WE HAVE THE WINNERS

We did it, 200 FOLLOWERS.  We did not have any number in mind, but when it hit 190, it is an exciting goal.  When we made 199, we were hoping one more, one more. 

We got our facebook up and running and have 220 friends already.  Facebook is great for posting a quick picture and we love your comments on the work.

Before we give the winners, we want to thank everyone who left us a message, checked our website and joined us on facebook.  We were truly overwhelmed with the response and the kind words.  Janice went to everyone's blogs and she said your comments there were fabulous. 

Also a BIG APOLOGY to all who could not view the website.  Apparantly mozilla firefox does not like one of our fonts, so it won't read it.  We are fixing it right now and hopefully tomorrow EVERYONE can take a look at the website.

We wish we could give everyone an ABBEY BAG,  (we can't live without ours).  Based on your comments, though, we are adding FIVE ABBEY BAG PATTERNS to the giveaway.  That makes 11 winners all together.   I know, I know, you just want to know who won. So here goes:

We chose from 603 entries coming from 34 states all over the United States, 18 countries, and 6 continents.  Don't you love the internet.  I tell my husband all the time we have friends all over the world.  The top three patterns were in order:  1- MATCH BOX   2- ABBEY BAG   3 - GLAD ALL OVER.
The favorite ABBEY BAG was NUMBER 2, the TEAL AND GREEN one.

Every year for birthdays and christmas, when my kids wrapped the presents for each other, they would use an entire roll of scotch tape, sometimes duck tape, and sometimes 10 layers of wrapping paper.  It took forever to get to the present.  Oh, but I digress, hee hee.  You have endured enough of my wrapping. 

The LUCKY WINNERS are:

Abbey Bag # 2  goes to CHRISTINE from Crafty Girl Creations.

ROMEKA from Australia wins her three favorite patterns:  PAPER BACK, UNCLE ALBERT, and GLAD ALL OVER.

JAN HATCHETT from Jackson, Georgia wins her three favorite patterns:  THE ABBEY BAG, MAGGIE MAY, and MY DEAR PRUDENCE.

NANCY ROTHSHILD BIRD from Many, Louisiana wins her favorite pattern:  SEPTEMBER MORN.

LYNNQUILTSALOT  wins her favorite pattern:  MATCH BOX.

QUILT HOLLOW from North Carolina wins her favorite pattern:  THE CLARABELLA BAG.

KRISTY  in Ohio wins an ABBEY BAG pattern.

SONIA from Sydney Australia wins an ABBEY BAG pattern.

QUILTMAVEN from Texas wins an ABBEY BAG pattern.

PURPLE PAINT from Colorado wins an ABBEY BAG pattern.

BEESHEBAGS from Australia wins an ABBEY BAG  pattern.

Ok, winners, email us at abbeylanequilts@yahoo.com with your addresses.

Finished the quilt tops for our newest pattern "MA BELLE".  Janice will quilt them this week, then cut that border with a beautiful scallop.  It is 60" square and very french inspired.

This is the original quilt made with a brand new fabric collection from RJR called Provence.

Second version.  Beautiful purples and greens.

Here is a close-up view.  Just can't wait to see it quilted.

Here is the lifestyle shot for "MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR."  We just LOVE this pattern.

Thanks again everyone.  We are so lucky to be quilters.  Have a great week.  Janice and Marcea

GIVE AWAYS TO CELEBRATE NATIONAL QUILT DAY

What a great Saturday.  Can't get better than playing with beautiful fabrics on NATIONAL QUILT DAY.  Well, wait, yes it can, when we are GIVING AWAY GREAT STUFF, six winners in all.  I know, you are just jumping out of your seat with excitement.  So here goes.

THE PRIZES  - First Place - ONE WINNER will get an ORIGINAL ABBEY BAG made by yours truly.

I spent yesterday whipping up five new abbey bags.  Yes, there are that easy and that fun.  All those fabrics to choose from.  I chose Moda fabrics, one of my favorites.  And as Janice says, "ONE IS NEVER ENOUGH."  If you don't know what an Abbey Bag is, it is a pin cushion and a scrap bag or thread catcher.  Who knew practical could be so cute.

Here are the five to choose from.

NUMBER ONE

NUMBER TWO

NUMBER THREE

NUMBER FOUR

NUMBER FIVE

Remember, choose your favorite one.  It may just be going home with you.

Second Place - We will have TWO WINNERS who will get to choose their THREE FAVORITE PATTERNS from Abbey Lane Quilts.  Find them all on our website, http://www.abbeylanequilts.com/.  Here is a sample.

Third Place -  THREE WINNERS will each get ONE PATTERN from Abbey Lane Quilts.

