To-Do Tuesday #127

Good morning!   I'm joining in with Linda and friends at Texas Quilt Gal for the To-Do Tuesday link-up, sharing what I've been working on and my new list for this coming week. 

A peek at my design wall shows a little bit about what I've been up to this week.

-My Stay at Home Round Robin quilt top is completed - read more about it here.

-I also started adding some yellow blocks to the red and aqua that are already up there.  Yellow is the March color of the month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

-I even had a chance to play with a new quilt design (top left blocks)!  

Here's a closer in photo of those.   They are just simple: 2.5 inch strips sewn together in pairs, cut in 4.5 inch lengths, and set in a zigzag.

The pattern is free one: Spiny Peaks

Thank you to Nancy at Grace and Peace Quilting for the inspiration!  You can see Nancy's version at the link for her blog.

And to top it all off, I finished a quilt this week!  Whoop, whoop!  It's hanging out on the footstool in the living room - read more about it here.

In the coming week, I'm hoping to...

• Piece a backing for and get my SAHRR top quilted.
• Continue working on yellow blocks for my RSC projects.
• Make some more of the Spiny Peaks blocks.

Those things sound doable!  Have a great week, friends!

Stay at Home Round Robin Week 6 update

Just a quick check-in to share my progress on my 2022 Stay at Home Round Robin project.  Our final border was to include shoofly blocks as prompted by Chris of Chrisknits.  I made four of them and connected them with other strips and squares of my floral fabric to form two side borders.  Except you might notice they don't match in length... oops!  I cut the two blue squares too small for the right border and didn't notice it until everything was sewn together.

It was an easy fix and here is my final quilt top!

Measures 25.5 x 25.25 - not quite a square!  

Round 1: a curved border

Round 2: diamond blocks

Round 3: star blocks

Round 4: signature blocks

Round 5: appliqued hearts

Round 6: shoofly blocks

Now it's time to figure out a backing for this little wall-hanging, and get it finished up.  

An almost finish...

I am just about finished with my version of the Northern Lights pattern from the book Nickel Quilts by Pat Speth and Charlene Thode!  I started this way back in early 2020 by making blocks like these out of 5 inch squares from my scraps in various blues, greens, grays, and Grunge White Paper for the background.  Two print squares and two background squares make an 8 inch finished block.

Earlier this week, I finally pulled the quilt top made from these blocks out of time out, pieced a backing, and got the layers basted together.  By Thursday afternoon, it was quilted, trimmed and binding was made!

February was a good month to work on this finish because there are lots of pretty aqua/teal/blue-greens in it.

The binding is this soft, marbled gray and was attached on Friday afternoon.

And now I'm ready for a weekend of slow stitching the final binding step!

Almost finished!

Sharing at:

SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday 

Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap 

Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.

 

I Like Thursday #275

 My Wednesday morning view out the front window.  Minus 4 degrees - brrr!

I think Frosty likes it, though.  In fact, he may be demonstrating for more snow!

It's been good reading weather this week.  I've finished two books and am in the middle of a third.

Top to bottom:

The Transatlantic Book Club - reading now

The Reading List

Wish You Were Here

The links will take you to the Goodreads blurb about each book.  The Jodi Picoult book, Wish You Were Here, is about Covid in March of 2020 when it hit New York City so hard.  Knowing this might put you off reading it, but I highly recommend this book!  Jodi Piccoult always does extensive research for her books (even though they are fiction), and has an interesting perspective on the topic.

Wintry weather always gives us a chance to get back into our genealogy research, and we've been doing that this week.  Over the last year, I've been able to trace my ancestry back to John and Priscilla Alden who came to America on the Mayflower.   (Evidently this isn't unusual - Mike read that they have the second most documented descendants of any of the Mayflower passengers!)  But it is really cool to actually see the names and follow it in your family tree!

It turns out you can visit the Alden House Historic Site, and I hope to do that someday.  It is in Duxbury, Massachusetts.

Hope you're having a great week, and staying warm and dry!

I'm joining in with I Like Thursday at Not Afraid of Color.

To-Do Tuesday #126

 My design wall is making me smile!  Every time I go downstairs, I have to turn on all the lights and take a look.

I made sure I was caught up on Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks over the last week.  I had forgotten about adding two chandelier blocks in aqua until Saturday, but now they are finished, too.  And bottom left is my Stay at Home Round Robin as it is at the moment.  Those red strips are just me trying a "what if" idea!

Also this week, I did get the donation quilt backing pieced, the layers basted, and quilting started.

