Grow Your Blog Party! + Giveaway x3!

If you have followed my blog for any amount of time you know that I love blog parties of all kinds!  I am a "people" person and love to be where people are! When Vicki of 2 Bags Full put out the word that she was going to host a virtual worldwide blog party, I could not pass it up!  There are over 400 bloggers taking part in this years party so head over to Vicki's blog once you finish your visit here at my blog to see the entire list!  Some will have giveaways so you don't want to miss the chance to sign up for those.

Vicki has asked us to tell a little bit about ourselves so the readers coming through can get to know us a little better. I will start off by saying that I used to blog at Pig Tales and Quilts, www.pigtalesandquilts.com but decided to change the name of my blog because the focus of the blog had changed somewhat.  So I retired the old blog and built this new one here at Stitch and Quilt.  I have left Pig Tales and Quilts online so if you ever feel like going over to see my old posts, they will always be there.  So, welcome to my new blog one and all... current readers and new readers alike! If you like what you see and want to follow along, please feel free to follow me via Google Friend Connect or Blog Lovin.  I would love to have you as part of my blogging family.

If you followed me before on the old blog, you will need to re-follow me here to continue to get my updates.   I don't want to lose any of my friends!

My granddaughter  Allie at 8 years old with her first quilt.

Now all grown up at 11!

So, where do I begin?  My name is Thearica (pronounced Theresa).  My dad spelled my name when I was born and I have no idea why he spelled it this way but I can say, I love my name!  I know of one other person in the U.S.A. who spells their name the same way... she contacted me via my old blog about 2 years ago to let me know.  I tried to strike up a friendship with her as I was curious to know where she was from but I never heard back from her.

My granddaughter Emilee in 2014 at the age of 3.

I am originally from Northwest Alabama but have resided in North Carolina since 2003.  I am a mother to two beautiful girls and grandmother of 3, 2 granddaughters and a grandson.  I am married to the sweetest man and live with him in North Carolina!  We live on a tobacco farm and make our living growing the crop... My hubby has been farming for 37 years now.. and is looking to retire hopefully in the next year!  Then we are moving to Alabama, back to my hometown!

My grandson Parker leading a gospel hymn at worship service
His friend giving him moral support by standing down by the podium.
That is what friends are for, right. :)

My interests include quilting, sewing crafts, crazy quilting, cross stitching, knitting, reading historical romances and traveling.  I don't tend to just do one thing at a time so my UFO pile is quite hefty.  I keep several projects going so I can change back and forth so as not to get bored with any one thing.

One thing I truly enjoy is creating crazy quilt pieces revolving around someone's life.  I want the embellishing I add to the quilt to tell a story about the individual and to play off of true events that happened or are happening in that person's life.  I find I create better in this venue than just trying to embellish a block  that has no particular meaning.

This is one such block that I created for my mother-in-law for her 79th birthday.  She loves God, hence the saying I wrote on the background, "Be silent, and hear the whisper of God".. she has a yard full of flowers, a wheelbarrow that sits in the side yard always overflowing with flowers, she has an arbor and wisteria trees.. she is a sewist, hence the button cluster.. You can look at this block and every thing you see has meaning to Mildred.

Another custom block was for my granddaughter Allie.  I suffered with achilles tendonosis in 2010 and could not walk for 4 months so this piece was created during that time.  It kept me sane and happy as I was always smiling while working on it.  You will see Allie's name in the top left corner of the piece.  At the time I made this piece she loved all things to do with pink.  All of her clothes had to be pink, I kid you not! and she loved to have tea parties in her room.  When we came for visits, she would always take my hubby's hand and he knew what he was in for.  My grandchildren love him because he does take up time with them and he allows them to subject him to play time, even if it is a tea party.  You will see fairies and animals all over the piece and a saying "Come little fairies, hiding among the flowers, Come and have a sip of tea and we will play for hours".  Look closely as I have hidden a few fairies. :)

I had it framed to hang on the wall in her bedroom.

You can tell a little more about the details in this photo.

Here are a few close ups..

Allie has since outgrown her pink phase and the tea parties as she is now 11 years old.  She has moved on to deer hunting and loves horses and now her bedroom is all decked out in lasso's, horses and camoflauge!  I asked her this past December if she wanted me to take her crazy quilt piece down and bring it home with me for safe keeping for later and she quickly informed me that it was never leaving her wall!  Of course this grandma smiled really big!  I need to get busy now and do Emilee a piece to hang in her bedroom but she is only 4 and pretty rambunctious so I will wait a couple more years so she will know better how to take care of it.

I am currently in the process of  collecting things to make myself a crazy quilt wallhanging depicting my life.  One of the things I will add to my piece revolves around me learning to ride a bicycle.  The very first time I got on my blue bike, I rode smack-dab in to the clothesline pole!!!  How can anyone hit something so small?  I did, that is for sure.  When the front tire made contact, of course over I went! Mother came running but I wasn't hurt, thank goodness.  She wiped my tears and promptly made me get right back on.  I now know why she did that as I may have never tried again!  I am looking forward to starting this piece and will share progress photos on the blog.

Now I will show you some of the things I have created over the years.

I love to take part in swaps and these blocks were for an embroidered heart block swap.

I started a group blog with fellow art quilters.

This was made to the theme of Baubles Bangles and Beads.

I made this t-shirt quilt for my baby girls 30th birthday.

I love to hand quilt when my hand will let me.

This was for a dear friend in Canada as a group comfort quilt.

Some of my free-hand machine quilting

more  free-hand machine quilting

I love to take part in round robins. 

The green background row was my work for Rhondi's quilt.

I made this pillow to try out a new to me product.  Now I can't remember the name of the product.  Oh well, I loved the pillow! :)

Some of my latest crazy quilting...

Have you seen enough photos?  Are you ready to hear about the giveaway I am hosting? Well, let's get to it then.  Since Valentine's day is right around the corner, I have 2 sets of these storage boxes.  They are kept inside a heart shaped box to help keep them organized.  I am giving away 2 of these sets! There will be 2 winners! (the pigs are not included)

I am also giving away this Pinny that I made for a previous blog hop over at Sew We Quilt.  The third name drawn will win this lovely little pin keeper.

the backside (tools not included)

How do you win?  Simple, leave me a comment.  That is all there is to it.  If you do not have your email visible in your Google profile, you need to type it in to your comment as I will have no way to contact you should I draw your name.  You would have to forfeit the win and it would go to the next person.  Good luck everyone!

You do not have to follow my blog to win but if you like what you saw while here on the visit, I would love to have you choose either BlogLovin or the Google Friend Connect gadget so you can get my updates.  There will be much fun on the blog over the year.

The giveaway will remain open until February 15th, my wedding anniversary!  Everyone is eligible! I never leave out my international readers from the chance to win any of my giveaways!

Don't forget to head on over to Vicki's to see the other bloggers who are participating in this year's Grow Your Blog Party!