The Black & White Quilt Challenge

We spent a quiet Thanksgiving afternoon with our friends, Pam and Ted. I baked an Oink turkey, aka ham, and green beans casserole while Pam baked the turkey and all the trimmings to go with it. Pam did a great job roasting the turkey this year; he came out looking beautifully.... nice golden brown.

As usual, we stuffed ourselves with too much of the good stuffs... doesn't everybody? :-) Afterward, we settled down to watch James Bond movie marathon on the tube while the kids played their games upstairs.

We didn't stay very late... had to head back home for an early night because I had to work today, the Black Friday. Since I work in retail business and they're open at 4am this morning, I was scheduled to be there 15 minutes before they open. It's my first time working on Black Friday, and all I can said is ... CRAZY! Tomorrow morning, I'll be back in that craziness again... although, not as early.

So how's your Thanksgiving?

Not much sewing going on lately here....

but last week, I discovered Jackie at Canton Village Quilt Works started a new challenge for 2009. It's the Black & White Quilt Challenge Project; of course, I signed up right away.... 'cause you know I love working with black and white fabrics. It's a good thing also that I signed up right away because Jackie has now closed the challenge.

That's it for me tonight.... I can barely keep my eyes open now... off to bed I must go. You all have a good night. :-)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Wishing you a happy and yummy Thanksgiving!

Cathedral Windows

I tried to write up this post last night but ended up falling asleep at the computer. lol

Then, I tried to watch Pushing Daisies with Sweetie Pie and couldn't keep up with the story ... what with the nodding off again! So I was in bed by 9 pm.... only to be awaken at 4am by the little doxie girl. Apparently, she must have heard some little creatures rustling in the bushes because when I let her out in the backyard, she darted out there and disappeared in the darkness within seconds. She is a fast one! It always cracked me to see how fast those little doxies can run with their short legs. If you have ever seen a dachshund run, you know what I mean. :-D

OK... so you asked what does all that has to do with Cathedral Windows? Nothing! lol

Nothing came to mind when I sat down to write except for the images of those little hunters running back and forth in the yard. We do get wild rabbits and bushy tail squirrels in our yard every so often... and that's right up the alley of what little doxies were built to hunt.

OK... about the Cathedral Windows...

Last week, I went to Jo-Anns Craft Store in search of blue thread for sewing the binding down on Freshly Sliced (see last post) when I happened to see this book.

Now, I don't need another book or another project, and I had made a couple of samples of basic Cathedral Window(CW) before. But what caught my eyes is the shapes of the windows ... this book has different variations of CW such as working with rectangular blocks instead of squares and extra folding techniques. Plus, it was 40% off and another 10% off on top of that with a coupon. How could I resisted? :-p






This book has lots of fun projects in it like these pincushions here....

These worked up rather quickly. As you can see, it is also addictive! I have a couple more that I'm finishing up. The larger ones are about 5" and the small one is about 4".

This is my first sample of CW. It is a little quilt (12x12) and machine-pieced... no hand sewing at all. I saw this technique on Simply Quilts with Alex Anderson a few years back when it was on HGTV.

I'm in the process of looking for the second sample which is a UFO that I had packed up during one of my cleaning episode.... will post more about it when I find it.

For now, I have to get going with my day...

Have a great one!

:-)

2 Finishes

I am done with stitching the binding down to Freshly Sliced. This quilt is the quickest one I've done so far. All it took were 4 packs of 5" charms and half a yard for the inner border. It came out to be about 49"X64".... good lap-sized quilt. :-)

I even remembered to add the label when the bindings were sewn on.

The second finished quilt is Star Struck ....minus the label.... still have to do that. I quilted this in yellow variegated thread.

Whew!! ....So happy to have two quilts done in one week. :-)

.... the back.

Star Struck Backing

Happy Veteran's Day!




I finally stopped by my LQS the other day and picked up some fabrics for the back of Star Struck. They had the perfect yellow fabric for this quilt, and even better, the fabric was on sale. ;-)

The backing made up of the new yellow fabric, leftover piano border, 2 leftover blocks, and a purple fabric that came from my stash. That green bundle on top is the binding. I like to prepare the bindings at the same time as the backing. So as soon as it's quilted, the binding goes on. This way I won't loose the momentum of getting the quilt finished. :-)

SA and Freshly Sliced

Good news! The package for my Stitcher's Angel partner has arrived safely overseas. Now, I can revealed who it is....... Bea. Yes, it's the same Bea of Capricorn Quilts with the Quilters Blessings BOM. I've been following along with this BOM but haven't started yet. It was a pleasure to be able to make a few stitching projects for someone who has freely shared her adorable stitching patterns.


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It's been rather a quiet day here with the teenagers gone, and John was busy with his project and Sweetie Pie with her Social Studies assignment. I love it when that happens. It means I have the afternoon to sew with no interruptions.


During the summer, I had ordered some "Fresh Squeezed" charm packs from Hancock of Paducah during their great 50% off sales. I love the colors of this collection.... it's so fun and "fresh". :-)

I wanted to do something quick and easy.... the Disappering 9-Patch that everyone's been doing came to mind. Thus, last weekend, I started sewing the 5" charms into 9-patches.... then, sliced them into quarters and sewn them back into 4-patches.

It's amazing how quickly this quilt grew.









By the next evening, the borders were added.

Isn't it such a happy quilt? I love it! I used four charm packs and a little bit of muslin for the inner border. It makes a good lap-sized quilt, and I called it "Freshly Sliced". :-)









Yesterday, I loaded the top onto Dolly, my HQ16, and quilted before heading out to dinner with John and Sweetie Pie.

Today, I prepared and attached the binding. All I need to do is to sew the binding to the back. Yippee!! I love to make these kinds of fun and quick quilts.







And now .... time for some relaxations... Sweetie Pie and I will have a nice soak in the spa.... Afterall, there's no school or work tomorrow. :-p

Have a good night. xx

Halloween Fun

Yeah.... it's the weekend! Work gave me more hours this week, so by last night I was pooped. The kiddos (except for Mandy) and I are looking forward to a four days long weekend. :-)

Here are some Halloween pix that I managed to capture before the battery in the camera went dead....

Meet Waldo and his bunny.... aka Miles and Mandy....

James the Monkey....
I snagged these shots from the family blog. My little nephew... isn't he adorable! One very happy monkey!The Ladybug and the Bumblebee....Here's the Ladybug tried to shed her shell.....and the shell complete gone... only the Bumblebee left....and off they went...

Stitcher's Angel

I was in such a hurried yesterday that I did not see who had sent the box, so it was a delight today to discover that the package came from Peg of Happy in Quilting!

Inside, there were two bundles beautifully wrapped with pink FQs and a card.

And what's inside those bundles?...

Stitcher's Angel projects! WooHoo..... Peg is my stitching Angel! I had admired these projects on Peg's blog and had thought that her swap partner is one lucky person. Who knew!! ... that I'm the lucky one!

The colors are lovely... the stitchings are beautifully done.... the projects are well made.

And look at these treats she sent .... all the way from Australia! Lovely card by Chookyblue and chocolates.... a girl can never have enough chocolates. lol

I have never seen Vegemite snacks nor Eucalyptus drops before. My family tried the eucalyptus drops. They liked the drops and agreed that it's quite different. Thank you, Peg, for allowing us to try something new and different.

Again ... thank you, Peg!!!! I love everything, and my family thank you for sending the treats. I'm glad that you're my Angel! :-)