Slow stitching this week...

I finished up "Celebrate Fall" this week.  This was a sweet one to work on.  It's going to become the center block for my next Stay at Home Round Robin project.   Each year for the SAHRR, I've been finishing an embroidered center block with pieced borders for a seasonal wall-hanging.  I've made winter, spring, and summer.  My 2026 project will be for fall!

Meanwhile, the little crow finally has his pumpkin, now the pumpkin just needs its stem and leaves!

I'll be working on this little stitch later on today after we drive home from Nebraska!

Sharing at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.

  

16 Patch Star Progress

While also getting started on the construction of my quarter star quilt top, I did some fabric sorting this week.  Angela called for browns and blacks for our October blocks, so I was specifically looking for scraps in those colorways to make two more 16 patch stars.  

So, how about some light browns and grays?  That's in the vicinity, right?!

These grays were hard to photograph - much prettier in person!

And they did work to make the last two blocks that I needed.

So now there are twenty 16 patch stars!  I'm not sure yet about the final layout for these, but will figure that out in the coming weeks.  I'm planning to send these to Many Hands, Many Hearts, but will send them as a sewn together quilt top.

We're headed on a quick road trip up to Nebraska to visit our older son for a couple days, so I may not have time to reply to comments for a day or two.   But I'll be back!

Sharing at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday.

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

I Like Thursday #453

It's really feeling like fall here the last few days and that includes falling leaves and baking pumpkin things!  I roasted up one of my garden pumpkins and younger son and I made my favorite pumpkin bread recipe from Carole at From My Carolina Home.  Yum!

He has also been making some yummy things he calls "donut holes" in the air fryer, and they used up some pumpkin, too.

I found a new favorite tea at the Celestial Seasonings tea shop in Boulder.   

We're all about the yummy and cozy around here, lol!

I enjoyed this book this week.  I had previously read another book by Monica Wood, so decided to try another, and liked this one, too!

Amazon Link

LeeAnna's question of the week is about favorite cold weather clothes.  When the weather turns fall-like, my uniform becomes fleece and hooded sweatshirts.  I buy them in favorite places we like to visit and have a closet full!  Even though it wasn't officially fall when we were on our Oregon trip, it felt like it on some days, and I brought my favorite purple hoodie for just that purpose.

Cheers!

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

Midweek Update

"Some assembly required"... that's where I am with the quarter star blocks.  You can see the full set of 100 blocks in my weekend post here.   I want to be really careful when sewing these together so that I don't get any blocks turned around the wrong way!  This is when I'm really happy that blogging makes me take pictures of my projects so that I can refer back to them for quilt construction.

I started by laying out just the first two rows of blocks at the top of the design.

I decided that I would sew them first in pairs and then in fours to keep the length of seams manageable for as long as I could.   A fun side note is that these larger blocks show a blue quarter star coming together where the blocks touch!

This simple sewing process works well as a leader/ender when working on other blocks.

Progress!  I'm going to continue this process until all the rest of the blocks are sewn into fours, and then combine them into bigger blocks.  

Sharing at The Inquiring Quilter for Wednesday Wait Loss.

And at Alycia Quilts for Finished or Not Friday.

October means pumpkins!

And black cats!

This week I finished the October heart for my display stand.   It was one of my favorites to stitch last year, so I'm happy to have it ready to show this year!

When you finish a project, it means you can start something new, right?!  So I did start a new stitch, but just a little one.  This is Melisa's Pumpkin Crow design - it will be about 3 x 3 when finished.

You can see the pumpkin starting to form!

And I stitched the pumpkins on the Gail Pan piece, too!

It's been all pumpkins around here this week!

I do have to show the finished orange peel quilt one more time to my Sunday slow stitching friends - it was finished earlier in the week, but you may not have seen it.

Happy to have this one finished!

Sharing at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.

100 Blocks!

I've been on a mission this week to finish up the quarter star blocks that I need for my Exploding Star project.  Back in September, I figured out that I just needed 32 more blocks in the eight colors we had worked on already  this year, but then realized I was going to run out of my background fabric, the Grunge in Sea. 

I got that ordered and it came last week.  So it was time to get back to work on the remaining blocks I needed to finish up my planned layout.  And, remember I didn't want to use any fabric more than once throughout the quilt?  (Well, except for the center star!)  An infusion of pretty scraps from a quilty friend helped with this goal, too.

As of Thursday afternoon, I had made 24 of the 32 new blocks.

Just eight blocks left for the 32 I need to get to 100!  So I did a little more cutting and a little more chain piecing, and I was almost there.

Now it's Friday afternoon, and look!

100 Blocks!

So, you know what I had to do, right?!  Here they all are!

Next stop - quilt top!  But first I think I'll work on the last few 16 Patch Stars that are needed for that project.  That will give me a chance to sort through some brown and tan scraps and see what can be used up.

Sharing at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday.

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

Melva Loves Scraps for Sew and Tell Monday.

 

I Like Thursday #452

I had a birthday earlier this week, and older son sent me this card that made me laugh out loud!  

