Mother Superior

Have you heard of Superior Threads - Mother Superior's Blog? It's Bob's birthday and they are celebrating with a big giveaway... go join the fun!

New Blogger

Please welcome Judith! She is a new blogger and is having a giveaway. Do drop by her blog to said hi and that I sent ya.



Have a wonderful day!

A Good Mail Day

I love getting packages in the mail! A box came yesterday from Sherri at A Quilting Life; I won her Fall into Fall Quilters Giveaway!

A cute little turkey pillow.... perfect for Fall decorating! A cute little basket which I already filled with little scraps, and 5 yummy fall colors fat quarters along with a Mary Engelbreit card! Thank you Sherri!

Indeed, it was a good mail day!

QUILT Giveaway!

OK.... you've probably already seen this 'cause I'm usually behind with this kind of thing, but Lizzy Anne at Pigtails and Snails blog is having a QUILT GIVEAWAY! Yes! She is giving away a beautiful quilt! Be quick though.... the giveaway ends on Friday the 17th at 7pm MST.

Susan's Giveaway

If you have been following my blog, you know that Susan, my SIL, is working on her first quilt and recently started a blog, Ape Over Quilting. Well, pop on over to her site to take a look at her first block... she did a wonderful job... way to go, Susan!! Wish we live closer... I'm in southern California, and she's in Washington... we could be having weekend sewing every weekend!

Not only did she just started her blog, Susan is also doing a giveaway already... can't wait to see what she has in mind. :-)

Susan asked for us to blog about our first quilt...

I started quilting back in 2001. My first quilt was a handquilted queen size purple/green/white Irish Chain. On and off, it took me about two years to complete that quilt because we were selling our house and moved at that time. However, like most of my beginning quilts back then, I didn't take any pics.

So the Irish Chain was the first quilt that I started, but it was not really the first one that I finished.

That doggy quilt in the photo is the first completely done quilt... top pieced and appliqued, machine quilted, and bound in a couple of months from start to finish. Before quilting life, I did a lot of cross stitches, so it was natural for me to design the dog on graph paper and sewn from a grid.

I forgot all about that quilt. It's for our little niece on John's side of the family. About a month ago, we stopped by John's sister and discovered that she still has the quilt... of course, I had to get a pic. Now, I have a photo to remind me of my earlier quilt. :-D

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. :-)

Mail Call

Today is the first day of summer, and we have the hot hot hot weather to go with it. My car registered the outside temperature at 115 degrees today while we were out running errands. When we returned home (and glad to be back in a cool house), a package had arrived in the mail from Catherine at Calidore.

Yeah! My prize from Catherine's 700th post giveaway is here! The ribbon is so pretty!

Isn't the bag cute?! I love it! And inside it are brochures of Swan Hill Region.

Thank you, Catherine!

I'm enjoying learning a bit more of Australia and hoping that one day I will get to visit there. :o)

Another mail that came in earlier in the week is this fabric from my sister-in-law, Susan. Isn't it a "happy" fabric?

Recently, Susan asked me to help her because had purchased 25 yards of fabrics and wanted to learn how to quilt! You know what?... Of course, I said yes!

So we decided that her first quilt would be Bonnie's Boxy Stars pattern. And you know what else? I'm doing this one too! My quilt will be the colors in this fabric except for the yellow.

Susan just started a blog called Ape over Quilting. I hope you pop over to her blog to welcome her to quilting and blogging.

One more thing that came in the mail this week is this toy Featherweight machine that I scored for the first time on ebay. :-)

Sweetie Pie will help me try it out this weekend.

Have a great one!

Summer has begun

It's official! As of 12:30pm yesterday, summer has begun at Doxies-Ranch. Sweetie Pie is now a fifth grader; Buddy is a junior... only two more years 'til graduation! And Mandy has a month off before her next quarter starts; then, the first year of college will be done.

