card friday

wordless wednesday

mini finishes

Have been sneaking in some time here and there and have come up with a few finishes. 

Firstly, April's Fresh Mini Quilt

Now these aren't colours I would normally be drawn too but I saw them stacked together and they looked so pretty that they had to be used for this. 

Originally I had chosen different fabrics. And this happened.

The sides of the geese? That is actually two separate fabrics. But once I cut them apart, they looked like the same fabric. I didn't want to just waste them so that is what I came up with.

And last night I finally finished up this. Well, at least the embroidery part. Good timing too since I just traced out a Christmas embroidery project that I want to get started on. I just might finish it for Christmas.

quilt monday

I managed to  sneak in some quilting time for myself on Thursday and I got May's Fresh Mini Quilt quilted.

I love how this quilt turned out. I wanted to keep the quilting simple so I did straight lines on the diagonal.

When I saw this stripe at my LQS, I couldn't resist it for the binding on this. It doesn't match the orange 100% but I still think it's perfect.

One teacher present finished, one to go!

snack saturday

Red Velvet Cupcakes


2 1/2 cups sifted cake flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
2 oz. red food coloring (two bottles)
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk, at room temperature
1 teaspoon white vinegar
1 teaspoon baking soda

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two 12-cup muffin tins with cupcake papers.

2. Sift together the cake flour, baking powder, and salt into a medium bowl; set aside.  In a small bowl, mix food coloring and cocoa powder to form a thin paste without lumps; set aside.

3. In a large bowl, using a hand mixer or stand mixer, beat butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, about three minutes.  Beat in eggs, one at a time, then beat in vanilla and the red cocoa paste, scraping down the bowl with a spatula as you go.  Add one third of the flour mixture to the butter mixture, beat well, then beat in half of the buttermilk. Beat in another third of flour mixture, then second half of buttermilk. End with the last third of the flour mixture, beat until well combined, making sure to scrape down the bowl with a spatula.

4. In a small bowl, mix vinegar and baking soda.  Yes, it will fizz!  Add vinegar mixture to the cake batter and stir well to combine. Using an ice cream scoop, fill cupcake cups with cake batter (they should be 2/3 – 3/4 full).  You may not fill all the cups, I ended up with 20 cupcakes.  Place muffin tins on the middle rack of a preheated 350 degree oven.  Bake for approximately 20-22 minutes, rotating pans halfway through. Cupcakes are done when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Check early and don’t overbake!

5. Cool the cupcakes in their tins on a wire rack for 10 minutes then remove and allow to cool completely before frosting.  Frost cupcakes with cream cheese icing.

card friday

quilt show season

Is in full swing and Hamels is travelling the country showing all their goodies. Here's a few quilts for them I've recently quilted; look for them at your next quilt show!

Soft and pretty

quilted with Linna's Charm

I have still resisted buying this kit but I may have to give in. I just love the colours in this one.

Quilted with Floral Meander

 Love the modern look to this one.

Quilted with Fascination

 Love how the pattern shows up.

This lovely flannel quilt. 

Quilted with Acorns and Oak Leaves

I am loving this new fabric line from Fig Tree; Tapestry.

Quilted with Erin

l-o-v-e!!

 For the Berenstien Bear fan in your life.

Quilted with Sprung

This quilt is perfect for spring.

Love it. 

Quilted with Daisy 3

The pattern is just the right amount of softness to compliment the quilt.

Lastly, this stunning embroidery quilt.

Quilted with a simple meander

I kept the quilting simple and just went with a meander. No competing with the embroider on this one.

Beautiful!

This weekend, Hamels is in Calgary at the Heritage Park Quilt Show. If you are in the area, go say hi!

wordless wednesday

fabulous

That one word sums up our weekend. Had such a great time hanging out with our youth group(and pulling some pranks on them too lol). But wow, am I still tired! Monday the sun made an appearance and it was garden day; weeding, barkmulching, updating. Now I need a weekend to recover from my weekend.

I did get some quilting snuck in on Sunday afternoon and I finished up this wall hanging.

And yesterday I finished up my May Fresh Mini Club quilt.

It's an end of the year teacher gift so I did it in our school colours. This block may be my favorite out of the 3 months so far. But I think I've said that before lol.

weekend

It's Victoria Day weekend here this weekend. 

Sadly there won't be much of this

But lots of this

Which is okay since all of us are involved in a huge youth conference, HistoryMaker this weekend.

Have a great weekend; see you next week!

yesterday

Did not turn out as planned. My lovely beautiful first day off in 3 weeks and I spent 7 hours of my day yesterday on the phone. I had returned an internet phone on Monday and for soem reason, Tuesday night, our internet was turned off. I contacted our provider yesterday morning and was told there was an outage in the area; no big deal. Just after lunch, Jim called me to say that he had tried emailing me and it had been returned as non-existing email. Huh??

Turns out that all of our emails had been 'lost'. After way too many phone calls, three have been found; my two are still out there somewhere. I've been told that everything will be fixed by lunch today. I have to say that I will believe it when I see it.

