Hand-pieced Progress

I've been moving right along on piecing together the sashing, cornerstones, and rows to connect my Book Club blocks into a quilt top!

This needs a good pressing, but I've found it works better to

press hand-pieced quilt tops after everything is stitched together.

My Claire, the block with orange peel shapes, turned out a bit larger than 9.5 inches, so some of her edges have gotten lost in the seam allowances, but I'm not going to worry about that.  I'll just chalk that up to being very inexperienced at using templates to cut out quilt block pieces.

I guess she really doesn't look too bad!

Just one more block to finish surrounding with sashing and cornerstones, and I'll be able to finish up the last row.

Sharing at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching and 

the Book Club QAL weekly link-up at Elm Street Quilts.

Bridging the Months

Or maybe I should call this "Bridging the Years," because I truly have stretched this quilt out over 2.5 years now!  (I will never win any races with my quilting, lol!)

I made lots of Scrappy Sprouts blocks throughout 2018.

In 2019, I sewed the sprouts together and made some sunflowers to go at the top.

Finally this year, I figured out how the background for the sunflowers should be made!

And this week, this quilt top is finally layered and basted for quilting!  Whoop whoop!

This quilt has lots of May's green in it - dark, light, and in between.

And, of course, June's pink is represented, too!

How about a little pink penguin? 🐧🐧🐧

So, I guess you know what I'll be working on this week!

Sharing at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and 

at Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!

I Like Thursday #187 - Inside and Out

After finishing up my Centred flimsy (see a photo of it here on my Tuesday post), I've just been playing with some little things in the sewing room.  I really like doing that - it feels like a reward for having accomplished something big!

I stitched up the May Color Challenge block, from Patterns by Jen.

🎵🎶 "She's a wild one!"🎶🎵  

That background fabric makes this block a bit wild!

But she fits in with all the others I've made for this year long BOM.  I've been going with very saturated colors for each block, and I think it's working.  Here you can see the five blocks for the year on my design wall.

I've been sewing some of my scrappy rainbow of 4 patches into double 4 patches with the light blue background squares, too.   I think I'll shoot for at least 80 of these 

for an 8 x 10 layout.

Awhile back I had made a bunch of tiny bowtie blocks, and they've been waiting around to be used for something.  I decided little 5 inch mug mats would be fun!

Cute!

There are three more ready to be finished up.

This week's book:  The Book of Lost Friends, just finished yesterday.  It was so good that I shed a few tears when I learned the ending of the story.

I really enjoy historical fiction because it's generally based on a true story, which you find out about in the author's note at the end of this book.  It also takes place in two time periods - one main character lives in 1875, and in alternating chapters you also read about a main character in 1986.  

Of course, the two stories come together in the end!

One day last week, Mike and I went for a little drive that involved a picnic!  We love picnics, but, of course, hadn't gone on one yet this spring.  We had a tailgate picnic at a local natural area.

Hello, friends!  Our car works pretty well for that purpose!

After lunch, we walked on the path around the lake, and saw some interesting sights.  This cormorant must have been drying his wings in the sun.

And I love this picture that Mike got of what turned out to be a Monarch butterfly!  

It was really nice to get out and see a little of the world that wasn't the grocery store!

Hope you've had a great week!  I'm joining in with the "I Like Thursday" bloggers at Not Afraid of Color.

Also sharing my Color Challenge block at the May link-up at Patterns by Jen.

To-Do Tuesday #39

Happy Tuesday!  Hope you had a great Memorial Day weekend!  We are still being very careful and staying home as much as possible, so it was a quiet one for us.  That gave me lots of time to sew, and one thing I thought would still be on my To-Do list this week actually was completed, and that is...

my Centred quilt top!

I also made good progress on my hand stitched projects, both blue and white and red and white.   I'll continue to work on both of those in the evenings this week.  

This week, I have one big thing and one small thing on my list:

1.  Finish up the May Color Challenge block in green.  All the parts are ready to go, just need to sew them together!

2.  Get my Rainbow Scrap Challenge Scrappy Sprouts quilt top basted for quilting.

The top has been finished for awhile, I have backing material, 

and batting arrived in April, so there's no more putting it off! 😘   

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

Hand-pieced QAL Update

Just a quick post to share my progress on the Book Club Hand-pieced QAL for the weekly link-up.

This week I've been working on sewing the blocks into rows and adding sashing and cornerstones.  The first two rows are in good shape!

The last three blocks for Row 3, including Claire.

Sharing at Elm Street Quilts.

Immersed in Blue

Besides some green for my Rainbow Scrap Challenge sewing this week, I've been immersed in blue!

I've been hand quilting my blue and white stars and embroidery quilt.  (This one really needs an official name!  Any ideas?)

I am a very inexperienced hand quilter, but I sure enjoy the process!

You might be surprised to know that these blocks were made completely out of scraps from two other projects.  I just kept making them until I ran out of the fabrics!

I also finished up all the blocks needed for the Centred QAL, designed by Sandra of mmmquilts.  

