I Like Thursday #312

Good morning, and happy Thursday!   I'm joining in with LeeAnna and friends at Not Afraid of Color for I Like Thursday as I always do.

This was our view out the front window yesterday.  We got about 4 inches of snow overnight.  This was the prettiest part of the day, when the sky cleared and the sun came out.

The snowy day put me in the mood to start getting out the Christmas decorations, and I always start with my holiday mugs and quilted things.

I was in the mood to bake, too, so I found this recipe for a small batch of snickerdoodles.

They turned out yummy, even though I made a couple of changes.  I didn't have any cream of tartar, but the blogger said they could be made without it, and I added extra cinnamon because Mike is a big fan of cinnamon.  The recipe said it made just 6, but I got a dozen out of it. 

See Rudolph on my mug up there?  I love Rudolph, the song, and the TV movie that came out in the 60s.  That was always a favorite of mine, and have watched it all these years.  I think it sends a good message about using your gifts, and that it's okay to be different.

Mike and I were talking about favorite Christmas movies, and, of course, being a guy, he says, "Die Hard!"  But we've also enjoyed "The Santa Clause" and "Christmas Vacation." On Disnry+ we've been watching the series "The Santa Clauses," just for fun.  It's pretty silly, but has grown on me.  Santa (still played by Tim Allen) wants to retire, but has to find a replacement Santa first.

We had a really nice Thanksgiving trip.  Good weather for a road trip, and good visits with our kids.  It's hard to get either of my boys to let me take any pictures of them, but I did manage to get one of older son.

At younger son's place, we went to the town's Christmas Light Parade and it was so fun and sweet!  Lots of farm vehicles all lit up!

This afternoon, I'm going to visit and stitch with my friend who is still recovering from a bad knee injury.  I found another free wintery embroidery design from All People Quilt that I decided to prep to take along.   There are three snowman designs in the set, called Snow Buddies.  Find them HERE.

Have a great day, everyone!

 

To-Do Tuesday #163

Begins with a "Ta-daaaa!"  This week I finished my Autumn Jubilee tablerunner and I'm so happy with how it turned out.  Big thanks to Carole at From My Carolina Home for the block and design ideas - I enjoyed making this one very much!

I made the back from the leftover chunks of the front, plus a little extra of an olive-y green from the stash to make it wide enough.  The binding is a magenta print from the fat quarter bundle that I didn't use in the blocks, but worked nicely with the other prints.

I'm enjoying this on the table for a few days 

before it's time to get out the Christmas quilts!

Since we were gone for four days for Thanksgiving, I haven't sewn much else, except for getting started on the tablerunner gift for some friends we'll be visiting in January.  This is the Arizona 2 block from Quilter's Cache.  I'm planning to make three of these stars for the runner.

So what's on this week's list?

I'd really like to get one of my Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilt tops sandwiched for quilting, but I'm waiting for backing that I ordered from Connecting Threads to arrive (it doesn't seem to have moved since last Thursday)!  I ordered basting spray through Amazon this morning (Monday), thinking it would be here by Wednesday (don't we get free two day shipping with our Prime membership?) but apparently not because it's not going to be delivered until next Monday... 🤨

So while I'm waiting for those items, I'll put these on the list:

• Keep working on the Arizona tablerunner
• Holiday gift for my quilt group's gift exchange - in progress, keep going
• A little straightening up and scrap processing in the sewing room
• Maybe even sew the borders on the Frosty quilt!

I'm joining in with To-Do Tuesday hosted by Linda at Texas Quilt Gal.  

Slow Stitching on a Sunday

 Earlier this week I had a chance to finish up my teacup embroidery designs from Kathy Schmitz in their wooden embroidery hoops, and hung up the correct one for the season, too!

It won't be long before I'll be hanging the winter one.

I haven't had a chance to work on the little Christmas Penguin in several days, but he does have his Christmas tree now.  I think all that's left is the background and some outlining.  I'm hoping I can make him into an ornament for our tree.

Mr. Penguin will be today's slow stitching project!

Sharing at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.

November Table Scraps

 This month's Table Scraps Challenge over at The Joyful Quilter included using dark neutral scraps and making something "mini."   Here's where my scrappy journey took me...

Into the jar where I keep the selvage scraps!

I cut some favorites into 6 inch strips and sewed them, qayg style, to a piece of batting.

I stitched this panel to a backing made out of my favorite (dark neutral? maybe?) chrysanthemum print, leaving a few inches open on one side.

   

After filling it up with crushed walnut shells and stitching the opening closed, I ended up with a pretty neat pincushion.  

This measures 9x5, so not a mini in the pincushion world, 

but smaller than most things I make!

It fits right under the extension table of my sewing machine.

