Little Penguin Quilts Through the Year

Little Penguin Quilts Through the Year

Sunday, February 22, 2026

Two QALs!

Quilting Gail gave us our prompt for week 5 of the Stay at Home Round Robin this week, and it was to use two colors for our blocks.  I chose these two fabrics - one which is predominantly gold (with green accents on it - like batiks always have!) and a neutral.


Then to choose a block... My project has hourglass, double slice, birds in the air, and applique pumpkin blocks so far.  What else does it need?

What I made was Friendship Stars, which I hope will represent the sunflowers in the center block's verse.


Still contemplating the final layout, which I'll decide on after the 6th border prompt, coming up on Wednesday!  But here is everything I've sewn up for my SAHRR so far:


In the Little House Sew-along, hosted by Melva Loves Scraps, I finished up block 1 - the Maple Leaf.  Using the jelly roll I have for the log cabin surround is going to result in a very orange quilt!  I'll have to see what else I can add in to tone it down a bit! 


Block 2 for this project is called Native Star, and when I discovered from Melva's post that it is made from quarter star blocks, I went digging in my orphan block drawer and found some of these blocks that I had made last year when I started thinking about the Starburst quilt.  These ended up being rejected in favor of the blue background I decided to use for Starburst, but are perfect for this one. 

This isn't exactly the same layout as Melva's Native Star example, 
but hopefully it fits the spirit of the project.  
Plus I loved being able to use some orphan blocks up!
This week I'll add the log cabin sashings to this block.

Linking up with Quilting Gail for the SAHRR Round 5
and Melva Loves Scraps for Sew and Tell Monday.



 






Saturday, February 21, 2026

Slow stitching this week...

I put the last stitch into Sweetly Sayin on Friday evening!


I didn't have time to fully finish it yesterday, but I did back it with some fusible interfacing and trim to size.  Now it can hang out with its February friends until next weekend when I change everything out for March!


Next up to finish the stitching on is the Winter snowman embroidery.  Not much left here except that mitten, a snowflake, and some umbrellas.


It won't be long until I can start something new.  I've enjoyed the cool blue and white of the snowman, and the sweet pink and turquoise of the Valentine stitch, but I think my new start will be something green!

Linking up with Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.





 

Thursday, February 19, 2026

A February House

February in the neighborhood is all about Valentine's Day!  Living in a town named Loveland, you can see how that would have to be so.


And, with February being the month for green in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, this house needed some green in it, too.  I just happened to find the perfect scrap to use for parts of the house.

Green with hearts!

So, the February house is all about green, and hearts, and giving flowers!


I made a new tree for the neighborhood, too.  I've been making the trees with stitch and flip flying geese, instead of the no waste method where you can make the geese a bit big and square them up.  Unfortunately, that's causing my trees to be a bit wonky!  

Hopefully, I'll be able to square things up with some sashing!

But this method does give me some bonus HSTs, so I like that.


The neighborhood is growing!


Sharing at Alycia Quilts for Finished or Not Friday and at 
SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday.













 






Wednesday, February 18, 2026

I Like Thursday #471

Good morning, friends, and Happy Thursday!  And a hello from my mom, too, on Valentine's Day.  I found this sweet bouquet of flowers at our grocery store for only $12.99!  (Not that I want to be cheap when it comes to my mom, lol!  But the price makes it easy to pick up a little bouquet and take it to her every now and then.)


For myself, I chose a bouquet of daffodils, my favorite flower!  I was glad to see them at the grocery store, too.


We've been enjoying Season 5 of All Creatures Great and Small on our PBS channel 6.  I like the addition of young Jimmy who likes to go along with his dad and "help out!"


LeeAnna's question of the week is about our favorite subject in school.  And thinking back - I liked them all!  Maybe I was not quite so into science as all the rest of the subjects, but I did end up liking teaching science when I taught 5th grade.  But my most favorite classes in school were music classes.  I was in choir, band, orchestra, and lots of other music related activities when growing up.  Here's a picture of the choir from my senior yearbook in 1972.  Can you find me?


Hope you're having a good week!
I'm oining in with Not Afraid of Color for I Like Thursday.










Sunday, February 15, 2026

SAHHR, round 4, and a new project...

Every year I attempt to grow a few pumpkins in my garden, and 2025 was a pretty good year.

Four of them!

So when Wendy at Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life, the host for the fourth round of the Stay at Home Round Robin, called for blocks with curves, I knew just what I would make.  Here was my chance to add some pumpkins!

These were drawn onto a Pellon fusible that I had in the stash, cut out, and will be fused down to the center section that I previously made.

My pumpkins are small because they need to fit here -


I'm still thinking about how to resize the double slice blocks that I made for round two - maybe I'll just add a little coping strip to them when I decide how everything will be sewn together in the end!


And speaking of Fall, I started a new project this week.  Melva, at Melva Loves Scraps, is hosting a QAL inspired by the Little House on the Prairie book series, and I have started on the first block - the Maple Leaf.


This is just the center of the block - the leaf will be surrounded by log cabin strips.  I won a jelly roll of a beautiful Fall themed fabric line last year when I participated in the Fall Fortnight fun over at From My Carolina Home.  I'm hoping these strips will work for the log cabin section of the blocks.


Something like this?  This is just the first round, though - these blocks end up at 16 inches square!


Linking up at Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life for the SAHRR, round 4, and at
Melva Loves Scraps for Sew and Tell Monday.
And at The Inquiring Quilter for Wednesday Wait Loss.












Saturday, February 14, 2026

Almost there...

I've been stitching and stitching on Sweetly Sayin every night this week and have made good progress.  But I'm not done yet!  (This is the Primrose Cottage free pattern of the month from January.) 

Last week at this time:


And today (Saturday afternoon):

You can see the areas that are left to be filled in.

Love these cute little toadstools that I stitched last night!


I'll keep going until this is finished - fingers crossed that it doesn't take too much longer!  Linking up with Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.






Friday, February 13, 2026

Bits and Pieces of Green

Happy Valentine's Day, quilty friends!

This is just the beginning of my green house for February.
I need to work on the rest of it this coming week.

I also finished up a second green Jacob's Ladder block.  In the photo it looks more blue-green than it does in real life, but it's a good second green for the group of blocks.


There are six of these blocks now.  I'm liking the design that's emerging!


In between seams of Jacob's Ladder, I've been sewing together crumbs for this month's placemat.  They need to fill a 12.5 x 16.5 rectangle.  Looks like I'm getting there...

I spy some little penguins! 

💚💚💚💚💚

Sharing at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday.