Doc

A few days ago I finished my Schnibbles Doc quilt!  Did you hear that?  A few days ago!!  That's a near record time for me!  On this one, I used two Curio Charm Packs and a Moda Grunge fabric that I was really happy with for the background. I'm excited about seeing the others in the parade very soon on Sinta's blog, and on Sherri's blog too! 

I was happy to be taking this picture outside, since the rain is over!

As those of you who made the quilt know, there was a choice of trimming the squares before or waiting until after the half square triangles were pieced to trim them.....there was some chocolate in there too....I found that choosing the trimming after option and using my new Fit To Be Quarter Ruler by Open Gate Quilts made this quilt a breeze!! Except for this part, and I have no one to blame for that mistake except myself!  

In progress....

I was lucky enough to win that Fit To Be Quarter Ruler on Nicole's blog Sister's Choice Quilts recently.  Thanks so much Nicole and Monique!!  What an amazing ruler!  It really helped me get those blocks squared up correctly, making everything go together like butter.  Love it when that happens! 

Delicious! Adding a few extra ice cream scoops right before serving to place the cones on is the plan for the next time we make this......which will be soon!! 

Yesterday was my older son's birthday! During the long weekend we made him this Salted Caramel Ice Cream Cone Cake and "hid" it in the freezer. The recipe came from this month's issue of Food Network Magazine.  It is so yummy!!  The ice cream melted faster than we expected during assembly, so the next time we make it, it might be done in stages instead of all at once. Chocolate fudge sauce, caramel,  ice cream, salt and cookies were flying everywhere as we frantically put it together.  But how could that be a bad thing? We had a great time!   

When Going Backward Means Moving Forward.....

.......Or being really happy that I was almost finished with the borders on Doc, then realizing I'd sewn one whole row of triangles together the wrong way......" big sigh"

Thanks to Tropical Storm Beryl, this is as good as I could do for a picture on this post and I'm not much on doing a post without some kind of a picture, so I'm going with what I've got!  I did decide to go with a different background fabric for Doc than the one you see here.  After three days of wind and rain my picture options are pretty slim!

Well, I'm writing this post while I put off going back to my Doc and taking apart that side border of triangles.  I've been putting off returning to the project all day, so I'm trying to look at it like moving forward while I take those stitches out, not moving backward.  I guess it's working.   What happened was, I was sewing later at night than I should have been, and I think that's where I went wrong.  I should have called it quits earlier than I did, instead of trying to push through to the end and finish it up. I couldn't help it. I was excited to finish this one! I've seen so many nice Doc quilts out there in Blogland already! It was a silly mistake as I went from making the top and bottom borders to the side borders.  That's what I get for not looking at the directions as I went along LOL!!  

Thanks for listening!  I'm going to get started frogging and moving forward as I listen to the rain. 

A Little Late To The Party

 This Sweet Spot Schnibble, designed by Carrie Nelson, is my entry in The Blogger's Quilt Festival!  I just finished putting the binding on today, the last day to enter a quilt in the festival at Amy's Creative Side.

I've had the quilt mostly done for awhile.  I was just leaving the binding as a hand work project to do now and then, but I decided this was the quilt I wanted to enter in the festival, and I managed to finish just in time!  

There are lots of pictures in this post, because I had so much fun with this quilt, including the quilting, so please bear with me!  I even cut the binding on the bias to get that barber pole look that I love. 

 I did the quilting on my quilt frame and I was pleased with how it turned out.  This quilt is special to me because it represents a big jump in my quilting skills on the frame.  It's been a slow transition for me from moving the quilt around under the machine, which I was very comfortable with, to moving the machine around on the quilt!  

Marking some reference points, but not the whole quilt, really worked out well for me on this one and I plan to do more partial marking in the future.

I know, I know, I'm finally showing you a picture of the entire quilt!  I think the black, mixed in with the bright colors, is what makes this quilt pop! Fresh Flowers and Punctuation were the charm packs I use in this small quilt.  Mixing a couple of different charm packs when I can is my favorite way to go.

The backing of this quilt really called to me!  I just love the large print and how the quilt could even be reversible.  Usually I am a big fan of labels on all of my quilts, but since this one could just as easily be used on the other side, I haven't really decided what to do about a label.  Any ideas?

Well, thanks so much for visiting and come back soon!  I hope you can take some time to see so many other wonderful quilts at the Blogger's Quilt Festival over at Amy's Creative Side!

Were You There Last Night?

I hope you were able to join us on Friday Night!  Here is a quick look at what I accomplished during the Friday Night Sew-In with a little help from Bobbi, Heidi, and a fabulous pizza delivery place! 

My first Doc block with Curio fabrics.  Eating my chocolate before, and cutting after
 helped make this block so nice and square!

Plenty of half square triangles for the border!  Progress!

Did you spend you Friday evening sewing??

A Super Sweet Bag and Some Friday Night Fun

Don't you just love the Ruby fabric?  The tie across the bag is such a cool accent!