But then - I wasn't quite done with the dark neutral mini idea, so I cut some squares of the chrysanthemum print and some other scraps that went with it (how about that chocolate brown Grunge?), and hand-pieced a little mug rug mat.

Some hand quilting in a cross-hatch with ecru perle cotton #12 and a self binding from the brown backing fabric finished it off.

This measures 6 x 8.

Love these "just for fun" projects - playing with scraps is the best!  Sharing at my favorite scrappy link-ups this weekend:

The Joyful Quilter 

SoScrappy 

Quilting is More Fun than Housework 

 

I Like Thursday #311 - Happy Thanksgiving!

Thankful for family and friends and fabric and blogging buddies!

Thankful for words - books, songs, poetry, conversations! 

Yes!

Hope you're having a lovely day!

Joining in with LeeAnna and friends at Not Afraid of Color

To-Do Tuesday #162

It's been a good week for making progress on my last to-do list, and, in fact, I got further than I expected to a week ago!  

My Autumn Jubilee tablerunner is close to being finished - borders on, backing made,  and quilted.  This afternoon (Monday), I machine sewed the binding on and it's ready to hand stitch to the back.

I also finished sewing the Masala Box blocks into the finished quilt top; more info about it in my Saturday post here.

With this week being Thanksgiving, and we're taking off to go visit our kids for a few days, I know I won't have time for a lot of sewing.   I will put a few things on the the to-do list for when we get back on the weekend, though.

• Sew the Autumn Jubilee binding.
• Make some progress on a Christmas gift that's planned for a gift exchange.  I have something embroidered for this and want to turn it into a pillow.  
• Get started on a tablerunner that I need for a hostess gift in January.  Mike's Navy buddies are meeting for a golf weekend in Arizona, and one of the guys has a home there.  I'm starting with this group of half yard pieces of Grunge.

I want to incorporate this star into the design - maybe making three of them, separated by sashing.  The star requires a lot of HSTs, so I thought I'd just get started with those.

Image from Quilter's Cache.

Wishing you all a lovely Thanksgiving, however you celebrate!  I'm linking up with To-Do Tuesday hosted by Linda at Texas Quilt Gal.

Slow stitching this week...

 We woke up to this view out the front window Friday morning - snow overnight and very cold temperatures.  

It put me in the mood for some wintry stitching, so I've been working on the little Christmas Penguin that I started earlier in the week.   On Tuesday, he looked like this:

                             You can see the full design above - it comes from this site:

                                              Durene Jones Cross-stitch on Facebook.

And now he looks like this:

He's going to be a cute little guy!

I also traced this design from All People Quilt, and got started on a little bit of it.  We're going on a road trip for Thanksgiving later in the week, and I thought this would be a good take along project.  

The two designs say "Welcome" and "Winter" and

 are meant to make two pincushions or bowl fillers.  

Find the pattern and design here at All People Quilt.

Thanks, Vicki, for the inspiration and pattern link! 

For today's Slow Sunday Stitching with Kathy's Quilts, I'll see if I can get a little farther on the little penguin!

Two quilt tops finished!

Two of my 2022 Rainbow Scrap Challenge block projects are now quilt tops, after finishing up the last long seams this week.

The Dancing Plus blocks have been a hand-piecing project throughout the year, with 6 blocks stitched in every color, except for blue which has 7.  These blocks are 6.5 x 8.5 and are set so that they are offset from each other in the rows.   Hopefully you can see the color groups running in diagonal rows from top left to bottom right!

42 x 49

And one close-up of some of the blocks.  It has been so fun choosing these blocks from various scraps each month.  This was an anything goes quilt - birds, cats, stars, flowers, dots, solids, pumpkins, starfish - you name it!

The other blocks to make it to quilt top form this week are the Masala Box blocks, pattern by Sew Preeti Quilts.  I made two of these blocks in each color of the month for a 48 x 60 quilt.

Maybe you could think of this as a double rainbow, lol!

Pink to indigo and violet and back again.

I always think I'll pick out a favorite block as I'm sewing them all together, but I really love them all!  This quilt does have lots of my favorite penguin scraps in it in several different colors.. 

It's time for batting and backings and basting spray!

Hoping to have at least one of these finished by the end of the year.  

Which one it will be is still to be decided!

Sharing at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and at 

Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!

I Like Thursday #310

Happy Thursday, friends!  I'm joining in with LeeAnna and friends at Not Afraid of Color for I Like Thursday as I always do.   And this week we're looking ahead to Thanksgiving!  

