Orca Bay Mystery #5 and Cookies

 It is Monday and Bonnie Hunter has the Linky thing up for our progress on her Orca Bay Mystery. I did not get all of step 5 done yet but maybe just short of half of 350. I like this photo of the colour units added in than just black and white. I love working on Black and white but we have done 3 out of 5 steps in black and white.

Here we are making cut out Christmas cookies. These are a family favorite, I have been making them since I was 13 or so. They are a recipe that my great grandmother used, I remember visiting her and getting a animal cookie with coloured sprinkles on it.

I make up the batter the night before and refrigerate. Then we dig out the large bucket of cookie cutters and roll out the dough. The boys are getting big enough that they cut many cookies and are a big help to decorate. We add sprinkles and sugar all before the cookies are baked.

 Both boys at work on cookies. I got a photo of the oldest. He hinds and stays far way from the camera. 

A tray of cookies finished and cooling. They always brighten up the cookie plate.

Disappearing Nine Patch

  This is food fabric for a Dog quilt. Yes My sweet dog needs his own quilt. He had surgery this week and is doing well but hates the cone.  I wanted a quick quilt so I have gone with Disappearing Nine Patch. It is also the same fabric I used for my casserole covers from yesterday. If you want a quick quilt this is it. Follow along if you have not made this block before.

First I sewed the nine patch blocks together. I think I used 6" squares. I know some have used 5 inch square. Just keep them all the same size. Note my black fabric in the middle.

Once sewn. Press seams and cut right down the middle. Both up and down and left and right. See the black fabric from the middle is cut into four smaller square units.

Now the fun part. Give the new units a twist. Turn them. There are a couple of different ways to lay them out now. Play around and see what you like the best. See were you like the little square ( Black Bones in my quilt). Then sew them back together again. You now have a new block.

We are spoiling the dog big time.  He hates the cone he has to wear and does not do well in his kennel for the night. Wines the whole time, so the first night my husband slept with him on the floor. And I plan to tonight. This way he wears the cone and can not lick but will sleep without the noise.

Christmas Gifts 2011

 I can celebrate. I got all my customers quilts done for Christmas, just this past hour. Now I can work on my gifts.

This is a dutch oven and quilted cover to take to a pot luck party. I made this one for a dog trial prize draw early this month. I have one more to finish for a family gift. I am laughing, I got my sister in law's name this year and wanted to give her this, bought the pot early, on sale. Well then she sent her list out and guess what was top of her list. A dutch oven, so I did well.

I used some disappearing nine patch blocks using some food fabric. Did you notice the bones? My way of getting dog related fabric in.  I will show you how I did the disappearing nine patch on Friday. I am still working on what I need to say so I get it correct.

Tuesday Quilting Christmas Quilt

 This is one of my customer's quilts that I did earlier this year. It is her Christmas applique quilt. It has turned out so nice. I did not have a camera this summer and did not get the photos at my house, like I would normally do. She entered the quilt in the Black Gold Quilt Patch Show (October  Leduc Quilt Show) were I as able to get the photos. I got a new camera for my birthday. The old camera was lost at the Edmonton and Distinct Guild Quilt Show in June. It just never came home with me. Not sure what happened to the camera.

Tuesday as when my Quilting Bee would meet. This fall I am in a Dog Agility class on Tuesdays and many of our members are traveling for the winter. We are not meeting much these days but I still feel Tue is quilt day. So I try to make a post instead. Maybe Shawna will stop by and check up on us.

Orca Bay Step 4 and Design Wall Monday

 Step 4 of the Orca Bay Mystery came out on Friday.  I have worked hard on this step for a few days over the weekend. I am not using the suggested Red but Pink instead.  I have a red pop up once in a while as Pink is really just a shade of red. The pile on the left has all the paper removed and the smaller pile to the right still needs the paper removed. I did do all the blocks with Bonnie's paper foundation method. To check out more of what other bloggers are doing check out Bonnie's Linky thing. There are a few people using different colours. Some of my local quilt friends are working hard on this mystery too (Kathy, Kathryn, Elizabeth, Betty, Arley). It will be fun to see how many finish and can keep up. My mom plans to do this but has only started step one and then went traveling. She has step two printed and sealed in an envelope. She will have to do the same for step 3 and 4 when she gets home. My ante Arley is working on her's. I think it is because she did the last two mysteries and they turned out so well that it has encouraged me to do this one. 

It is also Design Wall Monday over at Patchwork Times .  I am working on doing some scrap blocks for a rainbow quilt.  It was over at Soscrappy that I saw This Quilt. I have to make one like it. On Saturdays she hosts 2011 Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I only started in Nov 2011 (not Jan) but I love the quilt she has made.  The month of Dec is Red and Green. These are mine Pink and Lime Green, not very Christmas like. I have some Reds set aside to do a good red block yet this month. And I can sort out the darker green ones for later this month too. If you have noticed I am not doing the inside on my blocks the same, each is different. The middle part of my blocks are 6" and anything goes. Then I put a 1" white around then a 2" strip pieced, to finish my block at 12".

Happy sewing this week. I planning to get more long arm quilt done, then some baking tonight.

Christmas Baking Started

 I just finished mixing up my Blond Fruit cake for Christmas. It is in the oven for the next four hours. I got the receipt from my aunt Myrna a few years back and have been making it since. I wish I could get better Pecans fresh from Texas. My dad traveled for work to Huston almost monthly when he was working and in Nov he would bring back Pecans for Christmas baking. These three little cakes have over $14.00 in pecans and I can bet they are last years crop. Not as good as what Dad would bring home. I would make Pralines if I could get fresher pecans.

