I Like Thursday #387

Good morning! 

This beautiful Western Tanager visited our yard a few times earlier this week.

We sure enjoyed seeing him!

It's planting season here, finally!  I got flowers in pots and a few veggies planted, too.  I'm a small scale gardener - mostly planting for color and a little for eating fresh out of the garden.

When we went to the garden center to get the veggie plants, I saw this cute display!  All those eyes!

We've been having some rain showers off and on, too, which is always good for the growing things.  One late afternoon storm resulted in this double rainbow!

For Mother's Day, I took some frozen ice cream cones to my mom's place and we all enjoyed them - even some of the other ladies who live there and the staff.  These are Mom's favorite treat lately!

LeeAnna's question of the week is about lessons from our childhood and how they've impacted our view of the world.  That made me think about my dad - he always said that "you get out of something what you put into it."  I think of that as advice to put your whole heart into everything you do - school, work, family, home.  So that is how I've tried to live my life!

Have a great rest of the week, friends!

Joining in with I Like Thursday at Not Afraid of Color.

 

Midweek Update

From big pieces to small... after making a bunch of 8.5 inch HSTs and squares for the outer sections of my version of Luminous Layers, this week we switched to 1.5 inch squares and HSTs.

I need four of the yellow and dark pink star blocks (so two more to make), and the green sections with light pink background will eventually make the center star.  I've circled them in the diagram below.

Along the way, I started sewing the larger pieces together into rows as leaders and enders.  After laying out what had been sewn yesterday afternoon, I took this photo and kept thinking that something looked wrong in the layout.

Oh - oops!  The row with the blue section is sewn together all wrong...

I guess I'll be having a date with the seam ripper this afternoon!

Here's how it's supposed to look:

Sandra always releases the next step on Wednesdays, and I'm thinking that this week we'll be finishing up that small star section, and getting the whole top together.  Time to finish up the last two dark pink stars so that I can move on!

Linking up with Midweek Makers at Quiltfabrication.

 

Two Small Finishes

I realized this week that I had some stitched up designs that needed to be finished into the little pillows that I like to fill my wooden bowl with.  So, a little pressing and a little sewing and a little stuffing and voila!  Baby birds in their nest and a robin and tulip mini sampler.

Here's my bowl all filled with Spring designs, thanks to my friend, Melisa, at PinkernPunkin Quilting and Stitching!

So that means I can start something new, right?!  All you see so far is the outline for the new piece, but it will eventually be Berries, another little design by Melisa.  She's sharing a whole series of strawberry stamps which will be fun to stitch!

So that's what I'll be working on for my slow Sunday Stitching!

Linking up with Kathy's Quilts.

 

Pink and more pink

I decided to add a little bit more pink to my stash this week.   Since I was planning to use pink in the most recent block for the Pieces of My Life QAL, I figured there would be scraps left for a few RSC blocks! 

That pretty swirly piece on the left had a great selvage!  I decided I had to keep this one.

For Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects this week, I added a couple more zipper blocks to the collection.  

Pink...

And more pink...

The other four blocks were made last year.

Here's the group I've made - just four more needed and then I'll be sewing them into a top.

Sharing at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday.

Quilting is More Fun Than Housework for Oh Scrap!

I Like Thursday #386

Good morning and happy Thursday!  I hope your week is going well.  They certainly go by fast!   The other day our Merlin bird app identified a Cedar Waxwing in the yard, and we were not sure it was right at first, because we apparently don't know what Cedar Waxwings sound like, lol!  And then, there they were.  Cedar Waxwings visit in flocks, and they are attracted to the blooming fruit trees around here.  A good sized group of them flitted in and out of our apple tree and neighboring trees for quite awhile.

Mike's photo.

We watched an interesting short documentary on Disney+ the other night called "The Last Repair Shop."  It's about the Los Angeles School District which has its own instrument repair shop for the student musicians.  It won the Oscar for best short documentary just this year!  It was really interesting - I loved the stories of the people who work at the repair shop and of some of the musicians, too.  Definitely recommend!

Our son made us a delicious dish which we ate as a salad over the weekend, "Cowboy Caviar."  It would be good served with tortilla chips, but probably healthier without.  Isn't this pretty?  It's tasty, too.

I worked on the May design for the Woven Wreaths stitchalong for three evenings to get it done.  There were a lot of little flowers and leaves to stitch.  The dianthus I shared about have started to bloom, so I tried to get creative with a photo, but wasn't really successful!

LeeAnna's question of the week is about birthdays - how did we celebrate them when we were growing up?  We always had a homemade birthday cake, which Mom made, and it would be presented on a special birthday cake plate which rotated and played "Happy Birthday!"  I wonder now what happened to that cake plate.  I found one on eBay that looks similar to what I remember.

One other favorite memory is from a birthday when I was probably in junior high.  Two or three friends and I got dressed up and rode the bus to downtown Rochester (New York) and went to a movie.  I remember feeling very grown-up that day!  Now that feels like forever ago!

Have a great day, friends!  Joining in with I Like Thursday at Not Afraid of Color.

