A collection of mini samplers...

I've been enjoying stitching up PinkernPunkin's mini samplers and have made 8 of them now!  I made this basket years ago when a friend was teaching classes, and it has held many things over the years, but I decided now it's perfect for these little mini sampler pillows .

It looks like I have more space to fill!

These are the two newest that I finished up this week: the bunny sampler and the strawberry sampler.

I made the strawberry sampler to go along with the little strawberry stamps I also stitched up this Spring.  The newest one of those is Strawberries and Cream.

I can't go very long without having another cross-stitch design to work on, and since it's now officially summer, I decided on the Watermelon stamp.  Watermelon is one of my favorite summer fruits, so it will be fun to stitch one!  You can see I haven't gotten very far on it yet, so that's what I'll be working on today, for my slow Sunday Stitching.  

Thank you, Melisa, for sharing all your sweet designs so generously!  

You're keeping me stitching!

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

Back to Blueberry Taffy

You might remember this project even though I haven't shared it for awhile.  I think the last time I pulled it out was in December of 2023.  Blueberry Taffy began in the RSC blue month in 2022 when I wondered how many crumb blocks I could get out of my shoebox sized blue scrap bin.

The answer was 20 of them!  And then I decided to make "wrapped candy" blocks out of the crumbs - a block I've seen on more than one RSC quilter's blog.  My plan was to work on it every time we had a blue month, and I realized this week that we were already into the third week of June, and I hadn't gotten it out yet!  

It turned out that I only needed to make five more blocks for the 20 total I had planned on, and once you get the pieces and parts cut and trimmed, these Taffy blocks sew together really quickly. 

 So this week I made the final five blocks!

Here are all twenty blocks.  You can see that I used all shades of blue from very light to very dark, and I included blue-green and purple in the mix.

Time now to sew these into a quilt top!

Sweet, calm light blues - these might be my favorite blocks!

Sharing at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday. 

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

Sew and Tell Monday at Melva Loves Scraps.

I Like Thursday #392

The other day, Mike had an eye appointment on the far east side of town, and I rode along.  While he was getting eyes dilated and looked at, I decided to go for a walk.  I followed a sidewalk along the parking lot and around the corner I came upon this:

I've walked out here before, 

but I didn't realize it was so close to the medical building.

A beautiful spot of nature tucked in between busy highways and retail/office areas.

Chapungu Sculpture Park is home to 80 different stone sculptures from Zimbabwe.  I have enjoyed walking there, but there are also concerts to go to in the summer and a lighting display at Christmas time.  I took pictures of a couple sculptures to share:

The sculptures all have themes of family and Zimbabwean life.

Beautiful!

LeeAnna's question of the week is about going to camp in the summer - did we?  And, yes, I did!  I was a Girl Scout for many years of my growing up, and that included various kinds of summer camp - day camp and sleep away camps.  I remember enjoying them and not being too homesick.  Of course I was with friends and busy doing fun things - crafts, hiking, learning about cooking on a campfire, and all the good songs we would sing.  

I couldn't come up with any photos of Girl Scout events except for this one, which is actually a clipping from the newspaper.  One summer we went to Washington, DC!  I recall that we went on a big bus and stayed at a GS camp outside the city.  It felt really grown-up to do something like this.   I think I might have shared this before on the blog, but I can't remember when or why, lol!  So thanks for indulging me if you've seen this before!

⬇️Me, top row, second from left! 1968

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

Midweek Update

Since finishing Paducah Stars, I've had some time to get caught up on the most recent blocks for Melva's QAL, Pieces of My Life.  With these two blocks, we're celebrating love and friendship, which I've been lucky to have a lot of in my life!

Right after my high school graduation in 1972, my parents moved our family out here to Colorado where my dad was transferring for his work at the new (at the time) Kodak plant in Windsor.  Although I wasn't particularly happy about leaving my friends back in New York, I agreed to start college at Colorado State University in Ft. Collins for one year.  And, of course, what happened is I met new friends and have stayed in Colorado ever since.