THE RULES:

1.  Leave a comment at the end of this post and let us know WHICH ABBEY BAG, 1 thru 5, IS YOUR FAVORITE. Be sure to leave a way for us to contact you if you win.


2. Go to our website, http://www.abbeylanequilts.com/ , check out all the pattern, then LIST YOUR THREE FAVORITE in order in your comment.

Get even MORE chances to win by:

2. Mention our giveaway on your blog. Leave the link to your blog so we can visit you too. (TELL ALL YOUR FRIENDS)

3. Become a follower by adding yourself to the follower group on the sidebar. We would love to have you as a blog friend and reader! If you are already a follower, just remind us.

4. More big news. ABBEY LANE QUILTS now has a FACEBOOK PAGE. If you are on FACEBOOK, take a look at our page, WE NEED FRIENDS. Just search Abbey Lane Quilts.  ADD US as one of your friends.
That's it.  GOOD LUCK.  We will randomly pick the winners a week from next Monday.  Oh yeah, Janice went to everyone's blogs during the last giveaway.  It is so fun to see what y'all are doing.

That's it.  Hope you all are as excited as we are.  Can't wait to see all your comments.

Janice and Marcea

FINALLY OVER......THE RESULTS

Look what came in my backyard.

Last week we had seven.  Cute babies too lazy to make their way up the mountain.

When we last had our tour update, I had one MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR quilt done.  Now there are two.  The first quilt was the "organized one.

Quilt number two was the "disorganized" quilt. 

 I used 30 different fabrics for this one, the first one used 20 fat quarters. They are all being made from one line of fabric, Hunky Dory, from Moda.  The fabric will be in stores this month.   I promise you will love the whole collection.   So, now that the two are done, we are now having a debate over which one we like the best.  Janice likes quilt one, I waver back and forth, Nellie and Blake like number 2.  What do y'all think?

QUILT ONE

QUILT TWO

Janice came to Utah last week and we have hit quite a few quilt stores.  A special SHOUT OUT (who says shout out?) to Gracie Lou's in Salem.  There were Abbey Lane Quilts samples everywhere.  It was so fun to see them.  Check out their blog, http://www.gracielousquilts.blogspot.com/ .  They have fun tutorials.  Tell them we sent you.  Janice and I are off to more fabric stores today, so much fabric, so little time.  Last note, we have planned our big giveaway to celebrate National Quilt Day on Saturday, March 20.  Check back then to see how to win.
Have a great week, Janice and Marcea

THE TOUR CONTINUES

We take a moment to interupt this tour to bring you a very important announcement.  MARCH 20 is NATIONAL QUILT DAY!  Woo Hoo.  In honor of this special occasion, we are cooking up a great give away.  Check Back.

Now, we continue with our MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR.
Here it is.  My stack of blocks.

80 to be exact.  They are trimmed and pressed and ready to put together.

There are lots of choices with each block.  For the first quilt, I am putting four of the same block together.  That sounds easy, but there are still choices.

Which way to go, only the tour guide knows for sure.

Now, setting up the rows.  Making sure that everything works together.  This is one of my favorite and yet most frustrating parts of making a quilt.  I lay it all out, and then start changing, over and over until I get it just the way I like it.

That's the mystery part of this quilt, there are so many combinations, no two will look alike.
Now, for the magical.  Those little half inch spacers.

Just place them on the sides of the blocks and sew them together.  NO SEAM MATCHING, YEAH.

That's it, 4 big blocks down, 16 to go.  Check back next week to see the end of our tour.  Finished quilts.  Have a great week.

Janice and Marcea

IT'S A MAGICAL MYSTERY JOURNEY

We have had a very busy week and a half.  Four quilts, two magazines.  Unfortunately we can't show you the pictures, but summer will be popping with Abbey Lane Quilts. 

The good news, working with a great new fabric collection, HUNKY DORY, from Moda, of course.  The fabric will be in the stores in March.  We are really excited about the new pattern, it even has a name, MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR.  What is so cool about this pattern, is just by switching it up a little, you can make three totally different quilts from the same fabrics, and that is just exactly what we are going to do.  I thought it would be fun to show you the process that we go through to create a new project. 

First:  fell in love with the fabric at market last fall, so of course I got a fat quarter bundle.

Second:  had to wait all the way until February to have time to work with it.  I thought it would be really fun to do a sampler of some sort, these are the drawings I ended up with.  Ok, so it's not a sampler, but really cool.

Third: Start playing around with the original design, and this is where the magic part comes in.  One pattern, three totally different looks.  Two of them use just 20 fat quarters and some yardage.  Yeah!!!

Fourth:  This is the fun part, arranging all the pieces into color combinations we like.

