More with greens and blues...

Continuing on with my plan to make four more quarter star blocks in each of the eight colors we've worked with this year - I finished up the red ones this week, and found pieces and parts for some orange blocks.  And then I ran out of the Grunge Sea background!  So some is on order from Fat Quarter Shop, and I'll get back on that when it arrives.

My next challenge was to see if I could pull out enough different light blues and greens to make two more 16 patch stars in those shades.  Here's where I started - 

These are some of my ugliest green scraps, and hard to photograph, too!

I've been trying to name this shade of green and found a fun website - 

134 Shades of Green!

I'm thinking my scraps might be in the artichoke or laurel or sage shades.

But they did go together to make a pretty good block for this project, and the light blue ones, too!

Here are all the blues and greens together - light, medium, and dark in no particular order.

I'm up to 18 blocks for this quilt, just two more needed!

That will be next month's task!

Sharing at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday.

I Like Thursday #450

We've been doing some fall yard clean-up, so many of my summer flowers (like the petunias in pots) have been ripped out.  But the big pot of marigolds is still going strong - they're a good fall flower!  I like to leave them in there so they'll re-seed themselves for next year.

On a little hike in Oregon we came across this pretty grove of purple flowers.  I used the Google Lens feature in Photos to identify them and it called them sea asters.  

A favorite event of mine to go and walk through was taking place last weekend.  It's called "Pastels on 5th Street" and is a fundraiser for our local domestic violence organization.  We go to this every year because the art is so fun to see, and it's always interesting to see the artists at work, too.

I think this was my favorite.

And loved the fall tree, too.

A whole block of artists!

LeeAnna's question of the week is about school supplies - and, of course, loving school and always wanting to be a teacher, those were always very important to me.  But I don't remember shopping for them as a kid at all.  I think maybe they were supplied by the schools in our town back then?  Not sure.  But I definitely do remember shopping for them with my own kids, and that was a big deal!  They were in school in the 90s - and the "Trapper Keeper" was very popular!  I can remember that teachers didn't like them very much because they were big and didn't fit in the kids' desks, but the kids loved them!  Go figure!

In my years as a teacher, I shopped for lots of school supplies because lots of kids came without them.  When places like Walmart or Office Depot had things on sale, I would go and buy as many as I could to give out to my students when they needed something.  Nowadays my favorite "school supply" is my spiral notebook full of graph paper.  It's been great for planning out quilt designs that I want to make.

I made this String Star in 2018.

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

Midweek Update - Updated!

This week, I seem to be jumping around from one thing to another in my sewing room.  I opened up and spread out those fat quarters I bought in Oregon last week.  I don't buy a lot of novelty fabric, but I do love these.  They're going to become my Table Scraps Challenge project for September.

I've been hunting around for more light blues and greens to see if I can find enough to sew two more 16 patch star blocks for one of my Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilts.  More about that on Saturday!

And I opened up a project box to find these - the last of the jelly roll strips that I made Glowing Hearts and then the braided tablerunner from.

Just for fun I decided to see if I could use them to make a placemat.  I started by sewing them all together end to end to make one long strip - jelly roll race style - it measured 154 inches!  Then I folded it in half and sewed along one side multiple times until I had about a 16.5 x 18.5 inch piece. 

 8.5 x 35.5

16.5 x 18.5.                             

I had to laugh when those two blue squares ended up side by side!  Finally, I squared it up to a 12.5 x 16.5 inch rectangle, and called it good.

Wednesday afternoon, thanks to two gently encouraging friends, I ripped out the seam between the two blue squares, flipped the left section around, and fixed the "two blue squares touching" problem, and it really does look so much better!

One of these days I will quilt this and bind it, and it will definitely be used! 

But now I'm going to get back to working on the RSC blocks!  

Linking up with The Inquiring Quilter for Wednesday Wait Loss.

And at Alycia Quilts for Finished or Not Friday.

Three projects...

for a slow stitching Sunday!