Since our boys graduated from college and moved off to new communities on their own, we've had to figure out new holiday traditions.  To accommodate their work schedules, Mike and I have been taking a little road trip every Thanksgiving, and taking our meal along with us!  That means I roast the turkey ahead of time, package it up with a few easy sides, and it rides along in a cooler.  (It also means a lot less work and cleanup when we're at either son's house!)

We do a pretty simple meal because it's easier for traveling, but there is one dish that is always requested, and that is a pie I make that everyone likes.  Again, it's really simple, but very tasty!

Oreo crumb crust, and two layers of pudding.

I use sugar free because it's better for Mike, and make each layer with only 1 and 1/4 cups of milk.  That way it sets up nice and thick and the layers stay separate from each other.

A little whipped cream on top, and we're all set!

A simple meal leaves lots of time for games, football, watching a movie or whatever we want to do.

Cheers!

What else has been going on this week?  I finished stitching the Autumn SAL from Days filled with Joy, and it is really sweet!  I'm not sure I'll get it fully finished anytime soon, but I think it would make a nice pillow cover for the living room couch.   Here I just laid some Autumn-themed squares around it to give you an idea.

I read a really good book this week, too.  It's historical fiction about the Polish Jews who fled into the great forests there during WWII and were able to hide from the Nazis.  It's a fascinating story about their survival, and I learned so much from the story.

It's supposed to snow and be very cold here today and tomorrow, so I'm anticipating lots of hibernating with another good book and a cup of hot tea and then time spent in the sewing room, too.  Hope you have a great Thursday, too!

To-Do Tuesday #161

 Good morning, and happy Tuesday!   I'm  joining in with To-Do Tuesday hosted by Linda at Texas Quilt Gal.  It's a great way to keep track of what needs to be done in my sewing room each week!

Not long after last Tuesday's post, I finished Full Stop, the 2021 Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilt that has been on my to-do list forever!   It's a great feeling to have this quilt finished, and be able to move on to other projects.

More info about this quilt in my Saturday post HERE.

The rest of the week has been a mish-mash of working on a little of this and a little of that!

• Slowly stitching together the squares for the longer borders of Autumn Jubilee. The side borders are done.

• Sewing blocks into rows for Masala Box.  I didn't take a photo, but have 4 of 5 rows sewn together so far.
• Planning, purchasing for, and cutting setting triangles for the chandelier block quilt.

My inspiration quilt for this is from Mary's Quilts.

For the coming week, I'm planning to focus on:

• Sewing the Masala Box rows into a top.
• Finishing the borders for the Autumn Jubilee runner, and figuring out a backing for it.

And just for fun!  I decided to jump into counted cross-stitch again with this cute Christmas Penguin.  I'm totally blaming this on Ivani, who had a link to the design in a post last week.  It's from Durene Jones who shares a ton of cute designs on Facebook.

Can you see his hat and scarf?  Slowly the details are emerging!

I'm a slowpoke at cross-stitch, but enjoying the process.

Have a great week!

Slow stitching to a finish...

 The stitching on Winter's Brew was completed this week.  I want to frame it in a wooden embroidery hoop like I did Spring Steep, and also am planning that for Autumn Brew as well.  These are all Kathy Schmitz designs involving a tea cup!

Since I didn't make it to Hobby Lobby just yet to get the wooden embroidery hoops to finish off the above design, I decided to finish an older one that had been waiting for awhile.

This one is called "Patience," also a Kathy Schmitz design that I stitched in 2021.  

I have a dear local friend who lost her mom this week, and I decided rather than send her flowers, I would give her this little handmade design to honor motherhood.

Today's slow stitching will be sewing on the binding and finishing it with hand stitching to the back!

Sharing at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.

#Full Stop is a finish!

 I've been so excited to finish up this quilt and share it with everyone.  Worked on throughout 2021 and 2022 as a project with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilters, it has been on my to-do list for a long time! 

50 x 65

Thank you, Angela, our fearless leader of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, for figuring out the blocks and sharing tutorials for all the punctuation marks throughout 2021!  I think my favorite row to make was the question marks.

Once all the blocks were made into rows, it was time to figure how to put all the pieces of the puzzle together.  That took me awhile, and lots of bits and pieces of background fabric (Moda Bella Pearl) to figure out! 

Sometime in October, I finally had everything I needed to finish this one up - backing, batting, and basting spray!  I quilted it using the serpentine stitch on my Pfaff - mostly horizontal lines, but also some vertical to fill in the negative spaces.  The binding turned out to be some leftover Kona Aruba from my stash which is actually on the front of the quilt, too.  

A fun rainbow print from Joann's for the backing.

And now #Full Stop is finished!

A label and a trip through the washer and dryer are all that's needed before I can give this to my 15 year old great niece who is quite a writer!

Sharing at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and at 

Quilting is More Fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!