Finished Five Challenge

The railfence quilts are finished!

I stayed up past midnight last night... not by choice, mind you. John likes to make a variety of drinks like smoothies, shakes, coffees, and even alcohol beverages on occasions. Well, last night, he concocted up some iced coffee for us. I usually can't drink coffee in the evening, but it's ICED coffee... my favorite! ... and it was yummy!

What to do with a jolt of energy? SEW! I prepped and attached the binding to the quilt in the above pic before heading up to bed. That was after midnight; then, only to be awaken by this cat at 5am. Don't let that innocent expression fool you! He's one persistent feline who wants to be fed at 5 o'clock in the morning and not anytime later. Sheessh... ya think, I should be able to sleep til 7am because it summer vacation after all!

Well, more coffee for me (that should explained this post) and the bindings are sewn down on the railfence quilts. These are for donations, so I sewed the bindings down by machine.

Here are my other finishes per Peg's request; she asked for us to recap our finishes in one post.

Boxy Stars started on July 1; completed on July 29.

Pink Lemonade - started in April... finished July 25; Miss Lemoney Milly - started July19... finished July 26.

Dancing Butterflies - started in July, 2007... done July 1, 2008 - another one for Project Linus.

A great big THANK YOU to Peg for setting up this challenge. I would never have imagined to be able to finish with 6 projects in one month. I got 3 of my UFOs done for Project Linus, one as a Christmas gift, and a set of quilt and doll for my expecting brother-in-law and his wife ... if the baby is a girl. If it's a boy... yikes, I need to come up with something. Any suggestions?

And now... I'm off to run my errands. Have a wonderful day!!

Down to the Wire

There's nothing like a challenge and a deadline looming to get my rear in gear. Tomorrow is the last day for Peg's challenge, and I needed two more quilts to meet the challenge.

These two railfence quilt tops are from my early quilting days... so they are about 6 years old. I've been wanting to quilt these up since the beginning of the year for Project Linus but never got around to it. Well, this is the perfect push that I needed. I pulled them out yesterday and got the red/white/blue quilted; the binding went on last night. Then, I quilted the pastel colors one this morning. These worked up rather quickly because they are small baby quilts. The red/white/blue is about 46", and the pastels one is 40".

I still need to prep and attach the binding on the pastel quilt. Then, the bindings need to be sew down on both of them. Will I be able to finish with them by tomorrow night? I won't be able to work on them until after dinner tomorrow.... oh, pressure! 8-)

Did you see the sleeping beauties under the quilting frame? ;o)






Here's a close up.

Awww... they look so sweet ... when they're asleep, that is! LOL

I'm on a roll!

Yippee! One more finish to add to Peg's challenge. The pattern is Boxy Stars by Bonnie Hunter.Half of the fabrics came from 2 1/2" strips or noodles that I had swapped at a Yahoo group, NickelQuilts, about two years ago. I bought FQs for the other half because I wanted a certain blues and greens in the quilt. The inner borders and binding came from stash. The outside border fabric came from Susan, my SIL. Doesn't it added that final touch to the quilt? :-) When Susan emailed me the photos of her fabrics that she bought for her first quilt, I coveted ...yes, I did! lol... that flowers fabric. After all, it has all the same colors I had picked out for this quilt, and it was meant for me, right Susan? LOL Well, she kindly sent it to me right away for me to use. I love how the fabric looks in the quilt. Thanks, Susan!

Here's the back side...

It took me longer to decide how to quilt this than to actually quilted it. I spent 3 days of looking through magazines, blogs, and websites for inspirations and finally narrowed down to swirls and feathers. I spent less than 3 hours on Sunday afternoon quilting it... from winding the bobbins to taking mini breaks. It is freehanded with sort of large half feathers and swirls and echos around the shapes.

You know, I love this quilt! It's going to be very difficult for me to give this away. At least, I will have it for a few months longer 'cause it will be a Christmas gift.

Bag/Bucket Swap

Before I left for my Vegas trip, I signed up for Linda's Bag/Bucket Swap right before it's closed.

I now have my secret partner's info and have been visiting her site.

After some thoughts, I have decided to do crazy quilt stitches from this book (sorry about the glare) that I'd picked up a few years ago. Before quilting life, I used to do a lot of embroidery, so this will be a fun revisit. Now, all I need to do is to figure out what color(s) to use. Maybe red because there are a few things on her blog that are red.

Another finish and Miss "Lemoney" Milly

Yah!! The binding is on and the last stitch sewn on yesterday on my Pink Lemondade, a slightly large baby version of the OC mystery quilt done in 1930's reproduction fabrics.

This is my second finish for Peg's challenge of finishing five by the end of July.

