To-Do Tuesday #198

After my last To-Do Tuesday post, we went out of town for a week, so I didn't have a lot on the list that I was expecting to get accomplished.   Since arriving back home, I've been working on getting some little projects done, and things are moving along well!

Miss Jo March (of Little Women fame) is here to show you that one cradle quilt is finished, and the second is very close!  The only thing left on cradle quilt #2 is to machine finish the binding.

Even though the angle of the photo makes the bottom quilt look larger, 

these are both the same size - about 18 inches square.

These will be sent off to Carole at From My Carolina Home as soon as the second quilt is finished. 

For the week ahead, I have a couple more things to get finished:

• Happy Blocks for the Compassion Quilts block drive at Quilting is More Fun than Housework 
• The napkins to match my niece's placemats
• Send all of these items off and get my sewing area cleaned up and ready to move on to whatever's next!

October will bring a new color for my Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects, and also Autumn Jubilee, a fun celebration of fall crafts and cooking at From My Carolina Home, so there will be plenty to do in the coming month!

Checking in at To-Do Tuesday at Quilt Schmilt!  And at Quiltfabrication for Midweek Makers.

Fall Slow Stitching

I love Fall - it's my favorite season!  I'm celebrating the beginning of fall today with some slow stitching projects.  I've been working on this Autumn Stamp from Melisa at PinkernPunkin Quilting this week.  The pumpkin, crows, and a sunflower (which is the next thing I will work on!) are perfect for a fall stitch!

I've also been working on this fall mini quilt and it's ready for the binding to be hand stitched down.  I'm excited to be getting this one finished!

This will be my slow stitching for today.  

Sharing over at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.

Also sharing at Sew and Tell Monday

Bowties in Aqua

I've been away from my sewing machine this week, but hand-piecing was possible and this little bowtie block is the perfect one to represent our trip!

We did not see dolphins, but we did see gray whales and tons of birds - pelicans, cormorants, seagulls - and seals, sea lions, and otters.  

I particularly love seeing the pelicans, and there were lots of them in several places that we visited.  Mike enjoys trying to get photos of them gliding along.

I was able to finish up eight bowties in aqua for the month of September.

I've pieced 72 of these so far this year, and here they all are:

Isn't this going to be fun?!

One of my favorite souvenirs from a trip is fabric, and we had the chance to visit a great little quilt shop in Cannon Beach, Oregon, called Center Diamond.  I don't often buy kits, but I loved this small landscape project, and they offered a kit for it, so I thought - why not?!  I'll be making the quilt on the right on the cover of the pattern.  I'm excited to get to work on it!

What have you been working on this week?  I'll be checking in over at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday to see all the September projects!  

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

I Like Thursday #354

We are back home this morning after a week away on the Oregon Coast.  It was a really enjoyable getaway, and we had a great time wandering and exploring all over the place, visiting favorite places and seeing new sights.  

We have a favorite little inn we stay at in Depoe Bay, and every room has a view of the bay - it's always changing.

I just love being by the water!

Have to get my toes in it at least once.  But it was cold!

We bought groceries and made picnic lunches each day.  Oregon parks have nice picnic areas with great views.  

I love walking down to the point at the end of the road where our hotel is located to watch the sunset.  It's another view that changes every day!

Even though I'm happy to be home again, I'm never quite ready to leave.

Until next time, Oregon!

Sharing at I Like Thursday over at Not Afraid of Color!

I Like Thursday #353

 

Greetings from the Pacific Northwest - one of my favorite places!

Beautiful views...

Watching the sunset with my favorite person...

All of these are things I like!  So "Cheers!" to a vacation!

Sharing at I Like Thursday over at Not Afraid of Color!

To-Do Tuesday #197

Good morning, friends!  It's To-Do Tuesday and time to share my progress on last week's list and then see what's next.  

I was partially successful on the past weeks list!  It looked like this:

• Work on RSC aqua blocks.  ✅️

• Make some Happy Blocks for the Compassion Quilts block drive at Quilting is More Fun than Housework.  ✅️

Just two - I will definitely make more.

