Monthly Archives: December 2008

Black & White Bento Box Progress

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My son held up this top for me so I could take the picture. He wanted to know if the quilt was for Joey as he could see cats in the quilt. No, this one is not for Joey!

So the center portion of this Black & White Bento Box is now complete. I am now stuck on what borders to add. I had wanted to put two borders on–the first, a red with black dots and the second, a black with white print that was used in the center of the quilt. My favorite print in the quilt is a Loralie Design print with cats:

This print is called Sophistikitties. The only problem with using this as the outer border is that my local quilt shop does not carry this print. I could use a plain black but I am reluctant to do that as plain black fabric picks up and shows every thread and every piece of lint. I intend that this quilt will be used as a lap quilt so I would like something that doesn’t show everything that comes in contact with it quite so much. I find that the black and white prints camouflage the lint a little better than solid black. I have also considered using a bright green as an inner border rather than red.

The possibilities for borders go on and on. This is why I end up stalled on the borders. If I can’t find a suitable black with white print for the border locally, I may end up taking the yardage requirements with me when I head out on my vacation later in January and see what I find on my trip.
For now, this top will sit as a UFO awaiting border decisions and fabric.

Black and White

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Since the weather is not cooperating with plans to drive anywhere, I am staying put inside. Since I am housebound, I decided to take advantage of the opportunity and I spent the day quilting.

I have been busy today working on this black and white Bento Box quilt.

I have joined the on-line Black and White Quilting Project http://bwquiltchallenge.blogspot.com/ . I have always wanted to work with black and white so I have used the opportunity presented by the challenge to work on one of my black and white ideas–the Bento Box.


The plan is to make this quilt lap size. I have a second idea I would like to try in black and white. Once this quilt is a finished flimsy, I will be able to use the left over black and white fabrics and start a second black and white project–a Disappearing Nine Patch (D9P).
I quite often use a website called, Webshots–http://www.webshots.com/, as a source of inspiration for future quilt projects. I have seen both a black and white Bento Box and a black and white Disappearing Nine Patch there. All you have to do is go to the Webshots site and type in the name of a quilt pattern, add the word quilt and search. You are often overwhelmed by the number of pictures of that particular quilt pattern that will come up.

It Continues to Snow

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Just when we thought it couldn’t snow any more, we woke up to another 10″ of fresh snow this morning!

There have been reports recently on the news of roofs and awnings collapsing under the weight of the heavy snow so DH thought he should remove the snow off the roof of his shop. Here is my DH on the ladder in our backyard. Apparently just before I came out to take pictures, my husband had fallen off the ladder. It is a good thing that snow is soft!

And because the snow is so pretty, I spent a few minutes today snapping some shots outside.


Look who was watching me safe and warm inside.

This snow accumulated on my son’s car from 11 pm the previous night.

Merry Christmas!

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Merry Christmas from our house to yours!

This is a picture of my husband with the fish quilt that I made him. Although this quilt was finished in time for Christmas this year, this was not a Christmas gift (not this year anyway–LOL). Several years ago, I gave my husband a completed block for this quilt as part of his Christmas present that year with a promise to finish the quilt after Christmas. I guess I should have specified which Christmas because here we are several years later and the quilt is now finished. No more cold knees for my husband, Pam !

This is the Christmas quilt that I finished for my mother for this Christmas. The flimsy was finished in September 2006 (http://silverthimblequilting.blogspot.com/2006/09/stackn-whack-christmas-completed-to.html) and this top sat in the “to be quilted pile” since then. As Linda pointed out, “It isn’t doing anyone much good sitting in a bin somewhere”, so out it came and I finished it in time for this Christmas. My mom has promised to provide a better picture of the quilt once it is in place on her bed.

The following three pictures are of some of the Christmas vignettes from around our house.


Notice the totally green poinsettia? This is a plant that my husband brought home from work. He tried to tell me this was a new variety of poinsettia. Turns out that this plant didn’t receive the appropriate amount of light and dark to trigger some of the leaves to turn red. At first I thought it looks a little odd, but the longer it lives in my dining room, the more it grows on me. I think it fits with the red and green theme going on in the dining room at this time of year.

This is my nativity set–all white porcelain. I was thinking I didn’t have room to properly display it. After rearranging some things in the kitchen, I found a great place to display it on the corner of the kitchen counter.

This is this year’s tree. As you can see, we weren’t shorted in the present department. There were plenty of things under that tree for all of us!

This is my son and his girlfriend.

This is Joey checking out the presents before all the unwrapping activity started. I think he smelled the catnip mouse that was under the tree for him.

These are the stockings–overflowing with stuffers before they were opened.


This is my son, his girlfriend and my daughter sitting on the couch at the beginning of the present opening phase of the morning.

This is my daughter and husband playing Santa as they distribute the presents to everyone.

This is my Dad.

This picture was taken a little further into the unwrapping frenzy. Paper, paper everywhere.

We saved the presentation of the quilt for my mom for last so we could all watch her open it.

We have experienced a higher than normal amount of snowfall in the past week. It started snowing again on Tuesday night and it never stopped until we got up Thursday morning. The next three pictures were taken Wednesday (Christmas Eve Day). These pictures are of my son shoveling the driveway.

The last seven pictures were taken around our yard and show the recent snow accumulations. This is the first white Christmas coast to coast in Canada since 1971!