I had a blast!

My first Cathedral Windows class was today. I had eight students in this class, and they were just wonderful. We started out with the basic steps of building the "frames" or folded squares, adding the "windows" to the frames, then moved onto constructing the pincushion. We had a lunch break next, and afterward, they started on building the "frames" for the pillow. We didn't get the pillow finish as I had planned, but I think, all of the students got the gist of building the CW.

These pincushions are the result of the class. They are too cute! I love all of the different color combos... so much fun.

Everyone is busy with building their Cathedral Windows.

What a fun time I had! I didn't know that teaching can be so rewarding. I mean... I probably wouldn't have the patience to be a school teacher, but teaching quilting is a blast .... especially when the students are awesome!

Red CW Tablerunner

Yeah, it's done!

The "frames" from yesterday and red window blocks are now sewn into a table runner.... now, off to write the instructions.

This and That

At last, it's back to normal around here. No more fevers or Dr. appointments or living on DayQuil or NyQuil.... except for the coughs that just linger on.... but I'm sure it will be gone too in a few more days.

I finally got around to uploading pix from Road to California show... thought I share with you a couple awesome quilts. I'm sure you have probably seen them in magazines or at other shows. Click here if you like to see the 2009 winning quilts.

Other than volunteered to hang the quilts, Cheryl and I almost did not make it back to see the Road. We barely made it back on the last day. We had only a few hours to shop and view everything there before it's closed down. Needless to say, we did missed quite a bit.

This is the loot for this year.... I know, not a whole lot. I didn't have the desire to buy much this time... probably the beginning of the flu was coming on that day. The red bag is one of the perks for volunteering.... found 60degrees ruler that I've been wanting... and some special Road 2 CA Batiks in a souvenir traveling mug.

My other "happy" purchase is a book on needle tatting along with some needles and DMC thread.

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Over the weekend, we had a cute little visitor.


It's Miles' little Polish rabbit, Pancake.

Isn't he cute?

But wait....

Ohhhh ....the crying .... the whining.... the begging... the sleepless night.....

it's not from the rabbit.....


but from these two....

Isn't the little wabbit for us Mommy? Please, please, please can't we just play a game of chase with him? We promised not to eat him even though you're supposed to eat Pancake.

LOL


And so .... they were banned from the room....and the crying, begging, whining, scratching at the door continued...

LOL

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It's getting close! My first Cathedral Window class is this Saturday. I decided to make some more to make sure I am prepared to teach. This is a bunch of prepared "frames" ready to be sewn together. Then, I need to write up the instructions. Lots to do.... but I feel like I'm in molasses mode all week.

Sniff Sniff, The Road

It's been busy here.... especially last week... what with the extra days of work and sick kids, I haven't done any sewing. Now that the kiddos all are better, it's my turn to be miserable. Cough, sneeze, sneeze, cough, cough, sneeze, sneeze, cough, and one big lousy headache since yesterday.

One thing that I did managed to squeeze in (before this lousy illness) was the Road to CAlifornia show. Anyone else went to the show last week?

My friend, Cheryl, and I did our usual part of helping setting up the show for half of the day on Wednesday. It's always so much fun to help out at these events and wished we could have stay all day.... but we have kids to pick up from school.... those darn kids! Just kidding.... it's the stuffy head talking. LOL

Here's Cheryl during our lunch break.

We got to hang some beautiful quilts. Here's one of my favorites... this crazy quilt is amazing! It won an award. I wished I had more time to look at the quilt closely, but we had lots of quilts that needed to be hung. I left the picture large... so click on it for a closer look.

It's Cheryl again with an unusual quilt. This one is dimensional! The letters are about 3" in depth! I wished that I had thought of taking a sideview pic to show you how much the letters are sticking out! Of course, the saying describes how we felt last week.... LOL "Too Much Work NO Time NO Enery".

More pics to come... just have to upload from the camera. For now, I need to go back to bed.

Talk to you soon!

Forgotten 2008 Projects

Remember this photo that I posted back in December? They are the three "cake layers" that I had picked up at my LQS for my birthday. What's wrong with this picture? There are only TWO cake layers in this shot.

Well, I already used up one of them when it was time for this photo op.

That missing cake layer is Portugal by April Cornell.

Back in November, I had an addiction to making some CW pincushions. Well, that addiction continued and some of Portugal became another pincushion....

.... then more of Portugal became a pillow....

.... and the rest of Portugal turned into a tablerunner...

All three things came from one Portugal cake layer.


uh.... we interrupted this program to announce that there has been an earthquake!! Yep, people... earthquake.... part of living in California. It's a long rumble and rolling motion. We just turned on the news and it's a 5.0 magnitude. We're OK here... everything are still running.... nothing is broken. Whew!!