In the coming week, my plan is to...

• Work on the final border for the Stay at Home Round Robin project.  Chris over at Chrisknits called for a Shoofly block to finish the project.  I had made some HSTs from the cutoff triangles of the signature blocks, so they're coming in handy to make the shoofly blocks!

The Generations Quilt Patterns website calls this variation of the shoofly a Grandmother's Choice block.  The center square and strips are 1/2 the width of the HSTs.  Mine will finish at about 3.25 inches.

• I'm also hoping to finish quilting and binding the donation quilt.  I'm not sure I have the right fabric for the binding yet - have to hunt around a little!  

Linking up with Linda and friends at Texas Quilt Gal for the To-Do Tuesday link-up.  

Sunday Slow Stitching

It's only a week past the holiday, but I finished stitching "Ewe Have My Heart" on Friday and fully finished it for a little display yesterday.  I found this wooden tray at the local Dollar Tree (which is now $1.25 Tree!), and Mike painted it for me last weekend.

I wrapped the cross-stitch design around a piece of batting layered on cardboard, and then mounted the whole thing on the tray.  For my first time finishing something like this, it's not too bad!

And here's my Valentine display - all ready for next year!

For today's slow stitching, I'm back to the Frosties.  This is block 10, "The March." Thanks, again, to Melisa for sharing her sweet designs!

I suppose Frosty is still appropriate for stitching right now, even though I am craving signs of Spring, because it is definitely still winter in Colorado!  Here's the coming week's forecast... 

Stay warm, everyone!  Sharing at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.

Baskets and Boxes

 I've had lots of sewing time this week, so I've been able to make sure all of my Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks in aqua/turquoise/teal are finished for the month.  First up are the Bloom baskets.  These have the color of the month in the basket and various scraps in the flower section.

I love these set on point!  In the Bloom pattern module (find it here), there are lots of different layout options.  It's going to be fun to play with these as I accumulate more blocks!

The Masala Box blocks are caught up, too - two in red and two in aqua.  These blocks go together so nicely, and I'm really happy with that background fabric!

Six hand-pieced plus blocks in aqua and teal joined the collection as well.

The two lightest blocks have a white background with a very light aqua print.

Here are all the plus blocks together:

Feeling all caught up gave me the opportunity to begin prepping a UFO for quilting!   This is an older quilt top made from the Northern Lights pattern in the book Nickel Quilts by Pat Speth.  It's not a rainbow quilt, but it's definitely a scrappy quilt, and it has one of my all-time favorite scraps turquoise/teal.  This week I pieced the backing for it.

I'm hoping to get the quilt layers spray basted today or tomorrow

 so I can start the quilting.

Sharing at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and at 

Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!

I Like Thursday #274 and SAHRR update...

Happy Thursday and thanks for visiting!  After a gorgeous beginning of the week, it turned cold and snowy here again, so this week I've liked getting lots of sewing time in!  I finished up this week's prompt for the Stay at Home Round Robin pretty quickly.  See more about it at Quilting Gail.  I didn't want this to get too big, so have turned mine into a "Row" Robin, by combining the last three weeks of prompts into top and bottom borders instead of sewing them all the way around.  I'm liking how this is going!

The first three borders do go all the way around - first a curved border, then straight borders with diamond cornerstones, and then a narrow neutral round.

The last top and bottom borders include Friendship Stars, signature blocks, and most recently, the appliqued hearts.  I'm hoping it will work for the final border prompt (coming up Monday) to finish off the sides.  At this point, it measures 19.5 x 25.5.  

Here's a close-up of one heart applique.  I used Pellon Lite Easy Steam to fuse the hearts to the blue squares, and then did some raw edge applique to finish them off.

Speaking of hearts, I baked some heart sugar cookies for Valentine's Day to serve my book club friends who were coming over for our February discussion.

They were pretty tasty, plus make a pretty picture!

I liked our choice for this month's get together which was this quirky little book, An Uncommon Reader.  It was available through our local library's book bag program for book clubs.  I've shared these before - they're so handy and always have plenty of books for our group.

It's a fictional story about the Queen of England becoming a reader late in her life and how that changes her life in many interesting ways!

Hope you're having a great week - I'm heading back to my sewing room!  Be sure to check out the other I Like Thursday posts linked up at Not Afraid of Color.

To-Do Tuesday #125

Good morning!   I'm joining in with Linda and friends at Texas Quilt Gal for the To-Do Tuesday link-up, sharing what I've been working on and my new list for this coming week. 