Ah, where did the time go? The school year has flown by too quickly. I see the end of the school year as a big milestone for the kids. They brought home their yearbooks, and it's fun to look through them to see what the kids did during the school year. But for me, I always noticed how much they changed from little bright-eyed youngsters, to a bit older and more matured children as they are today. It always a bit sad for me to see the kids grow up so fast.

Well, when I'm feeling blue, I always head to my sewing corner.... the kiddos were with friends to kick-off their summer vacations. My machine was humming along all afternoon.

The results: Step 5 of the first the Orange Crush Mystery is finally finished, and my second OC mystery quilt, Pink Lemonade, Step 5 and 6 are done.

Yes! Pink Lemonade top is together. Since it a baby-sized and straight setting, I only have to do 7 Album blocks to fill in with the 8 Spinning Star blocks. Everything came together quickly.

That's Miles, Mandy's boyfriend, who is not camera shy at all... so he gladly volunteered to hold the top for a photo.

Later on, I played with the regular OC again and laid out all of the blocks. I really like how this mystery is turning out. Thanks again Bonnie for another great design!

I'm hoping to get this sew together this weekend or add the borders onto Pink Lemonade. Well, we'll see what mood I'm in this weekend ... Orange Crush or Pink Lemonade. :-D

BTW, another giveaway at

Embroidery Treasures. Serena is having one every Monday, so mark her site and check every week. But I hope I win; I know exactly what to do with that beautiful green FQs bundle!


And another giveaway, Lynette Anderson Designs is giving away some cute stitcheries patterns!

Oh, one more thing, I still haven't heard anything from the winner of my box bag giveaway. If I still don't hear anything by Sunday evening, I will do another drawing.

Have a great weekend!

I Won, I Won!

I must have been very tired last night to forget to share with you my good fortune! YES, my luck has changed! I won my first bloggy giveaway from Calidore's 7ooth post giveaway! You heard me right, Catherine made it to 700 posts marked! I hope that I'll last that long with this bloggy thing. ;-O


Thank you, Catherine! I can't wait to recieve my prize all the way from Australia! :D



One more thing that I forgot to mention, Ghislaine is the winner of my giveaway, and she commented that she loves purple. I will fill that box bag with some purple FQs! Ghislaine, please email me your postal addy ASAP. Your comment came in as a No-Reply, so I can't return your email. I'm gonna make a run to the postal office tomorrow to get a few packages out and would like to get yours out too. With the way gas prices now-a-day (oh-no...won't go there!)*lol*, I have to plan my errands.

And now, I have to go pick up my Buddy from school who also has a driving lesson today. Yikes! I know that he will be fine.... but why is it so nerve wrecking when it comes to your own kid learning how to drive?!!

Drumroll Please...

Before I announce the winner, I just want to thank everyone for stopping by and leaving a comment. I'm usually a bit behind answering my email messages, but I will reply to your messages provided there's a way for me to do it. Soooo... if you don't hear from me, that just means that your comment came in as a "No-Reply" ,and there's no way for me to return your message. Also, last night I had some problems with emails came back as undeliverable, so if I missed returning your message, sorry about that.

OK, now onto the drawing...

This week is the last week of school for the kiddos. My Buddy (teenage DS) had finals this morning and a short day. He was the first one home and agreed to help with the drawing.

Congratulations, Ghislaine!! Please email me your snail addy ASAP.

Box Bag Bug

I should be working on Step 5 of my Orange Crush quilt because afterall, Step 6-Mystery Revealed was posted earlier in the week! Instead, I got a bug! A box bag bug that is! Boy, that's a mouthfull! Try to said that three times real fast! :D

Yep, these are what I've been working on in my spare times. Recognize that red butterflies one?

I saw this Box Bag first over at Lisa Boyer's blog. She is the author of That Dorky Homemade Look. Click here to check out her site. She is taking a break from blogging at the moment due to a busy schedule, but her blog is worth taking a lookee... fun, fun, fun.

Lisa made these bags and has a link to the tutorial, so that is where I got the pattern to make those bags. Click here for the tut.