A friendship star for my dear, lifelong friends!

We met while living in the dorms at CSU, and then rented a house together not too far off campus on Plum Street.  There were eight of us, so we were the Plum St. 8!  Eight of us took up the whole house - I shared a room with one of the others, but some had their own room.  We planted a garden in the back yard, hosted friends at Friday night dinners, and played guitars and sang together.  (Oh, and we did study and write papers and all graduated from college, too, lol!)

Around 1974:

And from 2016 when we were all together last - recreating the photo from the 70s:  

During those years, I met my husband, Mike, when I had a summer job at Kodak, where he worked also.   He fit right in with my Plum St. friends, and joined in with all the goings-on.  Our first date was going out for pizza after work and the next was an outing for miniature golf.  We still enjoy both pizza and golf!   We did a lot of hiking and skiing back then, went to movies, and hung out with friends.

We were married in 1976, and the rest of the group sang at our wedding.

This interesting heart block was our block to celebrate love.  Since I had the blue scraps out for June in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, it made sense to use them for this block, too.  I'm really happy with how it turned out!

I've now made all the blocks for the QAL that have been released up to this point.  I even went back and made the two 6 inch blocks I was missing from earlier.  That means I can start putting the first quadrant of the blocks together in preparation for the quilt-as-you-go method of finishing the quilt.  See Melva's post HERE for more info about that.  I just put in an order at Connecting Threads for the Hobbs 80/20 fusible batting that she recommends.  They're having a really good sale right now!

Sharing at Quiltfabrication for Midweek Makers.

And Melva's link-up for the star and heart blocks.

My Quilt Infatuation - Needle and Thread Thursday.

Year of Hearts stitching

Friday night I just had one more buzzing bee to stitch on the June heart.  So that didn't take too long to finish up!

I'm all caught up on these now - aren't they cute?!  Apparently, one of my background fabrics is more cream colored than white, but I sure didn't realize that when I chose it.  

I'll have to figure out how to deal with that 

when I decide how to put these all together into a top.  

Meanwhile, Melisa released a bonus heart block for us this month!  That means my job for Sunday slow stitching will be to get this traced so that I can start stitching on it.

You can see Melisa's block HERE. 

Linking up with Kathy and the Slow Stitchers

at Kathy'sQuilts.

A QAL Finish to share!

This is my 6th year of participating in Sandra's (of mmmquilts) Spring quilt alongs, and the finished quilts never disappoint!

2022 - Popstar in Blue, 2020 - Centred

2021 - Follow the Garden Path, 2019 - Flowers for Shanawdithit

And then there is my all time favorite - Rainbow Neighbourhood - finished in 2023.  How can you not love a rainbow of houses full of fun details inviting you to look closer and closer?!

This year's quilt design is right up there on the list of my favorites, too, for many reasons.  I bought all the fabric for the quilt top at Hancock's of Paducah when we were visiting there in April.  After seeing some early versions that other quilters had put together, I decided I wanted to make my Luminous Layers in all solids - or solid-ish, anyway.  These are tonal solids from a Marcia Derse line called Palette.

Lots of HSTs make up this quilt, of all sizes.

Giant sized:

To teeny-tiny!

I definitely enjoyed putting this unique design together, and now it's finished!

Paducah Stars - 48 x 48

A close-up of some of the quilting and pink binding:

The backing came from a great sale at Missouri Star Quilt Co - two yard cuts for $10.  Couldn't pass that up!  

There's plenty of that left, too, so it will show up again

 - quite possibly in some scrappy blue blocks!  

And, finally, a close-up of the label.

Thank you, Sandra, for a very enjoyable 2024 quilt-along!

Linking up with the Luminous Layers quilt parade at mmmquilts.

And at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday

Quilting is More Fun Than Housework for Oh Scrap! 

Melva Loves Scraps for Sew and Tell Monday 

 

I Like Thursday #391

Everything's growing really nicely in my garden and pots right now, which is something I like very much.  The tomatoes have blossoms, the cucumbers and jalapeño have baby ones already forming, and the green beans... 

