I Like Thursday #158 -Happy Halloween!

I loved this scene that my brother-in-law set up 

outside their condo in Scottsdale, Arizona! 

It's not looking so Halloweenish at our house right now - more like mid-January I'd say...

But, here's what I think - 

This week, I liked finishing up my Hand-Pieced Pumpkins!

I have to share a couple more pictures because I just love this little project!

I hand quilted with ecru perle cotton, echoing most of the seams, and making some swirls around where I did the embroidery.

For the binding, I just brought the backing around to the front, did a little fancy folding, and stitched it with the perle cotton, too.

This was one of those little projects that was just pure enjoyment - a few stitches every evening for a month, and it all came together.   Thanks, again, to Patty, at Elm Street Quilts, who inspired me to get started on the pumpkins!

I enjoyed this article by Tom Hanks that I found in the AARP magazine about friendship.  I love Tom Hanks - looking forward to seeing his movie about Mr. Rogers!

And finally, on this day of Tricks and Treats, here is my favorite treat!

Yum!

Hope you're having a great day!  Join me and lots of friends at Not Afraid of Color for "I Like Thursday!"

Also sharing at Needle and Thread Thursday.

To - Do Tuesday #10

Good Morning, friends!  We were gone all last week to visit my mom in Arizona, so I am back now to the usual laundry and household chores.  It's looking a bit more like Christmas than Halloween at our house right now, so rather than the leaf pick-up we thought we'd come home to, there will probably be snow shoveling to do!

After a week away from home, I have lots of things I want to get done in my sewing room - probably way more than I will actually get done - but here are some of the items on my list!

1.  Finish the last stitches in my hand-pieced pumpkin project.

Just a little bit left to quilt around the outside edge.

2.  Get Almost Amish layered and basted for quilting.

I have fabric for the backing, but may have to stitch together some batting scraps for this one.  I definitely have lots of those!

3.  Get caught up on my October Tiny Tuesday blocks.  The Bullseye block is in progress here.  I only need to make one more TT block to work for my layout idea.

4.  Zooming out from the block itself, you get a hint that my cutting table (and the rest of my sewing room actually) needs some TLC.  Sorting, straightening up, putting away of leftover fabric and scraps should be a priority for me this week!

Hope your week is getting off to a good start! 

Linking up with Roseanne at Home Sewn by Us for To -Do Tuesday.

st Whenever ust 

The Colors of the Season

Fall colors are often my favorites, especially if you ask me in October!   Rusty reds, brown, gold, orange - all so delightful to sew with at this time of year.  I brought home this small bundle of Fall fabrics after our trip to Oregon at the end of September and have been sewing with it ever since.  Last week's post about my pumpkin project is here, if you are curious!

My obsession with fall prints extended to a little squirrel this past week, which turned into a Drop Everything and Make It tabletopper for my mom.

The star block is from Carole's Autumn Jubilee design for a table runner.

I added my own borders to bring this little topper to about 21.5 x 12.5.

I used my favorite walking foot quilting design, a curved grid, to add lots of fun texture to the tabletopper.

Of course I had to use the Thankful fabric for the backing, and the brown and gold leaf print for the binding - more favorites!

It didn't take long at all for this squirrelly project to be finished up - 

Sharing at my favorite weekend parties!

Scraphappy Saturday 

Sandra's Dreami link-up and

Oh Scrap! on Sunday

I Like Thursday #157 -

I am away from home this week, visiting my mom in Arizona.  Hi, Mary in Peoria, from all the way over in east Mesa!  👋👋👋

I haven't taken any pictures, but still, there are many things to like!

• I love seeing the desert landscape, like the amazing saguaro cactus!
• It's warm here!  (We're missing some snow at home...)  This makes my husband very happy!
• There has been pool time, and we're wearing flip flops!
• I'm glad to be here to help out my mom with things that she can't do anymore.

We did have some time to go to a movie today, and chose the Downton Abbey movie.  All of us enjoyed it very much!  So fun to see all those favorite actors and imagine what they might be doing a short time after the series ended.

