Flying Chirpers Quilt

I went over to my wonderful friend Karen's house Sunday night to quilt.  Pulled out a quilt that I had been working on maybe a year ago and put away because I had sewed a bunch of sqares incorrectly.  Well, I pulled out all the sewing that I needed to and worked on it again.  I finished setting up the first row of my flying geese....

As you can tell by looking at them....these geese are brown nosers  : )    The points of some of them (ok ok....most of them) are not there.  It's too late to correct this problem on this quilt, but I need to try this again and see if I can get the beautiful points that I should have. 

Once I complete trimming my squares, I will be able to finish the rows of geese....but I have lots of trimming left to do. 

Picked Up a Needle - Finally

I finally picked up a needle yesterday and did some cross stitching. Sad thing is I had to get one of my bright lights directed at the linen and I had to put on my cheater glasses....I decided to start working on a simple project, one that I am hoping to finish before Valentine's Day. I am not sure yet if I am going to frame it or maybe make it into a pillow. The pattern is by Bent Creek - Wedding Row.  This is what it looked like when I started.  

Bent Creek - Wedding Row

I will be posting updates to this every other Monday.....(or sooner if I make some good progress)

2012 Goals

Time to start thinking about 2012 goals....Let's see if writing them down will help me achieve them : )

1. Finish all the quilt tops that I have already started (including but not limited to the following)
-Parent's 50th Wedding Anniversary Quilt (need to figure out the pictures)
-Olaina's 30s reproduction quilt (which doesn't go w/ her newly decorated room lime green and zebra stripes : )
-Breast Cancer quilt
-Bird quilt - top done, need to quilt & add hand stitching/beading to the birds
-Other bird quilt
-Hungry Caterpillar (just need to put on the binding)
-The Very Series quilt (top done, need to quilt it)
2. Finish some of my old cross stitch UFOs
-Blackbird Designs Autumn one
-Work on And They Sinned
-Work on completing items started in my cross stitch basket
3. Finish decorating the kids rooms (this is dependent on Mike finishing them first)
4. Read at least one book a month (2 if they are YA books)
5. Blog once a week
6. Train for and complete a marathon.
7. Figure out how to make cookies from scratch (gluten free)
8. Go out with my girlfriends more often (once a month, minimum)

Anyone with any other suggestions for things to add to my ToDo list???

And a picture of the decorated cake. Very simple decorations since the inside of the cake was so cool. And before anyone asks...I forgot to get a picture of the cake when it was cut. But trust me...it was everything a 10yr old girl would want!!!

Baker in Training Take 2

Olaina wanted to help make her birthday cake this year. So, she decided she wanted a rainbow cake. I showed her how to mix the cake colors and pour them into the pan to get a rainbow. She had a blast. She picked out each color that she wanted in the cake....and the order she wanted to put them in.

Isn't she just the cutest??

First of two layers in the oven. She always wants to help me bake now. I think I am going to start baking with her every Sunday. Then we can have fresh baked goods during the week and some really good Mother/Daughter bonding time.

Master Baker in Training

After watching many episodes of Cupcake Wars, Fabulous Cakes and Food Network Challenges with me, the baking bug has finally infected my daughter. She wanted to make and decorate her own cupcakes. Now for her first cupcake baking experience, I broke out a boxed cake mix. But she mixed it herself. By the end of scooping 24 cupcakes, her hand hurt from squeezing the scoop : )

Then she made Buttercream frosting from scratch.

And she decided she wanted to color the frosting green. We used Wilton gel food coloring in leaf green.

I showed her how to prepare the piping bags and how to pipe. We used tips 4B and 2D.

Her first cupcake!!!!

Didn't she do a great job decorating all these cupcakes!! Next she wants to try decorating with fondant.

The completed cupcake after she added the sprinkles. I must admit they were quite yummy!!!

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I made this quilt for an auction at my children's school. It's on my daughter's bed just to show the size. Each child in Olaina's class drew a self-portrait. I think it came out beautiful. I am going to make a pillow sham for the auction winner since I have left over material.

It was my first experience playing around with Photoshop. This project was my justification for buying it!!! It took me a couple of days to figure it out. Granted I didn't read instructions that came with it!! : ) But I used it to brighten up the drawings and remove an stray lines.

I think I am going to make something similar to this for each of the grandparents for Christmas...have the grandkids make self-potraits and other drawings and make each of them a lapquilt.