I Like Thursday #479

 I love Earl and Opal, of "Pickles!"  Do you read them?

I didn't sleep very well last night, so I hope to have a naportunity today. 😜

Thinking of waking up in the morning - LeeAnna has asked us to describe our morning routine.  I am an early riser - rarely sleep past 6 am.  I think that's a function of getting up so early for work for so many years.  I don't mind being the first one up, though.  I turn on the coffee pot, get that first sip, and spend some quiet time reading the news and my favorite bloggers.

After that, most days we live by the do "whatever we want, whenever we want" 

retired people life style, lol!

We bought a new thistle feeder to try to attract the goldfinches once again, and we finally got one.  We were so happy to see this guy and he hung out for a long time, too.  He looked like he was just getting his summer colors coming in.

I was looking for a new mystery series to read, and saw that the latest book by Tana French has just come out, and it's the third book in a trilogy.  So I thought it would be good to start at the beginning of the trilogy, and I'm liking it.  These books take place in Ireland, but the main character is a retired police detective from Chicago.  Of course he gets involved in a mystery in Ireland!

Joining in with Not Afraid of Color for I Like Thursday.

Midweek Update

I was in the mood to start something new this week, so I did!  Last summer, after participating in The Crafty Quilter's Orange Peel QAL, I won a prize package that included this charm pack of Tilda, Country Memories.

When I saw the free quilt pattern offered in the Primrose Cottage newsletter last week, Spool Love, I thought it would be a fun one to use the charm pack for.

So far, I've made three spools and the heart block.   The heart block needed two 3.5 x 6.5 inch rectangles, so I made those out of four of the charm squares.   Sweet and fun!

A couple other new patterns/projects have caught my attention, too.

For participating in this year's Stay at Home Round Robin, I was the lucky winner of a pattern from Sew Fresh Quilts, and I chose her Hummingbird pattern.   I think this could be a fun Rainbow Scrap Challenge project!

Thank you, Lorna!

And the other one - Sandra at mmmquilts hosts a QAL every spring, and I've participated for quite a few years in a row now.  You can see this year's quilt right here.  So far, I've just played with a fabric pull.  I think the first block comes out this Friday.

Plenty to work on this week!

Sharing at The Inquiring Quilter for Wednesday Wait Loss.

Spring Blessings

...is all stitched up!  I did change the little bees from the original Primrose Cottage pattern, and used some from one of Melisa's designs instead.  I wanted them to be smaller.

For now, I ironed a piece of fusible interfacing to the back of Spring Blessings and clipped it to the mini quilt stand.

There's plenty of spring stitching left to do on the other design - 

so that's what I'll be working on for Slow Sunday Stitching!

Linking up at Kathy's Quilts.

A new house in the neighborhood...

How about a Butterfly house?  After last week's struggle to use the pretty butterfly print I found, it seemed like it might work for a house block.  And it did!

The sky full of stars is dedicated to the Artemis II astronauts 

who we have been fascinated with all week!

(Was anyone else glued to the livestream of their splashdown 

and recovery yesterday about dinner time like we were? 

Pretty exciting!) 

There are five houses in the neighborhood now.

This is going to be a fun and colorful neighborhood!

And, in other pink sewing, I made some tiny pink four patches and added another block to the Gameboard collection.  I decided that it needed some butterflies, too!

Sharing at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday.

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

Faith, Trust, and Breast Cancer for Sew and Tell Monday

I Like Thursday #478

Happy Thursday, friends!  Have you been watching the Big Bear (California) bald eagles' nest this year?  Jackie and Shadow, the mating pair of bald eagles who live there, have two little eaglet babies now who hatched just a week ago or so.  We're fascinated with them!  It's literally a breath of fresh air to watch how nature follows its yearly path, in spite of us humans.

This is a screenshot from their YouTube channel.

The other cool thing we have been following for the last week is the flight of the Orion spacecraft around the moon and back.   The liftoff, the moon flyby, the 40 minutes of radio silence until they came around on the other side of the moon - fascinating!  We're looking forward to seeing the splashdown off the coast of California tomorrow evening.

NASA site

Something we connected with this event was that the last astronauts who went to the moon were on the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.  Mike was in the Navy at the time, and the ship he was on, the USS Ticonteroga, was the ship that was sent to pick up the Apollo space capsule and the astronauts.  Mike was a helicopter crewman, but he was not in the helicopter shown in the photo.  He was back there on the ship - he tells me he was the "flight deck trouble shooter" that day - apparently meaning he had to make sure all the helicopters were ready to fly when needed.

Closer to home, younger son has been experimenting with a sour dough starter, and made his first loaf of bread the other day.  It was delicious!

LeeAnna's question of the week is about the season of spring.  I love spring!   We have had a mild, dry winter, so it has been very brown here, but spring has brought the green back.  The lilacs are blooming, too, and they smell so good.  We were just smelling them on our afternoon walk today.  Lilacs really mean spring to me!

Joining in with Not Afraid of Color for I Like Thursday.

Midweek Update

Two finishes to share this week!  One is the tote bag I was working on last week.  The lining was made with pockets for the phone and the little miscellaneous stuff that always floats around in your purse.  (Chapstick, anyone?!)

Several years ago, when I started making these quilted tote bags,

I bought a set of magnetic snap closures and 

I just keep reusing them each time I make a new one.

And the finished bag from the front!  I also reused the gray straps from my previous bag.  They're still good and that saved me the time of making some from fabric.

The other finish is the newest block for Melva's Little House sew-along.  This one has a rail fence block at the center.   I laid this one out with the hope that the pinwheel at the center would be the focus.   Do you see it?

So - here are all five of these that we've made so far.  Only four more to go!

Linking up with The Inquiring Quilter for Wednesday Wait Loss. 

And at Melva Loves Scraps for the block 5 link-up.

Alycia Quilts for Finished or Not Friday 

Happy Easter!

 from the Easter... Gnome?  

This cute guy is from my mom's house.  

One of the gals who decorates there loves gnomes, 

and she puts them out for every season!

Or Happy Easter from the carrot power bunny...

Still one of my favorite finishes from 2025! 

This week I've been stitching away on Spring Blessings which is perfect for Easter.  And almost finished, too!  Just some fluffy sheep and bees to add, which I will do today.

Sharing at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.