A slow stitching finish and some more embroidery...

I recently finished off one of my embroidery designs from Gail Pan's Patchwork Loves Embroidery, Too.

A scrap of a dark blue print for the border, and 

a lighter coordinating blue Grunge for binding.

This one is now winging its way to a friend!

Meanwhile I've been adding the flowers to my watering can design.  I decided they would be pretty in variegated flosses: blue, yellow, and the round flowers will be in a pink/burgundy floss.

I'll be working on those pink flowers for my Sunday stitching.

The blue flowers with bees buzzing around remind me of the larkspur in my garden.  My husband took this great photo not long ago.  The great big bumblebees were very busy on the larkspur!

Sharing at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.

And at Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!

The end of July...

I'm finishing out July by finishing up the next row for Full Stop, the 2021 Rainbow Scrap Challenge sampler.   I wasn't sure I'd get much time at my sewing machine this week, but it turned out that I had just the right amount!

Plus my order of the background fabric, Moda Bella Pearl, from Missouri Star Quilt Co finally arrived.

This makes my background look yellow, but it really is a cream color - "pearl."

I ended up with a row of nine colons.

It's getting more and more fun to lay out the rows now that there are 7 of them!  It think it will be a good puzzle to figure out the final layout of this quilt and how to use the different lengths and widths of these rows in a creative way.

The longest rows measure 42 inches.

Sharing at SoScrappy  for ScrapHappy Saturday and at 

Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!

I Like Thursday #246

Hello, friends, and happy Thursday!  It's been a heck of a week in our neck of the woods, and many days of not much to like.  My mom fell in her apartment last Friday and after multiple hours spent in the ER on two different days, she was finally admitted to the hospital for treatment.  As of today, she is in a rehab center where she will get lots of therapy to help her get stronger again.

One thing I can say that I have liked is the kindness and care of the nurses and CNAs on Mom's hospital floor.   They were just great with Mom, and we appreciated them so much!

Meanwhile, there have been a few things that have made me smile this week.  Like this pretty volunteer sunflower that is blooming in my garden right now.

And in the category of "Oh look!" I found a pumpkin growing!

This morning (Wednesday) I was able to participate in a "Stuff the Backpacks" event as a volunteer for the Thompson Education Foundation, which supports our local schools.  These backpacks are given to kids and families who need a little extra support.  I was in the first shift, and here's our results!

I haven't had much time to sew this week, but I did manage to sneak down to my sewing room for a few minutes really early one morning.  I enjoyed getting a little bit done on a *secret* sewing project that I have going.  It needs lots of low volume crumb blocks, and some green.  More about this in September!

I have been able to be home in the evenings, and have been stitching away on my latest embroidery project.  Lots of pretty greens for stems and leaves.

Good stitch therapy!

(Thanks, Wendy!)

Let's just hope the days get better for my mom from here on out!  Joining in with LeeAnna and friends at Not Afraid of Color for I Like Thursday.

This week in stitching...

I was thinking through what else needed some dark blue in my Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects.  First, I thought about the crumb hearts and the chandelier blocks.  But they have plenty of light and dark blue, and I don't want any dark neutrals in them.

Then I remembered I hadn't looked at my Easy Breezy blocks in awhile.  Since Bonnie Hunter already started a new leader/ender challenge, and these were started in 2020, it's probably time to finish them up.

These have lots of dark blue, but I decided they could use a couple blocks that combined blues with browns.

These also need an alternate block, and this week part of my Missouri Star order arrived - this layer cake of Tula Pink's Pinkerville.  This fun print is called Fairy Dust.  It was their Deal of the Day a couple weeks ago.

I think it could work for in between the Easy Breezy blocks!

In my evening hand-stitching time, I finished up two hand-pieced Scrappy Trips blocks, the dark blue and the one in browns.

I also traced one of the new embroidery designs, and have the second one ready to trace as well.  I've done just enough of the embroidery to stitch around the water can.  