All of those Box Bags in the photo have been claimed except for one...

I mentioned before in my previous post that I will have another giveaway real soon. Well, here it is! I'm giving this Box Bag and a few goodies to go inside it. This is my way of saying thank you to all of you who stopped by and leaving a comment. All you have to do to be in the drawing is to comment on this post and tell me what color or colors of fabrics you want to see in this Box Bag. The winner will get their preferences of some FQs in this bag. I do have 1930's fabrics and Civil War fabrics, so if you prefer those, let me know. And if you like scrappy like me, then I will fill it with whatever in my stash!

This will be a quick one! This giveaway is open until Sunday night my time. I will do the drawing on Monday afternoon. Good luck!

I found this blooming in the corner of my yard while taking pics of the Box Bags. I forgot I have these lilies. What a pleasant unexpected!

And since I have the camera... have to take some pics of my furry babies.... :D

Another giveaway!

I was over at Candace's blog, and she had a link to another giveaway. Calidore is celebrating her 700th post!! Click here to check it out! She's giving away two prizes!

Camping and the Prize Drawing

I'm back! I have survived and fully recovered from the Girl Scouts Junior Jamboree camping experience! *LOL*

It was a busy weekend trip with full of activities for the girls. They had to set up camp as soon as we arrived on Friday afternoon. Up bright and early on Saturday with camp competitions in the morning, made lunch, clean up, then onto games in the afternoon, followed by a parade, made dinner, clean up, finished off with a flashlight campfire (too dry to light a real fire). On Sunday, awards and ceremonies, broke camp and headed back home. Whew!! Just typing about it made me tired again!

This is the view on the way to the camp....Our mountain view...One of our hikings...

Now, onto the giveaway...

Thank you everyone for your visits and lovely comments. This has been a great encouragement for me to continue with blogging. Also, it is so much fun to do a giveaway that I might do another one very soon. :D

Those little doxies love to help pick the winner....

They sniffed out each of the entries....

finally, pushed one out of the basket...

(drumroll) and the winner is....

as you can see, they wanted quite a few of you to win, but I'm afraid I must go with the first one out of the basket...
Anina at Dear Baby Jane blog!

Anina, please send me your snail addy!

100th Post!

This is what I made from that "sneak-peaked" fabric for the giveaway, a box bag. Let's take a look inside to see what else I'm giving away.....

an iron-on labels book... (well, that didn't fit in the bag... HE HE), an embroidery scissors, a little larger than a FQ of that red butterflies fabric (for your own project), two charm bundles of Red, White, & Bold by Moda (a summer project maybe), and a needle case (that silver looking thing in the front right... I forgot what's the fancy name for it).


I'm heading out with Sweetie Pie on Friday afternoon for a weekend camping trip with her girl scout troop. We'll be back by Sunday afternoon. I will pick a winner either on Tuesday or Wednesday after I've catch up with non-quilty things. And if this body of mine isn't frozen up from sleeping on the ground for two nights!*LOL* So there's still time to enter in this drawing... just leave a comment on this post.




On the mystery front, I have finally completed all 30 blocks of step 4 for my Orange Crush. Finishing up Step 5 will have to wait till next week. :(


Remember my two color challenge quilt? I have found the background fabrics that I'd like to use! It's Never Enough Romance by Alex Anderson (white with red prints). I've placed an order with Fabric Shack, and it should arrived next week. While I was there, I also ordered some more Batiks for my Dear Jane blocks. Yep, I have my summer projects all line up! How about you?

Have a wonderful weekend!! :D

UPDATED: I discovered another giveaway -- go to Embroidery Treasures for an opportunity to win some pretty FQs.

Little Bits of Everything

The weather has been really wacky here in Southern California! Last weekend, we went from 105 degrees to around 65 degrees by Wednesday. On Thursday, we had thunderstorm, hail, fire, and tornados, yes! TORNADOS here in CA?! just about 10 miles from where we are.

