Slow Stitching on a Sunday

The Frosties were a slow stitching project for a long time last winter, and this winter they are finally sewn together, and sandwiched for quilting.  This week I've had some time to actually work on the quilting! 

So far I've just done some basic quilting along all the seams, and now I have to decide on something for inside the blocks.  Maybe some hand quilting to outline the snowmen?

Meanwhile, for some evening slow stitching, I traced Kathy Schmitz's January One Stitch at a Time Club's design, "Cozy Up."  I decided to stitch it mostly in a variegated brown/tan, DMC 105.  My comfy chair where I read/hand stitch/ have tea and coffee is brown, so I decided to shade in the chair with a brown colored pencil, too.

We're predicted to have a high of 11 degrees today, so I think it will be a good day for some stitching!

Sharing at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.

January Table Scraps and the rest of the blues...

Last week I shared "Snow Goose," the Villa Rosa Designs project that I chose for the blog hop, which is all in dark blues and white.   My full post about it is HERE.

Technically, this tablerunner is my entry into the January Table Scraps Challenge, but...

I couldn't stop there!

Snow Goose is constructed with rectangles and squares, but leaves you with lots of cut off triangles, so in a Drop Everything and Make It moment, last weekend I made a little mini quilt out of them.  16 HSTs that finish at one inch make something that fits in the palm of your hand!  (Check out Sandra's DReAMi post at the link.)

Perfect for that morning mug of hot coffee!

Joy added an extra challenge this year of letters that we might use to inspire or describe our challenge entry.  For January, they are C, R, and/or J.   How did I use those letters?  This is a Just because I Can pRoject!   😊

Meanwhile the design wall is full of blue, too - I made 12 Blueberry Taffy blocks this month in lots of shades of blue.  Also some tiny hand-pieced bowties and four split 9s - some in darker blues, some in brighter.

And one more start in blue and white - the center of my Stay at Home Round Robin, plus the first border.  The first border prompt, from Roseanne at Home Sewn By Us,  is to make spool blocks.  I decided to make one large spool of my favorite thread in variegated blue!

This now measures about 15.5 inches square.

I'm ready for the next border, coming up Monday!

I've had lots of fun with blue this month, but I'm ready for a new color!  Linking up with 

The Joyful Quilter's January Table Scraps Challenge 

Soscrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and

Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!

I Like Thursday #320

 It's been an interesting week at my house - bright and early on Monday morning I had my first cataract surgery!   I really liked and appreciated the staff at the surgery center that's connected to my eye doctor's office.  They were upbeat and efficient and very friendly!  Everything seems to have gone just as it should.

Now I'm actually looking forward to the next one on Feb. 6th, 

so that I will have two eyes that work the same!

I'm thankful for Roseanne's post at Home Sewn By Us about Sue's experience with cataract surgery.  I read it more than once!  My experience seems to be almost exactly like Sue described.  Thanks, Roseanne!

Also thankful for friends who have checked in by phone, text, and email.  Thanks for the card, Judy!

Really thankful for ebooks where you can make the font as big as you want!  I've been reading A World of Curiosities, the latest Louise Penny novel about Inspector Gamache.  It's a good one!

Goodreads

I was needing some fabric therapy yesterday, but not too sure I should be operating the rotary cutter yet, so I decided to pull out a scrap bin and sew a crumb block.  If you ask me my favorite color, I will most likely say Green, and that's the scrap bin I pulled out.  Even just sorting the bits by their shade of green was soothing.

I did make two crumb blocks - a bright green and a darker one.

However, since I started sewing along with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, my favorite color truly is whatever color we're sewing with in any given month!  I definitely enjoy making quilts with all the colors of the rainbow.   I think my most favorite RSC quilt I've ever made is Rainbow Rails, finished sometime in 2020.

Thanks for visiting on "I Like Thursday!"

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

Family Portrait

 ***If you're visiting from the Villa Rosa Designs blog hop, click HERE for that post!***

Besides making sure my project and post for the blog hop were ready to go, this week I also finished up the Flake Family Portrait, an embroidery design by Melisa at PinkernPunkin Quilting.  Melisa is so generous with sharing her embroidery and cross-stitch designs and I have a hard time resisting them!

Aren't they cute?!  I stitched this all in black floss which is a first for me, 

but I really like the look of it.

I decided to border it with black and white in a churn dash design.  You can't tell in the photo, but the black is not a solid - it has a very light gray flower design all through it.  Very pretty in person!

Because the front is so monochromatic, I chose a backing that is very colorful!  

(And appropriate, too, right?!)

