Midweek Update

I realized over the weekend that my sister's birthday was coming up this week and I wanted to make her something for a gift.  I pulled out this Kathy Schmitz embroidery that I did a few years ago and decided it would be fun to give her because my sister and BiL are huge gardeners.

I looked through my stash for something that would go with the color of the clay pots, and found a batik left over from this year's SAHRR that was fall-themed.

These simple borders and straight line quilting, plus a brick red binding made this a quick finish - thank goodness!

I gave it to my sister yesterday and she liked it!  

I meant to take a picture of her with it, but we got busy visiting and 

I never took out my phone.  Oh well.

Once that was done I could start playing with some ideas for my August house for A Year in the Neighborhood.  I loosely base these blocks on the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color of the month - yellow - and something that's going on around my house.  Here are a couple parts I've been working on!

I should have more to share in my Saturday post!

Linking up with The Inquiring Quilter for Wednesday Wait Loss.

Changing seasons...

Once I finished stitching the sunflower in Hello Autumn, there wasn't much left to do, so it is now finished!  I thought those little acorns were pretty fun to stitch - they were a new motif for me.

So, seeing as how it is still most definitely summer here, I went back to the Summer embroidery from Gail Pan.  Enough of it is completed that I was able to move the hoop to the very bottom section.

Yesterday we had a cool, rainy late afternoon, and it made me feel like pulling out an older project that still needs more hand quilting to finish it up.  Remember these spools?

This will be a good project to work on for 

Slow Sunday Stitching!    

Linking up with Kathy's Quilts.

A scrappy placemat finish!

It didn't take long to finish up the yellow placemat that I started earlier this week!  Layering it up and then quilting was one sewing session.  I was happy to find just the right backing for it in my stash!

Binding it took up part of another afternoon.  Making small things always gives me a chance to play with a quilting design.  For this one I tried to emphasize the sunflower star.

How about a yellow table for August?

And here's the whole rainbow of placemats that I've made so far this year!  It's been a really fun monthly project - I just need a purple one now.  Maybe I'll make holiday placemats to end the year.

Sharing at: 

Alycia Quilts for Finished or Not Friday.

Soscrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday

Quilting is More Fun than Housework for Oh Scrap! 

Melva Loves Scraps for Sew and Tell Monday.

I Like Thursday #496

There's been some sourdough baking going on at our house the last couple weeks.  Younger son has made waffles and zucchini bread with his starter - both yummy!  My "aha" with sourdough baked goods is that they are lighter than a similar thing made the traditional way.  

For a couple years now, I've followed the Big Bear Lake bald eagle nest camera in California, and watched the pair of eagles, Jackie and Shadow, raise and fledge four eaglets.  It has been fascinating and soothing to watch nature up close like this.  Unfortunately, the female eagle, Jackie, recently got very sick, and in spite of being taken care of at a raptor rehabilitation center in the area, she died.  So very sad.  But it is the circle of life.

The nest cam will go on, and I imagine Shadow will find a new mate.

It will be interesting to see what happens as the time for nesting comes around again.

LeeAnna's question of the week is about what we're reading this summer - books, magazines?  My answer is some of each!  I've been a reader my whole life and always have a pile of books ready to go.  Here's the current pile!  At the moment, I'm reading Project Hail Mary.  There are also a couple of ebooks loaded on my Libby app.

I do also like to read magazines, although I don’t currently have any subscriptions.  One favorite has always been People magazine.   I find it at the hair salon I go to!  Travel magazines are fun, too - we usually order some from whatever destination we're thinking of heading to next.

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

Midweek Update

I decided this would be a good week to work on a scrappy placemat in yellow for August.  My goal this year is to make a placemat every month out of my scraps in the color of the month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge - you can see the ones I've finished in this post.

This month's placemat is inspired by two quarter star blocks from the orphan block drawer, and since two wasn't enough for the design I had in mind, I made two more!

Thinking I would surround this center star with crumb blocks in all my yellows, I pulled everything out to see what might work.

My goal is a 12.5 x 16.5 inch slab, so I just sew and press and trim and measure and sew some more until things start to take shape.

And I ended up with this!

Hopefully I'll have a finished placemat to share for Saturday's RSC link-up.

This kind of project is a good one for using up a few partial spools of thread, too - this week I've finished off four of them!

Sharing at The Inquiring Quilter for Wednesday Wait Loss.

Slow stitching this week...

 I am most definitely a slow stitcher!  It took me all week - Sunday through Friday evening - to stitch the sunflower in Hello Autumn.  First it was taking care to make sure I didn't mess up the petals.  They look like random shapes, although it turns out they do have a pattern.

Then it was filling in the center - those full coverage areas 

always feel like they are taking forever!

Not much left to do now, though - just the rest of the border motifs.   There are some cute little acorns at the top, above "Hello" and simple flowers in that opening at the bottom.  I'll be working on those today for Slow Sunday Stitching with Kathy's Quilts.

Jacob's Ladder blocks for August

After sorting through all the yellow scraps and stash earlier in the week, I decided these would work for this month's Jacob's Ladder blocks.

Some bright, orangey yellows (with sunflowers!) 

and some in the mustard yellow shade.

And I think these worked!

This is a happy group of blocks!

Along the way I made a few tiny yellow 4 patches that will end up as one more Gameboard block.

It has definitely been sunny in my sewing room this week!  

Linking up with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge Quilters at SoScrappy.

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

Melva Loves Scraps for Sew and Tell Monday.