"A Year of Making Life Beautiful" Blog Tour

** GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED**

Do you know Melissa of Lilac Lane? If you don't, you really should get to know her. I "met" Melissa a could of years ago, both through her wonderful blog and also as a member of the charity bee "A Dozen Quilters". I saw that they were losing a couple members and asked Melissa if I could join, especially since they were turning their focus to charity projects. She gladly said yes. It was a pleasure to work with her through a year of projects to help those less fortunate than us, but an equal pleasure getting to know her better as well.

I am sure some of you remember me mentioning a couple of secret projects I was working on this Spring. Well, they were for Melissa. The first you saw a while back - her super cute "Picnic In the Park" quilt pattern, which she released this Spring and was also recently featured at her booth at the International Quilt Market. And then came the second secret project... Imagine my surprise when she asked me if I would also be willing to make a quilt for her new book, "A Year of Making Life Beautiful: 45 projects to bake, grow, craft and sew throughout the year". I was honored. Seriously? I'm not worthy!

Melissa sent me her elegant, yet easy, "Make Life Quilt" Pattern along with a beautiful array of Hello Luscious fabrics by Basic Gray for Moda. This gorgeous quilt can be made from pre-cuts. I don't usually work with a lot of pre-cuts but, let me tell you, it made life so much easier not to have to worry about cutting all that fabric. It makes for a quilt top that comes together quickly, yet all your friends and family will think you labored for weeks! She also entrusted me to quilt it too. Whoa! Talk about pressure. It was actually the first quilt I quilted on my new machine, and despite it's size it quilted like a charm! But I'm proud to say it's being featured in the month of April in her book, and also was at her booth at Market. My picture can't even do it justice. The sun was at the wrong angle when I had to take the picture!

That's not even the best part. I got an advance copy of the book, and let me tell you, the whole thing is simply delicious! Melissa has such an amazing sense of style and grace. And her warm and gentle personality shines in each and every one of the projects featured in "A Year of Making Life Beautiful". And each project really does help beautify your life even more.

(Make Life Quilt)

Melissa taken her gift for making life beautiful and translated it to the page with all sorts of fun and yummy projects to create. Each month she cleverly features a variety of sewing, cooking, gardening and craft projects that you can make in your own home. No matter your walk of life or where you live, there's something in this book bound to call out, "Make Me!"

(Stars & Stripes Quilt)

I, personally, can't wait to try making the Memory Bag. I mean, how genius is that? I wish I had seen that before I left Chicago and threw away all of my bulky sweaters!

(Memory Bag)

Just flipping through the pages gives me a sense of calm and peace, so rarely found in my hectic life. Be sure to get your own copy today! They're available directly from Melissa or on Quiltwoman in either spiral bound or hardcover editions. BUT one of my lucky followers and win their very own copy! Melissa is generously donating a copy of her book "A Year of Making Life Beautiful" to one of my lucky readers. So I'm hosting a giveaway! All you have to do to enter is leave me a comment. You can tell me anything but if you're at a loss, tell me what you would like to do to make your life more beautiful. That's it. I'll keep the giveaway open until Monday, June 18, 2012. One comment per person. International Entries welcome. But please, if you're a "No Reply" commenter make sure I have a way to contact you. Good luck!

** GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED**

Picnic In The Park

EEK! I can finally show you one of the super special, super secret projects that I've been working on "undercover" for the past couple months. Back in January my friend Melissa mentioned that she was looking for a few cross stitchers to help her out on a project. I love to cross stitch in my free time so I volunteered to help her out.

(ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF MELISSA STRAMEL )

And I am so excited to announce that TODAY she's releasing her awesome pattern! Run, don't walk over to Melissa's gorgeous blog, Lilac Lane. If you're not already one of her regular readers, you should be. She's amazing, super sweet, so creative and has so many amazing patterns available on her site. I am more than honored to be one of her featured stitchers on her latest pattern "Picnic In The Park".

(ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF MELISSA STRAMEL )

I showed a couple sneak peeks of the super cute bike I stitched for her (mine is the green one in top left I think) while I was working on it. I always love to have some hand stitching with me when I'm traveling especially. And this super cute bike was the perfect travel companion. Additionally Melissa's cross stitch pattern was so easy to read. What I really, really love about this pattern is the clever way Melissa incorporated cross stitch into a quilt. How cool is that? We cross stitched the bikes onto linen, rather than regular ol' cross weave Aida, which made them super quilt friendly.

(ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF MELISSA STRAMEL )

But I have to say I sweated this one out. She needed our bikes back by the end of March so she could make the quilt and shoot it in time for the pattern release. I was done with the bike and working on the flowers when I decided I was going o South America in the middle of March, so I needed to have t done and sent off before I left - sooner than I anticipated. I had all my time planned out to finish on time, and then life throws you curve balls and I found myself, the night before I was leaving for Argentina, with a few more flowers to fill. So I woke up at 3 am (I can sleep on the plane) to work through the wee hours of the morning to finish it. A snag here, a fantasy baseball draft at our house there and two flowers to fill in, I still wasn't finished when my taxi arrived. So I brought an envelope with plenty of extra postage on it (I hoped) and hopped on the plane, intending to drop it in the mailbox when I landed in Washington DC.

(ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF MELISSA STRAMEL )

I finished it up on the plane with plenty of time to spare (although I forgot my black thread so I couldn't fill in the spokes) unfortunately my plane was late and left me with only 20 minutes to make my connection to Buenos Aires. I just want to send a super huge shout out "Thank You" to the man sitting next to me (eying my stitching with such curiosity) he was my savior. Not only did he tell the people in front of us to let me off first because of my connection, he even took my package for me and mailed it to Melissa and she got it! I will always owe him a debt of gratitude.

(ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF MELISSA STRAMEL )

Oh my, I love this pattern so much. I think Melissa is so super talented and you all should go check out her amazing work right now!