wordless wednesday

hardest pattern ever

And back to it today. Wish me luck!

holly jolly

I love this quilt kit from Hamels. And if you haven't seen their newly designed website, what are you waiting for?

And with less than 3 months until Christmas, have you thought of your quilty Christmas gifts?

Quilted with Flirtatious

quilt monday

This beauty is for me. I think it will end up gracing the dining room table. It was a Kashmir 2 layer cake. Love the colors/prints in this line. Quilted with Feather Frond

And no, the binding isn't finished. I've been too tired at night lol. Now with all the TV shows starting again, I should have it finished soon

new tricks

Today I decided to work on my Mystery Quilt. Hadn't touched it since I worked on it last time lol and that was month 4's installment and I had gotten halfway.

I quickly realized why I had stopped. Paper piecing. I have never done it before.

The instructions were not clear but Mom showed me a different way and I was sort of figuring it out lol.

Was doing pretty good until my very last one. I ended up taking it apart FOUR times lol!



I was almost ready to throw in the towel and start over piecing the blocks when it clicked and perfection.



Now to get them all trimmed up. And fingers crossed I can work on it more tomorrow.

snack saturday

Blissful Brownies

4 squares Unsweetened Chocolate
1/3 cup canola oil
1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups sugar
8 large egg whites
1 cup flour
1/2 cup chopped pecans


PREHEAT oven to 350°F. Line 13x9-inch baking pan with foil, with ends of foil extending over sides of pan. Grease foil.

MICROWAVE chocolate in large microwaveable bowl on HIGH 1 min. Stir until chocolate is completely melted. Add oil, applesauce and vanilla; mix well. Stir in sugar. Add egg whites; stir until well blended. Add flour and pecans; mix well. Spread batter into prepared pan.

BAKE 25 min. or until brownies start to pull away from sides of pan. Cool completely. Remove brownies from pan using foil handles.

Using a small food strainer, sift 1 to 2 tsp. icing sugar over cooled brownies

card friday

bag me again

I started this bag almost a month ago when we had our last Bag Ladies sewing night. I finally got it put together on Monday.

I love the bag. I love how it is all co-ordinated since I used Moda's Chocolat fabric(I'm hoarding some of that too lol)



Nice and roomy inside with a lots of pockets




Now to find a pattern for Friday night's Bag Lady meeting

on a roll

I have desperately needed to do some cards. Today, I was home A.L.O.N.E. ALL DAY. Jim is out of town and all the kids were in school-YAY lol. Did some errands in the morning, a few chores than I decided, time to STAMP!

I adore this scarecrow. And the Basic Grey paper is one of my favorites. I hoarded, I mean saved ;) some sheets of it from last year. I've used it all up now and wish I had bought more!

wordless wednesday

happy autumn!

Anne pieced this beautiful fall quilt. Her piecing is always excellent and her quilts are such a joy to do.

Quilted with Autumn Leaves

quilt monday

Yes! Quilt Monday! I bet you all thought I had forgotten ;)

I couldn't find my camera this morning(or my cellphone. Funnily enough, I found them together lol) Than there wasn't a single charged battery in this house. Finally got some charged and couldn't get the pictures off the camera... So here we go at last!



I started this wall hanging waaaaaaaaaaay back in August. Than my machine went funky. And it took me forever(or so it seemed) to get the binding done. But it is all done now-almost right in time for me to hang a loverly pumpkin/fall wall hanging in it's place lol!!


And just because. A little something we found in the garden

snack saturday

Cinnamon Pull-Apart Bread

2 cans (340 g each) refrigerated country biscuits

Pull Apart Bread
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 Tbsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 cup butter, melted
125 g (1/2 of 250-g pkg.) Brick Cream Cheese, softened
1/2 cup icing sugar

Glaze
1 Tbsp. milk

HEAT oven to 350°F.

CUT each biscuit into quarters.

MIX granulated sugar and cinnamon in medium bowl. Add biscuit pieces, in batches; toss to coat.

PLACE half the biscuit pieces in greased 3-L fluted tube pan or 10-inch tube pan; drizzle with half the butter. Repeat. Sprinkle with any remaining cinnamon sugar. Bake 40 to 45 min. or until toothpick inserted near centre comes out clean and top is golden brown. Cool in pan 5 min; invert onto plate. Remove pan.

