Stay at Home Round Robin - Round 1

For the last four or five years in January, I have been excited to begin the new Stay at Home Round Robin, and this year hasn't been any different.  Every Wednesday, a new border prompt comes from one of the hosts, and this past week it was from Brenda, at Songbird Quilts.   Brenda called for hourglass blocks and linked to some tutorials, which were really helpful.  Thank you, Brenda!

I started off my week by adding a straight border all the way around the center embroidered block.  I'm working with a bundle of pretty fall-themed batiks that I won in last year's SAHRR.  

Then, using the tutorial from Julie Cefalu, the Crafty Quilter, I started making hourglass blocks.  I ended up with eight of them and left a few HSTs, too, and you'll see why a couple photos down!

I laid them out in the corners, and used the HSTs to create a sort of frame around the center.

Now that looks a little weird because I use the back of an old quilt to lay things out when I'm working on something like this, and it makes it look like there are green sections separating the hourglasses.  But no - so I added some neutral strips to get more of the look I hope to achieve.

This looks better!

Nothing is sewn together yet because I reserve the right to change my mind at any time during this process, lol!  That's a big part of the fun of this QAL!

Linking up with Songbird Quilts for the SAHRR Wk 1

And at Melva Loves Scraps for Sew and Tell Monday.

Slow stitching this week...

I fully finished little Mr. Frosty into a bowl filler pillow earlier in the week, and he is now hanging out with his other snow friends.

Frosty got his wish and we got some snow this week!  Nothing like other parts of the country got, but enough to make us realize it really is still winter!

Let it snow!

Of course, I figured that meant I could start something new.  This is the very beginning of "Sweetly Sayin" from Primrose Cottage, a Valentine design.  I'm going to enjoy stitching with these pretty colors!

I'm also still stitching on the winter embroidery.  You can probably tell that I've been moving the hoop around.  Just a little bit more to do now.  

Sharing at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.

 

Two Scrappy Placemats

I have a finish to share this week - two of them in fact!  This month I've been having fun sewing little bits of blue (both darks and lights) together to make some new placemats for our table.

From this:

To these!

Something I enjoy doing is playing with the quilting design on small pieces like these.  I quilt with a walking foot, and have learned a lot from Jaquie Gering's Walk book.  I'm calling this design a variation of her Echoed Curves.  

Some of these dark blue scraps had pops of other colors

here and there - I like how they catch your eye!

The light blue scraps are calm and soothing.

I did include a few mediums here and there - it needed

a little bit of contrast.

It's always fun to have a small, but satisfying, finish or two!  These are perfect for January!

Linking up with Quilting Learning Combo for I Quilted This!

and at Alycia Quilts for Finished or Not Friday.

SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday 

Quilting is More Fun than Housework for Oh Scrap! 

I Like Thursday #467

 Good morning and Happy Thursday!

Lol!

LeeAnna's question of the week is about calendars.  And, yes, I still keep a paper calendar - it's nothing exciting, actually just a free one from our credit union.  I keep it on a counter top area in our kitchen.  Sometimes I remember to write things on it, and sometimes I don't, which can be a problem!  The January calendar isn't very full, which is the joy of being retired!

Can you guess where we might be going this year? 😊

We have been fans of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy since college when we first read it, and passed the love of it on to our kids, too.  When the movies first came out, starting in 2001, we went to them, and have watched them on DVD since then as well.  Younger son discovered that a local movie theater was having a special event over two weekends for the 25th anniversary of the movies, and showing them on the big screen again.  So we went to see "Fellowship of the Ring" last Friday.   That was fun!

Image Source

But the really fun thing we discovered is that he still had his original ticket from 2001 on a bulletin board that we have never taken down in his childhood bedroom (now hubby's office)!  

Probably should clean off that bulletin board now 

and see what other ancient artifacts we might discover!

This is my sister's dog, Rico.  He is such a good, smart boy!  He came along and entertained us when we visited our mom yesterday.  I always enjoy some dog petting time because we don't have one anymore.

Hope you're having a great week!  Joining in with Not Afraid of Color for I Like Thursday.

  

Midweek Update

Most of my time in the sewing room this last week has been focused on machine quilting.  When I had Patchwork Hearts out to work on last week, I went ahead and basted the two blue crumb placemats for quilting, too.

They are now quilted, and I've been hand finishing the binding the last couple evenings.

I got back to the Patchwork Hearts yesterday and worked on this pretty purple heart.  

I spy some penguins!

While I'm quilting - especially when it's just straight lines - my mind wanders to what else I could make.  Does that happen to you?  Yesterday it was heart projects for Valentines Day.  I've been seeing some cute ones around the Internet.  Connie Kresin at Freemotion by the River has a post with 10 Free Valentine Quilt Tutorials that is calling to me.

Then I thought, why not use one of my embroidered pieces to make a little heart-themed wall-hanging?  So I pulled these adorable bunnies out of the unfinished bin, and found some fabrics for borders.   I've got an idea for the borders, so more about that soon!

But before I get going on that, the first border prompt for the Stay at Home Round Robin QAL is coming today - Wednesday - and I'm excited to get going on that!

Sharing at The Inquiring Quilter for Wednesday Wait Loss.

 

Snow?

No!  In fact it was nice enough one day this week for us to get out and play golf.  That's a little strange for January, but we're taking advantage of it while we can.

But there have been some snowflakes stitched this week, and little Mr. Frosty is finished.  I like his bright red cardinal companions, too!

I have a hard time getting the white floss to show up, even on this oatmeal colored cloth, so I outlined Frosty in a pale blue, and also stitched the snowflakes in that blue.

Frosty isn't fully finished just yet, but he's still enjoying hanging out with his snowman friends.

Some stitching was done on the winter embroidery piece that I've shared the last couple weeks, but before I get back to that I need to do some hand quilting on this finished quilt.  I made this one back in about 2020 or so, when I was doing a lot of hand-piecing, so the whole thing is hand stitched, and it has been hanging on the wall in our bedroom since then.  We took it down to do some work in there the other day, and I realized that I missed quilting the right corner half of the farthest right star.  So, there's a little make-up quilting work to do!

Sharing at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching!

Patchwork Hearts Progress

 I have been determined to spend a little more time on the finish of Patchwork Hearts this year, and this was the week to do that.  These blocks were made in 2024.

Last year, I got them sewn into rows and started quilting them, one row at a time.  I'm up to the third row, and right in the middle of the quilt where the multi-colored heart is.

Lots of favorite scraps here!

The last two rows needed to be layered with batting and backing, so I spent some time doing that this week, and now they're ready to be quilted, too!  Early on, I decided to finish this as a quilt-as-you-go project, and still have to make the final decision about how to  connect the rows.  At some point last year, I decided a narrow neutral border between each row is going to work the best.  I still have to find that neutral fabric.

I may be slow as molasses on this one, but it's still progress!

A close-up of the dark blue heart since it's blue month in the RSC.  I always enjoy looking at what scraps I was using back when I sewed these blocks.

Sharing at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday.

And at Quilting is More Fun than Housework for Oh Scrap! 

Melva Loves Scraps for Sew and Tell Monday.