Well, I'm glad that the storm came earlier than when they had predicted because on Saturday, we had to go to an event with Sweetie Pie's girl scouts troop. We started our day early with flag placements at the cementery for Memorial Day.

Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, and ROTC troops volunteered to place flags and poppy flowers at various veteran gravesites. Afterward, we enjoyed a nice lunch given by the American Legion Club. And the girls who came to help, received a patch for their service.

A week ago, our good friends had invited us to come over for a BBQ and swimming after the flag placement event, but that was when we had summer weather, not spring weather! Our friends decided that it was better to wait for warmer weather to have their BBQ gathering. So instead, we opted for a movie and dinner out. We all went to see the new Indiana Jones movie. Who doesn't love Indy?! I thought the movie was good.

It's that time of the year again and things are getting a bit busier than normal around here, so I haven't had a whole lot of time to sew.... just 10 to 15 minutes here and there. I did managed to finish with Step 2 of OC Mystery!

I also got 16 of 30 blocks of Step 4 done.... Spinning Star.

Did you notice that I have changed my yardage colors? When I saw Bonnie's Spinning Star blocks, I've decided that I'm going to do Orange Crush afterall ... instead of Grape Crush that I've been saying all along. I love the red and black stars.

Here's what 16 blocks look like together.


This morning, with my cup of coffee in hand, I thought perhaps I'll catch up with some blog reading, but I didn't get to a whole lot of blogs at all except for the first one. That was Bonnie's blog; she has posted the next step of OC Mystery! Finally, we are going to get to use that orange fabrics, and I could not wait! Immediately, I headed to my sewing corner and started cutting up some squares. I was able to put together 3 Album blocks.

At first, I wasn't quite sure if I like the orange that I had picked out. So I got some of Step 4 and Step 5 up on the flannel board to look at. And you know what? I love it! I'm beginning to think that this mystery is even better than the last one!

From the look of Step 5, I think this quilt be set on point. Here are some of the blocks together. What do you think? Don't you just love it?

On the right, the blocks are set straight. And you know what? I love it too!

Remember my Pink Lemonade? I made 8 Spinning Star blocks. This quilt is all scrappy except for the background; it is a white tone-on-tone. I don't have any yardage in my 30's collection, so I used the same yellow and green in each star but different yellow and green for each block. Click on the photo to see it larger... maybe that will make more sense. I think I might set the Pink Lemonade in straight setting.... hmmm? Do you see the star forming in the straight setting and the X forming with those lights of those 4-patches? I love it! I can't wait to make up some of the Album blocks in 30's fabrics to see what they will look like together!

Well, I better get going... just got a call from John to meet him over at his brother's for a BBQ. Before I go though.....

I want to give you a sneak peak of what I found that I will use to make something for my little giveaway. If you haven't heard of my giveaway, go down to the post after this one to enter.

Also, check out Stacy's and Jo's blogs; they are having some great giveaways.

Have a wonderful Memorial Day!

BTW, my 100th post will be next Thursday. I will post my giveaway prizes... so see you then.

A Goofed and a Giveaway

This block of Dear Jane, B-2 Sweet Tater Pie, was forgotten. I finished handpiecing this little cutie before Mother's Day weekend but forgot all about it due to the river trip.

So here it is... but there's one problem... I goofed! This little block took a bit longer for me to piece because it was my first time handpiecing with curves... so it will remains as is!

This post is also marked as my 98th of this blog! Just two posts away from that 100th mark! I recently visited a few blogs that are having giveaways so thought I might give it try. I don't know what I'm giving away yet, but for sure, it will be quilty related and fabrics. I will try to come up with something by my 100th post.

So all you have to do to get a chance to win something from me is to leave a comment on this post.... be sure to leave me an addy if you are set to "no reply". An extra bonus -- if you can tell me in the comment of what is the goofed of this block, I will add your name to the pot for an extra chance of winning.

If you need help with the goofed, click here to compare with this block. Need more help, then click here to look at Anina's block.... just scroll down to the bottom of the post.

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.