BEAT remaining ingredients with mixer until well blended; drizzle over warm bread.

a quiet day at work

It you aren't a Twilight Fan than feel free to completely ignore this post. Or join in laughing with me(WITH not AT please lol)

Tonight is the home opener of our local hockey team. I LOVE hockey; almost as much as I love Twilight. Anyways, had an absolutely dead day at work so I spent my morning creating this,



Hope we win

card friday

yay for thursday

Why yay? Because tomorrow is Friday. And than it is the weekend. And I am taking Monday off-woo hoo. Plus we've had all our afterschool activities start this week and I'm tired of driving kids here, there and everywhere. Can't wait until it's more routine, than it would feel like it's all I do.

Funny story about this quilt. My customer picked a pattern, it was the last one we had. The day I loaded the quilt up, we sold the pattern!! It was my fault for not putting the pattern away but I had to call and ask the customer if I could switch patterns on her. She was nervous; this was the first time we had quilted for her.

I put Whatever on the quilt and a Rainbow thread.

She loved it!

scarecrow

I love fall; it is my most favoritest season. And I love this scarecrow stamp. I bought it second hand years ago; I don't know which stamp company makes(made?) this one; the company info has been worn right off the block

wordless wednesday

will i drive you crazy

If I do another bag post? lol

Tonight my dear sister in law babysat our youngest two kids while we had a meet the teacher night at the high school. We had the Phoebe bags to finish that we had started and Erica wanted to make another Buttercup Bag for her mom

I have to say, I am surprised we got them finished. Both of us are completely worn out and Erica heads back to Calgary tomorrow so tonight was our only chance to finish these.

I'm not thrilled with the Phoebe Bag. The instructions weren't exactly clear so we ended up muddling through. I think we ended up taking the bags apart a total of 4 times before we figured out what the instructions were trying to say.

I do love the shape. And the fabric I used for this one. I got the exterior fabric for $1.50/meter on clearance at Fabricland and the green check was in my stash



Erica's is a thank you gift for a friend who cared for Erica's kitties while they have been here.



And Erica's Buttercup bag made with Moda Chocolat. We need to finish the top stitching; I did it twice and ended up taking it out. I'm just too tired to do it right lol

bagged

Sorry there wasn't/isn't a Quilt Monday today. We had my Grandpa's funeral today and our weekend has consisted of helping set up for the service, picking up family members for airports and just getting together as a family. In all that, we even had a birthday. Our oldest turned 14. I can't believe I am a mother of a 14yr old! Am I that old? Don't answer that lol.

The service was lovely, thank you all for you kind words regarding my Grandfather's passing. At 98yrs old, every year we had with him was a gift

Saturday my sister in law Erica, mom and cousin Melody decided we needed to bag. They went off for a quick fabric pick-up to Hamels, and don't worry, I'm staying strong on the fabric diet!

Our pattern of the night, the Buttercup Bag. Erica decided to make her's the regular size with a fabric strap. The rest of us went with the larger bag and handles

Just over 3 hours later, we had 4 bags finished! I love how super easy this pattern is. We did change it a bit and added some pellon to the lining to stiffen the bag up a bit more. We also changed the pleats in the front of the bag and added an inverted pleat to the middle instead of having the pleats go all in the same direction.

Erica's bag



Mom's



Melody's



Mine



The bags were so quick, mom decided to sew the binding on the quilty I snuck in the other day at work



And Erica decide we needed to make another bag so her she is prepping the pieces of a Phoebe Bag



Stay tuned to see how those turn out

snack saturday

Warm Peanut Butter Pudding

2 cups cold milk
1 pkg. (4-serving size) Chocolate Instant Pudding
1/4 cup Smooth Peanut Butter
1/4 cup thawed Whipped Topping


POUR milk into medium bowl. Add dry pudding mix. Beat with wire whisk 2 min. or until well blended.

SPOON evenly into four microwaveable dessert dishes. Top each serving with 1 Tbsp. peanut butter.

MICROWAVE on HIGH 30 sec. or until peanut butter begins to melt and pudding is heated through. Top each serving with 1 Tbsp. of the whipped topping.

card friday

Yes, another penguin!! I think I need some more stamps lol. Happy Friday :)

read all about it!

A friend of a friend heard about our bag nights and our Facebook Group and asked to write an article for a local newspaper on us. The article came out today and we couldn't be more excited over it. You can read it in it's entirety here We love how the article turned out, this just came about Monday night!

Had a great day at work today. I had a customer coming to pick up two quilts and when I left work yesterday, I wasn't finished her last quilt. Thankfully I was able to get it done and trimmed up with 15 minutes to spare lol

It was such a great work day, that I was even able to sneak in a quilty for me this afternoon. Hope your day was a great one too!

thursday already?

