this, that and the cat . . .

Our guild's year-end party was quite fun and we had a good crowd! 

My offering for our potluck was two dozen mini Gigi's cupcakes.  Served on fine china, of course! Unfortunately, the serving plate only held 23 cupcakes . . . 

No telling where that 24th cupcake went. LOL!  It's also at this meeting that the incoming president announces her board:

We're a good looking group of ladies if I do say so myself! I'm on the board as a co-chair of a newly created committee, the QIC.

I'm pretty proud of that logo, too! :) We'll be in charge of Secret Stitchers, a mystery quilt, and a seasonal, bi-monthly mug rug swap.  Fun stuff!

I've been slowly, steadily working away at my hexi basting.

I'm down to two colors left to baste and then I can start whipping flowers together. My plan is to whip the individual flowers together and then to lay them out to join together. It will be easy to mess up, so I want to take it slow. The only problem is, the deadline for entering quilts in our guild's show is less than a year away now!  Yikes!

I've been sitting looking at this lovely piece of fabric for several months.  

It was gifted to me and I left it up as a backdrop to my laptop because (1) it was patriotic, which covers May, June and July (for me), and (2) I wanted it to tell me what it wanted to be.

It finally did . . .

Something hexi-ish, of course! Which seems only fitting, given that the gifter was Sarah, from Sarah Did It!

I love table mats and this lends itself quite nicely, with a little fussy cutting, to show off those stars! 

EQ to the rescue again, to help me visualize my thought process. I couldn't get the fabric to quite get to the dimension I needed it to be, but close enough. I'll use something a little more subtle for the blue and red, but again, you (and I) get the idea. Maybe I can whip this up really quick and have it ready for Veteran's Day.  :)

Lastly, just wanted to share a little glimpse into the life of Leia, who started life as a two-human cat, and now is a five-human cat . . . 

Three of whom are little girls.  Leia will be ten this year -- and still playing with dolls!! And the only little people she tolerates are *her* little people. As is evidenced above.

Linking up with Sarah Did It's linky-versary for her HeLP (and for Feline Friday)!  I was there for the first one and I thought I should be there for this special anniversary, too!  Plus she's having a giveaway, so you should definitely hop over!  Also linking up to Kathy's Quilts slow Sunday stitching post.

Have a great finish to your weekend!

:)

tea for two . . .

I had been looking at the books that Tea Time Magazine reviews and recommends, and this little gem on their site grabbed my attention . . .

Click on the image to see the book on Tea Time.

What a joy to find it, shipping Prime (which means for *free*), on Amazon for a ridiculously low amount! When I first got it, I was a little disappointed to open it and realize it had been marked in.

Then I realized it was the signature of the author (and not personalized), and it was a happy little bonus!! Ha!

There are a number of recipes in this particular cookbook that I find appealing, but two caught my eye right off the bat . . . I knew they'd be perfect tea party fodder for Ellie and me (and since we had a 'date' coming up, it was timely)!

These pretty little Meltaway cookies were divine . . . and so easy!  And then the pound cake in baked in the tea cake molds was fun, too.  Both recipes halved nicely, which was kind of important to me.

What I realized that day was that baking was fun again -- the new RV has lots more counter space, which is so critical when it comes to baking!  LOL!

I may have gotten a little carried away that day.  But the chocolate cupcakes were for Todd.  (wink, wink) They came out of my Cupcakes for Two e-cookbook.

Needless to say, we had a marvelous tea party and Ellie was, of course, a delightful guest . . .

Happy days, indeed!

:)

where i've been . . .

So, evidently not only did I leave my voice at Grand Oak Retreat, but I brought home a case of walking pneumonia, as well.  Which, in a weird way, makes me feel a little better about my lackluster performance (what I worked on) while I was there.  I was so tired the entire time . . . now I know why!

I also realized I hadn't shared hardly any fun pics from my time with Ellie, the three days prior to retreat! We had such fun together!  She was very intrigued with my bin of *embellishments* . . .

So much so that I had to pull some BIG buttons together for her to play with while I stitched with bitty beads. It was so darling to watch/listen to her play with them.  

She'd pour them on the table and say, "Clean up, clean up!" Scoop them back into her cup and pour them out again.  I got a good sixty minutes of stitching in while she played the button game!

We also made teacup cupcakes!  Oh my gosh, these silicone teacup holders are so precious.  Kim had gotten them for me for my birthday . . .

Ellie enjoyed helping make them, but she *really* enjoyed eating them!  They were a big hit -- I need to get another set of four, I think!

We also spent some time on the playground . . . girlfriend can swing all day!

I loved the way she'd throw her little head back and shout, "Wheeeeeeeeee!!!"

And we watched a movie together . . .

This was during a particularly suspenseful part of the Little Mermaid.  Look how grown up she looks!

I did get a few things put together on retreat, but not nearly as much as I'd wanted or hoped to.  First thing out of the box, I did up the two starstruck blocks for our guild swap . . .

The theme for this month was red and white.  Sweet!

Then I stitched up this little table topper . . .

Recognize the fabrics?  I wanted to get it sandwiched and quilted, too . . . I'll save that for another day.

I did get a Grandmother's Choice block pieced . . .

