I Like Thursday #229

Good morning, friends, and happy Thursday!  Hope you're having a good week.  It's been kind of quiet here (which isn't bad!), but I have some good things to share anyway.

I'm so happy that the tulip and daffodil bulbs I planted last fall seem to have survived the 2.5 feet of snow that was on the ground here a couple weeks ago!  They haven't bloomed yet, but I think they will soon if the weather stays nice.

With Spring comes grilling season, and we decided it was time to get a new grill.  Isn't it pretty?  It will never again be this clean and shiny, lol!

I love a pile of good books on my bedside table!  Two of these I've finished, and one is my current read.  

Mortal Fall is the book I'm reading right now.  It's a murder mystery set in Glacier National Park.  Thanks go to Colette for the recommendation!

The Beekeeper's Promise is WWII historical fiction set in a small town in France - by the same author as The Dressmaker's Gift that I read for my book club discussion in February.  The two books share some of the same characters, which makes the stories interesting.

The Confession Club is by Elizabeth Berg - an author I always enjoy, but often forget about!  A really good story about a woman (among other also interesting characters) who falls in love with a homeless man.

I've been experimenting with making bookmarks out of some tiny embroidery designs I stitched.  Here's my first try:

This measures about 2.5 x 6.5 inches.

Have you seen that Sandra at mmmquilts is hosting a new QAL, starting tomorrow?  I'm looking forward to joining in.  I like the rainbow design of this quilt!  Plus, I've never made arrow blocks and really like her shadow design ideas.  I'm going to pull from my stash for the arrow blocks, but need to find the background fabric.

Now head on over to LeeAnna's place at Not Afraid of Color 

for lots more "I Like Thursday" posts!

 

To-Do Tuesday #83: SAHRR and Harmony Hand-Pieced

 Both of the QALs I've been participating in are having link-ups this week, so I decided I'd better focus on those two projects for my to-do list!

Over at Quilting Gail, Stay at Home Round Robin participants are linking up their finished quilts (or their works in progress!) and you can see lots of quilty eye candy at the link.  My round robin is still a work in progress, but it won't be too long until I have a finish!  Over the last week, I finished up the quilt top, pieced a backing, and got everything layered and spray basted.  I've quilted a small amount through the center to get started.

Here's a peek at the back and you can see my quilting design better.  Jacquie Gering calls this an Angled Crosshatch in her first book on walking foot quilting, Walk.

Straight vertical lines (mine are 2 inches apart) 

with diagonal lines intersecting them.

So my Number One To-Do for this week is to get this quilt finished!

Second on the list, which doesn't really compete with quilting the SAHRR because it's all hand-pieced, is the Harmony Hand-pieced QAL.  I've made a lot of smaller pieces and parts, and this week's job is to stitch them into the larger corner blocks.  Two are completed, two more to go!  This QAL is sponsored and designed by Patty at Elm Street Quilts and Kristin at Simple.Handmade.Everyday.  This is the first link-up to show our progress.

Everything's ready to stitch for the next big block.

To-Do #2 is to stitch the rest of those bigger blocks, so I'm ready to move on next week.

I'm also linking up with Chris and friends at Chrisknits to share my to-do list for the week.

 

Outstanding Blogger Award

 I was so surprised to discover that Mary of Quilting is in my Blood nominated me for an Outstanding Blogger Award, and I appreciate that so much!  I've been inspired by many Outstanding Bloggers in the years since I began my blog, and I'm flattered to be counted among them.  Thank you, Mary!

I started my blog in 2013,  after I discovered the world of quilt blogging and wanted to join in.  This is my 1044th post!  My blog name "Little Penguin Quilts" comes from a mini quilt I made shortly before I started the blog.

Mary explained in her post, here, that the Outstanding Blogger Award is given from one blogger to another as a way of supporting and acknowledging each other.  She also gave me some questions to answer, so here goes!

• What advice would you give to yourself as a novice quilter now that you’re a much more experienced quilter?   There are no Quilt Police!  Try lots of techniques and make what you like, and don't stress out if it isn't the same as your quilting friends!
• Is there another handcraft besides sewing/quilting that you enjoy doing?  Over the last few years I've discovered that I really enjoy embroidery!  My favorite designers are Gail Pan and Kathy Schmitz.  I've enjoyed finishing off lots of little projects for gifts and to decorate my sewing room.

• What is your favorite part about making a quilt?  I really like the initial phase of making blocks for a quilt.  The time when you're excited to get started and see how the design is going to look.  I definitely slow down when it's time to finish a quilt, but then love sewing the binding!
• What is your least favorite part about making a quilt?  My least favorite part is the basting stage.  But once I get past that, I'm happy to be quilting and finishing it up!  I did get my Stay at Home Round Robin spray basted and ready to quilt this afternoon (Sunday) - yippee!  More about that one in tomorrow's To-do Tuesday post.
• Where do you find your quilting inspiration? Everywhere!  Especially from other bloggers and their projects.  I have way more ideas for quilts than I will ever have the opportunity to make,  but I keep trying!
• What quilt project have you done that would you like do again?  I love any design made with Half Square Triangles, like the Rainbow Zigzags I finished earlier this year.  I know I'll be making lots more HSTs in the future!