On last week's list:

• I finished up my Table Scraps project for February.  You can read more about it in my Saturday post.  I timed this finish just right for using on Valentine's Day, and every year from now on in February!
• I also finished up the borders on the Crumb Hearts quilt.  It now measures 48 x 60, and is going in the "to be quilted" pile!

• And, I've been working on my Stay at Home Round Robin project.  If you look back at my To-Do Tuesday post last week, I had made six friendship stars and four signature blocks and was pretty sure how I would set them at the top and bottom of the quilt.  But I kept looking at that layout up on my design wall, and I just wasn't sure.  So over the week I made some big changes.  Here's how my SAHRR looks now.

I added strips of the neutral fabric to top and bottom, took apart the strips of stars, discarded the two that didn't have very good contrast, and used only the four burgundy stars as cornerstones.  Then I remade the signature blocks with a mellower blue and the neutral print.  

Except, those large blue squares in between the stars and the signature blocks are bothering me now.  They're too boxy or something...  So when I saw the prompt for this week's border, applique or rail fence blocks, I thought, "What about this?"

Something could be appliqued onto those squares!

I'll be working on that this week!

So, my list for the coming week:

• Work on the applique for the SAHRR border #5
• Finish up my Rainbow Scrap Challenge February blocks.
• If there's time, start piecing a backing for this small quilt.  I'm hoping to donate it during the Hands2Help quilt drive.

Slow stitching this week...

 I've been on a roll with heart designs this week!  After I finished up my Table Scraps project for February, I made my mom a Valentine mug rug.  Most of it is machine pieced and quilted, but I did spend an evening hand stitching the binding and adding some hand quilting to the heart.  Mom was pleased with it, so I am, too!

This measures 10 x 7.

Most evenings I continued working on this little cross-stitch piece from PinkernPunkin Quilting and Stitching.  Although I don't think it will be fully finished in time for Valentine's Day,  I've still made pretty good progress this week!  

The little Valentine girl needs some more arrows and a bow -

 maybe that means she's Cupid?!  And then there's a border all the way around.

This will make for some good Super Bowl sewing!

Sharing at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.

Table Scraps for February

Last fall, when I made Botanics as a part of Kelly Young's new book release blog hop, I knew I would want to make more of the mini quilts from Scrappy Improv Quilts.   So, when I started to think about what my Table Scraps project for February would be, I looked in the book and found this design, Heartstruck.

I started with my smallest red and aqua scraps and made crumb blocks for the heart and arrow sections first.  I made a smaller heart to fill in the upper corner, and used some dark gray Grunge Stars from my stash to fill in the background 

Both the big heart and the arrowhead needed the Tri Recs rulers for construction, which I hadn't used in a long time.  It's always good to get some practice with those specialty rulers!

The original quilt (from the book) finishes up at 24 x 24, but the place I was making this for needs something that isn't bigger than 13 x 17, so I shortened the length of the arrow.  Doesn't the Grunge make the brighter fabrics pop?!

I had leftover rainbow dots from the backing of Trip Around the Rainbow that seemed perfect for the backing and binding of this mini quilt, too.

I wanted to get this done before Valentine's Day because, well - hearts and arrows!  So here it is, put to use already.

Perfect!

Sharing at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and at 

Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap.

Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation 

And at the end of the month at The Joyful Quilter for the Table Scraps link-up.

 

I Like Thursday #273

We went on a search for bald eagle sightings yesterday - this is the typical time of year to see them in our area.   This open space was supposed to be a good place to see the eagles, and it was a beautiful day, so we went for a hike there.

Unfortunately, we never saw any eagles - lots of hawks and geese, some chickadees - but no eagles.  But the sights were beautiful anyway.

This is quintessential Northern Colorado Front Range in February.  Foothills, farm buildings, blue skies, interesting tree shapes.  (and snow!)

Meanwhile, back at home this week, I've enjoyed working on this little Valentine cross-stitch design.  I felt a little rusty on this craft at first because I hadn't done it in a long time, but I've made good progress on it this week.  

I stitch while we're watching streaming shows in the evenings, and after we finished up Grantchester last week, we found Endeavour, also on Prime.  Another good British detective series from PBS Masterpiece that we had never watched before.

Image Source

And one last thing to share - I picked up this Valentine towel at the store the other day.   I thought it was so cute, and couldn't pass it up!

Hope you're having a great week!  Thanks for visiting on "I Like Thursday," hosted by LeeAnna at Not Afraid of Color.