CGQC and OPAM Finishes for March

As I have been trying to catch up with the other Schnibblers,

I made four Schnibble's this month.  

The first was the "Picnic" quilt.

I made the "Cindy Lou Who" quilt.

I made the "Tuffets" pin cushions.

And I made the "Roundabout" quilt.

I completed my "Thyme for Stu" wall hanging.

I made my "Garden Delights" quilt.

I made my "Rosy Posy Pots" quilt.

So I have seven finishes for March! 

A good month!  :-)

Now it's time to figure out my goals for April!

Cool Givaway!

Abby Lane Quilts is having an awesome givaway. 

Look at these cute pincushion/thread bag combos! 

Absolutely adorable!

And you could win one or some cool patterns!

I did finish quilting my Rosy Posy Pots quilt this evening.  YAY!  I'll hand sew the binding down at bee on Saturday, then I'll post a photo!  It was the last thing on my goal list for CGQC this month, so I am a happy camper!!

Chuggin' Along!

I have a few things going on this week... besides just work each day!  My son Anthony is coming home tomorrow from VA Tech for a few days.  His girlfriend will be coming in, too.  So gotta fill up the empty fridge before he gets here and make up the basement suite bed for her!  :-)

Saturday is our March bee... AT MY HOUSE!  So realllllly gotta clean BIG TIME!!  The little pre-bloom thingies that fall off the trees in spring are constantly being walked into the house.  UGH!  HATE that!  :-(
And gotta figure out what I'm making that day for lunch/dessert!  All the gals are gourmet cooks, so the pressure is ON!!  Any suggestions?

Yesterday after work, I pinned my quilt top, batting and backing all together and have started to quilt my last CGQC goal left for March!  I sure would  LOVE to have it done and the binding sewn on ready to do the hand work at bee!  So wish me luck to get everything done on time!!

The ABC's of ME!

Sinta over at The Pink Pincushion recently did this on her blog and I thought it was such a good way to get to know her better that I'm gonna share my ABC's with you here, too!

The ABC's of Me

A- Age: 54... when did I get so OLD?


B- Bed size: King  made for three!  Me, hubby and my Westie Yogi


C- Chore you hate: cleaning the bathroom ... eeeeww...yuck!


D- Dog's name: Yogi (AKA- Yogster, Yogurt, Yoginess, The King)


E- Essential food/item: cream for coffee... no skim milk allowed


F- Favorite color: periwinkle blue


G- Gold or silver: gold wedding rings, but silver everywhere else


H- Height: 5'7"...but may be shrinking now...


I- I am: sooooooo DONE with snow!!  :-(


J- Job: special education /assistive technology teacher


K- Kids: 2 boys...now men, not yet married


L- Living arrangements: northern VA (suburb of D.C), home in a nice neighborhood


M-Mom's name: Gladys.... a truly beautiful woman!


N- Nickname: You have to ASK with a name like Polly????


O- Overnight hospital stay: 2 C-sections, hysterectomy, all years ago


P- Pet peeve: people who don't pick up after themselves


Q- Quote from a movie: "There's no place like home."


R- Right or left handed: all righty then


S- Siblings: 3 sisters...we are all 4 years apart...I am the baby


T- Time you wake up: for work- 6:15am... otherwise about 8:00ish


U- Unique thing about your car: it can be an automatic or you can shift it! (Rogue)


V- Vegetable you hate: all beans, collards, turnips, brussel sprouts...


W- Ways you run late: waiting for the husband and/or sons... grrrr!


X- X-rays you've had: not very many...been lucky!


Y- Yummy food you make: meatballs, Chicken Parm and Piccata


Z- Zoo favorite: otters...so graceful and playful




That's ME- A to Z!!  Your turn!!

Caught Up!

I am happy to report that although I joined the Schnibbles group 5 months late, I have finally caught up!  YAAAAAAYYYY!  Last night while watching the AWESOME new  Discovery channel series call "Life", I finished the handwork on my Tuffets pin cushions.

I had some Califone charms leftover from a big bag I made a while back and they were perfect for those cute little sand-filled pincushions!! 

