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.

I Like Thursday #351

Finally, I have a basket of tomatoes to show!  They took long enough, lol!  I was talking to one of the ladies who lives at my mom's place who evidently used to be quite a gardener, and she was telling me that everyone says the tomatoes have been slow to ripen here this year.

Aren't they pretty?!

Over the weekend we went to one of our favorite trail areas here and went for a hike.  This one cuts through the golf course, so the views are fun for both golfers and hikers!

Younger son wanted to try making yeast bread in his air fryer, and it turned out very nicely!  He had never made bread before, but with just a few tips from mom, he did really well.  We hadn't had any homemade bread in a long time, and it was delicious.  Pretty amazing that it can be baked in the air fryer!

We've been having some storms late in the day recently, and I caught this double rainbow the other day.

Beautiful!

Tuesday I put the last stitches in "Needle Love."  I enjoyed stitching this one!   I need to look and see what I have to make a border for it, and then a special place to hang it, too.

It's I Like Thursday over at Not Afraid of Color!

Head over there and check out all the positive posts.

To-Do Tuesday #195

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 shared last week that I had been distracted by a squirrel project, and that turned out to be a good thing because once I got that out of my system, I made progress on several other things as well!

The "Drop Everything and Make It" project was a journal cover made with a quilt-as-you-go technique using a piece of embroidery I finished earlier this year.  Read more about it here.

Finishing that little project must have given me a burst of energy because I also finished ScrapDance Quadrille - quilting, binding, and all!

This one deserves its own post, so I'll put that on this week's list - 

take photos and write it up.

The other two small projects made progress, too - placemats for my niece are quilted and need binding and the cradle quilt for Carole's donation drive is a top.

It's been an enjoyable and productive week in my sewing nook!

So... on the list for next week:

• Photograph and write a post for ScrapDance Quadrille.
• Get binding made and sewn on to the placemats.
• Find a backing for the little cradle quilt and work on quilting it.
• Get started on aqua blocks for September's Rainbow Scrap Challenge color.

I think those items will keep me busy!  Linking up with Carol at Quilt Schmilt for To-Do Tuesday.  And at Quiltfabrication for Midweek Makers!  

QAYG Journal Cover

Ever since I stitched this cozy looking little chair design from Kathy Schmitz back in February I've been trying to decide how to finish it.

Cozy Up

I have also - for a long time - wanted to try making a quilted journal cover.   After finding a tutorial for one done with the quilt-as-you-go technique, I took off on a squirrel project and did exactly that - made a quilt-as-you-go journal cover featuring that cozy reading chair on the front!   The tutorial I used is found here at Scrap Fabric Love.

The tutorial has you sew scraps onto a piece of batting cut 2 inches larger than the height and width of your journal, and mine measured 16 inches (edge of front cover to edge of back cover) by 9 and 5/8 inches.   One learning experience part of this project was that by making the qayg panel two inches larger than the the journal measurement, and then trimming it to only one inch larger, I lost quite a bit of the brown dot print I sewed along the outer edge of the panel.

That little bit of brown with white dots that you can see along the back edge is all that's left of the 2 inch strips that I started with!   When I make another journal cover, I plan to organize my quilt-as-you-go strips a little differently.

I am definitely happy, though, with how the embroidered piece is featured on the front of the journal cover!

The inside flaps that hold the cover in place are a great place to stash important papers.

The whole project only took a couple hours - one to make the qayg panel and the other to add the lining and cover flaps.  It's not much different than making a tote bag, really - you just don't sew the sides up!  I'll definitely make more of these, and I think they would make fun gifts, too!

After I got that squirrel project out of my system, I was able to get back to one of my longer term projects - finishing up Scrap Dance Quadrille.  Today's slow stitching will be hand sewing the binding down.  My favorite slow stitching to do!

Have a wonderful Sunday!

Sharing at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching and at 

Quilting is More Fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!

ABC Table Scraps for August

This month, I didn't have a yellow orphan block to turn into something, so I used the true scraps right off my cutting table, left over from the yellow blocks I made all month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  I turned them into a crumb block, about 7 x 9 inches.

This piece of a favorite floral fabric was exactly right for the backing.  It's a leftover from a Blogger Bundle that I bought from Bernie's Etsy shop several years ago.  The fabric bundle was chosen by Carole at From My Carolina Home, and contained some really pretty fabric prints for August.  I think this one is all I have left of that bundle.

I finished it into a sweet little mini quilt, did some machine quilting on it, and added some hand stitching with orange embroidery floss.

Notice the XOXOXO that I stitched?

X and O are the letters Joy chose for this month's ABC part of the challenge,

so I stitched them onto the mini quilt in a couple different places.

This will work great on our little glass table on the back porch.  Doesn't it go perfectly with Mike's stainless cup?  

Hugs and kisses for my hubby!

XOXOXO

I like it with my big pot of marigolds, too.  This was definitely a fun August project!

Linking up with The Joyful Quilter for August Table Scraps

SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and 

Quilting is More Fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!

I Like Thursday #350

Happy Thursday, friends!  Hope you're having a great week!  It was my mom's 92nd birthday on Monday, so we celebrated with lunch out at our favorite Mexican restaurant.  Yum!

Happy Birthday, Mom!

I've been complaining for a month now that I can't grow sunflowers here because of the squirrels, but apparently there's one place they haven't noticed and that is in my front flower garden.  Look!