I would like to nominate these quilty friends for the Outstanding Blogger Award.  They are quilters who inspire me every week with their creative accomplishments!  

Linda at Texas Quilt Gal

Joy at The Joyful Quilter

LeeAnna at Not Afraid of Color 

Deb at Happy to be Scrappy

Vicki at Vicki's Crafts and Quilting

Cynthia at Quilting is more fun than Housework 

Please don't feel obligated to participate, but if you choose to write a post about yourself, here are some questions to answer!

• What got you started on your blogging journey?
• What's your proudest accomplishment as a quilter?
• What makes you laugh the most?
• What's the best quilty gift you were ever given?
• What's on your quilty bucket list?

A little more with green and a DrEAMi!

But first I have to show you a finish that I'm partially responsible for!  I say partially because I finished the quilt top a couple years ago, and then it got put aside.  I put it up for "adoption"  in Cynthia Brunz' Quilty Orphan Adoption last September, and Doris in Alabama offered to quilt it up and send it to Covered in Love.  She added a border to make it a little bigger, too - and this week she sent me a picture of the finished quilt.

Thank you, Doris!  

You've made my quilt top look wonderful!

At home this week, I finished up the green row of bracket blocks for my version of the Full Stop sampler quilt designed by Angela for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

 

Here are the three for the year so far:

My rows average out at about 41 inches long right now, so I'll wait until all the rows are made to decide what else to add.  The background fabric I'm using is Moda Bella Pearl.  Shouldn't be too hard to get more if needed.  Plus a fun rainbow border fabric could be a nice addition at the end.

Last week, I was inspired by Sylvia at Treadlestitches' crumb hearts, and I had a "just have to try it" moment!  So, having already made some crumb blocks in green, I did!  Sylvia kindly told me that her hearts are made from the free Cluck, Cluck, Sew heart quilt tutorial, found here.

I can see more of these in my future!

Meanwhile, I'm getting ready to quilt my Stay at Home Round Robin and wanted to try out a quilting idea I have.  Why not use some green scraps to make a small quilt sandwich and practice?

I started by drawing a 10.5 inch square on the quilt sandwich, and adding vertical lines every 1.5 inches.

After quilting the vertical lines, I marked angled lines that created a sort of diamond shape, and stitched those.

When all the quilting was done, I thought why not add a quick binding to make a mug mat all in green for my favorite mug?!

A true little DrEAMi - planned and made yesterday!

There was even some green in my slow stitching this week - sweet green leaves in the Sprung Sing embroidery design from Kathy Schmitz.  I'm getting closer to finishing this one!

Sharing at all my favorite weekend link-ups:

ScrapHappy Saturday at SoScrappy 

Oh Scrap at Quilting is more fun than Housework 

the March DrEAMi link-up at mmmquilts and 

Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts.

Salt and Sand Blog Hop - My Day!

Welcome to the final day of the Salt and Sand blog hop hosted by Carol at Just Let Me Quilt!  It's been a great week of visiting all the blog hop participants to see their fun projects.  Thanks so much, Carol, for sponsoring all the fun!

I have always loved the ocean, and living most of my life in the landlocked state of Colorado means that the coastal areas of our country have become a frequent vacation destination for my husband and I.  So... Salt and Sand (and sea!) are very special to me!   

One of our favorite places to visit is Monterey, California, and while we were there a few years ago I visited a fun quilt shop called Back Porch Fabrics.   (It's actually located in the neighboring city of Pacific Grove.)  I picked up a great fat quarter bundle of novelty fabrics featuring all kinds of sea creatures.

Combining these fun fabrics with a variety of blue solids, I used them in my very first hand-pieced quilt called "Sand, Sea, and Sky."  Of course, I had to take it along on a trip and photograph it on the sand!

But then, what to do with the scraps?  I decided to cut them into 6.5 and 4.5 inch squares, whatever I could get out of each leftover piece.  The solid blues turned into 3.5 x 6.5 inch rectangles.  The smaller squares were sashed with different solids - even a few bright ones just for fun!  Then I laid everything out like this.

The Salt and Sand blog hop, along with the Hands2Help quilt drive, gave me a reason to finish up this little quilt!

36 x 42

Can you find Nemo?

I love the sharks, otters,  and sea lions, too!

Another favorite block - 

The backing and binding are this great large scale print of a world map and the oceans!

I hope this fun quilt will bring joy to a 

little ocean-loving person somewhere!

