Trip to Lake Arrowhead

I know I've been missing but as usual, there is a good reason. Besides the fact that I'm trying to clean and shop for Thanksgiving, I let my girlfriends talk me into a trip up to Lake Arrowhead for a little retreat. (I'm sure glad they did!!!)
Here we are looking like some deer looking at headlights while waiting for the camera on the timer to take our picture! lol Neena, me, Sherrie and Susan had so much fun. We laughed and carried on and ate and ate and ate. I guess we were gearing up for Thanksgiving. LOL

I was able to keep my nose to the grindstone and get some projects done. The first one is a panel you might've seen in your local quilt shops. I've seen it everywhere. I trimmed the panel just after the holly leaves and added the red and cream checked border. Susan did the same thing on her top and gave me her leftover fabric. She shares very nicely. :o) Now to quilt it. I might just stitch in the ditch and meander the main part and border so I can get it hung up this Christmas. Nothing fancy for this little hanging.

Then I got four sets of potholders done for Christmas gifts. It was nice to be able to get some of that fabric that's been sitting around made into something useful. They are various sizes depending on how much fabric I had. The fat quarters didn't give me enough fabric to make very big potholders but they're good enough and I think they're cute.

Then my boss asked me for a quilt for Christmas made from this Hoffman fabric with motifs from Fullerton High School. She bought an entire bolt of the fabric since it is her and her husband's alma mater and now her daughter is going there. I didn't want to cut up the fabric because it's kind of a big design and I thought I would lose the designs so I just put 6" borders on it. I will have to check my stash and see if I have some flannel for the back.

I got this little quilt (that I worked on the last sewing day at Curves) squared up and put the rickrack on it. I think I'll give it as a gift but not sure yet. I got the backing at the quilt shop on Friday when we stopped on the way to the condo. I had filled my frequent shopper card the last time we were up there so it was nice to spend it this time.

The last thing I got done was to work on four cherry tart pincushions for an exchange my daughter is hosting. There are five ladies who will make some craft item and she will swap them out on Thanksgiving day when we're all together.

I might not get another chance to check in before Thanksgiving. I'm having 26 of my nearest and dearest family over so there are lots of things to do to prepare for that. I hope that you have a blessed Thanksgiving!

Stitching and a finished quilt...but not mine!

I got my kit for block #4 of my BOM. It's kind of a big one and Thanksgiving, cleaning, cooking, and decorating at the end of the month for Christmas, it'll be interesting to see if I can get this one done. It sure is cute though!!

I got a total of four flowers stitched at Thursday Night Therapy (TNT) last night. Hey, it's a start. And I am trying my disappearing marker for marking my blocks. The pencil didn't come off of the last block that easy. I had to soak the block and that's a pain so we'll see how this works. I got this suggestion from a couple of ladies and I've never had problems with this marking method in the past, so we'll see.

And Sherrie popped in after her bunco night with her 'other friends'. ;o) Her husband is a USC alumni and she made this quilt, kind of for him and kind of (mostly) for her. lol It's a beauty!

She got the pattern from our Alabamie friend, Carolyn, who made this same quilt but for OU. These girls are kind of over-the-top football fans. Sherrie satin stiched the SC's in the corners as well as the Trojan in the center of the quilt. She grid quilted through the star and chain blocks, and made her first attempt at trapunto by doing the words "USC" above the Trojan and "Trojans" below him. She had four coaches sign it. It's pretty awesome. I didn't think to get any close ups. I was just happy her and Neena stood still long enough for me to take the picture. :o)

Machines and Mom

I took two machines for service to try and get them from the storage stage to the 'use' it or 'move' it stage. This first machine is a White from `61 or `62 according to the internet. My nephew had a friend he helped move a couple of years ago and this was in the 'pitch it' pile. He asked me if I wanted it and of course, I couldn't see it get sent to Goodwill. I didn't want to invest any money into this machine, not knowing if it even worked so I just bought a new belt. I brought it home and cleaned it and oiled it according to the manual. It purrs like a kitten now. I dont' think there's much value for this machine but it stitches nice so hopefully one of the girls in the family will want it and if not, one of their friends. We know lots of girls so it shouldn't be too hard to find someone to take this little workhorse.

I did an online search for White machines and there were some pretty cool ones made. Pink, turquoise, silver, you name it!