Midweek Update

This week's task for the Luminous Layers QAL at mmmquilts probably took me longer to cut and trim than to sew!  I needed eight blue and yellow 8.5 inch HSTs and four 8.5 inch blue squares for that center star.

I'm guessing that this week we'll be digging into that center section which is a little more complicated.  I'll be using more of the blue, yellow, and dark green, along with the lighter green background, and adding in some pops of pink!

One other project I worked on this week was a pin cushion made of a few selvages that I've been collecting.  I thought this would make a fun birthday gift for a friend!  I just sewed the selvage strips in layers with the raw edges on the outside and ironed them to some fusible interfacing before sewing on a backing and filling it with crushed walnut shells. 

This measures about 4 inches square.

Sharing at Quiltfabrication for Midweek Makers.

 

Pieces of My Life - Block 6

This weekend I had some time to work on block #6 of Melva's QAL, Pieces of My Life.  This block is called "Hours."  Since pink is the color of the month for May in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, I decided to make this block in pink.

The journaling prompts for this block are all about how we spent our time as kids, growing up - did we have chores, get an allowance, watch TV, or have other activities?  I was a huge reader as a kid, and spent a lot of time doing that.  I don't remember playing with dolls much, although we did have Barbies that my mom made clothes for.  I took piano lessons from 3rd grade through college, so had to practice every day.  My parents gave us our family's piano (from when I was in 3rd grade - that piano!) and it is still here at our house!

I definitely had chores that I was expected to do, including dinner dishes and keeping my bedroom clean.  I can remember the four of us (me, two sisters, and a brother) splitting up the dish duties with two of us scraping dishes and loading the dishwasher, and the other two washing and drying things that wouldn't go in.  We did watch some TV, although not a lot - my favorite was the Shirley Temple movies that were broadcast on Saturday afternoons.  

Image Source

We've made four 12 inch blocks for the QAL so far.  There are a few smaller ones included that I've opted not to make (yet!) and I think the decision about making those has to do with how we choose to finish the quilt.  Here are my four blocks!

Linking up at Melva Loves Scraps to share my Block 6!

And also at Sew and Tell Monday.

Some slow stitching for a Sunday

During my evening hand stitching time this week, I finished up the April heart for "A Year of Hearts," designed by Melisa at PinkernPunkin Quilting.  Those little baby birds in their nest just stole my heart!  I'm glad Mama brought them some food.

Here are the four completed blocks for the year.  I'm looking forward to the May block!

Today's slow stitching "job" is to watch Kathy's Schmitz's video for the May Woven Wreath design, and then get started stitching it.

Those flowers in the teapot remind me of some pots I have in my front garden area.

Something came back from last year - unexpectedly - and it's getting ready to bloom!

I think it's Dianthus - with red flowers.  

I'll let you know!

Linking up with Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching!

Peachy Pink

I dug out all the pinks I could find this week, and they seem to tend toward the peach shade.  Or maybe it's the lighting in my sewing room combined with the cloudy days we've been having.  I guess it doesn't really matter because I sewed with what I have and came up with a pink patchwork heart and a 4 patch alternate block!

Here's an indoor photo taken by the living room window.

And an outdoor photo in the grass just to see if I could get a better result!

Those cream background fabrics are really standing out - 

I might have to change that!

I'm up to twelve of these blocks now, and enjoyed laying them out together.

I also cut pieces for two hollow 9 patch blocks, and stitched one together.  The other one will be my slow stitching for tonight.

Sharing at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday.

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

I Like Thursday #385

Happy Thursday!  How's your week going?  I'm starting to feel caught up after traveling - there's always lots do when you get home.

Something we enjoy doing wherever we go is finding a winery to visit.  On this trip we visited two that were near Paducah.  One was family owned and the people made the wine in their garage!  The other one was much bigger, and apparently very popular as it was busy.  I loved the name of it, "Purple Toad Winery."  They had a lot of fruit wines there - sweet, dessert wines.  It was a fun place to taste!

Thank you to Jocelyn, Canadian Needle Nana, for an interesting book recommendation that I was able to get from the library as an ebook while we were on our trip.  Vinegar Girl, by Anne Tyler, is a retelling of the Shakespeare play, "The Taming of the Shrew."  I wasn't actually that familiar with the play, but thought the book was very interesting and it definitely kept me reading!

We finished streaming all the seasons of "The Good Doctor" that were available and are now up to the most recent episode of the current season, which we watched on regular TV last night.  I saw that there are only three episodes left - I'm going to miss that show! Now getting caught up on shows like "Will Trent" which we also like.  Have you got any recommendations for streaming? 

We love his dog, Betty!

LeeAnna's question for this week is to tell about our names.  Mine is Diann - notice the spelling!  Not Diane, or Dianne, just D I A N N.  No E.  You can blame my dad for that.  He wanted all of us kids' names to end in an N.  (So we were Diann, Susan, Karen, and Steven.)  Very few people, except family and close friends, remember to spell it right.  You do have to agree that it is phonetically correct, though - right?!  I had to look up the meaning of it because I didn't really know - apparently the Latin "Diana" means divine or heavenly.   Hmmm... I don't feel particularly divine...

But I do wish you a heavenly day!  Joining in with I Like Thursday at Not Afraid of Color.