Can't get enough of....

these Maverick Stars!!

John stay home from work yesterday. He didn't have the whole day to himself though. He put in a couple of hours of work on the computer, and while he was doing that, I sewed 8 more blocks of these wonky stars.

You may remember 4 of these stars in this post last year.... Wow, has it been a year already?.... Anyway, the scrap fabrics are from my Carolina Crossroads quilt. Click here and here to see the posts for that quilt.

Have you ever go back and read what you wrote in your earlier posts? It brought back lots of fun memories for me while I was reading mine. Those little doxies always cracked me up... lol
>

Anyway...... back to these stars.... the plan is to use up all the scraps from Carolina Crossroads quilt. I think that there are enough scraps here to make a baby quilt.

Well, I'm off to work on this quilt.

Have a wonderful day! :-)

The Recipient and OC

Dear Bloggy Friends,

Thank you so much for your help in choosing which photo to post to the QuiltvillChat group and your comments on the photos. By popular concensus, photo #1 is the chosen one. I'll post to the group in the morning. I have a whole day open for quilty things tomorrow. Yeah!

The recipient to this quilt is my DD#1, Mandy. It is only right that she receives this quilt since she's the one who had suggested the color combos. Plus, I've been a bad Mom..... everyone in the family got a quilt made by Mom... except for Mandy. So this is just for her.

It's not that I haven't thought of making her a quilt... it's because I taught her how to sew and quilt six years ago. She made two quilts with help and has two quilt tops that are waiting for me to quilt them. Mandy has been patiently waiting for her quilts to be done for five years now. Poor girl... is my guilty conscious showing? *LOL * Boy, sure glad that she has her own quilt now and to get that guilt monkey off my back! Oh wait, I still have to do those other two... guilt monkey is back on. *LOL*

Now that I can crossed Carolina Crossroads quilt off my list, I am starting Orange Crush or should I said Grape Crush. I have some of those 4-patches done for step 1... but still have a lot more to go. Step 2 was posted last week. You know what I'll be doing tomorrow.

Photo is the yardages pulled for OC Grape Crush.

CC = Complete (part 2)

Hello, did you catch the first part of this from last night? Just scroll down, it's right after this post.

Yesterday, we went outside to get a photo of my Carolina Crossroads quilt with the help of those doxies. Let me tell you, it was no easy task getting photos with two little dogs and a little girl playing, jumping on and hiding under the quilt. We took quite a few shots of the quilt, but there are only two that I think that I might be able to use. I can't decide which one to post to the QuiltvilleChat group. Won't you help me?



Photo 1 - Serious

Photo 2 - Funny

CC = Complete

YES!! My Carolina Crossroads Mystery Quilt is finally finished!!

I needed to get a photo of the quilt with me in it to post to Quiltvillechat Group, so we went outside to the backyard to take the pics in the natural sunlight. Ohh... it was a fun photo session! There's nothing more exciting for those little doxies than laying out a finished quilt. The session went something like this.....


Look! Mom is putting out her quilt! Let's go jump on it!We're tired of playing on the quilt... let's play soccer...get that ball ... get that ball ...
It's mine! It's mine!!Mine turn to kick the ball...Ha... forget the ball! I found something... is it a bug?Forget the bug! Mom turned the quilt over ... let's jump on it again!Now... it's nap time.... zzzzzzz.....Tiger wonders what's all the fuss...Stay tuned... tomorrow I'll post the photo of me and the quilt.

Out of balance

I know that I said it before.... BUT where has the time gone? And on top of that I've been feeling a bit out of balanced lately. My body thinks that we're still on Spring Break this week because I could not wake up earlier than 7 am. I'm normally up at 5 or 5:30 am, and start my day with a cup of java and check e-mails and do some blogs reading before the kiddos wake up. So I felt a bit OFF all week long for not having that early, quiet ME time.

Thank goodness for quilting. It always made me feel better after I spend sometimes with the sewing machine. I do have some quilty things to share from the last couple of days but have to get the photos together first. I'll do that this weekend.

Here's what I did over Spring break... I quilted Carolina Crossroads, a real quilt instead of practiced muslins on Dolly. The only quiltings that I'm good at right now are meandering and loopy stars. I would love to do Baptist fans like Bonnie, but that's not in the card.... so loopy stars it is. The binding got attached earlier in the week; I just need to sew it down to the back. Oh ... I pieced white and black fabrics for the back.

One of the things we did over Spring break was went hiking at the California Citrus Park with Sweetie Pie's girl scout troop. The girls learned about hiking and safety issues. This photo was taken on top of the hill overlooking the palm trees and citrus trees. It was a beautiful day for hiking.

We hiked through the trees and learned a bit of history of the park, saw many different kinds of citrus trees, and hiked back down to the park. There, at the park, we found beautiful wisteria arbors ... had to take some pictures, of course. Ms. Nancy,the leader, and some of the girls in this shot.

Close-up shot of the wisteria, isn't it pretty?

For this day, Sweetie Pie received a patch of California Citrus State Park for the back of her vest, a Hiker badge for the front of the vest, and a safety pin to add to the vest also.