As a result, this is the only bit of sewing I got done yesterday.

The good news? Jim is coming home tonight and can help solve the where is the email question if needed. And the weather has changed for our upcoming long weekend. Instead of the lovely sun that was expected, it will be a typical wet and rainy long weekend.

And I just may have picked up a few goodies at the quilt shop yesterday

It will be a great weekend.

wordless wednesday

unexpected

Sunday afternoon I discovered a charm pack that I had bought a few months back. Couldn't decide what to do with it so I started sewing them together as hsts.

Last night, drama practice was cancelled so we had an unexpected free evening. And even better, boys 2 and 3 offered to cook dinner; a whole evening of sewing for me!

The rows are now together and ready to be sewn into a quilt top. Today after work I will pick up some fabric for a border. And maybe, just maybe, I can sneak this one in to be quilted this week.

Fingers crossed!

quilt monday

Hope you all had a fabulous Mother's Day. I was shocked yesterday when I won our Mother's Day giveaway at church yesterday. I got this fabulous planter

And  a bag full of goodies. And I mean FULL.

Gardening tools, magazines, hand cream, suncatcher, box of chocolates to a favorite chocolatier and a gift card to my favorite spa. Woohoo!

Now onto the quilt.

With grad activities for A, a crazy drama schedule for J and getting ready for a huge youth conference for the three older boys next weekend, I have barely had a chance to sew. Thankfully I have no plans on Wednesday; just a date with my sewing machine!

Not a very exciting quilt. I finished the embroidery just after Valentine's Day and got it quilted(kept it simple and just ditched all the borders) just after Easter. And it took almost until now to get the binding on lol.

Happy Monday.

snack saturday

Raspberry Swirl Cheesecake Cupcakes 

For the crust:
1½ cups graham cracker crumbs
4 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted
3 tbsp. sugar

For the raspberry swirl:
6 oz. fresh raspberries
2 tbsp. sugar

For the filling:
2 lbs. cream cheese, at room temperature
1½ cups sugar
Pinch of salt
1 tsp. vanilla extract
4 large eggs, at room temperature

Preheat the oven to 325˚ F.  Line cupcake pans with paper liners.  In a small bowl, combine the graham cracker crumbs, melted butter and sugar.  Stir together with a fork until well blended and all the dry ingredients are moistened.  Press 1 tablespoon of the mixture into the bottom of each cupcake liner.    Bake until just set, 5 minutes.  Transfer to a cooling rack.

To make the raspberry puree, combine the raspberries and sugar in a blender or food processor.  Process until smooth, then pour through a fine mesh sieve to remove the seeds.

To make the cheesecake, beat the cream cheese on medium-high speed in the bowl of an electric mixer until fluffy.  Blend in the sugar until smooth.  Mix in the salt and vanilla.  Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

To assemble, spoon 3 tablespoons of the cheesecake batter over the crust in each cupcake liner.  Dot a ½ teaspoon of the raspberry puree in a few dots over the cheesecake filling.  Use a toothpick or a wooden skewer to lightly swirl and create a marbled effect.

Bake until the filling is set, about 22 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through baking.  (They will look quite puffed initially but will return to normal quickly.)  Transfer to a wire cooling rack and let cool to room temperature.  Transfer to the refrigerator and let chill for at least 4 hours before serving.

card friday

wordless wednesday

busy as a bee

Been working almost nonstop at work and it has been too long since I've shown some of the beautiful quilts I have been lucky enough to quilt.

Alice made this fabulous quilt. She wanted modern quilting and requested straight lines. I think she made the perfect decision.

Joan made this lovely quilt.

Quilted with Flirtatious

Carol made this fun one for her grandson

Quilted with Sprung

Della's lovely quilt

Quilted with Luau

A quilt by Barbara

Quilted with Bright and Breezy

I have the same kit to make this quilt as Faye's. But all those tiny pieces? There is a reason why it's been sitting in a box for 3 years lol.

Quilted with Autumn Leaves

I love the fabrics in Janice's quilt.

Quilted with Celtic Scroll

I absolutely love this quilt of Lorie's.

Quilted with Fascination

A scrappy quilt by Susan

Quilted with Ground Cover

This adorable baby quilt by Kathy.

Quilted with Daisy Chain

Now it's off to work to quilt some more!

quilt monday

A bento box quilt has been on my must-do list for a few years now. I had a jelly roll that I had no idea what to do with so why not.

Funny thing, I was sewing the rows together when I realized that I had assembled the blocks wrong; oops! Took me a few evening TV watching to pull them all apart and I resewed the blocks; rightly this time lol.

quilted with Leaf Scroll

I had a difficult time choosing a pattern to quilt on this. The quilt is so busy I didn't want the quilting to compete and I didn't want to straight line this one. I found an old Keryn Emmerson pattern that worked perfectly.

 Love how it shows up on the backing

I had just enough of the brown for the inner border and the binding. The binding is pieced together out of small bits and pieces in some spots lol.

Happy Monday!