The quilting inspirations came from here. The binding is pieced from purple FQs. Except for the batting and thread, the fabrics came from my stash. :-)

Meet Miss Lemoney Milly

I put the last finishing touches to her this morning. She the mystery project that I worked on before my Vegas trip. You can find the pattern in "Gift" by Rosalie Quinlan. I cheated a little by painting her face on instead stitchings, and I made little yo-yos for her blouse instead of using buttons.

She matches with Pink Lemonade quite well, don't you think? My intention for Miss Lemoney Milly is to go home with the quilt to whomever the quilt belong to.

Hmm... does she count as a third finish? Maybe?...

I'm back....

from my Las Vegas trip since late Tuesday night. I've been catching up with same boring stuffs around here and slept. Ahh, yes, I've been catching up with my sleeps because after all, who sleep when you're in Vegas, right? ;o)

My two BFFs and I stayed at the Flamingo...

and my favorite thing about our room is the bathroom. Look, there's a TV in the mirror!

We went outside and checked out their garden too... flamingos and koi fish... and a sleeping black swan.

What a funny sight! This guy slept with his head tucked into his body and one leg extended while standing on a flat rock in the middle of the pond, oblivious to his surroundings.

Here we are. Left to right... Pam, Nina, and me

The main reason why we were in Vegas is to see Donny and Marie Osmand. Nina loves Donnie and Marie since way back when. The show was at the MGM Grand and very entertaining. Our seats were right in the center of the theater, and I thought they were good seats... or so I thought. During the show, one of the ladies in the front row asked Donnie if she could wiped his perspiration for him when he reached for his towel. He granted her request... Oh boy! I'm sure Nina wished that it was her who gets to wipe the sweats off Donny's eyebrows! lol

A few days of fun with no responsibilities ... slot machines and blackjack tables... until our lucks ran out, and it's time to head back home.

Some Progresses

Oh my goodness!! Is it the weekend already? Life took over and this week flew by too quickly. I had thought of blogging all week long but just didn't seem to able to sit down and write something up. I had trouble with sleeping lately and not enough sleep made my brain all foggy. Today, I slept in 'till 7:30, so I'm feeling a little bit better.

Anyhoo, I did managed to make some progresses with my summer projects:

1. Baby OC, aka Pink Lemonade

I loaded this flimsy on the quilting frame last Sunday and didn't finished quilting it until yesterday. Why did it take so long? Well, I had used a spool of Superior sample thread that came with the HQ16 and ran out of thread when I was about 2/3 of the way done. Argghghhhh... an important lesson here... always make sure you have plenty of thread before quilting. I'm glad I found more thread and it's done! ... with the quilting anyway... still have to attach the binding. Then I can cross this one off as another one of Peg's challenge.

Oh, Peg sent me a button for finishing my first challenge. Thank you, Peg.

2. Also, I have been working on the border of my regular OC quilt as leaders and enders. I wanted to use those leftover 4 -split patches to make the same border as on Bonnie's quilt and need to make more units... only 16 more to go. Little progress, but still counts.

3. My next summer project is Boxy Stars.

I love this pattern! With a few minutes here and there, the blocks went together rather quickly. Don't you just love a pattern that looks like you spent a lot of time on it when you actually didn't? I think I spent more time on thinking how I want to do the borders than the center of the quilt. Here, I have it loaded on the frame to quilt next.

And here... Yoshi Bear thinks this must be for him since he blended quite well with the quilt blocks.
The photo should be clickable to a larger pic.

4. This one wasn't on my list of summer projects, but I just have to make one. It's a mystery project for now from this book that I won recently. I will revealed the project sometimes next week.

For the next few days, there will be no quilty stuffs because I'll be in Vegas with my two BFFs for a few days of fun! TEE HEE

Have a great weekend and see you sometimes next week!

Blog Award

WOW!! I am sooooo honored that Angela has awarded me this Brillante Weblog Award. I've enjoyed reading her blog too, so this award would go right back to her. Can I do that? Award my awarder? Thank you, Angela!!

The rules are as follows:
1. The winner can put the logo on his/her blog/
2. Link to the person you received your award from
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs
4. Put links to those blogs on yours.
5. Leave a message on the blogs of the people you have nominated

My nominees are:

Jeanne at Luv 2 Stitch - Jeanne's blog is just lovely; I enjoy reading it whenever I get a chance.

Mrs. Goodneedle at From the Strawberry Patch - Her blog makes me smile and think, and she has a wonderful way with words. Of course, I adore her little doxie who will occasionally make a special appearance on the blog.

Anina at Dear Baby Jane - Anina inspired me to work on Dear Jane quilt; although, I am at hiatus with it for now... will need to get back to it. She posts instructions for the blocks twice a week and has been doing a wonderful job at it.