Talk about teenie weenie pieces!

And on another note, I do LOVE pincushions and just bought these two cuties on Etsy from a gal who raises her own sheep and uses their wool for her creations!  Are they not just adorable??? 

In case you can't see from the photo,

the turtle has a cute little snail on his back!!

She even sent me photos of her three sheep- Miss Dottie, Lucy and Cappucchino!!  Priceless!!

Cindy Lou Who?

I finished quilting my Scnibble quilt "Cindy Lou Who" yesterday and completed the binding & label while watching TV last night.

I really like how it turned out.  The bright cheery Mary Engelbreit fabrics really made the design pop!

Here it is on my ottoman in the family room.

I had to make Yogi move off it to take the photo.

So, another Schnibble done! 

I'm going to work on "Tuffets" next!

March Friday Nite Sew-In Fun!

Tonight is the Friday Night Sew-In for March.

So, after a quick early dinner,

I got busy in my sewing room. 

I'm still trying to catch up after joining the

"Schnibbles for a Year" group 4 months late. 

 

I had almost all the nine patch and the snowball blocks made for the "Cindy Lou Who" pattern, so my goal tonight is to get the little quilt top all sewn together.

Yogi loves it when I spend the evening in my sewing room!

I'm used 2 charm packs from the Mary Engelbreit "Carolers" collection.  They are so bright and fun.  I love her use of primary colors and lots of black and white.  My whole sewing room is decorated with her stuff!

It looks quite different than the one on the pattern, huh?  I cut up the leftover 6 blue charm squares and made a thin inner border with red corner squares. 

I used some black Christmas  fabric from my stash for the outer border.  It's not from the same collection but it is a Mary Engelbreit fabric, so it goes well, don't ya think? 

Tomorrow I've got to do some yardwork to do outside while the weather is cooperating, but do hope to be able to get it quilted and the binding sewn on ready for the handwork during TV tomorrow night!  Tomorrow I'll be running to the store in the morning to get the "New Moon" DVD!!  I've already seen it in the theater... on opening night, in fact.  Let me give anyone planning on going to see "Eclipse" when it comes out in the theater some realllllllly good advice-

DON'T GO ON OPENING NIGHT

 AT THE 7:30 SHOWING!!! 

That was the mistake my husband and I made when we went to see "New Moon".  We were surrounded by teenage girls screaming everytime Edward and Jacob came on the screen....  YIKES!!

Cool Givaway!

Kari over at Fresh Cuts Quilt blog

is having an awesome Givaway. 

So hurry up and head on over to her blog and sign up! 

You may win a new layercake and some patterns, too!

Schnibble Schmibble!

I finished my Schnibble for March- "Roundabout" last night.  I made it out of 2 Aviary charm packs dear Cindy from Sew Cindy sent me a few weeks ago. 

The fabric is so lucious and serene

 and PERFECT for spring!

These little Schnibble quilts fit

oh-so-nicely as an ottoman topper!

I free-motion quilted bubbles all over it... 

doesn't show up so well in my photo, though.

I used the same striped fabric for

the backing and the binding.

So, another finish for March!  Yippee skippee!!  :-)

And P.S.- this Schnibble was FUN to make!

A Finish and a RAK!!

I did finish sewing the binding and label on my spring panel quilt last night.  Woo hoo!

 I really love it.  The panel looks like a watercolor painting. 

I named it "Garden Delight".

I used a cool birdhouse label on the back.

And this is where it will live in the corner of my family room each spring!

Now, for more important things!  I opened my mailbox today after work and found a big gold envelope from Sinta of the Pink Pincushion blog.  She sent me the patterns for Bunny Hill's free BOM Tisket a Tasket from last year that I discovered too late.  I've been IN LOVE with it since I saw it on Monica Soloria-Snow's blog- Happy Zombie  She called it her "Fire Quilt" because if her house was on fire, that would be the quilt she would grab to save.  And after I saw it on her blog, I could see why!!  It is sooo darn adorable!!  I AM SO THRILLED!!  And I'm not usually so IN LOVE with applique.  But this one is just soooo cute!