I like the "T's" in this one!

And I did a lot of handwork, both on my Celtic Garden and on my secret little project (of which I'll share just a tiny corner):

Actually, I spent a LOT of time on the little mug rug project.  Hand work was my favorite!  I've spent a lot of time this week working on my Celtic Garden.  The Colonial knots are finished and I'm almost finished knotting the light green French knots in the center hedges.  Then on to the flower gardens!

And of course, what's a retreat without a tee-shirt?!  

This year's offering -- great colors!

And I enjoyed some spectacular sunrises.  I took one panorama photo.  Simply stunning!

It's not compressed, so when you click on it, it'll be full sized.

We had a total of fifteen women . . . all chit-chatting and oooohing and aaaahing over each other's work.  I love this group of gals . . . 

And of course, the "can't-do-without" gag shot.  Some of us are better at this than others!

I hope to be back in full swing by next week, but I admit, I'm still dragging a bit.  I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired!!  I'm ready to usher in health *and* Spring!!

Happy Friday!!

:)

lucky eight hundred . . .

This is my 800th post.  It's really hard for me to believe . . . eight hundred posts.  Who knew I had so much to say?!

Our GLOW event last night was a huge success; we had such a blast!  Gigi's cupcakes were (are) the bomb-dot-com . . .

I ordered two dozen.  That's a lotta cupcake!  I also had a little cupcake candle door prize and a cupcake devotional to share.  It was lots of fun.

The best part of the night, though, was putting together our Bleacher Cheer Bags!  It was SO cool to see how twelve women could just fall into different roles, putting things together, without any direction.  We really did work together incredibly well. 

In no time, we had all twenty bags finished up and ready to be delivered at Saturday's ball game!  Now that's something to cheer about ... YAY!

The embroidery work on the satin is slow but steady.  The metallic floss is a little difficult to work with, but I think it'll be worth the effort.

I had to use a needle with a bigger eye in order to accommodate the floss.  I was a little worried about pulling the bigger needle through the fabric, but I think the stablizer makes a huge difference with that.

It'll probably be a bear to quilt ... not sure I want to even THINK about that yet.

But it sure is pretty and sparkly!

:)

back to normal . . .

Whatever that is, right?!

I've got a couple of hodge-podge things on my figurative wall today.  First off, I finished off quilting the top for the Grand Hands pillow.  

The mossy green that I'm going to back it with also backed the quilt itself. The green polka-dot fabric was the binding ... I want to work that in somehow.  It should go off into the mail tomorrow.  Yay!

Next off I was anxious to see about getting that satin fabric prepped and ready to embroider. 

I got out the stabilizer and fused it according to directions.

So far, so good.  It looks quite nice from the front.

But now the question is ... will I be able to trace the design using the lightbox?  I lined up my design . . .

Secured my fabric . . . 

Gosh that's dark!

And *presto* turned on the light . . . 

YES!  That worked quite nicely, actually!

I think this is going to be very pretty and sparkly, especially with the silver metallic floss I'm using!  I'm very glad I used the stablizer.  Not only will it help keep the fabric secure in the hoop, the heavy floss is playing nicely with it, too.

And finally, I'm playing around with designs in EQ for the wholecloth quilting project.

I know I want to use hearts and circles and feathers.  I'm not quite sure what to do in the corners around the hearts, though.  I'll have to keep looking and playing until I get it right.  Then I've got to figure out how to transfer it onto my quilt top!

Do head over to Judy Laquidara's Patchwork Times, and check out the rest of the fun design wall posts today!!

We've got a busy week ahead ... tonight is our Batter's Up GLOW event -- cupcakes and baseball are a good mix, don't you think?!  Especially when the cupcakes come from Gigi's!!  LOL!  And then there's a guild meeting with a SUPER speaker ... I'll share more on that later in the week.

Y'all have a great Monday, ya' hear?!

:)

cupcake win . . .

I have to admit. I love cupcakes. Really! The only trouble is, since Todd started the no sugar thing, there wasn't much point in my making a batch, or else I'd end up a roly-poly. So I was *thrilled* to learn that Pillsbury had finally put out two sugar free cake mixes -- devil's food and yellow! Especially since we're always looking for a way to have a sweet treat without the sugar.

Unfortunately, a box makes 24 cupcakes -- and even though they are sugar free, we *still* do NOT need 24 cupcakes hanging around the place! So...I experimented.

The dry mix was 16 ounces, so I used my trusty Pampered Chef scale and weighed out exactly 4 ounces of mix.

From there, I broke down all the added ingredients to match. I used 1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon of water, 2 tablespoons of canola oil, and 3 tablespoons of egg beaters.

I mixed it all according to the box instructions and filled the cups 2/3 cups full.

After baking them for 18 minutes in a 325 degree oven . . .

They came out pretty darn perfectly!

Don't they look yummy? But you know, sugar free cupcakes aren't complete without . . .

Sugar free frosting! (Which also comes in c*h*o*c*o*l*a*t*e!)

I have to admit, I was impressed with the consistency of the frosting. It was nicely thick.

But it was also easy to spread.

Lookee there -- what a nice surprise to have waiting for my dear hubby!

And for the final test . . .

Pretty darn good!

:)