This next machine belonged to my grandma and then my mom. The cabinet isn't in very good shape and could be refinished. Someday I'll get to that. :o) Since the machine has sentimental value, I paid my service guy to clean this Singer up. I picked it up today and put it back in the cabinet and took it for a spin. It ran really nice. It had a bit of an oil smell but heck, the machine hasn't been run for something like 20 years so I'm surprised it even started!

And this is my mom working on her little Christmas tree. Yeah, I said Christmas tree. I guess it's okay to mention Christmas now. Before Halloween, I think it's kind of taboo but now, I think it's okay.

My mom came for a visit and since I work, I thought this would be a nice project for her to work on while I was gone. The only problem is I gave it to her on Saturday night and she worked on it all day Sunday. It was done "before" the workweek even started!!! But it's so cute. I think I might have to go get myself one. LOL

I got it at Michael's for 40% off $39.99. It comes with a wooden base, the little skirt and all the ornaments. There are about 20 little resin shapes like Santa, an angel, Joseph, toy soldier, etc. There are also big pearl ornaments, little pearl ornaments and candy canes. So darn cute.

And here is my mamacita with her finished tree. Both are kind of cute, eh? :o)

BOM Block #3

I finished this just on time this month. I went online and saw that my checking account had been billed for block #4 so I'll probably get it this week sometime. Yay!

This block is called Sweet Cream. It wasn't too bad but this was the biggest block so far. So far being the key here. I checked and block #4 is a big one! Kind of the center block of the quilt. I'll be hard pressed to get it done this month with it being the biggest and squeezing in a holiday and cleaning but I'm gonna give it the old college try. (Even though I only took two classes in college; drawing and weaving!) I guess I didn't want to push myself too hard. haha

I used a quilting pencil to mark the pattern for this block and had a hard time getting the pencil off. You might be able to see some shadows around the neck of the bottle. I used everything, white eraser, eraser that is on the pencil, a little soap and water. Nothing really removed it but now that the block is sewn, I think I'll put it in a shallow bowl and soak it in a little detergent. Hopefully, that'll do the trick.

We've had beautiful weather here in Fullerton. The skies are blue and it's been in the low 80's during the day and cooling off in the evenings. You can feel Fall in the air. I don't know how I feel about this time change though. It's dark early and by 9:30, I feel like I should go off to bed but that's not gonna happen. :o)

Happy Halloween!

I hope you all have a wonderful Halloween and don't eat too much candy!! :o)
We don't get very many trick-or-treaters but we'll see how this year goes. Maybe it'll be an all time record of handing out candy. With our kids all grown up, I enjoy seeing the little ones in their costumes even more.

This pumpkin is a craft I made a few years ago. I think I saw it in a magazine. Then I shared it with my sister, Isabel and we made one for everybody, some with Halloween fabric and some with Fall fabrics like this one. They are styrofoam balls divided equally in six parts. Fabric sections tucked in the balls with a knife. The tops are corks painted brown and a fabric leaf with a little batting.

Hey Cupcake!

This is my daughter Ashley in her cupcake costume we finished up tonight. She saw a picture online so we tried to copy it but I think ours has better "sprinkles".

She's not wearing these gray pants with her costume but I was afraid if I didn't get a picture of her tonight, I wouldn't get one.
So if you decide to make yourself a cupcake for Halloween someday, we used 4 sheets of poster board and folded it every 2" accordian style and then glued the sheets together. We used 1" elastic to add straps for over the shoulder because that's what we had on hand. The "frosting" is polyester stuffing that we glued and pinned onto a white shirt. The "sprinkles" are these styrofoam crafty things I found at Joann's called Magic Nuudles. They are so cool. I thought they were just styrofoam pieces for crafting but according to the directions, you can dampen an edge, and stick pieces together to make all kinds of fun stuff. I guess we'll have to play with them later because tonight they were giant cupcake sprinkles. :o)

You can't really see it but we wrapped a piece of foam with brown fabric for the "cake". Ashley thought she should have cake in her cup (hehe) And it was a good idea because it kind of covers up where her cup ends and her frosting begins.

Did you notice her slippers? At least her feet will be comfy.

Pictures Posted

I posted pictures or my trip to Winslow on my webshots album. There are some great quilts that were shared by the group. If you'd like to see some nice projects, check them out. Some of those ladies are such over-achievers!!! :o)

I've got to cut out some costumes tonight for my daughter and her boyfriend. If I get something finished, I'll post a picture. We're talking about an Indian and a cupcake. Not exactly a "couples" costume. Well, I guess this tribe of Indian likes cupcakes! lol