And some Buffalo plaid for the binding.

This little mini is just the right size to hang on the side of my refrigerator for a seasonal decoration.

Now that the Family Portrait is finished, I'll be getting back to hand quilting the Dancing Pluses.   No new pictures this week, but I have made good progress on it.  That will be my Sunday Slow Stitching as I join in over at Kathy's Quilts.

Villa Rosa Designs Blog Hop!

Welcome to my day on the Villa Rosa Designs blog hop!  I'm pleased to be able to join in by sharing one of their Fast and Fun designs.  If you aren't familiar with Villa Rosa Designs, here's some great background information directly from the blog hop launch post at the link above.

"Villa Rosa Designs is the brainchild of owner and Rose Queen, Pat Fryer. Pat wanted to create Fast & Fun, affordable, and high quality patterns for quilters featuring precuts like 1/2 yards, fat quarters, 10″ squares, 5″ squares, 2 1/2″ strips, fat eighths, and fat sixths as well as other fabric cuts like panels and novelty fabrics."

When I saw the design called "Snow Goose," I knew it was one I wanted to make.   This one makes a tablerunner, so definitely in the fast category, and a lot of fun because I could pull from my dark blue scraps, too.

The pattern as shown makes a 10 x 50 tablerunner.  I decided I would sew until I ran out of blue scraps!  Cutting blue strips and white squares to make the stitch and flip triangles, I ended up with three 10.5 inch blocks.

Sewn together, my Snow Goose runner measures 10.5 x 31.5 inches.

I found a beautiful blue hummingbird batik for the backing!

A scrap of wool batting and strategic quilting around the geese really helped them to stand out.  The pretty blue Grunge in that bottom left rectangle worked well for the binding, too.

It turns out that this makes a great runner for my dresser!

Below you will find the full list of bloggers who are participating in the hop.  Five different Villa Rosa Designs are being featured throughout the week.  You can find a set of pattern cards for the five different designs in the blog hop in the Villa Rosa shop right HERE for just $8.95.

There are prizes, too, including a full set of blog hop patterns, so be sure to leave a comment at the end of this post, and on everyone's that you visit!  You have until January 29th to comment and then prize winners will be announced on February 2nd.  Check out the list of sponsors at the Villa Rosa post right HERE.  

*Due to the volume of comments received during the blog hop, I won't be replying to comments.*

Blog Hop Schedule:

      Thursday, Jan 19: Villa Rosa Designs - Start here!

Friday, Jan 20: From Bolt to Beauty

                           Kathleen McMusing

                            Jaftex 

Saturday, Jan 21:  Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life     

                                 Little Penguin Quilts - you're here!

Sunday, Jan 22:  Quilt with a View   

                              MMMquilts  

Monday, Jan 23:  Cheryl's Teapots2Quilting 

                                Devoted Quilter

                                Quilts of Valor 

Tuesday, Jan 24:   Needle and Foot 

                                Shout4Joy  

                                Electric Quilt 

Wednesday, Jan 25:  The Crafty Quilter 

                                   Jo's Country Junction 

                                   Stitchin at Home

                                   Keepsake Quilting

Thursday, Jan 26: Villa Rosa Designs

Thanks, again, for visiting my blog during the Villa Rosa Designs blog hop!  I'm also sharing this post at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday.  The Rainbow Scrap Challenge color of the month for January is dark/bright blue, so my Snow Geese fit right in!

Also at Quilting is More Fun than Housework for Oh Scrap 

because this is definitely a scrappy project!

Snow geese!

 

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I Like Thursday #319

 Today's view out the front window:

We ended up with about 7 inches.

A big difference from our fun long weekend trip to Arizona to meet up with our friends in Mike's Navy group.  

Beautiful Arizona landscape!

The guys played golf together for two days and the women did some sightseeing.  I really enjoyed the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix.

Of course, there was also lots of conversation and good food and togetherness.  Here is Mike with his roommate, Greg, from 50 years ago.

And a good amount of silliness, too!

Larry singing, "We are the champions!"

Mike was on his team both days,

and they won the little tournament Greg had devised.

Playing along with our shadow selves!

It went by quickly and we're back home again, using the snowblower and warming up with hot beverages when we come back inside again.  I am happy to get back into my sewing room, and glad that I made notes about the Blueberry Taffy blocks so I remember what I was doing, lol!

I'm a haphazard listmaker, and keep little notepads in various places around the house.  Lists include: things we've run out of that I want to remember for the next trip to the store, projects that are in various stages of construction, how to make a certain block for future reference, etc.