Thank you so much, Sinta!  YOU ROCK!!  :-)

Where'd the Weekend Go?

I can't believe it's already Sunday night and it's back to work tomorrow!  Where did the weekend go? ACK!
I finished quilting my spring panel quilt yesterday afternoon and got about 1/3 of the binding sewn down last night during TV and hope to finish it tonight while watching the new HBO Tom Hanks/Steven Spielberg war series "The Pacific".  Woohoo!  ;-)
Today after mass, breakfast date at Silver Diner, grocery shopping and laundry, I got the March Schnibbles pattern, Roundabout, all cut out and the 25 blocks made.  So, hopefully tomorrow after work I can get the top all assembled.
Soooooo, what did I really get accomplished today besides changing my blog background and header photo??

I got the Yogster groomed!  See the wet chin?  The first thing he does when I pick him up at the groomer is come in the house and drink a whole bowl of water then curls up and sleeps for a few hours.  I imagine that he barks the whole time he's there and is just thirsty and plain tuckered out!  What a life!  :-)

Lollygaggin' a Bit!

I'm sorry it's been a few days since I last posted.  I have been quilting my spring panel top at night after work.  But I did take a few nights off as my shoulders have been hurting after quilting. I've already torn one rotator cuff and gone through surgery and PT to fix it, so I tend to baby it a bit. But I did some quilting today after work and so far so good!

I hope to finish it tomorrow!  We're having a rainy weekend, so it will be perfect for staying inside and quilting!  Even my little Yogi will be happy to stay inside tomorrow out of the rain and snuggle with his squirrel toy!  He gets the BEST sleep!

Hope you will be toasty warm and dry somewhere tomorrow doing something you LOVE!

Just Love This Panel

I promised to try to take some better photos of the bunny wallhanging from the previous post.  So I changed the settings and upped the pixels in hopes of getting clearer detailed pictures.  But this one for some unknown reason was flipped to a portrait layout by blogger when uploaded... and it took about 10 minutes to upload!  :-(  ACK! 
 Well, I'll be changing my camera settings back to what they were before!

One of the CGQC goals I listed for March was making a quilt from a pretty spring panel and matching fabrics I bought a while back.  Those  coordinating fabrics were all mid to fairly large scale prints and were so gorgeous that I decided to simply march some borders of varying width with cornerstones around the center panel rather than cut them up into small pieces for pieced blocks and lose the gorgeous prints.  I just finished the top and am very pleased with how it turned out.

Of course, it's hard to see in my bedroom light!  UGH!  This collection is soooo feminine and delicate and just beautiful.  The colors are just gorgeous and I adore the panel's watercolor look!  Can't wait to finish it and get it out in my family room for all to see!

Tomorrow after work, I'll get it all pinned and ready to quilt.  That part- the crawling around on hands and knees - is the worst part of the quilting process for me.  I have really bad knees and it really hurts... so not looking forward to that! 

What's your least favorite part of the quilting process?

I Dood It! Taa Daa!!

OK, I am doing the happy dance...which may be why I took so many fuzzy pictures!  But my McKenna Ryan wallhanging "Thyme for Stu" is DONE!  It really didn't take as long as I thought it would - once I figured out how to quilt it and what thread to use.

As you can see, it's already hanging over my mantle in the family room.  Which meant that I had to take all my winter decor- snowfolk, snowflakes, polar bears, moose, etc, down and pack them away in the basement and get out all my spring stuff.  So, that's what I did... all day.  That and the usual weekend errands like grocery shopping.  Tomorrow is my DH's birthday and so he gets to choose the meal and so we are having veal parmesan.  He's Italian, so it would always involve pasta! And a Snickers Ice cream cake for dessert.  YUM!  :-)

 I think it looks mahhhhvelas there!!  I am pleased how well it turned out and I guess now I feel the eight gazillion little pieces were all worth it!  I'm sorry my photos are so poor.  I'll try to get some better photos tomorrow closer up...in good natural light!