quilt monday

And it's finished.



I ditched each block than meandered/stippled in them. The two white filler blocks are my favorites. Had some fun with a ruler.



Even went crazy in one block and quilted in two hearts. First one was a tad on the flat side(I left it in anyway) but this one is almost perfect. One block I quilted wavy lines. It's not perfect but I love the look



The tshirts are all brand new so they are a crisp black, not the grey/black you see in the picture.

I quilted some straight lines into the borders/sashings. Now to get the binding finished and drag it off to the movies on Thursday!

such a great day

Today was the sewing/craft day at Cindy's church.

We all staked out our area's and away we went. Marcia was working on messenger bags for her daughters. She used Stampin Up's Big Shot to cut out the appliqué pieces.



Sarah had a few projects on the go. She was working on some Christmas stockings when I caught her ironing. See that little brown piece of fabric? That is her template so she knows how far to fold each piece.



Sarah also did some work on a bag for one of her kids and started cutting out another messenger bag. She even squeezed in some stamping and completed a few cards.



Cindy worked on some knitting that switched to making yo-yos for a cute craft we found in the winter issue of Quilts and More. You can see the little tree here. How cute is that?



I started working on my Mystery Quilt. I really really want to get this finished; I have way too many UFO's on the go.





Imagine my surprise when it was time to start packing up, I had only TWO more borders to add to the quilt top!!



It's narrower than I like so I'm thinking the last border I may increase the width of the last border. The side borders are on in this picture, I just didn't get a chance to iron them before it was time to pack up. The next border is a pieced flying geese border; it took me 3 hours to complete the 48 geese blocks and sew them into the border strips. Fingers crossed they actually fit lol!!

snack saturday

Bumbleberry Crumble

Ingredients
1-1/2 Cup rolled oats
1 Cup all-purpose flour
1/2 Cup oat bran
1 Cup demerara or dark brown sugar
1 Cup canola oil
2 Cup each raspberries, blueberries and blackberries

Preparation
Preheat oven to 350 F. In a large bowl, mix dry ingredients with a fork. Pour in oil and continue mixing until ingredients clump together.
Place berries in a shallow, oven-proof 8-cup dish, cover with crumble and bake 40 minutes, or until top is golden.

marathon

Today I am spending at a 12hour craft/sewing day Cindy's church is having.

I warmed up last night by completely two quilt tops. Today I have 4 project packed(2 UFOs, and 1 project I started cutting out and have no idea how far I got and even worse, where I stopped cutting and a bag I need to finish). Plus I threw in an embroidery project I've stalled on. And I am debating about adding a pattern that needs appliquéd; I could trace all my shapes out. Hmmmm, wonder if I have room. I wonder if I can lift this basket lol!



Hope you get some quilting/sewing/craft time this weekend too

so many quilts

That I have done and haven't shown yet. I hope I don't bore you too much showing them all.

This one is one of my favorites. I love this fabric line from Moda and Theresa's piecing is always perfection. All she asks for for quilting is a pattern with Daisies; the rest is up to us.



For this one, she had picked a beautiful yellow Minkee for the backing. I used a pink Lava thread and it just *popped* on the backing.



Quilted with Daisies and Loops

card friday

i have the feeling

That I may have shown this card already. I took a look through some old posts and didn't see it so maybe I haven't.

To be honest, I wasn't thrilled with how this card turned out. It's not bad, just not what I had thought it would be like when I started making it. Sure love the stamp set though!

Tendrils

Johanna pieced this quilt for her 3rd daughter. The day it was due, Johanna ended up having open heart surgery so she asked if we would sew the binding on for her.

Her 4th daughter came and picked it up earlier this week. She loved it and said that when her mom is feeling better, she wants this same quilt pattern on her quilt. Johanna had made each of her daughters a quilt and Teresa is eagerly awaiting hers.

