A little hand-piecing project

As I was finishing up with purple this week, I decided to cut a couple 2.5 inch squares out of each of my favorite prints of the month. 

It was easy to hand-piece them into this little patchwork mini, and I finished it off with some hand quilting.  The binding is just the backing folded around to the front and stitched down.

I've made a series of these, starting last fall, with seasonal prints or colors of the month.  They all measure about 6 x 8, except for the Christmas one, which started with some bowtie blocks from the orphan drawer.  It was made with 3 inch blocks, so about 9 x 12.

So, now the angels have their own purple quilt!

Meanwhile, I'm back to the teacup embroidery design.  Now working on little pink flowers and a sweet bee.

Stitching along on this Slow Sunday with Kathy's Quilts 

and the rest of the Slow Sunday Stitchers!

Cleaning up the purple

Since I was already finished with the blocks I needed to make for purple month, I've spent some time this week moving a couple projects along closer to a finish.

One of them involved this purple fabric that I've had in my stash since last fall.  Purple with bats!

Turns out it was the perfect inspiration for piecing a backing for my Halloween version of the Autumn Jubilee quilt top.  Carole at From My Carolina Home hosted a QAL for this design last October, and I'm hoping to finish it up for this coming October.

Looks like I'm moving in the right direction!

Everything in the backing is leftover from the front!

Meanwhile, progress is being made on quilting Crumb Hearts!  I would estimate that it's about 2/3 quilted, so maybe a finish by the end of next week?  First I need to figure out a binding for it.

Getting close!

Sharing at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday.

And at Quilting is More Fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!

 

I Like Thursday #295

Happy Thursday, friends!  How's your week going?  As on most Thursdays, I'm joining in with I Like Thursday, hosted by LeeAnna at Not Afraid of Color.  Be sure to check out all the positive posts at the link!  

Mike and I went for another miniature golf outing the other day.  This was at Fort Fun in Fort Collins, and was where we went on one of our first dates way back in 1974!  

We had fun!

LeeAnna suggested we include something in today's post about our favorite clothing.

So...what you see in the above photo is basically my summer uniform - shorts and a t-shirt!  When the weather gets cooler it turns into jeans and a t-shirt, with a hoodie over the top.  Maybe I'll go wild and wear a fleece vest sometimes, too.  (I do live in Colorado, lol!)

The truth is, since I retired from teaching, I don't worry about my clothes anymore.  

But I do love a 30% off coupon at Kohls!  😎

One of my favorite book series had a new book come out this year, and I read it last week, The Women's Murder Club series, by James Patterson.  This one was a quick read and a page turner!

We have the little wild rabbits all over our yard on most days, and you never know where they're going to turn up.  We caught this photo of one trying to stay cool in this spot recently.

The garden is starting to produce, which is always lovely!

I've enjoyed adding some stitches to this embroidery this week.  The little yellow flowers are done, so I did another section of the blue ones.  Next there are some pink ones to add, too.

Have a great day, everyone!

To-Do Tuesday #146

Good morning and happy Tuesday!  It's To-Do Tuesday at Texas Quilt Gal - thanks, Linda for hosting this fun link-up each week!

On last week's list, I was hoping to get the Crumb Hearts quilt sandwiched for quilting, and I did accomplish that, and even got in a few rows of quilting.

You probably can't see any of the quilting stitches, but I can definitely 

assure you that I did some quilting on this already, lol!

A second Covered in Love Disappearing 9 Patch block was sewn, too.  This time I added in a red square, and I really like that combination!

I also finished up July's Table Scraps project, my post about it is here.

For this week's list, I'm really trying to stay on task - no squirrels allowed in my sewing room!

• Keep working on the Crumb Hearts quilting
• Another CiL block?  (if I can get four 7.5 in squares out of my scraps in the desired colors...)
• Quilt older son's tabletopper - backing is ready, but I haven't sandwiched the layers together.

I have two seasonal projects on my mind that I'd like to make some progress on in the coming weeks, so I'm going to add them to the *coming up* list.

#1:  My Autumn Jubilee top from last fall.  I'd like to have this done by October.  The first step is to figure out a backing for it.  I'm going to use the leftover fabric to piece the backing.

#2:  The Frosties need to be made into a quilt top.  First step is to trim them so that they're all the same size.  I also need to find a fabric for sashing and borders.  I'm sure *just the right one* is out there somewhere!

By breaking these two down into first steps, I hope to make some progress with them, and have them completed for the coming holiday seasons!

Have a great week, everyone!

Slow stitching this week...

This week, I finished up the last of the purple plus blocks that I've been hand-piecing for one of my Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects.

All of the hexie flowers were appliqued to their background squares and trimmed up so that I could start adding sashing and cornerstones.  That changed them from a slow-stitching project to a machine project, so I'll take them off my Sunday list for awhile,  until I'm ready to hand quilt this little quilt.

Just a few flowers for an example - there are nine of them in the whole quilt.

For today's slow stitching, I'm back to the teacup full of flowers, where I've been adding green stems and leaves and little yellow flowers.

The stitch for the yellow flowers was a new one to me - called the Woven Wheel stitch.  I had to look it up and found this great graphic from The Spruce Crafts site.  It turns out to be a fun stitch to do, and there are a few more to finish up.

Woven Wheel stitch

I'm stitching away and sharing at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching!

Table Scraps for July

In our family, we've been Colorado Rockies baseball fans since 1993 when they came to town.  

When purple was named the color for July and Joy added circles, spots, and dots to the challenge, I knew I'd be working with some Colorado Rockies fabric I had leftover from making my son a pillow cover for his birthday.  Purple's our color and what better represents a circle than a baseball?!