My sister made me a peach pie - so yummy!  We joke about how she got the pie-making "gene" from our mom and I got the sewing "gene."  I always give her something quilty that I've made.

I bought myself a present when we were in Oregon.  My new favorite mug -

I just finished a really good book!  It's for my October book club meeting.  I usually enjoy historical fiction, but this is a different time period than I usually read.  Marguerite de la Rocque de Roberval lived in France in the 1500s, so not a lot is known about her, but her story as told by this author is fascinating!  The title, Isola, refers to an island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence that Marguerite was marooned on.  

LeeAnna's question of the week is about gingerbread recipes - do we have a favorite to share?  I do love cut out gingerbread cookies, and have made them before - probably just the recipe from my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. 

But what I am really craving is something made with pumpkin, so I think I'll make some pumpkin bread this weekend.  Or how about something that combines pumpkin and ginger?  This one sounds good!   Pumpkin Gingerbread Cookies

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

Midweek Update

It's a bit anti-climactic because I have shared so much during the making of the orange peel quilt, but it is now finished!  Whoop, whoop!

It was a long time in the making because so much of it was hand stitched - the applique and then the quilting - and I am definitely a slow stitcher.  But I am very happy with this finish.

I enjoyed participating in the Orange Peel SAL at the Crafty Quilter 

last spring where lots of tips and inspiration were offered for the project.

You can see all the finishes from the sew along at this link.

Including the binding for the orange peels, I feel like I've spent all week sewing bindings!  Last week's placemat finish, the Table Scraps Challenge runner, and finally the binding for the October heart.   More about that one in my Sunday Slow Stitching post.

Meanwhile, I'm going to get back to work on the quarter star blocks for one of my Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects!

Linking up with The Inquiring Quilter for Wednesday Wait Loss.

And at Alycia Quilts for Finished or Not Friday!

  

 

Almost there...

I'm so excited - I finished the quilting on the orange peel quilt!  I've only been working on this project since April, but it has felt very slow on the finishing side of things.

Binding is on, and finishing the hand stitching step of that will be my slow stitching project for today.

This week I also put some stitches into the Celebrate Fall embroidery, and moved the hoop to the lower area.  I'm ready to stitch some pumpkins!

Sharing at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.

Film Strip

A table scraps project for September! 

  

Do you remember film strips in school?  As a teacher I used them once in awhile - especially if they went with a certain unit we were teaching.  I know that's really old technology now, but way back when, they were a helpful way to show a group of kids pictures of things we were studying.

When Joy challenged us to make something inspired by "television" I thought of happy blocks that featured the novelty beach fabric I bought on vacation in Oregon earlier this month.  This looks a little like a television, right?

Then I made four happy blocks in combinations of blues and browns, and sewed them together.  This changed my television into a "film strip" that is 7.5 x 28.5.

I like this color combination - very beach-like!

This was a quick and simple finish - I pieced a backing from squares of the novelty fabrics.  The binding came from the 5th fat quarter that I bought at the same time as the four that I used for the main project - it has shells and stones in a little darker brown.

And here is the finished front.

I made this for a specific spot - on top of my desk - long and narrow like this fits that space perfectly.  At the end of the desk sits our digital photo frame which shows our photos whenever we want to look at them. 

I do have to admit that this table "scraps" project did not start with scraps, but it created some in the end.  I'm sure you'll see these scraps show up in other quilts!

Sharing at The Joyful Quilter for the September Table Scraps link-up.

And at Alycia Quilts for Finished or Not Friday 

SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday.

Quilting is More Fun than Housework for Oh Scrap.

And at Melva Loves Scraps for Sew and Tell Monday.

I Like Thursday #451

Fall came in on Monday, and brought with it a change in the weather!  On Tuesday it rained here the entire day - we got over an inch of rain in about 8 hours.  For people who live in a dry climate like we do, that was amazing!

I spent much of the afternoon wrapped in a quilt, reading.  It was so enjoyable!   Michael Connelly is a favorite author of mine, and I finally got to read his newest book, which introduces a new main character.  A good story!

Goodreads

Our regional airport here had an air show going on this past weekend, and we were able to see the Air Force Thunderbirds practicing for it right above our neighborhood.  They make quite a roar as they zoom by!  They entertained us for a good hour on both Thursday and Friday afternoons last week.

And the fall leaf colors are entertaining right now, too.  We went for a scenic drive up in the mountains yesterday, and the aspen are at their peak right now - just gorgeous!

The rain we got on Tuesday brought snow to the mountains above tree line, and it was beautiful, too!

LeeAnna's question of the week is about our learning styles.  In thinking about that this week, I guess that I am a combination of things.  In college, I took notes in class, and then re-read and highlighted them at home, and when studying for a test, I read them out loud to myself.  So - a combination of visual and auditory learning.

As a quilter, I do a combination of things, too, when trying out a new pattern or quilt block.  I read and re-read the pattern, take notes, plan out the fabric choices, talk myself through making a trial block - sometimes out loud!  I imagine many of you do much the same thing.

These are my notes and preparations for 

mmmquilts' Beothuk Star QAL from a few years ago.

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