I can now head to my sewing room and work on a customers quilt. Last night I started step 4 of Orca Bay Mystery. It will take sometime to get step 4 done.

Karen McTavish Whole Cloth Class

This is Karen McTavish and Me, Cathy, yesterday in class. Karen got me giggling in the photo. I did have a good time. Karen was an excellent teacher. One of Karen's quilts is behind us.

 Me working a way at my whole cloth design. Matt Sparrow took the photo for me. He wanted to see more cleavage. Can you guess we had a lot fun in the class. Matt and Bradie had a great breakfast and lunch out for us.

I started my whole cloth with a piece of Kona cotton that was 44" by 62". I knew that, not starting square was going to create some troubles for me but I wanted to work though it. I love a diamond in a square layout but it looked like that was going to be hard to do. I did a princess feather boarder and a diamond in the middle with a stencil pattern. Then I have an area above and below the diamond to fill in. I found another feather to use. It worked out well.

 Karen teaching us about background fillers. Some need to be marked and others can be left to do free hand. Below here we are holding up our works of art. Overall a very good class. I did take a class from Pepper Cory years ago and maybe I could have done one on my own. I will do one on my own now.

Orca Bay Mystery Step 3

 So last Friday Bonnie Hunter released the step 3 of the Orca Bay mystery. I was very busy on the Friday and the rest of the weekend with a Christmas Party and a Dog Agility Trial. I finally have had sometime to sew in the evenings for myself. I have all 350 little (2"unfinished size) triangle sewn and a few more (maybe 100) to trim up. I should be good to go and sew on step 4 on Friday night.

I will see if I can still do the linky thing on Bonnie's Blog. It is Here if you want to see more about step three. If you think you may want to do this quilt you should be printing the pages as she releases them. I think it is May she will be taking the quilt steps off her blog as it will be printed in her new book. Or you can wait for the new book sometime later in the year.

Friday in the day I am in a class with Karen McTavish the machine quilting goddess. She is in Edmonton this week. Tonight is the trunk show at the Sherwood Park Quilt Guild. This week she is teaching a large arrangement of quilting classes. Friday is Whole Cloth Design which I am taking. I have my fabric washed and dried but not ironed and squared up yet. I also have to go to the quilt store and get a handful of those pen wash out pens. I do wish I had more money to take more of her classes but with Christmas coming I am only in one. I will let you know how it goes.

Tin Box Exchange - Leduc Guild

 Tonight is the Black Gold Quilt Patch Meeting and Christmas Party. Last month we started a tin box exchange and I joined in. This is the block I did for the box this month. My box #3 had a orange fall themed fabric and I was to use a piece of the fabric in my block. The block can not be bigger than 8 1/2" in size so that it still fits in the 9" box. I did a star and also got these little bonus pinwheels too. I am going to include them in the box. I hope the other ladies got their boxes done and bring them to exchange tonight. Each box has a theme and a piece of fabric. Also is a little book to write down any note or were you got the pattern from. At the end of six months when each box should be done with six blocks, we draw names. If you added a block to the box you get a chance to win the box of blocks. Everyone will go home with one box. We are then challenged to make a small wall quilt with our blocks.

The internet repair man was to our house today so let us hope this is the end of all the troubles. So far OK. I was busy at a Dogs At Large agility trail all weekend. We got one passing in the Started Standard class and two other classes we were less then a sec from a pass. We had time faults. My dog visited the jump crew a few times. He is too friendly. Over all he was very good at the trial and we both enjoyed ourselves. I did not take any photos but I did have someone take video of all our rounds. Maybe I will get them loaded on to my you tube challenge someday and show you the link in case there are other dog friendlies out there. I think I want to do some editing and I need to learn that first.

Best get to that Christmas Party now. 

Orca Bay Step Two Done

 I got my Orca Bay Mystery Step Two Done. It took me three days (evenings really) to do it all. Wow what a step. I did most of the squares with Bonnie's paper method. I had to try the strip piece method and then cut them out too. I did about 30 that way. The blocks are not as cute. The individually done paper blocks used the very small pieces and have more personality. Bonnie is doing the linky thing again Here. I will not get step three done by the following Monday as next weekend is a Dog Agility trial. I will be dogging it all next weekend.

 I started by sorting my scraps out. I got out brown as it was Brown this month for Soscrappy Saturday. I need the blue for step two. I am guessing I will need the pink (for my Red) in the OB Mystery.

 My phone book pages were from a 2003/2004 book. I laughed at cutting up Alder Flats, Bashaw and Beaumont. Many more pages for the next step.

 Scraps every were. Note the keep me going food, a coke and chocolate.

 I did this block on the weekend as I said it was brown month for Soscarppy Saturday. I just love This Quilt . I need to make it. I am 10 months behind on starting the Saturday scrap thing but oh well. I got November done. Most of the triangles in the middle are from the end of joining up binding, so really scrappy. I do not toss the cute little triangles out.  I will also plan to link this with Design Wall Monday at Judy's

Here are the blue scraps when I got done. I found many more 2" strips after I got started and I cut some more one night when I have getting to the end and I think I went over board. The next morning I looked at what I had cut and thought Oh No, I cut way too many. I hope I can use more in another step.