Cooking and Quilting

You have probably realized that I don’t talk about cooking very much and that’s because I don’t do very much cooking. Dan likes to cook and I like to quilt and it seems to work out just fine. Every once in a while, I get into a cooking mood and last night was one of those times. We had a boat-load of fresh veggies leftover from Christmas Day and I wanted to make stirfry.



Looks pretty good so far, don’t you think. It turned out well and we enjoyed it. OK, enough of that cooking stuff and on to the sewing room.

I had a very productive night in there last night. I finisded sewing the borders on the breast cancer quilt so I can start the quilting this afternoon.



I got a good start on Andrew’s I-spy quilt. I would really like to give this to him as a big brother gift when the new baby is born, which will be on Friday, January 2nd. But he will be at Jack and Jerri’s (his other grandparents) house for a few days, so I don’t think I need to have it done by Friday.

Stashbusting report - 12/29/08

WOW, it's a good thing this year is almost over, because my resolve seems to be slipping.

I bought quite a bit of fabric this past weekend, at least for me anyway! I'm making a t-shirt quilt for a customer with breast cancer fabric in the sashing and borders. Of course, I don't have any of that in my stash, so I bought 4 yards of it at Joanns, along with contrasting bright pink. I have the outer borders cut and ready to sew on tonight.



On Saturday, I bought fabrics for upcoming Nickel Swaps, 2 of them for an online swap and 2 for the Common Threads swap. I will be buying a yard each month in 2009 for the CT one, but won't be using any of them until 2010, when we have a Nickel Workshop.



I also bought a kit for a throw at Joanns for $10, but when I got home I read that it is DRY CLEN ONLY, so that one is going back tonight. I got 6 fabric book kits for $2.48 each that I couldn't pass up. I'm not counting that, because I won't add anything to them when I make them and won't list them as stash used.



Fabric Added This Week - 9 yards
Fabric Added Year to Date - 128.875 yards

Fabric Used This Week - 6 yards
Fabric Used Year to Date - 440.75 yards

YEAR TO DATE NET TOTAL: 311.875

Stashbusting Queen!

I have proclaimed myself the Stashbusting Queen! Well actually someone else has sort-of given me that title, but anyway, I would like to thank JudyL for her encouragement and ongoing support, Vicky for initiating the challenge on one of my online groups, and everyone who came to my blog this year to see how much stash I busted. The prize I received is a $250 gift certificate to the Fat Quarter Shop.....can you believe that! I spent a long time online last night trying to figure out what I wanted to buy and after a year of being very frugal, it was hard for me to decide what to buy, so I put some things in my shopping cart and even called my daughter to see if there was something she would like.

Of course, one of the first things I thought of was the fact that whatever I get, I will have to add to my list for 2009. Yikes.....that means starting off with a negative number!

22nd UFO Finished

I finished the binding on another UFO this afternoon. It has big pieces of flannel, minkee and cotton to make a real snuggly quilt. It will be for my new grandbaby scheduled to make an appearance on January 2nd, if it's a boy. If Baby H is a girl, then she will receive one of the quilts I finished earlier this year. According to my list over there >>, this is #22 of the UFOs I listed on January 1, 2008. The UFOs I finished for Finn's New Years Challenge were all started and finished this year.


I know that I still have lots of UFOs to finish, but Bonnie Hunter is doing a new years day mystery quilt and I really want to do this one too. I have to work until noon that day, but should be able to get in some sewing after I get home.

Here is a photo of Shelly and Tammy showing us they still have money left after visiting 3 quilt shops today in Indy.

The Day After Christmas

Whew, what a day! It was one of the best Christmas Days I can remember. Dan and I enjoyed a yummy breakfast of cinnamon spice pancakes, ham and eggs. The pancake mix was courtesy of Mel, who sent me the most wonderful gift bag of items as a thank you for sending her some of Dan's pickled jalapenos.

The we opened our gifts and the most amazing thing happened.
Dan bought me this new thermal coffee maker:


And I bought him this new thermal coffee maker:


After much laughter, we decided to keep the Cuisanart one and we made some more coffee. Several hours later, the coffee was still steaming hot. I think we will be happy with this one.

I worked on some Christmas slippers for the adult females that would be joining us in the afternoon. Here are some photos of them opening their slippers. Hopefully, Kale's girlfriend Lynn doesn't think I'm a nut case!! I think Julie had it figured out before she opened her package.



I also finished hand sewing the binding on this courthouse stars queen size quilt for Julie and Jim. I finished it at 3:45 and they arrived at 4:00. I had put it into the washer just before they arrived and switched it to the dryer during dinner, so it was ready for them when it was time to open gifts. I will have them take a photo of the quilt and post it later.

One More Sleep!

I used to get SO excited on Christmas Eve when my children were young and not much has changed here. I awoke this morning with so much excitement I could hardly keep from whistling and singing Christmas songs as we were getting ready for work. Only a half-day here for me and then I need to brave the grocery store for a few last minute items. Then, it's home to prepare side dishes and desserts for tomorrow, and just a little hand binding to be done.

