My blocks were sent out.

Yeah ! my blocks were sent out for a week before I left to Hawaii. They took trips to 6 towns
Logan, Chesapeake, New Kensington, Provo, Belleville, Denton, and San Antonio.

I also got 2 packages back from 2 teammates from Provo and San Antonio.
LOVE them all. How many times I said this :-) Thanks a lot!

Here we are some pictures from our Hawaii trip. The way quilter's took control of camera.

Should I send them out?

I made 2 more blocks to substitute 2 blocks that none of the secrets and tips can manipulate them. They are 2/8 inch short of 12.5' so I don't think adding another strip can help. Ms. a Little Short and Ms. Almost Right will stay with me - no pictures for these 2 blocks hee hee :-)

These 6 pair of beauties will take a trip to 6 towns.

I squared up all of them to 12.5'.

No pressure here my friends. Should I send them all to my teammate now? Is it too early to send out? I have so much of free time to finish early. No kid, one dog, and a low maintenance husband are a good combination for a beginner quilter like me.

First 12 Chrismas blocks swap

I've just finished these 12 blocks this afternoon. They all are red and green predominantly. I'm having fun and each block is easy to make (even I have to hide my first 2 blocks - that came out smaller than 12.5). Now I know the secret. It's a scant quarter inch. I need to sew some more so more choices to send to Beth (for charity block) and the other 6 friends swap. More blocks also mean my good time to experiment with color combination. I have to set 'smiling Santa' fabric aside in a full yardage. I figure that only the Santa face is bigger than 3.5' square. Why didn't I bring a small ruler to fabric store! It was an hour drive. Anyway...whatever I had good time :-)

Got fabrics

I got some fabrics for the Christmas block swap. I plan to use candy-colored Christmas by Alexander Henry as a center square. There are many many cute candy colored graphics. But the smiling Santa is also lovely. How about .. lines of pine tree from Figgy Pudding. Um.. glad that I signed up for 12+1 blocks. Tomorrow I will pull out more fabrics from my scrap bin and sewing factory will be opened.

Junior and his quilt

I've made this quilt from my husband's old jeans and couple of my fat quaters. This quilt is especially for you baby! Junior loves to sleep by the lakeview window and barks at geese.

I'm excited.

I'm a big fan of 'Oh Fransson' and today I follow her link to find

Scrappy Christmas Block Swap - Check out here ... http://modernjax.blogspot.com/)

I'm in for 12 blocks swap plus one for charity.This gonna be so fun for me to join this group.

In the past 2 weeks I reached the pinnacle of my boredom (as being a homemaker and wife). I even consider to move back to my home country and get a job. Beth… you probably don’t know that you pull me back to my Martin, a small town in Tennessee. I'll keep myself busy busy with the quilt blocks, cooking, gardening, and updating my blogs.

Disappearing 9 Patch

I went to Paducah Quilt show and stumbled to Eleanor Burns’ demonstration. She’s amazing and all of her quilt are gorgeous. Eleanor introduced ‘Tossed 9 Patch’ quilt block as one of her tutorials. Some quilters call this blocks ‘Disappearing 9 Patch’. I tried once with Amy Butler fabrics. It’s so difficult to keep this block accurate. Finally I squared the finished quilt top. I chopped it off 2.5 inches.

X or O

I've been away from any blogging for a while. Just don't feel to update anything but I manage to collecting and building a pile of my blocks.

What I've been up to for these past 2 weeks ...

It's 'X or O' strip blocks. Yes it can be both but I'm kind of like the X way or arranging more.

It's not a quilt until it was quilted.

Yes finally my first and second patchworks were quilted. I have been away from this blog several months. I have spent a lot of my time to develop my Thai blog recently. And now I'm kind of miss 'since September 2008' blog. I plan to use my English blog as my gallery to show and tell all of my quilt works.

The first show and tell is 'Buckeye Beauty Quilt'. It's my my first quilt and was machine quilted (longarm) by Jessie from Martin, TN. This quilt is now with my mom in Chiang Mai Thailand. She was quite hesitated to take it home since it was 90 F in Thailand when she first received this quilt. By the way, she insisted that she loves my quilt and is happy to keep it.


The second finished quilt, 'Fun Log Cabin', is also in Thailand. I gave this quilt to my mother in law. She's an energetic, slender and tall lady. So she must get a big quilt with sweet colors. She lives in Mukdahan where is fairly cold during (our) winter. It's different when we say 'winter' in Thailand. There are no snow and it's actually the lest hot time. It's a Thai winter, no confusion!. My in law will have only 3 months a year to snug comfortably under this quilt.