This photo is taken in my basement sewing room, and it's been very hard to get the rich blues to look right with the light down there.  

But after getting the first half of the quilt top sewn together, I brought it upstairs by the big living room window.  Here are all those beautiful blues!

These blocks have been made using a fat quarter bundle of blue batiks I won in a giveaway last year.  Look at the great scraps that are leftover!

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

Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!

And the new Sunday Link-up at Quilting, Patchwork, and Applique.

Working on a WiP

This week I wanted to pull out a WiP from 2019 that has some sage green in it.  I started making these Northern Lights blocks from Nickel Quilts by Pat Speth in January last year.  Two 5 inch print squares and two 5 inch background squares make an 8 inch finished block.

These blocks have been a "make a few whenever I feel like it" project, and by January of this year, I had made 26 blocks, and planned for 48 total.  All kinds of scraps in mellow shades of blue, green, and gray are going into this quilt.

Those dark blocks are either dark blue or dark green.

This week I've made a few more blocks, focusing on a bit of fabric I'm calling Sage Green!

This is a really pretty floral that doesn't show up well in this photo.

How about a close-up?

Now there are 36 blocks, and I've run out of my background fabric - Grunge White Paper.  Oops!

This 6 x 6 layout wouldn't be bad, and I could add borders, too.

I think I'll start sewing these together!  Sharing at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday!

I Like Thursday #186

It's one of my favorite times of the year - planting time!  Usually around Mother's Day or the week after, we in Colorado are in the clear to plant our flower pots and gardens, and we've been doing that this past week.

You can probably tell that we garden on a very small scale at our house, so if we get a few tomatoes or radishes, it's a celebration!   We've planted cucumbers, pumpkins, radishes, carrots, and green beans in the raised bed, and tomatoes and a pepper in the pot.

Meanwhile, the Western Tanagers have still been hanging around the feeders, and I love this picture that my DH took of one the other day.

We were surprised to see a pair of mallards hanging out in our backyard a few days ago, too!

It was so funny to see them - it's a long way from here to the closest pond!  They stayed for a few hours and then took off.

Two sweet quilty friends have sent me surprises in the mail recently!  Libby of Life on the Hill sent me some books of lettering designs for counted cross-stitch and embroidery that belonged to her MIL.  They were published by DMC and look quite old, although I couldn't find a date on them.  I had a piece of cross-stitch fabric so I decided to try some letters!

That was fun!  Thanks, Libby!

And Cynthia of Quilting is more fun than Housework sent me this fun map of Oregon in fabric!  (I think she knows that Oregon is one of our favorite places!)

Right now, this is hanging on my design wall.  I may make a mini quilt out of it - not sure yet.  Thanks,  Cyndy!

I finished up this good book earlier in the week.  I really enjoy Susan Wiggs' books!

Hope you have found some things to like this week!  Join us over at Not Afraid of Color and see what other positive people are posting about today.

To-Do Tuesday #38

Happy Tuesday, all!  Hope your week is off to a good start!  I'm joining in with Roseanne at Home Sewn by Us for To-Do Tuesday.  I don't always get everything on my list finished, but it's a great way to keep track of what I'm working on!

Last week, I was really determined to get my blue and white quilt top pin-basted so that I could start quilting it, and I did it!  Whoop!

I also had on the list to - 

• Finish up block 8 for the Hand-pieced QAL, and I did!  In fact I've finished all 9 of them.  

• Make the A2 and A3 blocks for mmmquilts Centred QAL.  ✔  Yes, and now there are just the B2 and B3 blocks to make.

The first few steps for those four blocks are there on the left.

Getting close!  I'm not liking the extremely dark blue outside pieces that I used for the bottom left and top right blocks.  I think I'm going to replace those also.

• And finish up the little Safekeeping runner.  ✔ 

So, what's going on my list this week?

1.  Work on quilting the blue and white project.  That's one of m evening stitching projects while watching TV with my hubby.

2.  Alternate that with adding sashing and cornerstones to the red and white blocks.

3.  Finish up the last Centred blocks.  There will be a link-up to share our finished quilts starting June 15, so I need to be on that!

4.  Work on some miscellaneous WiPs for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge in green.  This will be whatever I get around to!

Thanks for visiting!  Have a great day!

A tiny green finish

This week I finished up the fourth block in the Heartspun Quilts' Safekeeping Sew Along.  It's the bottom left block, called Cake Stand.  This was a fun one to make!

These came together with a little bit of sashing and some binding to make this sweet tiny tablerunner.

It measures 4.5 x 19.

There was just enough of the green floral left for the binding.

I wish I had more of this favorite print!

I found the perfect spot for my tiny tablerunner!

Meanwhile, I made some progress on my Zigzag quilt top by using the HSTs for leaders and enders in between other projects.

So there are four rows finished for this Rainbow Scrap Challenge project!  They each measure 8.5 x 49.

I think four more rows - red, yellow, pink, and purple - will make a nice size lap quilt!

Sharing at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and at

Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!

And Sandra's DrEAMi link-up for May at mmmquilts!