Love how Tendrils quilts up; another current favorite!

i have the bestest friends

A group of friends and I were supposed to get together yesterday for lunch to celebrate my birthday. Due to a screw-up at work, I had to work and couldn't make it. So they celebrated without me.

Today Cindy dropped of my gifties. I wasn't even there and I still get gifties?? How fantastic is that? lol

From Sarah, this beautiful card and a SU stamp set!! LOVE IT!!



And from Kimberly; she made this awesome paperbag card.



Here's the inside.



Tucked inside the pocket,



And hiding in there, this scrabble tile necklace charm!! woo hoo! I may have squealed and jumped up and down ;)



Seriously, bestest friends ever.

wordless wednesday

for the Twilight fans

I have to show this. Rachel from p.s i quilt sent me a little something and the card was/IS the best.



Love it!!


And check out Rachel's latest tutorial over at the Moda Bake Shop. Can't wait to make this wreath!

what day is it?

Our kids are on another school break; we've been off since Thursday and go back this Thursday. I have completely lost what day I'm on now lol. Does't help that I'm not working my regular hours; I seem to be ending up at work every day

So here is quilt monday. This table topper is made from Moda's Peace on Earth. The blue fabric is what inspired my new kitchen paint. I took in a charm square pack and picked the tan, blue, brown and red fabrics in paint chips lol.



I had bought enough of the border fabric to do the binding but I could not find the fabric when I went to bind it so I used leftovers.

Quilted with a new pattern, Bush Berries

the morning after

Last night I threw myself a birthday party. And if I may say so, it was FANTASTIC. It was a Twilight themed party(shocking I know lol) and I had so much fun with the decorating and planning.

I bought a magazine and cut out my favorite pictures and put them on the walls. Also had the kids cut out tons of apple shapes and slapped those up everywhere too. I also had some red, white and black balloons but for some reason I didn't get a picture of them.

I even went as far as buying red lightbulbs for the lamp lol



I saw the quote idea here. Lots of my other party ideas were from here. There were so many great ideas I found by simply Googling.



Cake table


And the cake.


My friend Deana did an amazing job with this cake. It tastes as yummy as it looks too.
The original cake can be seen here



I did apple cookies and dog bone ones too. Thanx to Cindy for icing them for me! Cindy also gave me a sweet 16s roll of Figgy Pudding fabric! YAY!!!



And what might be my favoritest gift; thanx Jill!



Than we sat back and watched Twilight(were I drove everyone crazy quoting the movie lol. I have no idea how many times I've seen it now). Thanx to everyone for making it such an awesome night!

snack saturday

Snowball Chocolate Cake

1 pkg. (2-layer size) devil's food cake mix
1 pkg. (250 g) brick Cream Cheese, softened
1 egg
2 Tbsp. granulated sugar
1 pkg. (4-serving size) Vanilla Instant Pudding
1/4 cup icing sugar
1 cup cold milk
2 cups thawed Whipped Topping
1 cup flaked coconut

HEAT oven to 350ºF.

PREPARE cake batter, in 2-1/2-L ovenproof bowl, as directed on package; scrape side of bowl. Beat cream cheese, egg and granulated sugar until well blended; spoon into centre of batter in bowl.

BAKE 1 hour 5 min. or until toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean. Cool in bowl 10 min. Loosen cake from bowl with knife; invert onto wire rack. Remove bowl. Cool cake completely.

MEANWHILE, beat dry pudding mix, icing sugar and milk in medium bowl with whisk 2 min. Stir in Cool Whip. Refrigerate until ready to use.

PLACE cake on plate; frost with pudding mixture. Cover with coconut. Keep refrigerated.

card friday

Made for a special occasion tonight. The inside of the card reads

You are invited to the first anniversary
of my 35th birthday.
November 6th

Tonight is going to be too much fun. Some of you should know the significance of the apple on the invitations. That should be a hint at to what type of party I'm throwing myself lol.

tidbits

I finally started on my T-shirt quilt on the weekend. And just like everyone kept telling me, it was way easier than I thought once I got started.