These will be my slow-stitching projects for Sunday, and in the evenings, too, this coming week.

Linking up with my favorite weekend parties at:

SoScrappy 

Quilting is more fun than Housework and

Kathy's Quilts 

I Like Thursday #245

 Happy Thursday, friends!  It's been a fast week since my last I Like Thursday post, and I'm not sure where the time has gone.  I didn't take a lot of photos, but I do have a few things to share.  

Something I love about the apartment complex where my mom lives is their beautiful landscaping.  Mike brought his camera along the other day and took some photos while I ran up to check with my mom about something.

Pretty zinnias!

And Black-eyed Susans, too.

Colorado peaches are coming into season now, and the roadside stand where I like to buy them was open the other day.

So yummy!

I took a little roadtrip up to Laramie, Wyoming, with a friend yesterday, and one of our stops was a quilt shop.  (Of course!)   I bought a few quarter yards of reds and low volume fabrics for my Positivity quilt.  But I had to take a picture of this Quilt of Valor that was hanging on the wall.  It includes the veteran's photographs from when he was in Vietnam and of his friends.

I need to learn how to print photos onto fabric so I

can make something like this for Mike!

I read another Elin Hilderbrand book this week.  She's becoming a favorite author lately.  This one takes place on Nantucket again, and even has a bit of a mystery!

Hope you're having a great week!   I'm joining in with LeeAnna and friends at Not Afraid of Color for I like Thursday.

To-Do Tuesday #98

Good morning!  I'm checking in with Chris and friends at Chrisknits to share my to-do list for the week. 

Slow, but steady progress is being made on my plus blocks.

As I've seen other quilters' design ideas, I look at mine, and wonder, "What if...?"  Like this:

I'm getting low on my background fabrics, but have bigger pieces of the different reds left, so maybe I'll add a few of those reversed blocks in to the mix.

I'm also thinking about adding a border after I get to 30 of the plus blocks.

I did get caught up on my June purple row for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge Full Stop sampler, and also got started on the July blue blocks.  I'm completely out of the background fabric for this project, and it's on order from Missouri Star.  Now, if they would just ship it!

My Table Scraps projects for July are finished and you can read about them here!

On my list for the coming week:

• Keep going on those plus blocks!
• Finish a small embroidered wall-hanging and get it ready to send away.
• Maybe my background fabric will arrive for the Full Stop row - if it does, I'll work on that!

Have a great week, everyone!

Slow Stitching this week...

 My main focus this week has been to work on the two hand-pieced July blocks for my Rainbow Scrap Challenge Scrappy Trips quilt.  I finished up the dark blue block...

And cut pieces for a block in lots of different browns, both dark and light.

Text fabric, sunflowers, fall leaves, cobblestones, and seashells.

This one has a fall feel.

Here are all the blocks so far.

My Sunday slow stitching plan is to finish up the brown block.

Later in the week, our oldest son is coming to visit, so I'd like to have a new embroidery design traced and ready to work on, because that's probably the only stitching I'll be able to do while we spend time with him.  I like both the June and July designs.  

Which one should I choose?

Sharing at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.

Table Scraps in Dark Blue x 2

A few weeks ago, we bought two new chairs for the sitting area where Mike and I spend a lot of time when we're home.  The old ones were falling apart and had needed to be replaced for a long time.  The big change for me was the color of the chairs - the old ones were dark blue, and the new ones are chocolate brown!  I like the chocolate brown a lot, but the window blinds in that room are blue, too.  So I needed to make a little quilty something that tied the blue and the brown together.

Hence... the little blue and brown strings I made last week turned into a placemat for the table that sits between our chairs!

I combined the string blocks into a 9 patch center, made borders out of a favorite sand and seashells scrap, and bound it in a bit of dark brown that I had.  It measures the same as all the placemats I've been making this year: 12.5 x 16.5.

The backing is leftover from my Salt and Sand blog hop project, and it's perfect for this little placemat, too!