I can't show you everything I've been working on in the last couple days because they are gifts for regular readers of my blog. I did make 2 more treasure boxes last night, one for a girl who loves orange, purple and bright colors, and the other for a cheerleader who's school colors are red and white.

Treasure Boxes

I finished up the Treasure Box bags for my granddaughters tonight and they are just cute as can be. I used fabrics representing their school colors and have lots of goodies to put inside.
The pattern is from the Serendipity Quilt Company and they went together very quickly.

Stashbusting Report - 12/22/08

Fabric Added This Week - 0 yards
Fabric Added Year to Date - 119.875 yards

Fabric Used This Week - 8.25 yards
Fabric Used Year to Date - 434.75 yards

YEAR TO DATE NET TOTAL: 314.875

I was too busy this past week to buy any fabric. I do need to go to Joanns today and pick up some zippers, but no new fabric in my plans.

The Black and White Photo Quilt and Aloha

I finished up the binding this morning and Jessica picked up the quilt she is giving to her mom this afternoon. I printed her photos on EQ Printables and used them as the center of the square blocks. I love how this turned out and as usual, I would like to make one of these, or maybe one for each of my children. The flower design is from the Pajama Quilter DVD and combined with some loops, is just what she wanted.




I needed to quilt some fabric for a project and used my newest pantograph from Urban Elementz, Aloha by Kimberly Ritter. You can see a peek of it over there >>>

I signed up for their pantograph of the month program and so far I'm pretty happy with it. The next one coming will be Snapdragons, which I like also.

My Daughter, The Quilter, Part 2!

The last post was all about the quilts she finished and this post will be about her. Love you Julie! I think she looks just cute as can be. I know she is getting uncomfortable, but there's just 3 more weeks to go, until Andrew, Matt and Tony have a little brother or sister. We discovered last night that it is pretty hard for her to quilt from the front of the machine. It's a good thing she wanted to do pantographs.


I have been watching the blog of another mom expecting about the same time as Julie and wanted to take a picture of Julie to see how they compare. Pretty much the same... don't you think?

My Daughter, The Quilter!

I feel so lucky that my daughter, Julie, shares my love of quilting. She spent the night and did the quilting on two quilts she will be giving as Christmas gifts to her neice and nephew. They are really cute quilts, too. I am going to try to make one of the I-spy ones for Andrew. Don't know if I will get it done by Christmas though. There are 2 of each block on the I-spy quilt so the kids can try to find the matching squares.....what a great idea! She used stars and loops panto, Hobbs 80/20 batting and Lava Deep Sea thread.





This backing fabric is just yummy!!


This bright quilt is from a fat quarter tower from Nancy J's at quilt camp and the pattern is from the Take Two and Add A Few book. She used popcorn panto, Hobbs 80/20 batting and Lava colorburst thread for this one

Little Gifts

Last night while Vicki was quilting her santa wall hanging I was prepping these little gift items. The apron is for a co-worker's son who loves to cook. It is a Simplicity pattern...don't remember the number.



The dish towel was purchased at the Dollar Tree and the cookie fabric at Quilter's Harvest. I know you can buy holiday towels pretty cheap, but I just love to be able to say, "I made it myself!" I have fond memories of making and decorating sugar cookies with my mom as a child and with my children when they were young, so this fabric is special to me.



The tea towels for these bibs are from the Dollar Tree also. I have quite a collection of tea towels to make lots of different bibs. I especially like the ball fringe on the white one.

The Holiday Party

I worked with 3 others, Mary, Barb and Denise, in planning the holiday party for our guild last night and it was so much fun. We started the evening off with an unwrapping game. Each table had a wrapped box, a scarf, and a pair of oven mitts. One person was chosen to start the unwrapping and had to put on the scarf and the oven mitts and unwrap their gift box. They then passed it to the next person who put on the scarf and the oven mitts and unwrapped a smaller box.



The first table to unwrap all 8 boxes was the winner, and here is the winning table.



We settled things down for a quiet game, a word search provided by Mary that proved to be lots of fun. The winning table for this game got to be first up at the treat table.



Then we divided up into 4 groups, based upon the square of fabric pinned onto us as we entered the room. Barb read the Mr. & Mrs. Wright story and we passed our wrapped FQs around with lots of laughter.

Lots of yummy food, and show and tell finished off the evening.




Vicki and Mona with big smiles waiting in line!

Meals on Wheels Placemats

About a month ago, I read on someone's blog or a guild website (can't remember where) about a guild making holiday placemats for the Meals on Wheels program. I contacted our local office and asked if they would be interested in distributing placemats for the holidays. They were thrilled and I challenged guild members to make a placemat. A purchased placemat could be brought if time was a factor since they had only a month. I had no idea what the response would be and am so happy to report that at last nights meeting a total of 83 placemats were brought in. WOW, I am just amazed.