Isn't this an amazing bag and two really sweet pincushions?  My friend LeAnn and I swapped bags and treats a few weeks ago and I just had to show you what she made for me!  LeAnn knew I only had one pincushion to my name, so she was kind enough to make me a few more and add some beautiful pins to make them complete!

Then to top it off, she sent me a Layer Cake, a pattern, and some other fun goodies too!  Thank you so much LeAnn!!  When I started blogging I had no idea how much fun it would be and how many sweet friends I would meet!  Next week I'll share pictures of the treats I made for LeAnn.

The Friday Night Sew-In is here again!  I plan on doing some cutting for my Doc Schnibble and having some treats to eat!  Are you signed up yet?  It's on Friday, May 19 so if you haven't gone over to visit Bobbi and sign up you'd better go soon!  Thanks so much to Bobbi and Heidi for giving me and excuse order pizza and enjoy some sewing time on a Friday night.  I hope to see you there! 

Destination Disney

Last week my son's class took a field trip to Disney World!..........Why do we call them field trips?  Is anyone actually visiting a field?.............. The class went on a scavenger hunt through the Magic Kingdom looking for clues and solving riddles related to the Disney Kingdom Keepers book series. I was lucky enough to be able to go with them, so I thought I'd share a few pictures with you.  

Tomorrowland is full of futuristic buildings that the boys loved.  This one just caught my eye.

This was the view I had of the Space Mountain entrance when I waited for the kids to finish the ride.  Take note that I wasn't riding it.

The Haunted Mansion was definitely a hit with this group of sixth grade boys!

Just a tip, it's not a good idea to ride Splash Mountain right before you get on the bus to go home. I knew this wasn't a smart plan, but because we had to follow the clues in order, I didn't have much of a choice!

Cinderella Castle was the final destination on their quest.  What a beautiful spot to end the visit.....well, I guess we actually ended the visit in the gift shop, but this was pretty close to the end! 

The kids had a great time on the trip and although they were disappointed that Big Thunder Mountain Railroad was closed the day we were there, they were all excited about the New Fantasyland construction. There are lots of changes taking place right now, with the largest expansion the Magic Kingdom has ever experienced. You know we'll be going back to see it when it's finished! 

If you're still reading this, thanks for sticking with me through all these pictures! I really enjoy reading everyone's travel posts and seeing the amazing places that you've been, so I thought I'd share a few pictures from our super fun field trip.  I promise my next post will be a quilty one.  Kris put together a great mini-quilt swap that wraps up at the end of the month.  Right now,  I'm working on my swap gift for Michelle, so I don't want to show pictures yet anyway.  I'll be sure to share what I'm working on when I can!  

"Update On The Visitors" Or "An Empty Nest"

They've hatched!  Here are some pictures of our Carolina Wren family.  I know these pictures are out of order, but this one was so cute, I just couldn't stick it down at the bottom of the post! This little guy just left the nest less than an hour before this picture was taken.  My DH was able to get this amazing picture of him in a tree behind our house. He still has a tuft of baby feathers.  Mom and Dad and the other four babies were all fluttering around in the trees.  We were even able to see them around the yard the next day.  

This was the day before they left the nest.  They are certainly bigger than they were here! Almost ready to go!

Dinner time!  The babies are hungry!  We saw the parents bringing all kinds of food to the nest in this pot, including lizards and frogs! Ugh! I wasn't really expecting that!

Here is a picture of Mom or Dad waiting for me to leave so the babies can be fed.  As time went on the birds got more used to us being around. 

"Me, in the way?" 

They didn't even seem to mind Copper, although occasionally they would yell at him when he was hanging around too close to the nest when it was feeding time.  Copper insisted on having his picture in this post too.

The evening that the birds left, one of the parents came over and chirped at me for a few minutes, maybe saying "Thank you!" 

Well, the birds have left the nest, but my family enjoyed having them around for the past six weeks and we hope they'll be back!

A Wild Weekend

It was a wild weekend for me with lots and lots of soccer and absolutely no quilting! We had a great time and celebrated plenty at a two day soccer tournament in Orlando.  Guess who scored a game winning goal?  Woohoo! Hard work and lots and lots of practice pays off!

Between soccer games we managed to find some time to visit Universal Studio's CityWalk, enjoy some wonderful restaurants and play their amazing, new mini-golf courses. One course was Haunted and the other was Sci-fi. With all of the glowing critters and special effects, we found the courses were the most fun after dark! We enjoyed a lot of laughs and everyone had a great time!  

Now it's back to reality as I get the house back in order after our trip and the kids get back into school mode.  I am hoping to find some time to do some quilting and visit some blogs this week, but since I'm chaperoning a school field trip to Disney in a few days, I'm not sure that will happen!  Maybe I can fit it in somehow!  May is always such a crazy, busy month. I hope you are finding some time to sew!