For the first quilt, each block uses three fabrics.  Sometimes matching them up it not as easy as you would think but it is really fun playing around.  The second quilt really mixes things up.

Again, this is a magical journey.  Check it out when I use just greens.

That's as far as I have gotten today, but next week, I will finish have finished my MAGICAL MYSTERY JOURNEY.  I can't wait to show you the rest of the construction and two finished tops.  I already know it will be my new FAVORITE.
 

I have several other FAVORITE quilts.  Quilts that like these new ones, I absolutely LOVED the fabrics.  I call them oldies but goodies.   Each quilt was featured at a different quilt market.  They were great then, and are just as great today. 

A GIRL'S BEST FRIEND

UNCLE ALBERT

OCTOPUS GARDEN

Check out these quilts on the website, http://www.abbeylanequilts.com/.

It is snowing outside, which makes it a perfect day to sit inside and sew.  Have a great week.

Janice and Marcea

PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES

I don't normally write about things other than quilts, but this news was just way too important.  CHOCOLATE CHEERIOS!!!

Can't wait to get my hands on some. 

I spent the last week on a cross coutry road trip, Utah to Philadelphia in a truck pulling a u-haul trailer.  My son, his wife and ten month old baby girl were moving from Vegas to Philly.  I sat with the baby, eating a lot of cheerios.  Thus, the added excitement for CHOCOLATE CHEERIOS.

The trip was 2100 miles long.  And we were lucky enough to only be behind one of the worst blizzards in 20 years by 4 hours.  I learned from some cute little old men at McDonalds in Kearney, Nebraska, that the largest quilt museum in the country was in Nebraska.  I still can't figure out why little old men would know this.  I learned that Iowa does not salt or sand their roads, and the wind blows very hard.  In a ten mile stretch east of Des Moines, we saw 145 cars and 10 tractor trailers on the sides of the road, forwards, backwards, upside down.  They also have ice on the roads, 3 inches thick.  I discovered Pennsylvania, not on the turnpike which was closed, but on all the tiny two lane, snow packed back roads at 15 miles an hour.  We made it safely, though.  Philadelphia had 30 inches of snow on the ground, and very few snow plows.  But the fun didn't end there.  Took three extra days to get a flight, then spent 10 hours in the Philly airport and had an overnight stay in Phoenix.  I did have a great time with my granddaughter though.

We got a great email this week from BEV BROOKENS in Fayetteville, Pennsylvania.

Thought I would send you pictures of two finished quilts from your Baby It's For You pattern. Both quilts are awaiting baby girls due any time. I think the pattern is easy and fun to do, and will use it again often.
Bev Brookens

Here are the pics.

They are sooo cute.  Thanks for the pics Bev.

Here is our boy version.

If you are interested in the pattern, head on over to http://www.abbeylanequilts.com/ and you can get all the information. 

It was fun eating cheerios with Baby Genevieve, and seeing all the midwest states, but it is very nice to be back home.  Hope ya'll have a great week.

Janice and Marcea

ABBEY LANE IS IN QUILT MAGAZINE

We are in QUILT  magazine, the April/May issue which hit shelves this week

 We actually made the quilt the week after market last October.  The did the photo shoot the first week of November, and finally in February we get to see it.  We were approached at market by the magazine editors.  She wanted to use "FEELIN ALRIGHT"

We love this quilt and you can see the details on the website, http://www.abbeylanequilts.com/.  Ok, back to the story.  We told the editor we had already sold patterns, so we decided to do a new quilt for the magazine using the same fabric.  It is from Moda, by Sanae and the collection is called "OZ" and just came to the stores a couple of weeks ago.  That means it is sitting there waiting for you to get some.  It is beautiful fabric. 

 

When we told the editor we would do a new quilt, she asked us to make a bedspread size.  That is exactly what we did, the magazine quilt is different from the original and is a full/queen size.  We did bonus pillowcases which the website for QUILT Magazine is offereing a bonus pattern on line.  Here is the link for their website, http://www.quiltmag.com/sewing-projects/quilt110-retro-flower-power-pillowcase/ .  The magazine wrote instructions in a pdf downloadable, here is the link for that, http://www.quiltmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/finalretropillowcase2.pdf .

Ok, enough of the self-promotion, hee hee, let's go ahead and just show you the pages.

Make sure and run, not walk to your local grocery or quilt store and pick up your copy.  I bought 2.  Even better, make one of the two quilts.  You will love it.

I am heading out in the morning to help my son, his wife, and 10 month old baby drive from Utah to Philadelphia, PA.  He was transfered.  Three days in the car.  Wish us luck.  I am taking the camera along, can't wait to see what we see.

Have a great week.

Janice and Marcea