I brought along my blue Gail Pan embroidery piece to work on when I have a chance.  I'm liking this so much!  I'll have to decide how to finish it off before too long.

Hope you're having a great week!  I'm joining in with the I Like Thursday posts over at Not Afraid of Color.  Thanks for visiting!

Almost Amish Flimsy

Monday I was able to finish stitching up all the pieces and parts for Almost Amish, and I'm so pleased with how it's come together!

Everything I used for this project came out of my solid scrap bin, so while there isn't any green in it, I really like the combination of colors that I was able to pull together!

I'm away from my sewing machine this week, but as soon as I'm home again, Almost Amish will be at the top of the queue for finishing up!

Thank you, Lori, for a fun QAL!  This is my first Humble Quilts' QAL, but most definitely not the last!

Sharing at the Almost Almost linky party.

Still Slowly Stitching...

                              ...along on my October pumpkin project.

I've added the embroidered leaves and vines and now I'm hand quilting it, Big Stitch style, using no. 12 perle cotton in ecru.

I love this fabric that I found at Hobby Lobby for the backing!

Thankful!

I always look forward to doing some slow stitching at the end of the day, and it has been so enjoyable to watch this little piece develop from its beginning as some hand-pieced pumpkin blocks!  Hopefully, it will be finished by the end of the month!

Sharing at Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap and 

at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.

What's on my design wall?

I've been making good use of the design wall that we put up in my sewing room after redoing it last January - it is so helpful to be able to lay projects out on it!

Here's how it looks this week -

I love the Tiny Tuesday blocks, so haven't wanted to take them down.

Still thinking about the layout and border possibilities!

Since we're working with our dark neutrals this month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge,  this week I cut out some browns for a color gradient block.  Another one of those, "Can I come up with enough browns to make this work?"  Yes, I can!

This block will go with these - 

Each small square is 2.5 inches and the block is 10.5 inches unfinished.

Also on the design wall this week are all the pieces and parts for Almost Amish - another project using mostly darker colors, all solid scraps.

In this photo you can really see the brown chain that runs through the design,

but not the maroon. 

But here is a better one with the first row sewn together - this shows the true colors in Almost Amish!

I'm excited to get this one finished up!

What's on your Design Wall? (Or design floor, or design bed - whatever works!)

Sharing at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday.

I Like Thursday #156

Good morning!  Happy Thursday to you!

I like my husband!  😘  It's his birthday today.  I figured out that we have celebrated 45 birthdays together.  Wow!

I'm thankful to have enjoyed a picnic in this beautiful place with him!

I love soup season!  My favorite is lots of vegetables, some stew meat, a can of tomatoes and some beef broth, plus some seasonings.  Smells so good cooking away in the crockpot all day!

I'm really liking how my hand-pieced pumpkins and embroidery are coming along.

This picture is from a couple nights ago - now the embroidery is almost done! 

I'm looking forward to getting the layers basted and starting on the quilting part.

Four patches have become my favorite quilt block! These are for a border for my mom's table topper.  I should just keep making more.

I really like this quilt top  (at the link, scroll down a bit) that Libby, from Life on the Hill, shared the other day.  Lots of four patches in a pretty setting!

I enjoy  my book club so much!  We met on Monday this week, and discussed this book.  If you haven't read it, I really recommend it.  I actually read it a year ago, so re-read it for our discussion, and enjoyed it just as much!

And one other like for this week - this neat little reusable bag that a friend gave me recently.

The zucchini bread that was in it is long gone, but I can use the bag over and over!

Hope you're having a great week!  I'm joining in with my friends at Not Afraid of Color to share positive posts.  Join us!

To-Do Tuesday #9

I've been joining in with Roseanne at Home Sewn by Us for my weekly To-Do list for 9 weeks now, and find I'm enjoying thinking through what's going on and what I hope to accomplish!

