Student of the Month

You probably know by now that these pictures don't have to do anything with Student of the Month. This is what we did over the weekend; we went to an airshow. I don't have a picture here, but the crowd pleaser was a race between a JET CAR and an airplane. I had stepped away from our spot to get some drinks and all the excitement happened. The photo above is Silverwings - just like in 1930's, a lady is on top of the plane doing acrobats.


And now.... here's our....

Sweetie Pie as the Student of the Month with her teacher. 8-)

Pink Lemonade

After the post from yesterday, I went to my stash in search of fabrics for the Strawberry Crush Quilt. Well, No-Can-Do on that red quilt. Eventhough I love orange, red is really my favorite color, but somehow there are only 5, yes, f-i-v-e different red less than 1/2yd. each of it in my bin. On top of that, none of them has that strawberry red I was looking for. Oh well... moving on.
While I was there, I started to think about what Bonnie had wrote about this Orange Crust quilt leading us into summer and the "dreamsicle" treat. It got me thinking about what other favorite drinks that my family and I enjoy on a hot summer day ... PINK LEMONADE! We always kept a pitcher in the fridge during the summer months. The kiddos went through gallons of it especially on hot days.

So a new color selection was pulled from my 30's collection ... pink, yellow, green for main colors, and lavender for accent. The fabrics on the left are for scrappy darks, and I'm going with one Tone-on-Tone (TOT) white for light.

My plan is to make a baby quilt from this selection.

Talk about baby, take a look at MY baby...

Is it just me ... or is she adorable?

Orange ...uhhh ...Grape Crush!!

It's a week away from April 1, and Bonnie at Quiltville has posted the name and fabric color combinations on the next mystery at her site, click here. She is so sweet to give us a head start.

Orange Crush is the name of the mystery. Bonnie used orange, red, black, and blue for her quilt, along with scrappy light and scrappy dark fabrics. I love the colors that she had picked out for this mystery, because afterall, orange, blue, and black are what I used for my Carolina Crossroads Mystery. ;c)

Then today I got an e-mail from my new friend, La Vella, stating that "Bonnie's colors are the ones that you used in your Carolina Crossroads--except for the red. You didn't know that you were Sitting on the Corner at the Crossroads to Carolina, drinking your Orange Crush ! " *LOL* That is so true, I've been sipping Orange Crush at the Crossroads all along!

So here is my dilema... back in January, I purchased brown and pink FQs thinking that I will use these for my next mystery... which is this mystery. But all that is changed now... for this mystery, we need four different colors. I can't decided what other two colors to add to the brown and pink. I have agonized over the color choices for almost two days until it dawned me.... HOW ABOUT GRAPE CRUSH??? I haven't used a whole lot of purple lately... so why not make a purple quilt!

I pulled purple in place of orange, light purple for the red, and blue for the black of the yardage colors, and limegreen as the accent color. I wanted to use that purplish pink color of the grapes on the bottle picture where the light purple is, but I don't have it in my stash. I'm not sure if I should stick with that light purple or just go shopping... might just have to sacrafice and go shopping. ;c)

This has been so much fun, and the mystery quilt didn't even start yet!

Do you know that there is also Strawberry Crush?

Hmm... I'm heading to my stash now to see if I have something for Strawberry Crush! Wonder what I will do? stay tuned...

Jane's Tears

...or aptly called "Rhonda's Tears". Oi vay...

Would you believe that I have been working on this little block on and off since last week.... just got it done!

This is my first needleturned applique since two years, and first reversed applique ever.

HAPPY EASTER!!

Have a wonderful and Blessed Easter!!

Spring Jane

Huh? Spring Jane? That title sounds a bit silly, doesn't it? I almost wanted to type "Spring Chicken". *LOL* This post has two parts to it. The first part is about spring, of course. Today is the first day of spring ... well, at least for another couple of hours anyway.
All week long, it's been the perfect spring weather here in Southern California. These first two pictures were taken at Laguna Beach a couple of days ago. John and I came down to our favorite beach to celebrate our anniversary. We had lunch at The Cliff restaurant which actually sits on top of a cliff and overlooking the beach. If you take a closer look at the second pic, there're two little girls (standing on a rock) who were playing in the ocean. Eventhough the weather has been so nice, I doubted if the water was warm enough to go in it. But they don't care, they are just kids, and they were so cute.... ahh ... to be kids again.


Don't these tulips look great?! I picked these up at Lowes the other day.
Take a closer look. When I saw these, I had to bring them home with me. What is spring without tulips?