Candace at Wraggedypatches - Candace has become a good friend through blogging, and she my top commenter.

Rosalie Quinlan Designs - she is my new favorite designer; her blog has many beautiful things and much inspirations.

Mary Quilts - Mary makes many wonderful strings quilts for donations. I'm in awe of her generosities.

Ruthie at Threads of Mine - her quiltings are wonderful, and she gets them done quickly!

Stitchers' Angel

After spending times tending to my much neglected garden and catching up with house cleaning for the last few days, I need to give my hands a rest. So I rewarded myself yesterday with lots of computer times. Gee... I can't believe I'm saying this, but I missed my computer. :-)

What was I doing? Blog hopping! Landed myself at Hugs from Helen blog and signed up for Stitchers' Angel Swap. I am excited about this project; it will start in August. There are a couple of things going on here... looks like a lot of fun! So go take a look at it yourself... just click on the button...

Good Mail Day

Look what came in the mail yesterday!

Recently, I discovered Rosalie Quinlan Designs and entered in her giveaway. I won her new book, Gift, and it's signed too! :-D

Doesn't the cover looks lovely?! So many wonderful projects in it... what will I make first? Will it be a dolly? A pillow? A table runner? How about some pinwheels and roses bouquet? Maybe giftbags with stitcheries on it? Or maybe a quilt like the one on the cover? Oh... I can't decide...

Thank you, Rosalie, for the wonderful Gift!!

These came in yesterday too.... recent sales from Hancock's!

What to do with them? As the kiddos would said... IDK (I don't know)! but just had to have them. :-)

Another fun weekend!

We had a fun 4th of July weekend... mostly spending time with our friends from Arizona and our friends from down the street. Our Sweetie Pie had the most fun playing with her two BFFs ... just like good old time. I didn't take any picture from the weekend, so there's none to share. :-(



Last Thursday, we went to Pirate's Dinner Adventure ... good food and drinks, good show.. it was a blast. It was our first time there and didn't know quite what to expect. Our group was the first to arrive and to wait in line. The pirates let us in two hours before the dinner show; they had plenty of appetizers for us, and we ordered a few drinks to go with them of course.


While we were enjoying our appetizers and drinks, they had little skits of pirate bits and asked for volunteers. The kids happily pointed out my John and John M. (from AZ). I wished I had the camera then because we all had a good laugh at the guys while they attempted doing the Can-Can.


Then off to dinner we went. The show was good ... lots of action and cheering. The dinner was good also, but I couldn't finished it because I was full from the appetizers.


Fourth of July was great... swimming, eating, drinking, spending time with friends, and fireworks... what could be more fun!


On Saturday, we went to John's friend's, A&V, BBQ birthday party. Again, great food and great friends... couldn't asked for more! A&V received a DVD projector for his birthday and wanted to set it up outside for a movie viewing after dark. The only problem with that was there's no screen; it didn't arrived in time. Not to worry though, A&V and his friends including my John came up with a make-shift screen using a white bedding sheet and two-by-four posts. I think it was more entertaining to watch the guys putting the make-shift screen together than the movie itself. LOL


Ahhh... great memories!

A Start

Just a quick post 'cause we're getting ready to head out. Our good friends who moved to Arizona last summer are back in town for this holiday weekend. We'll be spending lots of time with them for the next few days.

Thanks to Peg's challenge of finishing five quilts (yeah... one down four more to go!) that I don't feel guilty of starting another project. Susan, my SIL, wanted to make this as her first quilt, and a group of gals from QuiltvilleChat group is doing this also while Bonnie is taking a break from the mystery quilt. And I've been wanting to make this, so...

This is what I finished so far... one sample block and a few log units....

Happy 4th of July!! :o)

A Finish

Yeah!! My first finish for Peg's Challenge and another baby quilt for Project Linus. All I had left to do was to sew the binding down yesterday which took about 15 minutes because I machine-stitched it. I usually like to do it by machine on donation and utilitarian quilts.

I used a fabric with butterflies on it for the backing and quilted loopy butterflies in the center in yellow thread. It was scarry at first to use a color thread on white background, but I like how it looks and was able to see where I was quilting.

I love the look of feathers in quilts so for the border, I quilted "whimsical feathers". The inspirations came from here; she has free patterns and her quiltings are amazing.

Now, don't look too close to my feathers; it is something not to be look at too closely except for when you're on a galloping horse going by it at a high speed... LOL... but I'm happy with my second attempt of feathers. I think my brain is starting to get it because it was much easier to form the feathers, made them smaller, and going around corners were not as difficult.