A Just in Time Finish!

I began this squirrel project back in January because I wanted just had to applique some hearts!

Inspired by Deb at Happy to be Scrappy, I made scrappy nine patches, too!

Eventually, I made 9 of each block, sewed them together, and worked on some quilting.   Just in time for the end of February, everything has been finished up!

Both machine and hand quilting are included in this runner.  I hand quilted the hearts with no. 12 perle cotton in ecru.

This sweet pink with sparkly hearts makes a great backing and binding!

I thought this would be a Valentine tablerunner for our dining room table, but it actually fits right here:

And that's definitely prettier than the vinyl

 that the piano bench is actually covered in!

Sharing at all my favorite link-ups!

mmmquilts 

Quilting is more fun than Housework 

Kathy's Quilts 

Leap Day for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge

Happy Leap Day!  The last day of February - I'm ready for a new color to play with, aren't you?!

Meanwhile February has been a good month for progress in my sewing room.  I finished my 2019 Tiny Tuesday sampler quilt:

Stitched up a flimsy out of crumb blocks, and the last of that gray Grunge:

Added eight orange trees to this year's RSC project:

And started a new project, too!

These are 4.5 inch HSTs sewn together in two rows of 12 to form a 48 inch zigzag. 

I'm working on catching up with January's green, too.

The Dresden sunflowers are ready to stitch on to my Scrappy Sprouts quilt top.  I started this one in 2018!  Time to get it quilted up.

Then there are the scraps from the scrap projects. 😘  I just keep cutting them smaller and figuring out ways to play with them!  

3.5 inch 4 patches for the parts department:

And more little bits for my tiny bowties:

These will finish at 2.25 inches.

It's all fun!  Linking up to SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday!

I Like Thursday #175

Happy Thursday, friends!  Hope your week is going well.  We enjoyed the trip to Arizona to spend some time with my mom, and I'm also happy to be home again!  On the last day we were there, it rained.

I liked this view of Mom's front yard.  She has the typical Arizona landscaping with a dry wash river running through it, which fills up with water when it rains.

While we were there, one night my mom served us these butternut squash noodles and they were really good!  They're found in the frozen veggies department at the grocery store and you cook them in the microwave.

We're having them at our house tonight.

I enjoyed doing a little stash enhancement while we were on our trip.  I decided my stash needed some reds, and found these.

And I have an idea for using them already, of course!  Did you see that Patty of Elm Street Quilts and Kristin of Simple.Handmade.Everyday are having a new Hand-pieced QAL?  It's starting next week, and I'm thinking I'll participate again this year since I enjoyed it so much last year.  Looks like I'll be making a red and white quilt this time!

Click HERE for Patty's post about the QAL.

Unfortunately, when we got home, our car wouldn't start.  It wasn't unexpected because it had been having problems off and on for awhile.  This time it was dead as a doornail!  So, this happened.

I don't like that it had to be towed to the shop,

 but I do like that our insurance covered it!  👍

And now it is fixed and working just fine, hooray!

And before I finish, I have to share my weekly embroidery from up through Tuesday evening.  We're working on the top part now.

Love this!  Hope I can get all the wrinkles out 

when it's time to finish this up, lol!

Joining in with LeeAnna for "I Like Thursday" at Not Afraid of Color!

  

February Color Challenge Block

The February 2020 Color Challenge Block with Patterns by Jen celebrates the Indigo Bunting in its teal coloring.  Although I am an avid birdwatcher, I've never seen an Indigo Bunting, but it's a beautiful bird and I have it on my list to watch for when I'm traveling east.

Meanwhile I really enjoyed pulling teal fabrics from my stash and making this pretty block!

And here are my two blocks for the year so far!

Sharing at Patterns by Jen

February Color Challenge Link-up 

To-Do Tuesday #26

Back from our trip to visit my mom in Arizona, and my mind is full of all things I need to accomplish!  There is always laundry piled up after we travel, and the cupboards are bare, plus our car needs to go into the shop, too.  Of course, you know what I want to do the most - sew!

Last week's list was short because of our trip, but I did keep up with the daily embroidery project.

This photo was taken before I stitched the Y block on Sunday evening, and the Z will be stitched tonight (Monday).  Then there are all the bits at the top to work on for the rest of the week.  This has been fun to participate in!

I didn't quite get my February Color Challenge block sewn up, but that shouldn't take too much longer.  Here are the pieces all ready to go!

This week I have many things in mind that I'd like to work on.  Here's the top of the list!