It looks like more blooms are coming, too.

A sunflower emerged in my cross-stitch piece this week, too.  That's always fun!

We heard a funny sound the other day, and looked out to see this female Downy Woodpecker who (we think) thought she might like to get in the birdhouse to make a nest.  She would peck at the hole for awhile and then try to get inside.  Nope, still too small.  After awhile she gave up and flew away.

I read a really good book this week in about three days - I couldn't put it down!

It's one of those where you wonder through the whole book, 

"What would I do if I were in that situation?"

Now I have to figure out what to read next!

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

To-Do Tuesday #194

I have to admit to a bit of "start-itis" this week...  I'm not sure what got into me, but I just kept having ideas for new projects to work on!  🤣

In my defense, I did also work on the things from last week's list, so I got the main things done that I intended to.  I finished piecing the backing for ScrapDance Quadrille, the layers are spray basted, and it's ready to quilt.

I also finished up the yellow blocks I needed to work on for August in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  

So all good there!

One new start was the placemats for my niece - I found the fabric for the colors she wanted, got the pieces cut and made, and have one placemat top sewn together.

It shouldn't take long to finish these up.

Another new start is a little cradle quilt for the donation drive that Carole at From My Carolina Home is coordinating.  I started another one a few weeks ago with some orphan blocks, but I decided I wanted to make something more kid friendly and gender neutral.  So I pulled out these cute elephants and found a pretty green to go with them.  Just nine of these 6.5 inch four patches will make an 18 inch mini quilt.

These will be good leaders and enders for other projects this week!

And then there's the... no, nevermind, the above items are enough!   I'll just say a squirrel hijacked my sewing space the last couple of days!  🐿 🐿 🐿

Hopefully, I will make progress on each of these during the coming week.

• Start quilting on Quadrille.
• Finish piecing the second placemat, and get both ready to quilt.
• Make more 4 patches for the cradle quilt.  
• Write a post and share the squirrel project that has distracted me the last couple of days! 

Linking up with Carol at Quilt Schmilt for To-DoTuesday.

Also with Quiltfabrication for Midweek Makers.

Sunflower Sampler

Earlier this week, I finished up the Mini Sunflower Sampler, designed by Melisa at PinkernPunkin Quilting.  I made it into a small pillow, about 4.5 x 5.5, to go with the collection of bowl fillers I've been working on all summer.

I found the perfect sunflower fabric for the backing!

I had wanted a differently sized pillow to add to the collection, and this works.

Also this week, I ordered another Nurge embroidery hoop to use for cross-stitching.  This one is the extra small size.  These were recommended by Jo at Jo's Country Junction.  I like the square-ish shape.   It was hard to tell how the hoops measured from the Amazon listing, so first I ordered a small, but after it came I found I actually wanted the extra small size.

The inside of the small hoop measures about 5.75 x 6 

and the extra small is about 4.5 x 5.

Meanwhile, I've also put some stitches into Needle Love, and now there's not much left to do on this one!

Sharing at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.

Finishing up the split 9 patches...

 is one of the things I did with my yellow scraps this week.  Since I have been obsessed with enjoying the local sunflowers lately, I decided to feature one in this block!

Now there are four yellow split 9 patches.

And a rainbow of blocks - 30 of them!  I've made four of each color, except light blue.  Just two of those.  These 30 will make a good kid-sized quilt, about 45 x 54, so I think I will get started sewing them together fairly soon.

Meanwhile, I got started on a little squirrel project based on a request from my niece who would like two placemats with blue, red, and yellow in them.  I used the last of my strawberry print on blue as the inspiration fabric, and added a red, a yellow, and a white.  Now I have four each of 4.5 inch squares, four patches, and framed squares.

Right now, I'm playing with layouts - something like this, maybe?

I'm making two exactly alike - except I'm thinking I will bind one

in the red and one in the yellow.   This is a fun little project!

Sharing at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and at 

Quilting is More Fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!

 

I Like Thursday #349

 Good morning, and happy Thursday!   I'm joining in with I Like Thursday at Not Afraid of Color. 

It was hot here yesterday - maybe the hottest day all summer.  Even the bunnies were hot!

I love sunflowers and they are growing all over the place around here.  So, one day when we were out and about, Mike and I stopped along a country road and cut some to bring home. 

Such happy flowers!

Yesterday I went to my LQS and shopped for some coordinating fat quarters to go with the strawberry print that I'm going to use for my niece's placemats.  She requested red, yellow, and blue, and here's what I came up with.  

The white with multi-colored stars will act as the background fabric

 in the 4 patches I'm making.  I've been playing with a simple design for the two placemats  - so fun!

My book club met this week, and this was our August book.  I enjoyed it very much, and it gave me a lot to think about.  Stories are always interesting to me - people's stories and fictional ones.   There is a character in the book who wonders off and on if we get to write our own story, meaning the story of how your life is going to go. 

Goodreads

During the evenings this last week, we've been watching Blue Bloods from the beginning.  I always liked this show, and watched it pretty religiously for quite a few seasons, but have gotten away from it in recent years.  I don't mind watching it again (I don't really remember the various storylines anyway, lol!) and there are lots of seasons, so we'll be covered for a long time!

Thanks for visiting - hope you're having a great week!