warm, so it's nice to know they like it, but our grand-dog also liked it! In the picture above you can see one of the 3 chewed places along the edges that I'll try to repair. How many of you have similiar stories?

I'll show another corduroy unfinished quilt in another blog post. I'm having trouble getting the pictures in the right spot!

Updates and a finish

Update on our niece: she has been moved to Immanuel hospital in north Omaha, Nebraska, for rehab. Physically, she is getting along pretty good..she had a concussion from a bad gash on her head that required 5 staples and was in intensive care for a day and a half, but otherwise she has very few injuries. She's very sore all over and wants to sleep most of the time. She seems to know everyone, but her memory is very foggy, so they hope to help with that. I'm also hoping they give her therapy to deal with the loss of her 3 friends. That will be as hard for her as anything. Thanks to all of you for your concern and prayers. It's been a rough few days.

Update on the "boys": Kruz is 9 days old today, he has been jaundice and laying on a light at home most of the time, but had to go back in the hospital for a day and night. Kooper is a good big brother and lots of help to mom and dad. I think we get to watch him tomorrow night...Daddy wants to go to the football playoff game here at Bedford. Go Dawgs! Football is quite a tradition here! Picture below: Kooper as a scarecrow...I helped Tara make the hats. She does a great job with costumes. Kruz is a little football player.I finished this lap-sized comforter today. It's made from wool and wool blends from my stash. I just pulled the backing around and machine stitched it to the front for the binding. This comforter is MINE! I plan on snuggling under it watching TV and using it on my side of the bed, since my hubby is not as cold blooded as me! The cold has begun here in Iowa, yesterdays high was about 40...burr!

Need Prayers!

We were awakened last night at 3:35...it was my hubby's brother Donnie, and his oldest girl, Samantha had been in a bad accident. What a terrible feeling. My hubby took off to meet up with his brother and take him to Omaha where they life-flighted Sam. She has a severe head injury and has been on a ventilator, but I think they're about ready to take it out. Hopefully she will be OK. The sad thing is there were 3 others who didn't make it. Please say a little prayer for all involved. We went through this with another niece almost 7 years ago...you never forget the pain and sorrow of loosing a loved one so suddenly. For more details of the accident go tohttp://www.kma960.com/. Thank you for your prayers.

New baby!

New baby grandson, Kruz Dean was born October 25th at 4:33 P.M. He weighed 8 pounds even and was 21 and 1/2 inches long, with lots of dark hair. Mommy and baby are doing fine. Big brother Kooper Dane is very proud and wants to hold him himself! I tried so hard to get a good picture and then I couldn't seem to be able to get it cropped right! Will try again later. We had Kooper the last two nights. Grandma and Grandpa are very proud also, but ready for a good nights sleep tonight! More later!

I decided to make this fun little quilt from some of my feed sack scraps. I had made one larger than this a few months ago and have a mini pattern for it. My mini patterns are just $2 and I hope to have them for sale in an Etsy shop before too long. If you can't wait for that, email or call me!

Update: after thinking it over, the block is called Missouri Daisy! I love this orange star! I believe it's a Missouri star. Anyone know for sure? I'm too lazy to get up and check right now...guess I could check here on the internet! I did look it up here on the net and didn't find it. Anyone know what the name is?

I'm such a Lucky Girl!

I'm such a lucky girl! Well, middle aged, I guess, but who's counting! Yesterday morning I went to the quilt show in Winterset and the Covered Bridge Festival. They were both lots of fun and we saw all kinds of beautiful quilts and things. AND the weather was beautiful! Then I came home and started cleaning and cooking for my next ladies, tomorrow. I wanted some fresh apples, so we went just a couple miles over to this orchard. This is Johnny Appleseed (Steven Wainwright) and my grandson, Kooper. It's a great family outing and I hope to make it a yearly tradition. Call or email me for more details. The apples are delicious and I'll be serving some of them with homemade dip and lots of other fall goodies tomorrow! Hope to show pictures later. This picture is a mock set-up for my next trunk show in Topeka on Tuesday and Thursday, in Clarinda. I have lots of goodies to show. You can't really see too much of them, but in the background of this picture are some of my feedsacks. I have quite a collection of them, if anyone is interested in a trunk show on feedsacks or if you just want to come to a retreat and see them and all of my other "stuff"! I am such a lucky girl! Most of the time anyway!

Fall fans

I met a fellow blogger at the AQS in Des Moines and she bought this 4 patch. Check out her blog here: http://thecivilwarquilter.blogspot.com/ She already has it sandwiched and ready to quilt. She really has a neat blog and presentation that she gives about Quilts and Textiles of the Civil War, so go take a look!

I still have a few of these blocks left if anyone is interested in something orange for fall and Halloween. $2.50 for each block.

3 Fun Fall Weekend Getaways!

It's such a beautiful time of year to be out and about! This pumpkin farm is just about 3-4 miles from our place. We also have an apple orchard that close.

I love to have company AND I'm a harvest widow right now, so if any of these weekend getaways appeal to you, let me know. You could come stay here and I could take a van load to all the fun things if you like or drive yourself! Bed and breakfast rates would be $75 for the 1st 2 people and $15 per person after that. You could come back and sew after the events, if you like. Stay 1, 2 or 3 nights.

A few of my fall decorations.

This weekend, October 7 & 8 there's a quilt show and the Covered Bridge Festival in Winterset. I would love to go to both, but I really should stay home and get the house ready and start fixing food for my next group on Monday. You might be able to twist my arm though, I've been trying to get my cleaning done!

October 15th there is the annual Craft Carnival in Clarinda, Iowa, and as an added bonus, there is also a quilt show by the local guild. Should be a fun-filled day with about 4 or 5 buildings of crafts, and the quilt show is in a local church.

October 22nd there's a Triple Play Day at Exira, Elk Horn and Harlan quilt shops. This could be a mini-van shop hop that I've been wanting to take some of my ladies to...wouldn't that be fun?!!

If anyone is interested in any of these fun fall getaways, just let me know! If you have any questions about the events, give me a call at 712-523-3508 or email me at farmersdotter@frontiernet.net

Thanks to Kimber!

My pictures weren't the best from the AQS show in Des Moines, so if you want to see more pictures and just a wonderful story by a fellow blogger, click on this link... http://www.heirloomsbyashtonhouse.blogspot.com/. Kimber did a great job of describing my booth and business, etc. I guess that's why she's a professional writer! Thanks so much Kimber, for the fun review!

It was so much fun at the show meeting other bloggers, some I felt like I knew already and some new ones too. I met a neat gal from Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, who also does presentations on Quilts and Textiles of the Civil War. I will try to link to her later...this linking is new to me!

Snowballs!

I was telling my dotter after the AQS show, that I hoped my business would start snowballing....so here are a couple picture of snowballs! The top picture is a 30's snowball quilt that is on one of the retreat beds upstairs and the picture below is at my Grandma's house. Looks like my Dad and Uncle Truman had just finished a snowman.


I have to get busy cleaning this week, I'm having luncheon guests next Monday, October 10 at noon, with a small trunk show and home tour following lunch. Then Monday evening I have a couple bed and breakfast guests arriving to stay a couple nights.


Tuesday evening, October 11, I will be giving a trunk show at the Topeka, Kansas Capital Quilt Guild and get to stay the night with my dotter Linds, in KC.


Thursday, October 13th at 6:30, I am doing another trunk show at the Garrison house in Clarinda, for the After 5 club. It is open to anyone who is interested, so please come join us if you want to see my trunk show.


The snowball is going pretty good right now and I hope to keep it going, so give me a call or email if you're interested in booking a retreat, a bed and breakfast stay or a trunk show!

Whirlwind week at the AQS show

This was my booth at the AQS show. I had just about every available inch covered!