The "Big Dig" finished up at our house last Wednesday late in the day, and all that's left is this pile of dirt!

I think it looks a bit like we buried a body there, lol!

Mike says I should decorate it for Halloween!

That does leave us with some re-landscaping as a long-term To-Do, but we'll deal with that next Spring.

Meanwhile, the goal of cleaning out the storage area in our basement, and taking unwanted items to Goodwill is ongoing.  I did pass on an old quilting project (not even one I had started, just one I had inherited from another friend) to someone at my quilt group, and was very happy to do so!

I have lots of projects on my sewing list this week, and need to prioritize them!  

1.  I traced the embroidery design onto my pumpkin project, and started on that yesterday, so of course would like to make progress on that.

2.  I'm going to visit my mom next week, and like to take her something I've made, so I started a tablerunner with this star from Carole at From My Carolina Home's Autumn Jubilee sew along.  I'm thinking of adding some strips and four patches on either side of the star to make a smaller piece that would fit my mom's table better.

Something like this - 

This needs to be a priority for finishing since there's a deadline on it!

3.  It's time to finish up Almost Amish, so I'd like to make progress on that one, too.

I have 6 out of 9 of the main blocks assembled, sashing and cornerstones cut, 

so it's just a matter of finishing up!

4.  And, finally there are always blocks to work on for my Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects, and I'll definitely squeeze those in!

Hope your week is getting off to a good start.  Sharing at Home Sewn by Us.

Pumpkin Progress

Recently, I've been sharing the hand-pieced pumpkins I'm stitching as I sew along with Patty at Elm Street Quilts.  

This week during my evening slow stitching time, I sewed five of them into a panel -

And added borders.

My plan is to add some embroidered leaves and vines in that empty space in the top left corner.  I googled "pumpkin vine coloring page,"  found this design, and printed it out.

My job this afternoon is to get it traced onto the pumpkin piece so that I can work on the embroidery this week.  That sounds doable!

Meanwhile, I used some of the leftover scraps from the pumpkins and background to make this star.  It was a good excuse to use my Tri Recs ruler set, which haven't seen much action recently!

Check out Carole's post HERE, at From My Carolina Home, to see the table runner she's planning to make using this star.  I'm going to finish this into something for my mom, and take it to give her when I go visit later in the month.

Sharing at Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap and

Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching!

Scrappy Saturday

Poking around in my stash to see what might work for this week's Tiny Tuesday block, I found this favorite piece of fabric.

It worked great for making these sweet little flying geese with a white sky!

My favorite Flying Geese method is the No Waste method, using 

this tutorial from Diary of a Quilter.

I've been experimenting with some four patches that could become a scrappy border of sorts for this quilt top.

These are still in the *maybe* stage!  :)

My one rule is that the 4 inch squares in the four patches

 have to already be in a TT block somewhere.

I also completed a few more string blocks in a color I'm calling Butterscotch!  These will go into my string block collection to add to the border for the rainbow strings made throughout this year.

Sharing at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday!

I Like Thursday #155

Happy Thursday, friends!  Hope you're having a great week!  Ours has been a little up and down, as I shared in my Tuesday post, with some plumbing issues.

Today (Wednesday as I write this), they brought the Big Rig to do the final work.

The neighbors are probably really wondering now!  

So far, no one has come out to ask, though.

This is not something to like - but hopefully by the time you are reading this, it will  all be over with, and we will really be *liking* that!

Meanwhile, this made me laugh when I saw it on Facebook the other day!

I love this pretty view of fall colors that I noticed out our front window yesterday.

It's time to decorate with pumpkins, and I always like that!

And I love pumpkin yogurt, too.

Yesterday, I discovered a stash of brown-ish/gold scraps that I had forgotten about.  That was a fun surprise!  They make me think of warm butterscotch.

I decided to use them for some string blocks to go 

with my Rainbow Scrap Challenge string quilt project.

Hope you're having a great week!  Be sure to visit all the I Like Thursday posts at Not Afraid of Color.  See you there!