I Like Thursday # 33 ~ The Last Blooms of Summer

Time to treasure the last blooms of summer.

It is chilly and rainy and winter is coming soon.

My nastursiums, planted by seed along the garden wall,

are still colorful.

My cosmos, also planted by seed, have been blown over by the strong winds

but they are still waving the feathery greens and pretty pink blooms. 

My Arizona Sun Gaillardia have spread and this new plant is still blooming.

I love the puff balls that form when the flowers are gone. 

The lavender is still putting out fragrant little purple ends.

Wherever I look I see the reminders that life renews

and beauty can be found in small things ...

... like my Grand-darling Everly's beautiful smile.

Since it is chilly outside, I have had to turn on the heat sometimes.

Nutmeg has found the small quilt folded up on the radiator 

for warm and comfy cat napping. 

Katniss and Maestro are nearby and are wishing

that all of you may have angels visit you this Halloween. 

I am sharing today with the 

I Like Thursday Bloggers @ Not Afraid of Color

where every week we pause to think about all the good things in life,

big and small. 

I have been seeing lots of trick or treat for fabric signs on social media ...

I am enjoying all the fabric treats this morning on the

Fat Quarter Shop Market Finds LiveStream

so many pretty new fabrics on the way!

So much in there, I will have to watch it again later.

:) Happy Halloween Thursday! :) 

My Pick-a-Pumpkin Challenge Quilt~ Oh My Gourd

My "Oh My Gourd" quilt

for the

Pick a Pumpkin Challenge on the Jolly Jabber

I have been working on this project off and on all month

I sewed the blocks Here

These pretty fabric are

Dew & Moss By Art Gallery from Fat Quarter Shop 

Quilted Here

on my Janome

The background and backing fabrics is 

 Shabby Green by Lori Holt for Riley Blake

I really enjoyed making this quilt.

I chose pumpkin fabrics that I can leave up on my wall long before and long after Jack-o-lantern day comes and goes.

Orange and green is a favorite of mine.

The folded quilt below it is a quilty treasure.

my Bright Hopes Quilt 

made for me by my online quilty friends in 2013

when I was having my first eye and uterine cancer surgery. 
Today I am cancer free.

It is a gray damp and chilly day here.

My bright and happy quilts chase the chill away.

:-) 

#FQSpickapumpkin 

Enjoying Quilt Market from Home

My favorite find was this post of the Tilda fabric booth

From Julie @ The Intrepid Thread

Look at the beautiful blue bird blocks!

The bird block is pieced!!

Oh, my ... that quilting!!!!! 

I will visiting
Tilda's World
online often in anticipation of this pattern release.
Maybe it will be a free one. 
If it is in a book, no problem.

I buy Tilda books just to read and look at the pictures
with a cup of tea.

This comes as no surprise as I do love everything Tilda, but there were so many 
interesting sites in all the photos of quilt market.
Sew many fabrics I want to get my fingers on.
My life is sew happy.

May you sew sew happy, too  ... <3 

Do you have a favorite find from quilt market?

:-) 

Today is my 10th Blogiversary!

Today is the 10 Year Anniversary of my blog!

Here is my First Post

I started this humble blog as a personal journal of my quilting Life in the Scrapatch.

As you can see,  my first efforts were small.

For many years I had about 25 followers, all friends from the online forums
where I learned much about quilting.

In a small way, the blog was also my efforts to "give back" or "pay forward" to others
how they helped me on my quilting journey.
So I have offered free patterns and tutorials and tips in my posts
that I hope have been helpful to my readers.

Although I am blessed with many more followers now
I am still a small time blogger in the online quilting world
and that is all I aspire to be.

I am sometimes surprised when I add up all the email, bloglovin', GFC and other followers
 that you add up to almost 3,000 followers.

To celebrate I am hosting this small giveaway.

I found this cute

10 Year Anniversary Magnetic Pin Bowl by Riley Blake 
@ Fat Quarter Shop

and purchased one for me and one for one of my readers.

This Giveaway Now Closed 

Winner Announced Here ~ Katie Q ~ Comment #63

To  be eligible to win this one in the package, I am using my old system of hosting giveaways.

To be eligible to win his giveaway:

please leave one lovely comment!

This offer is open to all, anywhere in the world.

You do not need to be a follower to win.

As a special thanks to my wonderfully supportive followers,

new and old,

I am offering a second chance to win.

If you are a follower, you may leave a 2nd comment 

telling me how you follow.

You do need to leave an email address where I can contact you 

to let you know if you are the lucky winner.

My blog does not allow anonymous comments to keep away the robots.

If you do not have an ID to leave a comment, 

you may email me at

scrapatches@gmail.com

and I will enter your comment for you.

This giveaway closed at midnight EST on Monday, November 4th 

and will be mailed by Saturday, November 9th. 

I will use a random number generator to choose the winner.

I will announce the winner on Tuesday, November 5th. 

Best of luck!

My blog has been a very successful and enjoyable endeavor and hope
this is the start of 10 more wonderful years.

Thank you for reading and supporting my quilty efforts ... <3 

Quilty Quizzy

Taking the Quilt-oween Quiz

Quiltoween Quiz @ Broadcloth Studios


I am ... 