A little progress has been made on "Celebrate Fall."  I took it along on our trip, but hardly got it out.  I guess you never know what kind of time there'll be for stitching when you're away from home.  I've made a little progress on it, though - the words are finished and a few other areas!

Sometime in this last few weeks I started a new mini sampler designed by Melisa.  It's the Mini Apple Sampler.   I've stitched a lot of her mini samplers, but missed this one.  And since my September display has an apple theme - I need this one! 

And then there's my on-again, off-again hand quilting project - the Orange Peels.  I'm trying to get back on it again!  I'm up to 17 of the 24 orange peels being quilted, so it's slowly moving along.

What will I work on today?  Maybe a little of each!

Sharing at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.

Making some decisions...

After a week away from my sewing machine, I was ready to get back at it, and decided to work on some quarter star blocks.  The last time I shared the progress on these blocks (after making aqua in August) they were looking like this - 

and I decided at that point to make 32 more blocks 

to fill out the square of 100.

For September, we're adding more light blues and greens to our block collections, so I first had to check what I had already made in those colors.  

Since I'm trying not to repeat any fabrics in these blocks, the question was - could I make four more each of blue and green without a repeat.  And the answer is... Yes!

One ended up as a dark green, and several are really light,

but in this quilt they'll all fit!

Then I realized that 32 more blocks means just four more each of all the colors we've already worked on.  So - blues and greens ✔️, how about reds next?

Ready to go!

And along the way, I finished up the two green Gameboard blocks that I had made four patches for earlier this year.

Sharing at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday.

Quilting is More Fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!

Melva Loves Scraps for Sew and Tell Monday 

 

Midweek Update

A week ago we were getting on a plane for a vacation to the Oregon Coast - today we're getting on a plane to go home.  The week went by so fast - vacations always do!  We had a lovely time, walked many steps every day, and now we need to go home and recuperate, lol!

It was a foggy week on the coast, cool and damp, but also beautiful.

My favorite view from our hotel room in Depoe Bay.

We saw lots of gray whales - there is a resident pod who live in the area all summer, rather than going all the way to Alaska.

Getting my sea legs under me!

Can you tell how tightly I am holding on? 😜

There were amazing views everywhere we looked!

Some even involved wine!

The closest I came to any sewing was visiting a great little quilt shop in Florence, Oregon, called "Joy of Quilting."  She had a great fat quarter selection, so I had to bring home a few.  

These will be fun to play with!

I'm joining in with the I Like Thursday gang for LeeAnna's question of the week which is about memories of school lunches and lunch boxes.  Although my memories are fuzzy about all those years ago, I'm pretty sure we always brought our lunch to school in a metal lunch box, and bought milk to drink.  Remember reading the milk cartons?  My kids never liked the school lunch, so they always brought their lunch from home, too, but by then the lunch boxes were insulated canvas containers with zippers.  I think we went through a lot of them!  My favorite lunch container was one I made for myself when I was teaching.  This one was fun to carry around!

Linking up with The Inquiring Quilter for Wednesday Wait Loss and 

I Like Thursday at Not Afraid of Color.

And at Alycia Quilts for Finished or Not Friday.

This week...

We are headed out of town!  🎼🎵🎶 My bags are packed, I'm ready to go! 🎶🎵

Over the years I've made quite a few quilted zipper pouches that I use for various purposes when we travel.  The different sizes and shapes are really handy.

  Here's a little hint about our destination.  I'm sooo looking forward to it!

A little sewing has been accomplished.  I've been trying to make some quilting progress on Patchwork Hearts.  Row 2 of 5 is almost finished.

Angela called for light blues and greens for the September Rainbow Scrap Challenge color of the month.  So I got out my previously made blue and green quarter star blocks.  I can definitely make more of these in greens and blues.

I'll share more about these when we are home again next week.

I've packed a project bag for my suitcase with the fall embroidery in it.  If there's some evening downtime, I'll pull it out and put in a few stitches.

I love being able to travel in the fall - so thankful to be retired and have the time to go to a favorite destination!  LeeAnna's question of the week is about starting school as kids - did we get new school clothes and what was that like?  My mom sewed everything we kids wore, and I remember how fun it was to go to the fabric store and pick out the pattern and the fabric for something new to begin school.  Girls always wore dresses back in those days and I think my mom sewed lots of jumpers for us.  A really big memory is that I always had to wear saddle shoes - and I hated them!  (They were not in style :) Their support was supposed to be better for my flat feet, but I thought they were so ugly!  

Looking at them now, I don't think I'd mind having a pair.

Lol!

Off we go!

Linking up with The Inquiring Quilter for Wednesday Wait Loss 

and Not Afraid of Color for I Like Thursday

Alycia Quilts for Finished or Not Friday 

SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday 

Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.

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

Melva Loves Scraps for Sew and Tell Monday.

September is on its way!

If it's that time of year when the calendar still says summer, but it's feeling a bit like fall, it must be almost September!  At least that's how it feels at our house.  So I finished the September heart mini quilt to display on the little chest by the front door.

The theme is apples!

September also means back-to-school for this retired teacher, so I put out the Little Schoolhouse Mini sampler, and a favorite glass apple that a student once gave me.

I did get the fall embroidery project traced and found some variegated floss that I like for it.  Just a few stitches were taken to get it started last night.

This is Cosmo Seasons variegated floss, which I haven't used before.   

It doesn't have a name, but it's a blend of brown, gold, 

and kind of a pumpkin orange - seems just right for this project.

Since Joann's went out of business, I've been struggling a bit about where to buy new thread and embroidery floss.  I have ordered from Red Rock Threads and they do carry lots of floss brands, including Cosmos floss.   But I found this at my LQS - it turns out they have a whole wall of it!  Now I know where to go when I need something new.

Sharing at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.

Table Scraps for August

My Table Scraps project for August was inspired by many things - the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color for August: aqua, a creative challenge from Melva Loves Scraps - see here, and the added challenge from Joyful Quilter: hot flash!   

Let me show you what I came up with!  

I started with the creative challenge from Melva's list - "fussy cut a square from a favorite fabric and add borders to create a table topper."  As I was sorting through my aqua scraps for my RSC blocks early in the month, I came across this little chunk.

Mermaids!  Some with aqua hair and tails.  

The background is also aqua, although it doesn't show very well in this photo.

I fussy cut a 4.5 inch square with two mermaids in the center and started adding borders.  Did you notice that some of them also have orange hair or tails?  They must be having hot flashes!  (August has been a very hot month here, lol!)

Orange for the hot flashes, and then some aqua - 

maybe to help these girls cool off?! 

But, you know, it's just been really hot, and the orange took over, until I added some cool, bubbly blue to finish this table topper off.

Aqua mermaids having hot flashes!

And, as I often show you - the finished Table Scraps project in my favorite place, paired with my favorite mug and morning beverage.  I got both the mermaid fabric and the mug when we visited Cape Cod a few years back.

Sharing at all my favorite weekend link-ups!

The Joyful Quilter

Alycia Quilts

SoScrappy

Quilting is More Fun than Housework 

Melva Loves Scraps 

I Like Thursday #449

My tomatoes finally decided it was time to ripen up.  We're going to be having some BLT's for lunch today!

We took a little trip up to Estes Park last Friday and played our favorite miniature golf course.  

We found a place for a picnic lunch and then walked around town for a bit.  I had to take this photo of the taffy place, in honor of my Blueberry Taffy project!

Salt Water Taffy - Colorado style, lol! 

(Not a lot of salt water around here!)

Right after that it started raining like crazy, and we had to hightail it back to the car!  

But it was a fun day while it lasted.

LeeAnna's question of the week is about amusement parks - do we like them, and what do we like about them?  I haven't been to an amusement park in many years.   But we did enjoy visiting the Disney parks several times over the years as our kids were growing up, both Disneyland in California and Disney World in Florida.  You can't beat their atmosphere - beautiful landscaping and buildings.  My favorite ride was always Pirates of the Caribbean, and the shows are fun, too.    

Great memories!

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