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....

Not Much Sewing Done

Here it is... the end of another week and not much of quilty things were done. Life took over this week. Also, the kiddos got 4 days weekend from President's Day really put me out of sync with everything.

To update, there's still NO borders on the Carolina Crossroads top. However, I did manage to make a few blocks for Bonnie's housewarming party. Bonnie moved earlier in the month to North Carolina so to thank and to welcome her to her new home, Tracy and Tonya, came up with these great ideas to surprise her.

I made a Wonky house, 9patch with accent corner from mystery fabrics, and a crumb block so far. All I need to do now is the siggy block and send the squissy envelope off to her.

********************************************************************

Before last Christmas, while cleaning out the garage, John came in and handed me a cardboard box with "Christmas decorations" and "unfinished" written on it. He said that the box belongs to me. At the time, I thought "hmm... the box looked like it's been thru some rough times... unfinished Xmas decor... doesn't look like it's mine per se... should be out in the garage OR JUST TRASH IT!", but I took it anyway, stuck it in the corner of my closet, and forgot all about it. Until last Saturday, I decided to clean out my wardrobe (getting ready for spring shopping ;-)) and saw that box. Curiosity got to me and decided that I need to see what's in that box.

Lo and behold, there was no unfinished Christmas decor; instead, the box contains an unfinished teddy bear with an unattached head that I worked on for Amanda (18yrs. ago!), an unfinished hooked rug for Amanda, some craft supplies, and wayyyy down in the bottom, was this Lone Star kit.

I thought I had lost this LoneStar kit because we moved quite a few times throughout the years.

I worked on this kit when Amanda was one year old... so that makes it 17 years ago! I always wanted to try quilting back then and loved this pattern (and still do), but I soon found out that this is not a pattern for first time quilting! So when we moved, I packed this away. You know what happens when I put things away... out of sight, out of mind. LOL Life took over with family, and my attempted at quilting ended there.

Now, I am itching to get to this quilt and get it done! And I'm glad that I didn't tell John to toss the box in the trash!

Mystery Revealed

Mistake-free Carolina Crossroads top (I hope).





















Not so mistake-free top.



After the rough time of sewing those ring blocks, I was glad that they're behind me and moved onto putting the quilt top together. All the seams nestled in with each other, the sewing went smoothly and quickly, and I didn't even used a single pin in it either.
NOT!... those ring blocks came back to haunt me. Not only did I find one mistake, but I found two when I laid the top down for a picture. I afraid to look for more and I'm not going look either.

Now onto the border...




BTW, did you notice my new heading pic?

Step 7 - Ring Block

FINALLY!! The first part of Step 7 is done! This has been a very SLOOOOOW process for me. I had to take a lot of breaks in between seams because all those squares and matching all those seams drove me bonker! But like they said... take the elephant one bite at a time.

Yeah, I can move on to putting the top together now. 8-) Happy dance.....

A Fun Day!

Cheryl and I headed back to Road to CA today.... not to work, but to see the quilts and shopping. We arrived before 10am, and already the parking lot was packed with cars. I had to park across the street from the convention center.

The first thing we did was to go see the winning quilts. We only had a sneak peak at them on Wednesday. WOW!! They are spectacular! I took lots and lots of pictures... will have to go through them and post some tomorrow.

We had a wonderful time looking at beautiful quilts and chatting with other quilters, non-quilters, and even their spouses. Were there more men attending the show this year? Cheryl pointed it out to me. It seemed so!

Of course, we also did a little of shopping in between here and there and managed to put a dent in my budget.lol

Some red and yellow FQs to add to my stash, more black & white, white & black since I used up the ones for the mystery quilt, stencils, AND brown/pink sets of FQs for the NEXT mystery quilt. Yes, you heard me right! Bonnie has decided to do quarterly mystery quilt, and the next one starts on April 1st.

Back to the show, I think we covered only half of the exhibit before we realized it's lunch time, and we're starving. It took us another half hour to get out to get lunch because we got distracted quite a bit on the way out. lol

After lunch, we went into the other exhibit hall. We looked at the $100,00 Quilt Challenge... no photo allowed. :[ Something to do with the quilts already photographed for the magazine. Amazing quilts! There was one that I absolutely love. It's a scrappy quilt in neutral with tiny little blocks! Stunning! I'm gonna have to look for this magazine.

Before we know it, it's 2pm. Cheryl and I had to leave right at that moment to make it back in time to pick up the kids from school. Oh how I wished that we didn't have to leave; I need another full day to see all the quilts and more shopping. Oh wait, no more shopping... I already hit my limit. lol

As we were leaving, Cheryl said that she's so inspired to go home and do some sewing. Yes, Cheryl, that is exactly what you should feel after a quilt show like this. Go home and sew. Talk about sewing, I need to get going on the mystery quilt. Yes, the mystery was revealed the other night, and I only made one block so far.

Step 6

A seam here..... A seam there.... A seam here..... A seam there.... And step 6 of
Bonnie's Mystery Quilt is completed. Look who wanted to get in the picture too.