Look what are blooming in my backyard....
plum blossoms and nectarine blossoms.... yum, can't wait for the fruits....Cally lilies... I know, I only got one here....dasies....and DANDELIONS! How did these get in here? *LOL*


Of course, the little doxies had to keep me companies while I was out in the garden. Yep, they were up their usual "gotta help Mom out with the yard". Dig up this dandelion here... dig up this dandelion there... what pretty yellow flowers... must help Mom spread those seeds around... she loves little yellow flowers. *LOL* And yep, being the low-to-the-ground type of dogs, they quickly got all filthy. So that meant... baths for both of them.

before.... and after... all clean.

The second part of this post is Jane... Dear Jane quilt blocks. I have been working on these blocks for the last few nights and am half way catching up with the DJ group.

In Batiks, machine pieced.... C-9 Jane's Tears, B-13 Four Corner Press, D-13 Field of Dreams

In Reproduction fabrics and handpieced.

Happy Anniversary!

Ssshhhh..... Today is our 19th Anniversary, and John and I are playing hooky from our responsibilities! We'll spending the day down by the beach.....

St. Patrick's Day

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!!

How do you celebrate St. Patrick's Day? John has a bit of Irish in him, so to celebrate, I'll make corned beef brisket, cabbage, and potatoes. Nice simple dinner....

This and That

Well... so much for my plans to sew on National Quilting Day. I didn't make it to my sewing corner once yesterday. Fortunately, I did get to play with Dolly in the morning.First, I practiced free-hand loops and stars and love how it turned out. Then, unfortunately, my attempt at baptist fans turned out miserably. I used a stencil and drew the arcs onto the muslin and tried to stitch by following the lines. Well, for the life of me, whether I moved fast or slow, I could not stay on the lines and get those nice smooth arcs.... Guessed I need to practice a lot lot lot LOT more. :c]

Sorry the photo is a bit washed out. This is following a panto... again, there's room for lots of improvements.

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And for today, while John took the kids out for some shoppings - Best Buy, Toys R Us, and Guitar Center (I opted out on this shopping trip... hee hee), I finished the March blocks on Pinwheels and Posies.


So that are two things crossed off my list. Now, I need to tackle those Dear Jane blocks... tomorrow Anina will start a new block. Yikes! I better get my rear in gear.

National Quilting Day

I've learned so much since I started my journey with this blog ... like today is National Quilting Day. Who knew?! Today is its 17th celebrations!

In keeping it quilty today, my plans are:
1. One hour of playing with Dolly.
2. Dear Jane blocks... I'm already two weeks behind.
3. Put the binding on an UFO (unfinished object) quilt for Project Linus.
4. March BOM ... if it's posted.
5. Work on finishing Snowcap LoneStar

I may not get to everything on the list because of a couple of family things. We'll see how I do... will put in another post later tonight.

Quilt Give Away

The Old Red Barn Co. is having a give away to celebrate her 200th post. Go take a look and sign up. But... I hope I'm the lucky winner.

HELLLLOOOO DOLLY!!

It's here! It's here!

I am soooo tickled pink that my new toy is here.

My HQ16 arrived last week, and Richard from Quilter's Cocoon, LQS, was here on Tuesday to set it up. He was here all morning working on it, making sure everything set up just right. He also gave me a lot of tips on how to play with Dolly.

Hannah (DD#2) came up with that name. We used to have a fluffy gray cat named, Dolly, for many years. She was a spunky, playful, and spirited feline. A friend from our old old neighborhood gave Dolly to Amanda (DD#1) when Amanda was about five years old. Since then, we moved a couple more times, and Dolly, of course, came along with us, took charged of her new enviroments each time.

She was getting old when we moved to this new house six years ago. Back then, the land was still developing with wild life cohabitated along with us. We had seen rabbits, roadrunners, and even coyotes roamed the streets at night. We tried to keep our Dolly inside with us, but being that she loved the outdoors more than being inside, it was hard to keep her in. For most part, we kept her indoor because of the fact that there were a lot of missing cat signs posted in the neighborhood. We knew what happened to those cats and didn't want our cats to suffer the same fate. We did tried our best to keep the cat in, but.... one night, after almost a year of being here, we called for our Dolly to come in and there was no Dolly. I hated to think what might have happened to her....

Wow, I really went off-tracked here, but we still missed our Dolly the feline friend now and then. So it is good to have another Dolly in the house.

This photo shows my first time playing with Dolly. Looks like Dolly (the machine) and I will have a lot of fun times together in the future.

It's a flimsy!