1.  Finish that color challenge block.  The link-up is open already!

2.  Make a few blocks to send to Covered in Love.  One is finished, but I'm shooting for three.

Look HERE for more information about this one.

My sewing table is ready with the pieces and parts for both of those projects.

3.  Before we left on our trip, I had this little quilt up on the design wall, ready to sew the rows together.  I'd like to get that done this week, too.

4.  Finish up February orange projects for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  Almost there - just need a few more orange HSTs for the new quilt I started a couple weeks ago.

There's always more to do, but I'll stick with that list for now!  Sharing at To-Do Tuesday at Home Sewn by Us.  Thanks for hosting us, Roseanne!

Colorful Progress

I've been away from my sewing machine this week, but before we left I was able to make some progress on an idea I had for using my crumb/scrap slab blocks.  A few weeks ago I shared this photo of a few 10 inch finished blocks I had made using my crumbs and the rest of that gray Grunge I keep finding!

I made three more of those for a total of nine, using all the big slabs I had put together.

Knowing that nine of these would make about a 30 inch square, and wanting to make a small baby quilt that would finish about 36 inches square, I started adding strips of gray and little crumb blocks around the outside.

And here's where this little project stands now.  I just need to sew the rows together for a very colorful finish!

Sharing at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and at

Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!

I Like Thursday #174 - a quick trip

We're away from home this week, visiting my mom in Mesa, Arizona.  Hello, Mary in Peoria!  (waving!)

I liked that our plane was on time, even early, and weather was good for flying after a predicted snowstorm caused us a little worry!

Thank you, Southwest!

Image Source

I like my travel reading!

A really good book based on the true story of the Packhorse Librarians of Kentucky who brought books to the mountain people of the Appalachians between 1935 and 1943.  

You can read more about them on Wikipedia here.

I like my travel project bag that I made about a year ago for trips just like this one.

Now it comes along whenever we go somewhere!

And I stitched up Tuesday's little square after we got here.

A teeny tiny teabag! 

I liked this view at the garden center when we went there with my mom this morning.

I love all the color!  We won't see this at home until at least April.  

And, of course, I like the temperatures here.  So nice for February!  80 degrees predicted for today (Thursday).  

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

To-Do Tuesday #25

Happy Tuesday!  How's your week going so far?

I am happy to be able to show that I finally finished the sunflower centers this week!  Whoo hoo!

They go at the top of my Scrappy Sprouts quilt, and 

getting them attached will go on my list at some point! 

Also on last week's list:

Make 4 more tree blocks using orange for my 2020 Rainbow Scrap Challenge project. ✔

Eight blocks are done for the month!

Keep up with the daily embroidery project.  ✔

This is Sunday's little design - a sweet one!

I had planned to finish my hearts tablerunner, but didn't quite make it.  The binding was sewn early in the week, but I still have a tiny bit more of the hand quilting to finish.  The daily embroidery has ended up taking quite a bit of my slow stitching time in the evenings, and that's okay, too.

So, what's up for this week?

1.  I'm heading out to spend several days with my mom, so most of the to-dos will be what she wants "to-do!" 

2.  I'll take my daily embroidery piece to work on, so I can keep up with that.

3.  By next Tuesday, I hope to finish up my 2020 Color Challenge block.  All the pieces and parts are cut and sewn, so it should be easily doable!

Sharing at Home Sewn by Us for To-Do Tuesday.

Slow Sunday Stitching...

I've continued to work on my daily embroidery for the month of February and each day seems to bring a new stitch to try.

I really like the laced backstitch that forms the border for Friday's flower!

I finished up the binding on the scrappy hearts tablerunner, but have still been adding some hand quilting around each heart.  Just a couple more to do!

And just in case, I traced a new embroidery project from Gail Pan's Patchwork Loves Embroidery, Too.  I wouldn't want to run out of stitching projects after all!

I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone else has been working on this week over at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching!

Orange Trees and HSTs

I've had fun poking around in my stash for orange fabrics to make another batch of trees for the Rainbow Jungle.

These sew up really quickly!

My plan is to make 8 trees every month, and here is February's batch.

The jungle is growing!

While there were bits of orange laying on my cutting table, I decided to start making 4.5 inch HSTs, inspired by Sylvia of Treadlestitches who shared this gorgeous rainbow zigzag quilt that she finished recently.

In order to use up some odd shaped pieces that I couldn't cut into 5 inch squares, I  figured out a way to make the HSTs like this - 

And it worked!

Here's my orange zigzag row so far!

Sharing at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and 

Quilting is More fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!