Stay at Home Round Robin - Round 2

Our host for this week, Kathleen McMusing, suggested double blocks for the next round of the project.  Her post includes lots of ideas, and I thought a long time about trying for some kind of double star design.  But I couldn't come up with one that would be doable within my (self-imposed) 3 inch size - the pieces would just be too small and fiddly.  So - on to the next idea - something I'm calling "Double Slice."  I played with these blocks once before, and made a small piece with them.

As you can probably imagine - you start with a square, slice it once diagonally and add a narrow strip, then slice it again through the opposite corners, and add a second narrow strip.

You can square them up straight - 

Or wonky - 

Which I thought was a fun look!

I haven't decided yet where these blocks will end up, but I did do the measuring and sewing needed to finish the first border from last week.

This measures 15.5 x 16.5 right now.

I might add a very narrow solid border first, and then see what border #3 brings before making any more decisions!

Linking up with Kathleen McMusing for the SAHRR Round 2,

and at Melva Loves Scraps for Sew and Tell Monday.

                            

Hello, February!

The Valentine bunnies are finished and ready to be on display for February.  Pink and green make me think Spring could be on its way.   We all need to think that in February, right?!

I think this green is prettier in person than in the photograph - 

not sure why, but I can't seem to get a good photograph of it.

It does go nicely with the variegated green I used to embroider the bunnies.

I got out all the heart decorations and changed out the chest top display for February too.  

And I've been stitching on Sweetly Saying from Primrose Cottage.  It has such sweet little motifs in it.  Flowers, hearts, strawberries - very fun to stitch!

And lots more to do for Slow Sunday Stitching- 

Linking up with Kathy's Quilts.

A blue and orange house...

To finish out the month of January, I made another house for my "Year in the Neighborhood" project.  I mostly worked on this last Sunday afternoon, when the Denver Broncos were playing in the AFC Championship game for a chance to go to the Super Bowl.  (Unfortunately,  the Broncos lost the game, but I still had fun making this house!) 

My husband has been a fan of the Denver Broncos since before I met him, so I cheer them on, too, and so does our older son.  Some people might say we "bleed" orange and blue! 

💙🧡💙🧡💙 

When I decided to make this house, I wondered how I could show this is where Broncos' fans live with fabric from my stash.  I don't have much novelty fabric, and definitely nothing with footballs or horses.  But I did have an old t-shirt!

I made the center section (what I consider the front door) out of a Bronco logo cut from the old t-shirt and backed by some fusible interfacing as you would do if you were making a whole quilt out of t-shirts.  There are blue curtains in the windows and orange shutters.

Once that decision was made, the rest of the block was pretty simple.  

Even though it was snowing like crazy that day, football is usually played on a grassy green field, so I gave it that for the yard.  

This house needed a tree, so it got one with snow on the ground.

And here is the neighborhood so far!

In other sewing-related news, I was sorting through my thread yesterday and was surprised to see how many partials spools of thread I have collected.  These are the spools that don't have enough left to fill a bobbin with, so originally I began saving them for sewing bindings.  

It's too embarrassing to show a picture of the whole bunch, so I'll just share what I'm planning.  I'm starting with all the partial spools of Gutermann Sew-All #22 (Eggshell).  I can't fill up a bobbin with these, but I can put them in the top thread holder and use them up that way.

I bet I can get a few blocks sewn up with 

these scraps of thread in the next few weeks!

Sharing at Alycia Quilts for Finished or Not Friday

and at Melva Loves Scraps for TGIFF

SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday.

Also at Quilting and Learning Combo for the Quilter's Cove QAL link-up

Quilting is More Fun than Housework for Oh Scrap! 

I Like Thursday #468

View out our window on Sunday afternoon:

Winter came back!

In case you wondered what our local wild turkeys do when it's snowing - 

So it's been good sewing and reading weather!  I decided on this border for the Valentine bunnies.  It's quilted now and binding on, ready to sew down.  I'll share the finish on Sunday.

This brightens up the cold gray days!

I recently finished this book.  It's the most recent in the Inspector Gamache series by Louise Penny.  At the end of the previous book, The Grey Wolf, she had left us on a cliff hanger, so I'd been anxious to see what happened.  I have to admit it wasn't my favorite of the series, but I enjoyed being back into that world anyway.  Isn't that why we read book series?

LeeAnna's question of the week is about what games we like to play.  I am a fan of word games and play quite a few.  In fact, as I was trying to list them for this post, I was surprised at how many there actually are!  😆  Words with Friends, Word Chums (very similar to WWF), Wordle, Quordle (instead of one word to guess like Wordle, there are four words and nine chances), Crossword Master, and our latest favorite is Waffle.

In this game you swap letters to move them to where the words are made correctly.  

All these are available as apps, and except for Words with Friends and Word Chums which are played with partners, you can play one time each day.  These are what I do when the news comes on at 5:00 before making dinner!

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

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!

Now I'm looking forward to the next border prompt, coming Wednesday!

Linking up with Songbird Quilts for the SAHRR Wk 1

And at Melva Loves Scraps for Sew and Tell Monday.

The Inquiring Quilter for Wednesday Wait Loss 

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!