Avast Ye!

Hand over those quilty treasures or prepare to walk the plank! 

Arrrgggggg!  

:-)

Want some more quilty fun ... and maybe win a prize?

I am enjoying being a "stay-at-home-quilter" and following the 

Fall Quilt Market in Houston at places like

FQS @ Fall Quilt Market Sunday

Click Here for How to Play this fun Quilt Game

Have fun ! 

Fall in the Scrapatch

Enjoying the colors of fall in my garden today.

Fall, Leaves, Fall

by Emily Brontë

"Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;

Lengthen night and shorten day;

Every leaf speaks bliss to me

Fluttering from the autumn tree.

I shall smile when wreaths of snow

Blossom where the rose should grow;

I shall sing when night’s decay

Ushers in a drearier day."

From A Poem for Every Night of the Year

What a lovely quilt these colors would make. 

May you weekend be happy and colorful ... :-)

Quilting, Quilting, Quilted

I finished the quilting on one of my projects today.

This is the back.

Can you guess which one?

Here is Clue Two

Feeling better today and a little more sew accomplished. 

Hope to have this one done and ready to show by the end of the weekend.

Have a Happy Quilty Weekend!

I Like Thursday # 32 ~ I Like Nifty Novelty Fabrics

Quilt-As-You-Go Hand Stitched Halloween Hexies

This fun fabric plan seemed the perfect seasonal choice 

for my project for the

Nifty Novelties Blog Hop

What is a novelty fabric?

Quilting 101. com says ...

"Novelty fabrics are a fantastic way of making a fun, light hearted and themed quilt. Novelty quilts are a great conversational piece. They are typically made of fabrics with quirky patterns or images."

This fabric is

Fab-Boo-Lous by Dani Mogstad for Riley Blake Designs
which is a colorful Halloween novelty fabric.

This project is a QAYG Hexie method that uses up 

small pieces of leftover batting.

It is perfect for charm packs or scraps.

I cut 5 inch squares and trimmed the corners

leaving my seam allowance for turning and stitching.

 I am using some scrap fabric from my 

Fab-Boo-Lous Witchy Stitchy Table Runner

I have been suffering a seasonal cold or allergies and have been under the weather 

and thought I would be able to complete this while resting

but it did not happen. 

The plans were to make a pillow like this ... 

Here is my tutorial for a completed pillow project

made with this novelty  "Nancy Drew" fabric charm pack.

 I have learned a new trick since making that pillow,

I now use a Sewline Fabric Glue Pen

... to glue down my seam allowance to the back before.

This did make the sewing easier and less time consuming.

 I use Aurifloss for hand quilting the front.

This method worked very well.

I love the happy whimsy of novelty fabrics.

Put two together when you hand quilt and these would make cute novelty coasters. 

I am going to keep making these until I have enough for a pillow cover.

When I started blogging many years ago, 

novelty fabrics were very much a unique type of fabric.

They were holiday or themed fabrics ... 

... or kids fabrics for quilts like this

  I Spy Baby Quilt

This is a 

Free Pattern Here from Bonnie Hunter @ Quiltville

Today these whimsical little details are everywhere in modern fabric.

I think is may be largely due to the trend toward "modern vintage,"

what was once old is now trendy.

I am think that 30's feedsacks may have been the origin 

of the novelty fabrics in quilting cottons of today. 

Think about all the little foxes and owls and birds and bees and umbrellas and boots

and cats that pop up in modern fabric lines.

Novelties in quilting fabrics are everywhere.

Even the digital print fabrics like this
Dream Big Panel
are actually specialty novelty prints.

My original thought for this re-scheduled blog hop was to quilt this
Dream Big Leaf panel on my longarm,
but my dreams proved a little big for me this time.
My apologies for not completing a project for this blog hop.
I hope you have enjoyed my novel post.

I am sharing today with these

Nifty Noveties Blog Hop Quilters

Thursday, October 24

Quilting and Learning - What a Combo
Days Filled With Joy
Life in the Scrapatch (you are here)
Bumbleberry Stitches

Before you leave enter this ...

Nifty Novelty Blog Hop Fat Quarter Bundle Giveaway 

Fat Quarter Bundle of 

"Can You Dig It" by Dear Stella for Timeless Treasures 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This giveaway is organized by and hosted by and will be sent by ...

Marian @ Seams To Be Sew

Here is the giveaway information from her blog:

"All winners will be drawn and notified on November 5th ...
All winners will be notified via my gmail or yahoo.com email address.
You’ll have three days to answer the email, after that, the winner will be redrawn.
The average bundle should ship right around the price of $4.00  USD
Your invoice will also include the Paypal fee also which is around 40 cents.
they will all ship via Paypal shipping.
Canadian and Overseas rates will differ"

Marian will email you if you win. 

Best of luck with the winning thing!

Thank you, Marian, for organizing this novel blog hop and giveaway! 
There will be different giveaways on each stop of the hop. 

<<<<< <3 >>>>>

Since it is Thursday, I am also linking up with the friendly

I Like Thursday Bloggers @ Not Afraid of Color

where every week we pause to think about all the good things in life,

big and small. 

Happy Thursday!