Little Penguin Quilts Through the Year

Little Penguin Quilts Through the Year

Friday, February 7, 2025

Everything blue...

We're away from home, spending a long weekend with friends in Arizona, and had a fun outing today with a boat ride on Canyon Lake in the Superstition Mountains.  It was a gorgeous day with amazing scenery! 


But, earlier this week, besides working on my Stay at Home Round Robin (which does involve some blue), I had some time to get out my Rainbow Scrap Challenge project bin and switched out the pink scraps for the blue.


Along the way, I stitched up a few quarter star blocks in blue.  


With the smallest scraps, I'm again making four patches - 


While sorting and pressing, I looked for pieces that would give me some 3.5 inch squares for a 16 patch square and got those cut out.  I still need the smaller squares for the star points and then will start sewing these together.


Even my Winter SAL stitching involved blue!  I'm working on finishing up the last border sections and using DMC pearl cotton in color 930 for that.  Medium Antique Blue.


Lots of blue!
Sharing at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday.
Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.
And Melva Loves Scraps for Sew and Tell Monday.










Tuesday, February 4, 2025

Midweek Update

We're heading out for a week in (hopefully!) sunny warm Arizona with friends, so I'm combining all my midweek posts into one for the sake of efficiency!  An update on my Stay at Home Round Robin and I Like Thursday, all in one.

Because it's true, I do like the Stay at Home Round Robin project!  It's a good creativity and brain stretcher.  Plus, it's fun to see what other quilters do and also figure out what to do with my own project.  

This week's host, Quilting Gail, has called for star blocks, and you can see all the different ideas people are trying at the link-up here.  I was thinking about my half-square triangles from last week's round and how they could fit into a star block.


I've also had the Sister's Choice block on my mind lately, and that (to me) looks like a star.  


Could I use the HSTs plus other elements of the basic block design to make a Sister's Choice variation using my bunny in the garden with her Dresden flowers as the center?  It would need sections something like this:


So I tried it with additional pink pieces to connect the blue and the corners.

Okay - except that's a lot of pink for me!  Maybe too much.

So, what if I turned the HSTs the other way and made the green the focus?  Like this - 

This I like!  It fits the garden theme better.

A little quilt math was needed to figure out what size the green connecting strips needed to be to make each border section the correct length.  After taking the above photo, I got the two side pieces sewn to the center.  Not sure I'll get the top and bottom done before we leave on our trip, but it will happen as soon as possible!

Sharing at Quilting Gail for the SAHRR round 3,
and at The Inspiring Quilter for Wednesday Wait Loss.
Also joining in with Not Afraid of Color for I Like Thursday!










Saturday, February 1, 2025

Slow stitching this week...

I feel like I've stitched a lot of binding this week, on some small finishes, like my Table Scraps project.  I also stitched some binding to finish up the February heart for my mini quilt stand.

Lots of hearts!

I put away all the snowmen and got out the Valentine decorations.

All of these were stitched last year, 
and it looks like my basket needs more heart designs to fill it up!

But meanwhile, I'm still working on the Winter Stamp SAL from Melisa at PinkernPunkin.  You can see her finished piece here.  I've just finished up Stamp #2, and ready to move on to #3.


Sharing at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.
And at Melva Loves Scraps for Sew and Tell Monday.









Friday, January 31, 2025

Back to the Table Scraps for 2025

I'm joining in with Joyful Quilter's fun Table Scraps Challenge again for 2025.  Small projects are my favorite kind and there's always something in the Challenge that gets me thinking!  For January, the challenge was to use pink (the RSC color of the month) and sew something that was inspired by anything cozy or a warm beverage.  

So... ever since I sewed the zipper blocks for an RSC project, I have enjoyed following Lynn at Klein Meisje Quilts (who designed the zipper block) because I love her designs.  In December I discovered her teacup blocks, and wanted to make some.  I also had a scrap bundle of fabric that I bought on a trip to Grand Junction, Colorado, to use.  