So, I got to work this morning and laid them all out to take a photo and here you go:



I loaded them up in my car and off I went to deliver them. I got to the building that I thought was Meals on Wheels, but the name on the building was Midland Meals - Lafayette Kitchen. Oh well, I thought, this must be the place. I took them inside and told the receptionist who I was and that I had talked with someone about a month ago. She went in search of who I might have talked to. The president and several others came out to see them and they oohed and aahed, but couldn't figure out who I talked to. Finally we discovered that they are a completely different organization from Meals on Wheels. They do the same thing, but provide meals to a much larger area. The president gave me his business card and asked for us to provide THEM with placemats next year. So, off to Meals on Wheels I went and the receptionist there knew exactly who I was and was so happy to see how many placemats we provided.

Good Job Common Threads Guild Members!

Guild Challenge and the Shhh Quilt

Last night at guild we had the reveal of our challenge quilts. Early this year we were to bring in a ziplock quart size bag of 10-20 fabric scraps no smaller than 4" square. We picked a bag and the challenge was to make something using those scraps. We could add our own fabrics and I added muslin and 1 floral print. I have shown tiny shots on my blog and now you get to see the whole thing. It didn't win any prizes, but I like it and will find a place to hang it after the holiday.

Here are my leftover scraps.



Linda's challenge quilt is here, but the photo doesn't do it justice. It is beautiful in person.

This is a shot of the "shhh, it's a secret quilt." My friend Janet made this redwork quilt and was planning to hand quilt it. Years ago, she had Debra baste it on her longarm and Janet started hand quilting it. It is a king size quilt and she soon realized that she was never going to finish it. So, when I got Mabel, she brought it over and said quilt it before the next guild quilt show. Then she says, a while later she told me to just get it quilted before she dies. Well, I don't remember her saying that and by no means do I think she's going anytime soon, but I quilted it for her as a Christmas gift and gave it to her last night. She saw very surprised, to say the least. I hope to get a good photo of her with the quilt at guild tonight.

Blogger Christmas

WOW, it was like christmas around here yesterday when I got the mail.

I won a prize from Sew, Mama, Sew for participating in the blog giveaway day and got to choose my FFF prize. I chose this lovely Mod Dot Red with Pink ~ Alexander Henry fabric and had planned to maybe give it to my good friend who loves red fabric, but now that I have it in my hands, I may want to keep this one for myself. Kristin posts lots of gift ideas on her blog, and this week kids crafts are featured.



The second prize is from Karen at Cotton Spice and it is 4 wonderful wool ornaments with beds and sequins. Such a lovely gift and it was wrapped in this yummy lime green fabric. I love them and can't wait to put them on the tree this evening! If you haven't visited her blog, you should go there right now. She has post after post of wonderful gift ideas complete with instructions.



Thanks so much to both of you and I just love reading your blogs!

Stashbusting Report - 12/15/08

Fabric Added This Week - 3 yards (wide backing for black and white)
Fabric Added Year to Date - 119.875 yards

Fabric Used This Week - 12.625 yards
Fabric Used Year to Date - 426.5 yards

YEAR TO DATE NET TOTAL: 306.625

Well, would you look at that!! Over 300 yards net!

I really don't know where all this fabric has come from and my stash doesn't look that different, although it isn't crammed in anymore, there is still a lot of it in my sewing room.

Nickel Fabric Swap

Our guild is doing a different kind of fabric swap in 2009. We have been swapping fat eighths for many years and this year we're going to try a Nickel Swap. There is a color that has been chosen for each month and the participants are to bring in 15 pairs of the appropriate color each month in their zip lock bag. Janet and I labeled zip-lock bags today and placed them in folders, one for each month, with the color on the label. We also provided a bigger ziplock bag for nickels from their stash. I'm excited about this and hope we have lots of swappers.

Hopefully, there will be a workshop in early 2010 to make our Nickel Quilts.

Turning Twenty with Photos

I pieced this turning twenty black and white quilt with photos yesterday and I really like how it turned out. It really is flat, it was just not smothed out on the floor. It will get quilted and bound this week and I hope the owner is happy with it. She is giving it to her mother for Christmas. What a nice memory for her mother! It's queen size so I used a bunch of my stash for this one.

More Frogs and A Birthday!

I suddenly realized that I don't have a baby boy quilt for my soon-to-be grandchild. I have 2 baby girl quilts, but thought I better get busy.

Before Andrew was born my friend, Dottie, gave me this cute little kit from Joann's that has minkee, fleece and cotton fabrics, including some frog fabric. I assembled it for baby Andrew, but it never got quilted. It is one of my UFOs in the slide show over there>>


I found it on Thursday and loaded it while waiting for Kale and Lynn to come for his birthday dinner. I still had the Froggy pantograph on the table and how convenient is that?


I did a couple rows and then when they arrived, Lynn tried it and she did a wonderful job. She said she has pieced some blocks, but that is her quilting experience, so I'm very impressed. I can see some quilting time for the 2 of us if their repationship lasts.



We had a nice dinner, courtesy of Arni's, and they took his cake home with them because it got really late.