Here's how it looks with the new chairs:

But, since I've had this plan of making a placemat to donate every month this year, I didn't want to stop there.  Years ago, I won a bunch of mini charms in a cute fabric line whose name I can't remember, but I started making 9 patches out of them, and then put them away and never did anything else with them.

Maybe these would make a fun placemat!

And they did!

I did trim an inch off of either end to get 12.5 x 16.5 inch size I wanted.

The blues in this aren't really dark blue, so I added a dark blue binding to play along with the July RSC color.

So now there are seven!

Sharing at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday 

Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap

and at 

Joyful Quilter's Table Scraps Challenge link-up later in the month.

 

I Like Thursday #244

Happy Thursday, friends!  Hope you're having a good week!  I braved the DMV yesterday and successfully helped my mom get a Colorado ID card.  I even had all the right paperwork!  She doesn't drive anymore, but needed a photo ID.  That feels like an accomplishment!  

Meanwhile, Mike got some good photos from around our yard this week.  This little bunny was all stretched out on one of those really hot days enjoying the cool grass.

And look at this big bumble bee!  They've been really interested in these tall purple flowers.  (Anyone know what these are called?  I can never remember!)

This bird nest was inside one of our birdhouses.  It doesn't look like it was ever used, which I think isn't unusual.  We've read that birds can make multiple nests that they don't use.  I think this one was made by some chickadees, judging by who we saw going in and out of the little house.

It was fascinating to look at the nest up close and see how it was made.

Coarser grasses at the bottom and softer fluff up at the top.

I've discovered that I can grow green and wax beans!  They are delicious, too!

I wanted to share this little pincushion I made last week.  The front is another one of those little embroidered designs from Crabapple Hill.

And the back is...

And a book I really enjoyed this past week, too:

When a family is fractured after their baby is abducted, they put themselves

back together with the help of nature and the outdoors.

I'm joining in with LeeAnna and friends at Not Afraid of Color for I like Thursday.

To-Do Tuesday #97

Good morning!  I'm checking in with Chris and friends at Chrisknits to share my to-do list for the week. 

Last week I worked a little bit on everything on my list.  More plus blocks were made for the Positivity QAL.  

Dark blue scraps were made into a few blocks for my July Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects.

This week there is more of the same on my to-do list.

• Continue on with the plus blocks.
• I have two Table Scraps projects in process this month and would like to finish them up this week.  I'm planning my Saturday post around those projects.
• Time to get caught up on the June and July rows for Full Stop, the RSC sampler for this year.  I left off here with the semicolons for June.

• July's row is colons, tutorial found HERE.  I need more background fabric, which is Moda Bella Pearl, and I just ordered some from Missouri Star, so hopefully it won't take too long to arrive.

Plenty to work on this week!  

Cool Blues for a Hot July

 It's been really hot here the last couple days...

Fortunately, my sewing room is in the basement, which for us is the coolest part of the house, so it's been a good place to spend part of each afternoon.  Early in the week, I finished up my hand-pieced 4th of July tabletopper with some hand quilting and scrappy dark blue binding.

It fits perfectly on the little square table where I keep all my stitching supplies.  I'm using the little penguin pouch with it for supply storage and even made a tiny new pincushion for the table, too.

I also prepped (and have been sewing) a dark blue scrappy trips block.  The others I made previously were mostly lighter blues, so this will be a good addition to the project.

These are also hand-pieced.

Every month I've been adding two chandelier blocks in the RSC color of the month, so I stitched those up this week, too.  They're really quick!

Here's the whole group - 14 of them.

These are hard to photograph!  The dark blue and purple blocks look black, but I promise they are not!  I do they think they will make a pretty *something* - probably a tablerunner.

And one other thing I worked on - the start of my July Table Scraps project - these little string blocks in dark blues and browns.  They're 3.5 inches square!

More about these next week!

Linking up with my favorite weekend parties at:

SoScrappy 

Quilting is more fun than Housework and

Kathy's Quilts