I interfaced the wrong side of all the T-shirt fronts. I made the interfacing as big as I could before I started cutting. Than I cut them apart. That was stressful lol.

What amazed me was the T-shirt sizes. Some of the shirts were labeled Xlarge and yet they were smaller than the small T-shirts. Insane! I should mention, I didn't pick the t-shirts by size when I purchased them, I picked them because of the fronts. 1 I lucked out on when I discovered that the back had a logo too.



Two of the shirts were small enough that I ended up having to leave a little bit of the sleeve seam in the square. I don't think it's going to be noticeable. It was either that or lose some of the T-shirt front.

After cutting the shirts, I laid them out on the floor how I wanted them to go. Was happy to see that I could make each block the same width. But I made two rows 14inchs and one row 16 just to shake things up a little.



I started with the middle row, the 16inch wide one, and started fiddling with them to figure out how long the blocks should be. Once I settled on the size, I cut the blocks than sewed on some sashing strips.



I did notice there is a lot of waste. I guess it really isn't waste when I cut the T-shirts so big originally. This is the pile after trimming all the blocks down to the correct size. I did end up running out of black interfacing so a few of them ended up with white. Hope that doesn't show through when I quilt it.

Here's the blocks at the start. And the only picture I'm going to show until it's finished.



I did end up getting the rows sewn together as well. I just need to even up the sides than I can get the top sewn together. It's going together so well that I don't see a problem having it quilted next week. yay!

wordless wednesday

it was a great day

Mom made my favorite cake



Jim had a few laughs with my flashlight gift



And socks. I seriously dislike socks.



But made up for it with my fav chocolates. He even remembered to get them in dark chocolate. And no, I'm not sharing.



And than shocked me with this.



Wonder if I can finish it before Christmas.

birthday fun continues

Pretty toes



Lunch with my sweetie



And the bestest birthday card

it's my birthday!

YAY! All about me day!! lol!!

The festivities started on Thursday when I came home from work and sitting on the table was a package from my sister in law. I happily tore into it(she finds the bestest gifts!) and discovered goodies from Bath and Body Works; the Twilight Woods line! woo hoo!! Body lotion, bath gel and a perfume. I love them!

quilt monday

This one is going waaaay back. To almost the very begining of my quilting life. And the only log cabin quilt I have made that I've kept(I'm dying to make a flannel one for us)



I quilted this quilt on my domestic machine. I don't think I even knew about longarm machines when I made this lol. I was going to show you the back(it has some loverly pleats and puckers lol) but I forgot to take the pictures earlier today and now it's just too dark to get any good pictures.

snack saturday

Apple Pecan Muffins

Ingredients
1-1/2 Cup (375 ml) all-purpose flour
1 Cup (250 ml) whole wheat flour
1 Cup (250 ml) shredded canadian brick cheese
1 Tablespoon (15 ml) baking powder
1 Teaspoon (5 ml) ground cinnamon
1/4 Teaspoon (1 ml) salt
1-1/3 Cup (325 ml) diced peeled apples (crispin, spartan, idared)
1/2 Cup (125 ml) chopped toasted pecans
1 egg
1 Cup (250 ml) milk
3/4 Cup (175 ml) packed brown sugar
1/4 Cup (50 ml) butter, melted

Preparation
Preheat oven to 375°F (190°C).
Butter nonstick muffin pans or line with paper liners.
In a large bowl, combine all-purpose and whole wheat flours, cheese, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Stir in apples and pecans.
In another bowl, whisk together egg, milk, sugar and butter.
Pour over dry ingredients and stir just until moistened.
Spoon into prepared muffin pan.
For a presentation purpose, sprinkle with extra diced apples and chopped toasted pecans.
Bake for about 22- 25 minutes or until tops are firm to the touch.
Let cool in pan for 5 minutes. Transfer to rack to cool completely.

card friday