Whew! I survived the week at the AQS show in Des Moines...I really intended on blogging some while I was there, but seemed like the evenings were busy too. My dotter Linds came and helped me, and my sister from the Detroit area also came for a couple days, so all in all it was a little crazy! Sold lots of "stuff"....I think people enjoyed looking thru my bargain baskets! With the retreats here in my house I needed to clean out a little more, so several things went to the show with me and went home with lots of other people. Thanks to everyone and enjoy!

I took a few pictures and now I'm wishing I would have gotten more...so if anyone has any, please email them to me!

Thanks to all who stopped by the booth...it was great to see old friends and meet new! I should have had a sign-up sheet for new emails, so if anyone wants to get my seasonal newsletter with pictures, news and specials, just shoot me an email. Thanks again to everyone!

Thanks to the Missouri Valley guild!

I want to send out a great big thank you to the Missouri Valley quilt guild for having me come speak last night and for all their encouragement and help! I thought I was all ready and took my camera along to get pictures and discovered that I didn't have my card in it! Grrr! Hopefully some of the gals will send me some pictures and I will post them later.

As I was driving up there, I was thinking I should have posted about going there, just in case anyone new might want to come and see my presentation. I will try to be better about that! Next week, September 28th thru October 1, I will have a booth at the AQS show in Des Moines. On October 10th the Beta Sigma Phi ladies from Clarinda will be here for a luncheon, trunk show and home tour. October 11th I will do a trunk show at the Topeka guild and October 13th I will do a trunk show at the Garrison house in Clarinda for the After 5 club. They are a religious group, so I will be putting a new twist to my trunk show with a few of my stories and experiences.

Thanks again to the Missouri Valley ladies. I made it home safe and sound at 11:20. It only took me 2 hours and 5 minutes going east on the interstate and then south on highway 71. I had several ladies ask how long it took me to get up there, and I thought it was about 2 and a half hours, so I was pleasantly surprised to make it home in a little over 2 hours...that was even with 1 potty stop!This is a sneak peek at some of my display for the AQS show. Thought I'd show it, since I didn't have pictures of the trunk show.

Frost!

Just had to go out and get a picture of the frost we had the other morning...I think Thursday, September 15. Seems kind of early....had to get out some of my cold weather clothes! Good time to snuggle in and quilt!

Dotty Tuesday!

I'm not the best at computer things! I'm trying to link to//http://holly-girlsatheart.blogspot.com/ She's having a Dotty Tuesday, so I decided to try and link up....hope it works! This picture is one of my many dotty blocks...will have some of these for sale at the AQS show in Des Moines the end of this month....Sept. 28 thru Oct. 1st. Hope to meet lots of you fellow bloggers there!

2 more samples of Dotter's Puzzle

2 more finishes! Woohoo! These are 2 more of the Dotter's Puzzle samples that I just finished yesterday. Binding is one of my least favorite jobs...the blue one is twin sized, but seemed more like queen moving it around on the machine! I bound the edges of it by machine to save time and hopefully, it will wear better. I will use it on one of the retreat beds upstairs. It is made out of newer fabrics. The pink one is made out of mostly vintage fabrics and is hand-quilted, thanks to my good friend, Diane Ware.
It has been such a beautiful day today to hang the quilts outside. I like to wash my quilts as soon as I get them done to give them that wrinkled look. I try to design my quilts to look like the old-fashioned quilts. Gotta love those antique quilts and hopefully after a few washings, mine will look that way too!

3 finishes in 1 Day!

I'm so excited! I finished the binding on three quilts yesterday! This pink quilt below is one of them. It is made out of feed sack prints and I'll have kits for these at the AQS. The kits will be just the feed sack squares, you can set them together with whatever fabric you choose, or use them in a totally different project if ya want to! I machine quilted this with the pumpkin seed pattern. I'll have to get a closer picture to show you how it looks. Will post other finishes later!