• Make napkins to go with my niece's placemats.  ❌️  Nope.  Would you believe I never got to the quilt shop to look for the fabric I need for these?  I'll keep this on the list.   

I did work on something that wasn't even on last week's list, and I'm not even sure why I left it off!  These are cradle quilts for Carole at From My Carolina Home.   One is quilted and ready for binding, and the other is sandwiched for quilting.   

These are fun little projects - just 18 inches square.  

The one on the bottom is made from orphan blocks - even the

back is pieced from a couple!

I'm making a goal to have the happy blocks and the cradle quilts ready to send off by the end of September.  That will be doable!

Have a great week, everyone!  We are heading off on a little vacation, and I am sooo looking forward to it.  It's nice to have our son at home to hold down the fort while we're gone.

Linking up with Quiltfabrication for Midweek Makers.

Slow stitching this week...

I finished stitching the Mini Squirrel Sampler this week, and love how it turned out!  The squirrel reminds me of the little guys who run around our yard all the time.  They're very entertaining!  This one has an acorn - in our yard they are usually carrying an apple from our tree.

I decided to switch back to some embroidery, so I traced and got started on "So Blessed," a Kathy Schmitz design from 2021.

If this looks familiar, it's because I already stitched it once before.  The original hangs out on a small wicker table in our living room.  This new version is going to be a gift for our friends who recently celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary.   It will be a belated gift, but I don't think they'll mind!

In non-sewing activities, we went to a downtown festival yesterday called Pastels on 5th.  It's a fundraiser for our domestic violence shelter.  There are tons of artists doing chalk drawings on a couple blocks of the downtown area.  Here are a couple favorites:

After walking around the pastels festival, we stopped at a favorite ice cream shop for a treat!  

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough - yum!

What have you been up to this week?  Hope it's been a good one.  Linking up at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.

Getting started with aqua!

It's always fun to dig into a different color at the beginning of the month.  My aqua stash isn't very big this year, but I found enough to get started on the zipper blocks.  I've just been making three of these each month, and they will continue into 2024.

That block on the right is showing up as more blue than blue-green in the photo, 

but in real life it fits with aqua month!

I love this fun cat print, and it has found its way into several projects recently.  I'm sure it started out as a fat quarter, but this is all that's left now.

Here are all the zipper blocks I've made so far - 27 of them.   They're a fun bunch of color!

Check out what all the other 

Rainbow Scrap Quilters are working on over at SoScrappy!

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

And at Melva Loves Scraps for Sew and Tell Monday.

I Like Thursday #352

There's a fall feel in the air around here.  The afternoons are still warm, but evenings and mornings are very cool.   My garden is just about finished, too.  We've enjoyed those tomatoes I picked last week, and I made one last batch of pickles from the cucumbers.

This pot of flowers is still happy, though.  Maybe because I gave it a fertilizer boost a few weeks ago when we were going to be having some family over for a backyard picnic.

We took a little trip to the Celestial Seasonings Tea factory in Boulder the other day.  Our son had never been there before, and has been enjoying having a cup of tea every evening when he's working.  There's an interesting factory tour and then a shop, of course.  The tour costs $5 and then they give you that much off a purchase in the store.  We got $15 to spend in the store so came home with several boxes of their tea.

A week ago or so, I pulled this old quilt book off my shelf and started looking through it.  Its copyright is 1993!  The quilts are very country style, which isn't necessarily me, but I do love to make little quilts.  I wasn't even a quilter in 1993 - I think a friend must have passed this book on to me from her stash.

I got to this one ⬇️ and decided I wanted to make it!  I've been seeing framed 9 patches on different blogs, and like the look of them, so why not?!

I used some browns I had out from making the journal cover a couple weeks ago, plus a couple fall prints I bought recently (one of them has an aqua background color!), and a cream Grunge for the setting triangles.

And fussy cut a sunflower for the center!  

This measures 14.5 inches square right now, and there's a two inch border to add yet.

It's been a fun little project to sew on in between other things!

(A bunny was hanging out with me when I took this picture - can you see him there out in the grass?  I'm sure he was wondering what I was up to!)

What have you been up to this week?

Sharing at I Like Thursday over at Not Afraid of Color!

To-Do Tuesday #196

Good morning, friends!  It's To-Do Tuesday and time to share my progress on last week's list and then see what's next.   Hard to believe another week has gone by already, and we've moved on to September as well.

Last week, I had just finished my ScrapDance Quadrille quilt, called Mermaids Dance and I shared it in a post on Friday, found here. 

Another item on my list was to finish up the placemats for my niece, and they are done!

Before I get these ready to send off, I'd like to make some coordinating cloth napkins, but haven't made it to the quilt shop to get some fat quarters for the napkins.  Hoping to get that done this week!

I also got started on a few aqua blocks for the September color of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge - these are pieces and parts for the zipper blocks I'm making.

So, for the coming week...?

• Find two coordinating fat quarters and sew up the napkins to go with my niece's placemats, and get them mailed off.
• Continue working on the aqua RSC blocks.
• Get started on some Happy Blocks for the current Compassion Quilt block drive at Quilting is More Fun than Housework.  Cynthia is asking for popsicle colors!  I think these might work!

Hope you're having a good start to your week, and getting lots done!

Linking up with Carol at Quilt Schmilt for To-Do Tuesday.

Also Midweek Makers at Quiltfabrication.

More cross-stitching...

Apparently I have a new obsession, and I blame it all on Melisa, who has many lovely designs on her blog and offers them all for free!  I've stitched some of her embroidery designs, some of the small cross-stitched stamps, and now I'm on to the mini samplers.  I shared the Mini Sunflower Sampler a couple weeks ago. 

Back in February I stitched the Red Heart Mini Sampler.  I'm not sure I even ever shared this on the blog, and I definitely never fully finished it.  I think I was stitching this during my cataract surgery weeks, so it was actually quite challenging!  (But I did it!)  

And this week I started the Mini Squirrel Sampler.  It's got a bit of a fall feel to it, and I love watching the squirrels in our yard - they're so entertaining!

 

I'm really enjoying stitching these mini samplers!  I might need one for every season...

I bet you know what I'll be working on for Slow Sunday Stitching today!  Linking up with Kathy's Quilts.

 

Mermaids Dance

I have a finish to share to end August and begin September.  It's my version of ScrapDance Quadrille, the 2022 mystery designed by Carole at From My Carolina Home.  I started with a fat quarter bundle of ocean-themed prints that I bought at a fun quilt shop that I visited on Cape Cod in May of 2022.  We made lots of HSTs, and they turned into two pretty blocks.

I made four blocks plus added two borders, and ended up with a 33.5 inch square tabletopper that I'm calling "Mermaids Dance!"  

I had one fat quarter that didn't make it into the quilt top, so I used it for the back.  Loving a pieced back, I brought the fat quarter up to size with scraps of Sprinkles.

I bought a fun batik for the binding from my LQS because I couldn't come up with anything in my stash that seemed quite right.  I knew this would just look like swirls of blue-green and white in the binding, but I couldn't resist it!

This is going in my aqua stash for the September Rainbow Scrap Challenge color!

I made a special label for this one, so you could see the mermaid print.

Mermaids Dance is perfect for the outside table on our back porch.  

I'm hoping to take Mermaids Dance along to visit the ocean when we head to the Oregon Coast in a couple weeks.  Maybe I'll get a couple of fun photos of it there!

Meanwhile, I'll be sharing my finish with several link-ups this weekend, including:

Favorite Finish Monthly Link-up at Meadow Mist Designs 

Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts 

ScrapHappy Saturday at SoScrappy and

Oh Scrap at Quilting is More Fun than Housework.