Lots of squares in a checkerboard pattern.  

The background is leftovers of the Tula Pink Fairy Dust 

that I've used in my Crumb Hearts quilt.  

It goes really nicely with purple!

This tabletopper was made for the table in between our comfy chairs in the family room, and fits it perfectly at about 18 x 13.

Dots for the backing and binding for the win!

And putting it to use already - 

Also this week, I took these two fat quarters and turned them into something for our dinner table.

This grape print is from the fat quarter bundle of food fabric that I purchased last fall, and have been using to make new cloth napkins for us this year.  So far, I've made an apple set, a banana set, and now the grapes.

The inside fabric is from Anna Maria Horner's Conservatory line.

I've made many sets of these over the years and they get lots of use at our house!

We haven't been able to go to a Rockies game at Coors field for a few years, but hope to get back there sometime soon.  Until then, we'll remember the good times we've had there!

Sharing at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and at 

Quilting is More Fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!

Also at Joyful Quilter's Table Scraps link-up for July

I Like Thursday #294

As in other parts of the country, it has been HOT in Colorado lately.  Our small house doesn't have air conditioning, and honestly, most of the time we don't need it.  Colorado cools down at night, so our house usually does, too.  106 (and temps over 100 for multiple days in a row) is hard to combat.  Except like this:

Sitting with the fan blowing right on you!

I just finished the above book yesterday.  I saw it on multiple blogs, so got it from the library.  It's a good story, a writer and genre I usually like.  My only complaint might be that it's kind of long - the story probably could have been told in 300 pages instead of 500!

Of course, I'm always looking for simple meal ideas that don't require too much cooking.  I had a leftover boneless pork chop from the grill that we sliced up really thin and made a taco/fajita type meal out of.  A few sautéed peppers and onions are good on that.  And my favorite small spatula works really well for that job! (Thanks, LeeAnna, for the topic idea!)

This was a Dollar Tree find!

The bottom is great for scraping out smaller spaces

like a soup can.

The green beans don't seem to mind the heat.  They're growing!  I even picked a few last night.

We found this cute little spinner last week, and I thought this would be a fun place to put it.  The red and white polka dot petals spin around the center when the breeze is  blowing. 

You can see how dry the poor grass is.  We're just hot and dry here!

Fortunately, my sewing room is in the nice cool basement, and I've been playing my little flower garden of hexies.  This is my plan - I really had to eke out every last bit of the green floral to get enough for the outer border, but I think it will work.

Hope you're staying cool this week!

I'm joining in with I Like Thursday, hosted by LeeAnna at Not Afraid of Color. 

To-Do Tuesday #145

 Good morning and happy Tuesday!  It's To-Do Tuesday at Texas Quilt Gal - thanks, Linda for hosting this fun link-up each week!

Last week I was just thinking about making backings for some projects - this week I have moved one step further and made them.  Crumb Hearts now has a backing, and it's time to get the layers ready for basting and quilting!

Also on last week's list:  I pieced a small backing for my son's tabletopper and made a little progress on another Covered in Love block, too.

In my Saturday post, here, you can see the purple progress I made last week for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

To finish out the month of July in purple, I need to hand-piece two more plus blocks.  The first step is cutting the 2.5 inch squares.

Also on this week's list:

• Finish my July Table Scraps project and write up a post about it.
• Finish at least one more CiL block, maybe two.
• Press top and backing for Crumb Hearts, figure out the batting, spray baste the layers.

Hopefully, these items are doable!

Slow stitching on a Sunday

I've been working on appliqueing my hexie flowers to a white-on-white background square this week.  Six of them are finished, with three more to go.  I'm going to make a little doll quilt out of them, using a green and a pink floral for sashing and cornerstones.

The aqua flower was finished up yesterday, and the purple one is prepped for stitching today.  

A couple more to go, and I can start adding the sashing!

And some good advice I found:

Have a lovely Sunday!

Sharing at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.

More with Purple

 My main goal for this week was to finish up the Bloom blocks with their purple baskets, and that was accomplished!

Here are all the baskets up on the design wall together - 21 of them so far!

I really fell in love with that one purple floral print, and just had to play with it a little more.  A purple EPP hexie, some 4 patches for the parts department, and a mug rug that still needs its binding.

One last photo to share of my design wall.  While the crumb hearts quilt top waits for its batting and backing, it makes me smile to have it hanging there!

Sharing at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and at 

Quilting is More Fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!

I Like Thursday #293

Good morning!  How's your week going?  Ours has been a bit crazy here, but there have been good parts, too.  

We have a new roof.  That's quite the process.  The roofing crew showed up bright and early last Friday morning, before I was even out of my jammies.  😳  These guys worked hard!  We were really impressed with them.

They made a huge mess and then cleaned it all up, and were all done by about 5:30.  Here is the "after" shot.   Probably no one will notice any difference except us, but we are very happy with it!  Glad we chose this particular company.

We then spent the weekend getting our house ready so I could host my book club on Monday afternoon.  It shouldn't be that big of a job, but somehow it always feels like it is.  Only two of us live here, and we don't make a big mess, lol!  The weather miraculously cooled off and was pleasant on Monday, so I could have the group outside.  We read a great book - I really loved it!

Here is a link to the Goodreads blurb about it.

Thanks so much to Sally who posted last week that a new season of Brokenwood was coming.  Sure enough, there's Season 8 on Acorn.  We love that show!

Some cool sights outside in the yard:

Baby cucumbers!

And a beautiful Western Tiger Swallowtail butterfly just hanging out in one of our trees.

Hope you're having a great week!

I'm joining in with I Like Thursday, hosted by LeeAnna at Not Afraid of Color.