Speaking of a list - check out the list of bloggers who are participating in the Villa Rosa Designs blog hop - and it starts today.  My day is coming up on Saturday the 21st.

Thanks for visiting on "I Like Thursday!"

Be sure to visit all the positive posts at Not Afraid of Color.

SAHRR 2023

It's time for the Stay at Home Round Robin QAL for 2023!  Check out Quilting Gail's post to get the details.  Thank you, Gail, and friends, for continuing to host and sponsor this fun event!

I have participated in the SAHRR both in 2021 and 2022, and here are my finished quilts.  2021's project was made with a fat quarter bundle in pretty shades of light and dark turquoise and light and dark pink.  It turned into a wheelchair quilt for my MIL.

2022's quilt is still hanging where it was put a year ago - by the fireplace in my sewing room.  It started with an embroidered center block and was surrounded by scraps of Petra Prins prints gifted to me by a friend.  This is one of my all-time favorite small quilt finishes!

After going back and forth about whether or not to join in again this year, I have caved in and decided on a center block.   I embroidered "Welcome Winter" late in 2022 from this design at All People Quilt.  The pattern has you make it into two long pincushions, but I decided to do something different.  I also had made some dark blue string blocks that I cut into 3.25 inch squares and used to surround the embroidery.  Right now this measures 11.5 inches square.  

My plan is to make a blue and white quilt this year!  I think I'll start by adding a narrow white border all the way around to bring this up to 12.5 inches square.

Maybe it will be done in time to Welcome Winter back again later this year!

Looking forward to seeing what the first border prompt will be, and that's coming next Monday from Roseanne and Sue st Home Sewn By Us.

Meanwhile, I'll be sharing my center block with Quilting Gail.

  

A little more Blueberry Taffy and some hand quilting...

Oops!  What's wrong with this picture?!

This looks better, doesn't it?!  All the shades of blue...

I decided to add in a few background fabrics that have a little print on them 

to add some interest to the white space.  

Hand quilting in the hoop is going along pretty well.  After a week of getting used to the hoop, it's feeling much more comfortable and I'm really liking the results!

Sharing at all my favorite weekend parties:

SoScrappy 

Quilting is More Fun than Housework 

Kathy's Quilts 

 

I Like Thursday #318

 Good morning!

It's the time of year for pretty sunrises!

We still have snow on the ground, but a lot of it has melted 

after a lovely 60 degree day yesterday.

I love my book group!  We met on Monday afternoon, and discussed Lessons in Chemistry, a great book.  One of our members lives in Arizona in the wintertime, so we Zoomed her in.  Our host had her computer sitting on a lazy Susan so that we could turn it depending on who was talking!

Two of our favorite PBS shows are back on, "All Creatures Great and Small" and "Finding Your Roots."  We've enjoyed episodes of both this week!

What kind of calendar do you keep?  Mine is very old school - a paper calendar that I get for free!  Our Medicare insurance specialist gives them out, and Mike and each got one.  Jack gives out great pens, too, as well as helping us and my mom with our Medicare supplement choices.

January has filled up!

I finally was inspired to get the Frosties quilt back out and get the final borders on this week.  It's turning out to be so fun!  Now I just need to figure out the backing and get it ready to quilt.

Thanks for visiting on "I Like Thursday!"

Be sure to check out all the positive posts at Not Afraid of Color!

To-Do Tuesday #169

The two projects I've been working on recently that have January deadlines are FINISHED!  Whoop, whoop!

The Arizona Tablerunner:

About 14 x 42

I found a great backing for it and now wish I had bought more of this fun print!  1/2 yard was just exactly enough.

This weekend is our get together with friends in Arizona,

so I will be taking it along to give to our hosts.

And the blue project is ready for the Villa Rosa Designs blog hop, which starts next week.  Here's just a peak at the back of it!

My day to post is January 21st, so watch for the reveal then!

The other item on last week's list was to get myself a little more organized for the new year, and I've gotten a start on that.  It's just a handwritten list - nothing fancy - but will help me be aware of what I could be working on.  

Coming up, with being out of town for several days and then my cataract surgery coming up (right eye - January 23rd and left eye February 6th!), I probably won't do a To-To Tuesday post for awhile.  It's hard telling what I will be able to get done in the sewing room for a few weeks.  

I'll hope to:

• Work on Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects when I can.
• Be prepared with some embroidery designs traced to stitch on.

I have these three from Kathy Schmitz to choose from.  

I'm leaning toward the comfy chair with teacup and book.

It looks like a fun one to stitch!

Joining in with To-Do Tuesday with Carol at Quilt Schmilt.