As for me, I'm just looking forward to the day I can get my toes in the sand and saltwater again!

Thanks for visiting, and be sure and check out all the other participants, too!

March 22

Creatin' in the Sticks

Selina Quilts

That Fabric Feeling

Days Filled With Joy

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

Karen's Korner

Homespun Hannah's Blog

Crafts and Math

 

March 23

MooseStashQuilting

Life in the Scrapatch

Food for Thought

For The Love Of Geese

Becky’s Adventures in Quilting and Travel

Karrin’s Crazy World

Sew Many Yarns

Kathy's Kwilts and More

 

March 24

Ms P Designs USA

DayBrook Designs

Vroomans Quilts

Kathleen McMusing

Quilt Schmilt

The Darling Dogwood

Daughters of Dorinda

Annie’s Musings

 

March 25

Quiltscapes

Beaquilter

Stitchin At Home

The Joyful Quilter

Scrapdash

Freckled Fox Quiltery

Quilts Fabric and Thread Tales

Words & Stitches

 

March 26

Just Let Me Quilt

Websterquilt

Quilting Gail

Samelia's Mum

Quilt Fabrication

Little Penguin Quilts

Just Sew Quilter

Inflorescence

I Like Thursday #228

 I have a quick Thursday post today to share something kind of neat in the downtown of my city that Mike and I went and took a look at yesterday.   Since we are all creative people, I thought you'd enjoy the creativity involved in this project.

It's called the "4th Street Aquarium Project," and is set up in an empty storefront.  You just walk up and take a look through the windows.

The exhibit is an art project made completely out of recycled plastic, 

meant to look like an underwater scene.

Here's a quote from the newspaper article that lead us to go check it out.

"Look closely, and you’ll see the coral reef is made from about 2,000 plastic bags. Rubber gloves, egg cartons and crocheted newspaper bags take the form of other vegetation. Fish come to life from Hello Fresh packaging and chip bags. Styrofoam and milk jugs form a large turtle."

How about that octopus?

The two artists, Heather Rubald and Kathryn Vinson, created the underwater scene with the help of recyclables collected from community members, including something like 2,000 water bottles from Loveland High School.

I even found Nemo!

And there's the turtle in the back!

One more quote from the newspaper article, written by Pamela Johnson, from the Loveland Reporter-Herald:

"The artists hope their work will create pause for people to find ways to reuse things, to reduce their waste, to buy products with less packaging and made from recycled goods. They also hope it will create some of the joy they found in making the aquarium, as well as smiles."

Well, it's sure making me think!  Hope you're having a great week!  I'll be back tomorrow with my post for the Salt and Sand Blog Hop.

For today, I'm joining in with LeeAnna and friends at Not Afraid of Color for I Like Thursday.

To-Do Tuesday #82

 Good morning!  I'm checking in with Chris and friends at Chrisknits to share my to-do list for the week.  The view outside has changed greatly in the last week.  A lot of the snow has melted, but there's still a lot there.  Unfortunately, we're in the ugly phase!  There's green grass under that snow, though!  Spring is here!

Things are moving along in the sewing room, too.  I've made progress on each of the items on last week's list.

• I've about finished the Stay at Home Round Robin quilt top.  It's small - about 41 x 43, but I've pretty much used up everything in the half yard bundle I started with, so this is where it ends.  

One more long seam to go!

• The blog hop quilt is finished, and my post for the hop is being written!  Almost there!   Click HERE for all the participants.

• More sewing with green, the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color of the month, was accomplished, too.

On this week's list:

• Make a backing for the SAHRR and get it spray basted for quilting.  That's a biggie for me, and something I need to focus on!
• One last green project to make a few blocks for - the Full Stop RSC sampler quilt for this year.  March's blocks are brackets - I'm thinking I need 2 or 3 more for the row.

Just ignore that green crumb heart - something I was playing with the other day!

I know what I'll be working on this week - better get to work!

 

Green here, Green there...

 Bits of green everywhere!  Even peeking out from under the snow.

Down in my sewing room, I pulled out the Easy Breezy blocks, and decided more green was needed, so I sewed up a couple of those, plus a wonky star in dark greens.

There were penguins in Santa hats in my green scrap bin, 

so they had to go in this block, right?!

25 Easy Breezies up on the design wall.  I think I'll make enough to have an 8 x 9 block layout.  Or maybe 8 x 10?  There's no rush on this quilt - I'm just making a block for it here and there.

The wonky stars may or may not end up as alternate blocks in between the chain blocks, but they're just fun to make!

Sharing at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and at 

Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!

During my evening hand stitching time this week, I finished up the second scrappy trips block in green.

And I'm all caught up with this week's partial square in a square blocks for the Harmony QAL.  Coming up we have blocks that require templates, so I'll be working on those this weekend.  These next sections will use more of that pretty dark green floral, so I'm looking forward to that.

Sharing at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching!