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.

 

 

Midweek Update

I was the lucky winner of a prize from the Villa Rosa blog hop - just for commenting on the different bloggers who participated.  My prize arrived this week, and it is this beautiful set of 12 fat quarters from Hoffman Batiks.

Thank you to Villa Rosa Designs, Hoffman Fabrics, and

Rose of Something Rosemade for choosing me for a prize!

No plans for these yet, but I will add them to the stash and they'll probably work their way into various projects.

Meanwhile, this week I also got started on my Luminous Layers project, the QAL at mmmquilts.   I decided to draw mine out on graph paper and color in the sections.  I had to do the smallest star section twice because at first I hadn't made space for my Fabric E!  Now I think it will end up as the background for the very center small star.  

Here, again, are the actual fabrics - the dark pink is much darker than my drawing!

This week's task was to make the giant star points.  Please excuse my terrible photo - taken on Saturday afternoon when it was a dark and rainy day.  You can see above that the light green is a little more of a mint shade.

Today Sandra will post the next step of the QAL - I'm guessing it will be the next size of star points - mine are blue and yellow in my drawing.

Linking up with Quiltfabrication for Midweek Makers.

Slow stitching an April heart...

While we were away on our trip, Melisa posted her April heart called "Early Birds."  As soon as I could get to it, after we got home, I traced and prepped it for stitching, and Friday night I stitched the heart outline.

This will be way more fun when there's a little more color in it!

There - that's better! (After some coloring and stitching last night.)

Can you tell this is an evening photo?  

Such a difference in the white background color!

I think it's too early for baby birds here, but we did learn about a neat bird identification app the other day, and it works really well.   We've used it to identify birds by their sound, and it's remarkably accurate!  

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

Table Scraps for April

Earlier this month, I shared that I tried playing with a string block to create an umbrella with my yellow scraps, and it worked pretty well!  This is where I left off on April 9th, thinking that I might possibly make a few more of these.

It turned out that I only had time to make this one, what with moving my mom to a new place and going on our trip to Nashville, so when we got home earlier this week, I decided to finish it up into a little mug rug.   One change I made to the original block was to redo the very top tiny triangle with a white background piece instead of yellow to give a little bit more rounded look.

The original block is 6.5 inches square, 

so I added some Fairy Dust for borders to make it a rectangle.

The Fairy Dust plus another yellow scrap made a good backing, too.  

You know what they say about April showers bringing May flowers...

These aren't May flowers quite yet, but it is our 

Spring Snow Crabapple tree in full bloom - so pretty!

Sharing at:

the Joyful Quilter for the April Table Scraps link-up,

and at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday.

Quilting is More Fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!

I Like Thursday #384 - Nashville!

We spent Monday - Friday of last week in Nashville with our group of friends who Mike served in the Navy with over 50 years ago!  They sure enjoy being together, and we wives and significant others enjoy it, too.

Every even year, we all meet in a city to explore and spend time together.  Nashville was a new one for Mike and me, and we had a lot of fun.  There was a tiny bit of bar-hopping on Broadway - my favorite part was the open rooftop places where you could look out at the street.  Every single place has live music - young musicians hoping to make it big, I imagine.  The only problem is that they play SO DARN LOUD that we old people can't stand it for too long. 😬

We went on a great bus ride around the city with the driver narrating all the interesting places to see.   The Country Music Hall of Fame is a fascinating place - lots of history and cool artifacts like famous guitars and gold and platinum records.  

Probably my favorite activity was the dinner cruise we took on the Cumberland River, on the General Jackson Showboat!  We had a delicious meal, fun entertainment (and not so loud, lol!), and beautiful scenery, too.

At the end of the week, everyone went their separate ways.  It's always hard to say goodbye after spending time with these good friends.  Mike and I enjoyed a scenic drive up to Paducah, Kentucky, and I got to spend time at the National Quilt Museum and Hancock's of Paducah.  (See yesterday's post.)  

LeeAnna's question of the week is Bed & Breakfast or Luxury Hotel?  We tend to stay in middle of the road hotels, so I can't say that I've ever experienced a luxury hotel, but we have stayed in Bed & Breakfast places and it turned out to be fun!  In 2008, we took a trip to Alaska that was planned by a travel agent who encouraged us to stay in B & Bs, saying that was the best way to experience Alaska.  We were a little leary of it at the time, but it turned out to be great fun, and I would do it again!  Good memories!

Hope you're having a great week!  Joining in with I Like Thursday at Not Afraid of Color.

Midweek Update

The last week or so we've been traveling, and part of the trip was a pilgrimage to Paducah, Kentucky, where I got to visit the National Quilt Museum and Hancock's of Paducah.  Our trip was a lot of fun (including several days spent in Nashville which I will share in my Thursday I Like post) and went by way too fast.   

The National Quilt Museum has a wonderful range of displays and I really enjoyed visiting it.  

I, of course, took a ton of pictures, but decided to choose just one to share that really blew me away.  This was a completely hand stitched quilt - all applique and hand quilting - made by a Japanese quilter named Keiko Miyauchi.  It must have taken years to complete!

Here's a close-up of a section of the blue fence:

I also was able to do some shopping at Hancock's of Paducah - a quilter's candy shop if I ever saw one!

It turned out to be a good idea to have a specific quilt project that I wanted to shop for there, otherwise I think I would have had a hard time making a decision with so many choices!   I decided to pick out everything I'll need for the Spring QAL at mmmquilts, called Luminous Layers.  I have two rules for the fabric for this project - I want to make it without any white or cream background fabric, and I want a solid-ish look - and I think I found just the right fabric line.

These are tonal solids with a hand-dyed look 

from a line called "Palette" by Marcia Derse.

Looks like it needs some pressing!  

I hope to be getting started on cutting the first pieces 

for the QAL in the next few days.

Sharing at mmmquilts for the first QAL link-up,

and at Quiltfabrication for Midweek Makers.

Pieces of My Life QAL, Block 3

Edited for Saturday, April 20th:  We're visiting Paducah, Kentucky, today, and will be visiting the National Quilt Museum and doing a little shopping at Hancock's of Paducah!  Before we left on our trip, I sewed up the next block for the Pieces of My Life QAL, hosted by Melva of Melva Loves Scraps.  I wasn't sure I'd get it done before we left on our trip, but I did!  

This block is called Bachelor's Puzzle, and it is kind of a puzzle!  Definitely a good one to take a photo of and compare what you're doing with the photo - often!

Four fabrics were needed for this block - so I used my cream Grunge, and the rainbow floral inspiration print, plus two yellows - a solid and a batik.

Did I sew it together correctly without flipping any pieces on the first try?  Yes!

Here are the first three blocks that I've made for the QAL.

Melva's theme for this block is life in high school, and what we were involved in.  Check out her fun post about being a gymnast here.  I was not an athlete - instead I was involved in music.  I sang in the choir and was involved in the musicals, as were all my friends.  My most fun memory was how we got so obsessed with the music and dialogue from the shows that we could answer any question with a line from the show.  We sang just about all day long.  I wish I had a photo to share from that time, but ran out of time to dig one out!

So happy to have the block done, though, and I'm sharing it over at Melva's link-ups - the Block 3 link-up and Sew and Tell Monday.

Also linking up with:

ScrapHappy Saturday at SoScrappy, and

Quilting is More Fun Than Housework for Oh Scrap!