Carrot Cake!

I made this carrot cake for my Hardanger meeting at my house this morning. I made the cake last night and boy oh boy do my knees hurt! Yep, BOTH of them hurt! This is my friend Sandra Luckett's recipe and it is to die for!! Yummy! I used Physillis or Gooseberries to decorate. It is very simple but elegant.

Here is my small spread. We try not to make a feast at these gatherings and I truly believe that I have lost weight or part of my success at losing weight is not attending these food driven mornings!! Nonetheless, the purple bowl Ali painted and the pinkish one I painted. The purple bowl had the Mushroom Sour Cream dip and the pink bowl has the Greek Cucumber dip. When I made it last night; I tasted it and freaked as I thought I put W A Y too much garlic in but the ladies loved it! ?? Ok! The drink spread was on the other table and I forgot to snap that.

Here is the cake cut into. It is one of the best cakes that I have baked in terms of evenness of the layers. I did not have to cut any bits off, darn it! I gobble those up!

Spiderweb Quilt Quilted!!!!!!

F I N A L L Y !! My Spiderweb Quilt is finished. I decided to quilt it by stippling it and I tried to make it small. I L O V E the way it has turned out!!!!

The photo above is the entire wall hanging quilt that my daughter is holding.

Here is one close up.

Another one..

The quilt on our orange couch. I love the yellow binding. It was leftover from my ruffled pillows.

I really love this photo.

I love all the pictures I have taken.

Here is the binding on the blue and white background. Just love it!

Soft Paws. Just what is it?

This has saved my furniture and the quilts on our beds! They are acrylic shaped caps that go onto a clipped claw with glue.

For Peaches; we bought the purple/white and Orange; and for Uki we bought grey and light blue. There are many, many colors to choose from.

They come like this.

They come with many little bottles of super strong glue and applicators.

These are the clippers that we also ordered. You have to remove the tip of the claw before you put the Soft Paw on. It helps to have extra hands and a treat, lemme tell ya!

I highly recommend these to any cat owners whom keep their cats indoors. Both of mine are Persians. It really does save the furniture, fabrics and your family!!

Thanks for stopping by.

It's Jasmine season!

Every morning when I come back from dropping the kids off at school; I find more blossoms on our Jasmine trees. We have two kinds. The beautiful full blossom that my husband and his father grafted....

and then there is what I call 'Popcorn Jasmine' as you can see. I usually don't put down a paper towel or kleenex in the basket (from Saudi Arabia, by the way) but they last longer this way.

Uki's fur is growing back in and she has started to pull it out! There are trails all over the house...

Here she is eyeballing one patch. She often likes to play with it...

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by.

Jacobean Needle Turned Applique - DONE!

My friend Bootsie moved to Oman from Kuwait and is now back in America; but while here, she shared a lot of what she learned over the years. One of the projects I took on was this Jacobean Applique. There are two in the set that I copied but I will only be making one I think! Anyway, I finished the very last flower this morning. The top right pink one to be exact! I framed it myself but Waqar doesn't like the gold frame. It doesn't go with our new Ikea vibe. We shall see where it goes! It is vibrant and colorful which is me.

I looked and this project was not on my UFO list. None the less, it is another project, too many years in the making, DONE!! Hallelujah!

Yellow Ruffled Pillow - DONE!

Ahhh... I made this lovely little bright yellow ruffled pillow. It was a choice on my friend Mayya's site Sew Chic and Unique last week. Her followers chose a basket instead but as you know; I have been making pillows for our living room so I HAD to make this! I have another one in the process of being made.

Here is a close-up of the ruffles.

Here is the back which I chose to make an envelope back again. Unlike the other three pillows; I washed and dried this one. I need to go back and do the same for the others!

Now, off to have lunch and then to watch the latest installment of the Vampire Diaries and then we are going to see How To Train Your Dragon! My Gerry is in it!!

Have a nice weekend.

I FINISHED ALI'S MYSTERY QUILT FROM SIX YEARS AGO! WOO HOO!!

I can't believe that I am finished! I worked hard all day sewing the never ending binding on today! I had to take breaks as I have an injury on my whole forearm and it flares when I do intense hand anything!

Off to the store I go to get lunch items for my babies! Was too busy trying to get this quilt done. I am really pleased with my choice of binding and my hand quilting that also hurt my arm!

It is in the washing machine right now and then it will be dried and then on Ali's body!

Stay tuned tomorrow for some pictures!!

Woohoo!!!

edited to add:

Here it is. Ali is thrilled!

Thanks for stopping by!

I'm Pissed Off, So I will hand quilt now!

Lordy, lordy! This A/C split unit was supposed to be installed....

in this space Wednesday! It is Saturday and the man said he would come this morning...

So in the meantime, I will look at my pretty fabrics and decide what adjustments to the Studio shall be made. I put away my lovely huge table. It was impeding with my view of my fabrics and it was literally cramping me. So, I am trying to just use the sewing table for sewing and cutting. Hmm....

Ahh, purple. This makes me so happy! Behind all this fabric, there is another stacked row...

Hello reds!

The blues are busting out of the cube! I might need another cube!

There are my greens. I see South Carolina's State Flower and State Bird fabrics! I am making a quilt for a dear, dear friend soon!

Pinks and Oranges! Ahhhh....

Yellows galore! I have so many more to be ironed. One box, so far, got hit really bad with that idiot painter that put my schtuff out on the roof and watched the torrential rain hit it. I just got to it this past weekend and it stunk!!

Everyone needs a bit of white!

These are my browns. There is that Gemini book! It is a gift for a friend. Not to worry, she is not a faithful blog reader!

Just so you all know, I have a lot more fabric! It is all packed away in boxes under the steps and on the landing upstairs.

Now, on to working on one of Ali's quilts. Hand quilting! I want it washed and used and off my To-Do list!

Oh, and by the way......

HE IS HERE!

I'm DONE!!

Baby Charity Quilt.............check!!!

All done. All I need is to get the Muscat Quilt Guild label and sew that on. I tied the floral blocks on the corners with pink DMC floss. I also sewed along the edges using a 1/4" seam. It made it look sort of like a binding. I thought it would also give it a bit of reinforcement as I sewed a 1/2" allowance. So, it has been washed and dried and I am so pleased! Thanks for stopping by...

I made this today!

I signed up to make a baby quilt that was in a kit for the kids in the Oncology ward. These are not my fabrics but it was a lot of fun to work with something that I would never buy! I really really like this block and I think I will be making it again; but much larger! It is a nice way to showcase some favorite fabrics for the center! I also like the design that the yellow fabric makes. I put this together today and hope to tie it tomorrow. I plan on using a new technique where I don't need a binding. Thanks for stopping by!

Seriously Cupcake!

I made this today! It was fun but harder than I expected! It looks as if the Barbie doll portion is missing!?

The kids thought it looked like a boob. Oooookkkk? I like the ruffle, it looks like the paper part of a cupcake thingy. Our guest of honor wanted blue. I used an Australian recipe and it was/is too sweet. I prefer the American recipe!

It is yummy though!

Three happy kids chowin' on their cake. We went swimming afterwards and hopefully worked it off!