There are some pretty blues, a pink, some turquoise, and a gold in ⬆️ the bundle -
 perfect for this project!  I did figure out that these are from the Hampton Court fabric line, by Karen Lewis Textiles for Figo Fabrics.  

So, I started making these sweet tea cups!


I ended up making six of them - for a little quilt that measures about 9.5 x 18.5.


More scraps were used on the back and for the binding.


I made it that size so that it would fit in a specific spot - on top of our microwave.  That's where the coffee mugs go when not in use!

Fits perfectly!

And there was a bonus Table Scraps project this month, too - just because.  I quickly finished up the gray crumb heart that I shared in my Thursday post.  It was a poor orphan block that I found when cleaning out a storage drawer.  Now it brings me a smile!

Just sew!

Sharing at the Joyful Quilter for the January Table Scraps link-up and at
SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday!














Wednesday, January 29, 2025

I Like Thursday #422

Why is it when you decide to sort through and organize a storage area, especially one from your sewing room, you get a bigger mess than you started with?  This is a three drawer storage unit that I've had for a long time.  It's one of those places where you stuff something in and close the drawer.  I decided to clean it out.  I got through the first drawer!

There were a bunch of charm squares - from different fabric lines - 
some go together and some don't.  What do you do with those?
There were also a bunch of of orphan blocks - the type you make when you're trying something out before making the real thing.
Lots of other junk in there, too - some of it I threw away, some I put back in the drawer.  
Clearly, I didn't get very far!  

Here's one of the orphan blocks.  No it's not a black and white picture!  I made this gray heart when I was working on the crumb hearts quilt.  At first I thought it was going to be the final heart for the quilt, but I didn't end up liking it.  So it went in the drawer.


Now I'm going to make it into a little something - and a pink border will dress it up and make it a lot cuter.

Sewing those borders on was way more fun than cleaning out a drawer!  (wink!)

I have a new favorite tea - Country Peach Passion from Celestial Seasonings.  It smells so good, and tastes yummy, too.  Very good with muffins fresh out of the oven on a cold and snowy day!


And a good book to share this week, too - Louise Penny's most recent in the Inspector Gamache series.  It's a page turner!

More about it on Goodreads here.

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








 






Tuesday, January 28, 2025

Midweek Update

Bunny in the snow - 




I prefer my bunny in the garden!


For round 2 of the Stay at Home Round Robin, Anja of Anja Quilts called for half square triangles to be our next step, so I made a few!


Last week I sewed everything I made to the center block, but this week I'm holding off on that.  Maybe a future border prompt will fit in with this one and they'll be sewn together.  For now I'm just playing with the possibilities!  The blue is a fat quarter I'm auditioning for possible fill in strips when needed.

Here's one idea:

Bunny ears!

Or maybe this?

It's fun to explore the possibilities!

Sharing at Anja Quilts and at
The Inspiring Quilter for Wednesday Wait Loss.
Alycia Quilts for Finished or Not Friday 










Saturday, January 25, 2025

More winter stitching...

We seem to be in a weather pattern of storms rolling in for the weekend - at least that's been the case for the last two Saturdays.  It snowed all day yesterday here!  I'm not sure what the final amount of snow was, but here's how we keep track of the snow total visually!  

I took this picture yesterday morning, when we thought the snow was about finished.
I think the snow on the picnic table was about double that by the end of the day!

So more wintry weather means more Winter stitching.  I finished up the header and the first stamp in the last few days.  My Aida cloth is a light blue, but it's still hard to see the contrast when using white for the snowman and snowflakes, so I'm using some light blue here and there.  A single strand of light blue outlining Mr. Snow seems to bring him out a little bit.

I still have the last row of borders to stitch, too.  
I've been alternating that with the fun stuff!  

Wishing you a warm and cozy Sunday with your slow stitching!
Linking up with Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.