OK... back to the projects.... I love making these Cathedral Windows. It's like origami... reminded me of my childhood when I spent many happy hours folding boxes, airplanes, cranes, frogs, and even attempted a giraffe... except, it looked more like a dog. lol

I like making CW so much that I took my projects down to my LQS, Quilter's Cocoon, and Pagen (owner) scheduled a couple classes for me to teach at the end of this month. I taught my friends and the kids how to sew and quilt but never in a group setting or in quilt shop either. I'm very excited to start on this new venture. Even more exciting and amazing is that those two classes are already filled, and Pagen has asked me to schedule two more! If it's not too much to ask, I hope those two new ones will get filled too. he he

I am soooo thrilled! Wish me luck on my new adventure. :-)

New Mysteries, BOM, and More

Only six days into 2009 and blogland is already in full swing! Here's a list of new projects that I'm considering doing this year:

1. Bonnie's New Year Mystery, Double Delight, started on Jan. 1st. Just the name alone makes me want to do this quilt. I like the colors and blocks so far (yes, I peeked!) *lol*..... but first, I have to finish Orange Crush!

2. A Tisket A Tasket 12 Months of Baskets - Anne Suton of Bunny Tales mystery BOM. Her patterns are adorable!

3. Bea's "Once Upon a Time" stitcheries BOM - This will be saved for later.

4. Rachel at p.s. I quilt, a new 2 me blog, is having a Calendar Quilt Challenge. It looks like a lot of fun and will make a great memory quilt when done.

5. This has been on my wish list since it first came out. Santa brought it at Christmas. I'm in the process of planning the fabrics. :-)

Have you seen the Whirl Into Winter Giveaway? Go check out all the blogs on the sidebar...

New Challenge and Mini Pinwheels

It has been a great work-free weekend for me!

We did quite a bit of yard clean-up and got the house cleaned yesterday. Then, in the evening, John went off with his friends to their annual event of watching the Supercross at the Anaheim Stadium. It's his birthday next Saturday so this was part of his birthday present. They have been doing this every year now for the last 8 or 9 years. It's a tradition that I expected and looked forward to because you know that meant I got the whole evening to do as I'm pleased. hee hee

Well, not really.... the older kids were out with their friends also, but Sweetie Pie was home. The evening started out with us watching a show, and then she was contentedly playing with the Wii game that Santa brought for her this year.

While she was doing that, I was surfing in blogland and joined a new challenge, One Project a Month Challenge, hosted by Abyquilt and Kris at Tag Along Teddies . Remember Peg's challenge of finished five? It's really fun and a lot of finished projects... how could I not joined this new one? I'm looking forward to finishing LOTS of my WISPs (Work In Slow Progress) by the end of the year.

After that, I headed off to my sewing area in search of something to use as batting for this mini quilt. I didn't find any light flannel that Jennie had recommended but did found a small piece of thin batting. It worked out quite nicely. I just stitched cross-hatched on the machine and added the binding. Voila!

I felt good to have a project finished for the new year even if it's just a little one. :-)

Oh, one more thing... I updated my sidebar and added Followers.... kinda made me feel famous or something. *LOL*

I also wanted to change my blog background like some of your beautiful blogs out there but felt a bit intimidated by all of it... so it will have to wait.

A Mini for a New Year

I have not done much sewing lately, so it's good to spend a few hours in my sewing area yesterday. I have quite a few projects going on that needed my attentions.... however... a new year needs a new project, right? :-)

First, I took those wasted-HST from the tablerunner that I made for my SSCS .... pressed and squared them up to the same size.

The quarter is there to show how small these HST came out.

An hour later, those HST became 1-1/2" pinwheels.

Added a few pieces of scraps to those pinwheel blocks .... and a miniature quilt top is finished.... 7.5"x7.5"

Now here's my dilemma... what do I use for batting for a miniature? Please help me.....

Doxies Fun

I was on the phone a couple of days ago with my SIL who lives in Washington. She said that they're snowed in, and it's freezing up there. It reminded me of this little cartoon... I imagined this is what it would be like for our little dachshunds if we were to live in a place with lots of snow. LOL Although, we came pretty close to having what it looked like snow one morning. It rained a lot and was sooo cold during that week before Christmas. Here's Yoshi Bear checking out the frosted lawn, but Suki didn't want to have anything with the cold and ran back inside. :-)
Christmas was hilarious with those little doxies around....

... opening presents and playing with new toys.... Do you need help with your present Daddy? Suki asked.

He's not a dachshund.... but he does like to be included... what's in that box?
well... he couldn't care less. :-D