I could swear we've already done Thursday. Anyways, hope you are all having a good week. With the kids going back to school, my free time has drastically reduced and I am struggling with blogging. I'm sure once we get used to school times and back to work, it will all feel normal again

I can happily report that the quilty in Monday's post I did finish Monday evening(YAY!) but I'm going to keep it hidden until next week. Just in case I get nothing else accomplished this week lol

This is the perfect fall quilt by Barb. I love the leaves; the fabrics, the colors; all of it!


Quilted with Autumn Leaves

Fall Quilting Special

At Quilted Cats Hideaway we are offering our valued customers a 20% discount on quilting for the month of September. This is our way of saying Thank You for your business. So, why not bring us your summer quilt tops to get quilted or get a head start on those Christmas quilts.

This special is for new quilts brought to us between now and September 30, 2009. We’ll be limiting it to 3 quilts per customer. Please call to make an appointment to drop off your quilt tops: 604-794-5922.

Did you know we now carry 3 different extra wide backings (120”) as well as reasonably priced batting?

The Fine Print: you will receive 20% off the quilting charge only, not the thread charge or batting cost.

wordless wednesday

good-bye summer

I had planned to do a good-bye summer post but not the one I am writing. We had a weekend planned of some end of the summer family things but Saturday morning I got a phone call and our plans went out the window.

Saturday morning my grandfather passed away. We were honored with hosting Grandpa's 98th birthday here in July. Sadly, he went downhill health wise quickly after that. He was admitted to the hospital Friday and passed away early the next morning.



Our weekend has consisted of hunting down my parents on their vacation and breaking the news to my dad; booking flights for relatives and getting together with family to plan a memorial service.

On the bright side, when Grandma passed away 5yrs ago, we all thought Grandpa would die of a broken heart. He faltered a few years ago, and yet he held on. I feel incredibly blessed with the memories my Grandparents have left me with. And more importantly, that our boys will always remember their great-grandparents.

Sadly, I now have no living Grandparents. In the past 5 years we have also lost a set of Jim's Grandparents less than 2 yrs apart.

But life continues. And next week, we will celebrate the 98 years my Grandfather lived and loved. I think of what he had seen in his lifetime and it boggles me.

So this weekend we say goodbye to summer, and to a very well loved Grandpa.

Right now the pool is draining; it is pouring out. I added a heavier quilt to our bed last night and socks were brought out when we all got dressed this morning. It feels like summer has left us for the year.



I was planning on showing this little quiltie as my Quilt Monday post but I am still trying to finish it. I think it was a month ago I started on this lol. My plan is to finish it today or it will end up shoved into the UFO box to finish off next summer lol.

snack saturday

Blueberry Cheesecake Bars

1/2 cup butter, melted
2 cups Graham Crumbs
2 pkg. (250 g each) Brick Cream Cheese, softened
3/4 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 jar (250 mL) Blueberry Jam
1 cup blueberries


PREHEAT oven to 350°F. Pour melted butter into 13x9-inch baking pan. Sprinkle crumbs over butter; mix well. Press firmly and evenly onto bottom of pan.

BEAT cream cheese until smooth. Add sugar, eggs and vanilla, beating until well blended; set aside. Stir jam in jar until softened. Spread jam evenly over crust; sprinkle with blueberries. Top with cream cheese mixture.

BAKE 30 min. or until slightly puffed. Cool completely in pan. Cut into 24 bars to serve. Refrigerate leftover bars for up to 3 days.

card friday

why why why??

I've put myself on a fabric diet for the month of September. No fabric purchases for the month. I haven't decided yet if that includes any new Block of the Months, purse patterns, quilt patterns... you see how it goes lol

And than I get Hamels' email newsletter and see this;



Basic Grey's Figgy Pudding. A stunning Christmas Quilt. I can resist right?

lesson's learned

I have heard of quilters who always take a picture of a quilt before they start sewing their tops together. Something about the camera picking up color placement your eye misses. I never paid much attention to it lol

Until I took a picture of this quilt. My customer made this quilt as a wedding gift. At first, my eye couldn't make out the pattern. It wasn't until I had the quilt quilted and took a picture of it that i could make out the stars in the blocks; so striking!

Quilted with Floral Meander

wordless wednesday

saddle up

Cindy made this quilt for her dad. I absolutely love the boot and word fabrics in this quilt. I should have taken a picture of the back; the thread disappeared and the quilting pattern just popped. I am really pleased with how this turned out.

Quilted with Stetson and Boots and a yummy King Tut thread

quick and cute

I seem to grab this penguin stamp every time I need a boy birthday card now. We had two birthday's to attend over the weekend; and I used this stamp for both the cards lol. I've certainly gotten my money's worth from it