Along the way before I made decision to buy a new sewing machine, I tried to quilt my small table runner with the 40 bucks sewing machine. The outcome was just fine. If you feel to make one of this table runner check modabakeshop.com for its pattern and tutorial.


My third quilt 'Churn Dash' is ready to be quilted. I'm so exited to work on it. This quilt will be the first big quilt which I machine quilt myself.

Until the second week of July when I will be quilting again. Well ... it's my time to enjoy the heat and the sun in Thailand. See you again in Tennessee next month.

My third quilt : Churn Dash Blocks

I've finished my third quilt top for a week and decided to hand quilt. It's queen size. I’ve never seen the real stand quilt frame before as I’m a new quilter (seriously). When I get the quilt frame as dissembled pieces I have no clue how to put them together. Thanks for my lovely ladies, Ida, Gale, Nancy, Joyce who helped me put them all together. However, couple screws are missing ;-( So far I still couldn’t hand quilt my project.

After spending many hours to create and update 2 blogs. I found an interesting thing from my ‘Thai blog’. There are a lot of Thai ladies who are quilting. They have a little virtual community over there through bloggang.com. A lot of tutorials were posted yet my Thai folks still wants to learn more about quilting. I’m glad to live in Tennessee and belong to a really lovely quilt guild. I’m surrounded by my lovely ladies. My new knowledge and skills are also extended to the other friends back in Thailand as well. How nice it is! I have friends here and there through making quilt.

My second and third quilt

I've been away from my blog for a month to upload another blog in Thai. I was impressed to learn that many Thais are interested in quilting as well. Over there, in Thailand, Japanese and Australian quilting styles seem more popular than American quilting.

Well … I’ve finished my second and started my third quilt top. The second one was log cabin blog. I got an inspiration from ‘crazymomquilts’. Amanda Jean is fabulous! I love most of her quilts.

My log cabin quilt

The third quilt top, I got an inspiration from Tennessee State Museum. There is a room designated for quilting where many quilt blocks from the frontier women are displayed. I picked ‘churn dash’ block and wish to replicate an old style quilt. Later I went to Kentucky and found a bundle of repro fabrics. Then there was no reason to delay my third quilt top project.

I always wish to hand quilt my project but it takes two months just to take a look with my intimidation. Will take forever (for me) to hand quilt? Finally, I went to my quilt guild and asked for suggestion. My two quilt tops are now with a longarm quilter. It’s a happy ending.

I’m thinking to buy a new sewing machine. I just need any model which has free motion function. Of course it shouldn’t be too expensive. Since I started, I spent all of my allowance for fabrics and know that more will be purchased every month. Oh no!

Please feel free to drop me comments if you have suggestion regarding sewing machine.

My birthday gift

I had wanted to go to Kentucky for weeks but there was the picturesque ice storm. Then right after I heard that the road to Mayfield was clear I asked my husband to drive me to 'Backyard Fabrics'. All quilting fabrics are 4 dollars per yard so we get 50% off all year round. The lady who owns the store is friendly! You will just love to chat with her while spend an hour or more selecting your fabrics. This trip to fabric store is my lovely birthday gift (yes..my husband sponsored all of my quilt supplies).

Sleep Sleep Junior

Junior is always by my side. Like today I try to find a space to put together my blocks. Junior keeps looking at me and lets me finish mine. He then just walks right in the middle of the blocks and turned around couple times. "What a nice spot to sleep mama!". Yes he wants to sleep there in the middle of my unfinished blocks.

my first quilt top ever

I've loved quilts for years and bought some without knowing how to make one. I moved to Tennessee last year. My town is a small town named Martin. Every year, we have an annual festival to celebrate soybean cultivation. The quilting journey started when I went to see quilt show in Soybean Festival. It's my first introduction to quilt. I met Linda who is the president of the Tennessee Volunteer Quilt Guild and since September 2008 I've learned quilting.

Generally, my ladies in quilt guild say they learn quilting naturally since they have seen their mom or grand mom sat and sew patchworks. Me ... I'm in the opposite direction. My mom and grand mom saw but did not quilt. I would be considered as the first person in my family to do quilts.

I'm enjoyed learning new techniques, buying more fabrics, searching and reading tutorial from web sites and web blogs. And here we are my first quilt top .... Voila!