I learned a new quilting word since I joined the Quiltvillechat group! There are quite a few international quilters on the list and that is what they called their finished top. I think that is sooo kwelt! I'm going to use "flimsy" from now on.

And YES! my mystery quilt is finally a flimsy. I stalled on this quilt at the borders stage because I couldn't decided what to do with it. However, here it is already March, and I need to get going on it cause the next mystery quilt is only three weeks away! Aacckk!! So, to keep it simple, I added 2" of black, 1/2" of orange, and 4 1/2" of blue.

Now, onto the quilting stage.... I have to decide how to quilt it. Baptist fan like Bonnie's? ... except can't do it by machine... handquilting is slow and I have a quilt in progress... I only handquilt one quilt at a time. Meandering with stars maybe? Stitch in the ditch? Crosshatch?

Decisions, decisions.... what to do? What to do? Aaaghghgh....

Maverick Stars

It's Thursday, so that meant sewing in the morning with Cheryl. No Crystal (Cheryl's DD) today because she is back in school. She's in one of those year round school system.

Cheryl continued to prep her fusibles for the lighthouses on her nautical quilt. And I worked on Maverick Stars from Bonnie's site. My blocks came out a little bit bigger because I used 3" background squares instead of 2.5" as in the instructions. These were quite fun to do! I'm looking forward to using up more of my fabric tibbits.

Do those colors and fabrics look familiar to you? *U*

IT'S A YESSS!!!

I can't believe that I forgot to write a post about this! I must have been more sick than I thought. LOL For those of you who have been following my blog might remembered the post "I want, I want" around Valentine's Day.

Well, I did popped the question on Valentine, and just as I predicted, John didn't said NO but didn't said yes either. His answered was that we need to get our tax done first. So everyday, I tried to persuade him a little bit more by giving him tibbits of what I can do with it. BTW, for those of you thinking what the HECK is she talking about, it's the HQ16 longarm machine that I wanted. I even mentioned that March is a special month for us (it's our anniversary), ... sneaky aren't I?! *LOL*... and I don't asked for anything... MUCH! lol

Well, we got our tax done last week right before I got sick and still not a complete yes from him. I think I closed the deal when one day he came home from work and saw me pretty much passed out on the couch from being sick. I had to let the dogs outside that afternoon and couldn't make it back upstairs to bed. What a SIGHT I must have been because when I was finally awaken, he asked if I had ordered the machine. I mustered a "no" and he said to go on right ahead. I think he felt sorry for me; even the kids commented the next day that they were glad that I was LOOKING and feeling better. LOL Of course, I made sure I got myself down to the shop to place my order. ;-)

I got a confirmation from Handi Quilter that they shipped the machine out yesterday. It will be here Friday or Monday the lastest. Yeah! I have to call the shop to see what day they coming out to set up and training, and what to name my machine...

Oh ... the photo on top is our "baby" Suki ... she loves to be held and cuddle. Isn't she adorable?

Starting a New Dear Jane Journey

Well, I'm not a 100% back to myself, but I was feeling much better for the last couple of days. At least, I'm not functioning on DayQuil and Tylenol all day. Although, today I have a bit of set back, woke up with a really scratchy throat and headache. Must have overdid it yesterday with all the nonquilty things that I had to do. So I skipped out with helping at Hannah's school this morning, and here I am writing up this post. And I'm back on DayQuil. Arghghgh... I hate being sick!

I did sew a little bit here and there, but there's not anything worthy to post here. However, this is what I've been doing lately when I'm awake.....

Recently, I visited Jeanne's (Genie) blog (met her through Quiltvillechat Group from the mystery quilt) and was inspired to think of pulling out my Dear Jane blocks that I started back in 2005. I only got a few blocks done then got sidetracked with other stuffs.





Dear Jane is a sampler quilt pattern from Jane A. Stickle that was made in 1863. This quilt has 5602 pieces in it. Click here if you like to read more on this quilt.


Did you notice a new button on the sidebar? I founded and joined Dear Baby Jane a couple of days ago. Anina is starting this journey this week along with a group of "Baby Janes" and me. 8-) I'm hoping that I could keep up with the group and maybe get my quilt done someday.















I actually started two different colorways of this quilt back in 2005. The first one is a reproduction fabrics kit BOM (block of the month) that I ordered from Stitchin' Heaven. I believe that they have a kit for 2008 available.


These are my two blocks that I handpieced.

The other colorways...
These blocks are in batiks/black and machine pieced.

Well if you followed this post all the way to here, I thank you so. Sorry... I think I'm not making that much sense. I think I need a nap now. LOL

Oh, I just added a slideshow of my blocks over at the sidebar too.