Somebody made a salad out of these!  Probably a rabbit - and they have come back multiple times, too.  We kept trying to put things in their way, but it never deterred them.

So we went and bought a deer and rabbit repellent to spray on.  Fingers crossed that it works.  I did plant more bean seeds, hoping that the pesky varmint stays away from the new sprouts!

I just finished reading the latest book in a series that I've enjoyed the last several years.  The series began as a collaboration between two of my favorite authors.  Unfortunately, Mary Higgins Clark passed away in 2020, but Alafair Burke has continued the series in the same style.  

I've enjoyed stitching quite a few of PinkernPunkin's mini samplers, so of course, I had to make the mini strawberry sampler.  Isn't that strawberry fun with its star quilt block in the center?!

There's one more strawberry to stitch and some blossoms.

I have several little cross-stitched pieces to fully finish - 

hoping to get to that this weekend!

LeeAnna's question of the week is:  Tell about how you felt about the last day of school and what you looked forward to doing in the summer. 

I have always had a love/hate relationship with the last day of school!  I loved school,  and always wanted to be a teacher, so I wasn't necessarily that excited about the end of the school year.  Even when school was out, my sisters and I played "school," and I was always the teacher!  I did look forward to more time to read, and of course there was lots of time to play outside.

Playing on the jungle gym!  Did you have one of those?

Every summer we would go visit the grandparents in Iowa - my dad's parents lived in Iowa City and my mom's lived in Cedar Rapids.  The best part about that trip was going to the pool.  My dad's parents belonged to a club with a pool, so they took us every day.  

And then there's being a teacher and getting to the last day of school.  I would be tired and ready for a break, but also sad to be saying goodbye to my students.  A friend shared this on Facebook and it is really true:

Hope you're having a great week!

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

Midweek Update

I've stayed the course this week and quilting is finished on my Luminous Layers project!  I wish the quilting was a little more visible in this photo because I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.  Throughout the quilting process, my goal was to emphasize the star shapes and that has worked out well.

There was enough left of the dark pink I used for those medium stars to make the binding, so that was taken care of Tuesday morning.

Woo hoo!

And, as of Tuesday evening, binding is ready for the final hand-stitching step!

I'm excited to be on track for the quilt parade 

over at mmmquilts which starts (I believe) this Saturday!

Now that my sewing machine is available again for some other projects, it's time to work on the next block in Melva's QAL - Pieces of My Life.  It's a beautiful heart block and I'm excited to sew it up!  Since my blue scraps are out for June in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, I'm going to be making it out of both dark and light blue strips.

Sharing at Quiltfabrication for Midweek Makers. 

Alycia Quilts for Finished or Not Friday.

 

 

Slow Stitching for a Sunday

I was hoping I might be hand sewing the binding down on this quilt today, but I'm still quilting it.

I actually just have the light green sections left to quilt - top and left side - so it's not too much.  It's still possible I could get to the binding this afternoon! 

Meanwhile, I did stitch up the June section for Woven Wreaths.  It went pretty quickly last Sunday.  Isn't that a sweet little bee?

When that was finished, I traced the June heart from "A Year of Hearts" at PinkernPunkin Quilting and have been working on it the last few evenings.  I love the purple coneflowers - I should plant some of those in my garden!  Some cute little bees on this one, too.

Sharing at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.

Getting started on blue...

I love seagulls!  I know they are scavengers and leave messes, but I find them very entertaining.   This is a favorite photo from one of our trips to the Oregon Coast, taken at Nye Beach by Newport.

So when I found this seagull print in my stash, I knew I had to include it in some blue blocks this month!  Aren't they cute with their hats and boots?!  Like old fishermen! 

It's in the light blue patchwork heart:

And one of the four patches for the alternate chain block, too.

I had already made a dark blue heart block, so now there are seven!

This week I'll finish up the four patch block!

Sharing at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday.

Quilting is More Fun Than Housework for Oh Scrap! 

Melva Loves Scraps for Sew and Tell Monday.