I was thinking of laying out the blocks on the floor to see how they all look together and went to get the camera. When I came back, both dogs were on them. It's not even a quilt top yet, and already they claimed it!

After I clicked this shot and praised them for being still for me to take a picture, Suki (the red one) grabbed the Ohio blocks and ran off with them.
Naughty, naughty little doxie!
It's a good thing that she had some obedient trainings and dropped those blocks when I screamed "DROP" at her. So that ended the photo session and the idea of laying out those blocks on the floor.

Mystery Continues

I was awaken EARLY this morning by the opening of the garage door. It's still pitch black and the numbers on the alarm clock shone brightly at 2:44. 2:44am?!? Who is opening the garage door at this early in the morning? Then I realized that since he's not in bed, it must have been John who opened the door. When I heard the truck started, then I knew it was him. Where is going to at this TIME OF THE NIGHT? Going to work already? He usually doesn't leave the house until 4:45am. Then I remembered, he is on-call this week....must have been really important or he couldn't fixed the problem remotely on the home computer.

I don't like it when he is on-call. We usually never get a good night sleep all week what with the pager and blackberry going off constantly throughout the night. But what can we do, that's part of his job. We were lucky when he was on-call the last time though, nothing seriously happened to the system in the middle of the night.

So there I was in bed, tried to go back to sleep, but sleep did not come. My mind was spinning with the things I need to do for the day. I kept telling myself to go back to sleep, but the brain refused to. It's too early, go back to sleep, I kept telling myself. But by now, my mind was on Bonnie's mystery quilt. Well, what the heck?! Might as well get up and check to see if Bonnie had posted the next step to the mystery. By now it's after 3 am, logged onto my laptop, went to her blog, and there it is, Step 6 is up. ;o) I can started to put together the mystery. Then I thought, well, before I do and since I was here at the computer, I might as well catch up with some blogs reading. The next time I looked up at the clock, it's already 5am! My, how time flies when you're in blogland. *lol* I should have been working on the mystery quilt.

With my cup of coffee in hand, I had until 6:30 am to sew some of the blocks together before the kids got up and started the day. I finished 10 of 16 of the Ohio blocks; here are nine together....

WHOA, HOLD THE PHONE!! I didn't see that before! There's something wrong with that top left block. I pieced that hourglass unit in the block the wrong way. Guessed that's what happens while I sew under the influence of sleep deprivation. LOL Oh well, Mr. Handy Dandy Seam Ripper is always by my sewing machine. ;o)

Friday is usually family night, but I'm hoping that I could sneak away here and there for some sewing time to finish the rest of step 6.....but first, I must take a cat nap before attempting to sew again. lol

Carolina Crossroads - Step 5

Yep, I finished with these puppies last night. Step 5 of Carolina Crossroads Mystery Quilt is completed... all of 100 hourglass blocks. I started out making these blocks using two squares method, but then ran out of larger pieces about 2/3 of the way through with my black and white and had to resort to using the smaller pieces. I do not have the Companion Angle ruler as in Bonnie's instruction but do have an Omnigrid ruler to use. I'm glad I got a chance to make these units using the strip method because I've never done it that way.

Ready for Step 6... can't wait to put the blocks together.

Carolina Crossroads Mystery

I'm feeling much better today. My head cleared; no more headache and dizziness.... almost back to my normal self.

It has been a wet weekend here in Southern California. Normally, the kids and I like to take the dogs out for a walk and play in the rain, but we stayed in yesterday... no playing in the rain this time around. :( John went to see the Supercross (indoor dirtbike race). Hannah has been working on her science project which is due tomorrow (three of the steps anyway), and I got lots of sewing time in. ;-))

A couple of weeks before Christmas, while I was catching up with blogs reading, I discovered that Bonnie at Quiltville is doing a mystery quilt, Carolina Crossroads. How did I missed that before? She was already on Step 3 then. I've never done a mystery quilt before, so I couldn't resist joining in on the fun... and the best part is that it's a scrappy quilt. I think Bonnie is the Queen of Scrappiness... check out her website for yourself.

This mystery quilt is what I've been working on all week. You see, Bonnie is at Step 5 this week, and the next step will be putting the blocks together come next Thursday or Friday. I am almost caught up. 8-)) Step 1 to step 4 completed... step 5 is half way done.

As you can see, my colors are blue and orange per the artist-in-the-family's (aka Amanda) suggestion. I started collecting some black and white FQs recently, my latest love, and thought that it would be fun to use them for the background. It will be a happy quilt. Now that I'm on Step 5 and it dawns on me, I hope that I didn't messed things up by using dark for the background. Bonnie's instructions stated to use light for the background... I'll keep my fingers crossed that it will turn out OK.

From left to right: Step 1- Railfence(100), Step 2 - 9-patch with accent color(100), Step 3 - MORE 9-patches(80), Step 4 - triangle 9-patches(40).





These little blocks are tiny... so tiny that they fit in the palm of my hand... and I have little hands. They will finished at 3" in the quilt.