I Like Thursday #446

One of our favorite things that we did in Steamboat Springs was visit their botanic garden.   It had been recommended by several people, so we thought it sounded like a place to check out.

It turned out to be lovely!  Lots of nice trails to walk, lots of blooming things, and lots of birds, too.    We both got some nice photos of what we saw.  Here are a few favorites.

A hummingbird moth enjoying the flowers. 

My favorite flower!  

A great spangled fritillary enjoying the echinacea.

Loved this sculpture, too!

And LeeAnna's question of the week is about hula hoops - did we have one when growing up?  Yes, I did, and I remember getting cheap ones at Woolworth's.  Maybe they had little beads inside them that made noise when you were twirling the hula hoop?  I remember them being a lot of fun!  But the hula hoop came back into my life when I belonged to Curves, a fitness center for women.  They had hula hoops that looked like this:

Fitness hula hoops

It took awhile to get the hang of it again (I was in my 50s!), but I did get it, and that turned out to be a fun way to work on my core muscles.  Who knew?!  

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

Midweek Update

This last week has been the busiest one of the summer for us, so not much sewing has been done.  We spent three days up in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, with family, came home for one day, and then went up to Estes Park (a mountain town near us) to play golf and visit our favorite winery for lunch.  I need a rest from all the fun!  

It was great to get away, though, and I certainly enjoyed the cooler temperatures,  mountain views, and time with family! 

So, this Midweek Update is more of a To Do list than an update about what I've gotten done.   For August, Angela chose aqua for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color of the month.  My first job when we got home and I had some time was to dig out all the aqua, teal, turquoise scraps.  I found more than I expected to, including an orphan block!

I always work on the little quarter star blocks first, so cutting and sewing for those in process.

I thought I'd make more progress on the orange peel quilt in July for purple month, but I haven't touched it in quite awhile.   So it's time to get back to this one.  Nine of the 24 orange peels are quilted, and then I'll need to do some quilting through the background squares as well.

And not turquoise, but something I need to get back to are these Scrappy Chain blocks for the Many Hands and Many Hearts summer block drive.  They had been put away in a project box and forgotten about!  I'm planning to make a few more of these and get them sent off to Cynthia in the next week or so.

So there's plenty to do this next week!  Linking up with The Inquiring Quilter for Wednesday Wait Loss.

Cheers!

It's sunflower time!

 

This week I finished up the August heart to display for the month on the mini quilt stand.  I loved stitching this one last August, and I'm really happy with the finish, too!

Thank you, Melisa, for sharing this sweet doodle!

All of my sunflower stitches are on display here for the month of August.

I might need a few more to fill up the basket!

The two projects that I have in progress have some sunflowers in them - the Old Crow Salt Box from PinkernPunkin and Hello Summer from Primrose Cottage.

There's lots more stitching to do on both of these, 

so I have a choice for my Sunday Slow Stitching today!

Linking up with Kathy's Quilts.

Also linking up with Melva Loves Scraps for Sew and Tell Monday. 

I Like Thursday #445

Good morning and happy Thursday!  Since I didn't really do an I Like Thursday post last week because I was participating in the Christmas in July blog hop,  I have some catching up to do.  

Little by little my gardening efforts are paying off!  LeeAnna's question of the week for last week was about favorite summer foods, and, of course, anything fresh out of the garden is on my list.  We've been getting cucumbers, and I have taken a liking to tzatziki sauce.  So here is younger son making it for me.  We put it on grilled chicken pitas.  

Tzatziki has cucumber, plain yogurt, dill, mint, lemon juice, 

and a few other spices.

Yummy!

The tomatoes are starting!  I've eaten exactly two cherry tomatoes so far, but lots more are coming.

And the Colorado peaches are here!  My favorite locally grown fruit of all time.  I slice one on my cereal each morning and it's like having dessert for breakfast!  

I read the best book this week.  The Things We Keep by Sally Hepworth.  It's about a young woman who develops early-onset Alzheimers.  I know that doesn't sound like it would make for a great story, but it is written so well.  It helped me understand some things about dealing with dementia, too, which is a big part of my world these days.

Goodreads link

Today's question of the week is about our summers growing up.  What did we do for fun, work, travel?  Some of those memories are a bit hazy anymore, but I'm sure I hung out with friends, went swimming, read a lot of books.  I did a lot of babysitting to earn money.  And every summer we went to visit the grandparents in Iowa for two weeks.  My dad grew up in Iowa City and my mom grew up in Cedar Rapids, and they are just maybe 30 miles apart, so it made an easy visit for both sides of the family.  

See the Amana Colonies to the left there?

We often went there for good meals and the interesting shops!

Speaking of travel, we are going up in the mountains for a few days, so if you don't hear from me, it's because I'm off the grid, lol!  Looking forward to getting together with my brother and sister and their spouses and seeing some beautiful sights.  See you back here soon!

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

Midweek Update

First of all, thank you to everyone who visited my blog and left a comment during Melva's Christmas in July blog hop!  Gail at The Cozy Quilter won the fat quarter giveaway, and I'll be sending those off to her this morning.

I also finished up the tablerunner made out of the leftover batik strips from Glowing Hearts.  This was truly a "Drop Everything and Make It" project because I just couldn't stop working on it until it was done!

I followed the braid shape to quilt it, so that was quick and easy, too.

Here's the pieced backing that I shared the making of last week.  I think you can see the quilting even better on the back.    

This is even bound with leftover strips!

And on the table.  I think this is very summer-y! 

In other sewing this week, I've pulled out the Patchwork Hearts project (blocks made in 2024 for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge) and continued on with the quilting.

This is row 2 of 5.  I'm going to have to think about the 

sashing fabric that will connect the rows pretty soon! 

Angela chose aqua for the August color of the month for the RSC, but this row doesn't have any aqua, so I'm focusing on the light blue heart right now.   I've quilted all the lines in one direction and now going back the other way.

Sharing at The Inquiring Quilter for Wednesday Wait Loss.

And at Alycia Quilts for Finished or Not Friday. 

SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday.

Quilting is More Fun than Housework for Oh Scrap! 

Slow stitching this week...

I have traveled from summer

to Christmas (in July!) all in one week!

Check out the Christmas in July Blog hop at Melva Loves Scraps.

My post is here.  The giveaway is open until midnight tonight, July 27th!

Leave me a comment on that post and you'll be in the drawing!

There's plenty more stitching to do on Hello Summer, but first I need to finish up some binding.  Hopefully I'll have a finish to share on Wednesday!

Sharing at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.

Vision vs Reality

My July Table Scraps project...

was inspired by an image like this.

Image Source

And this fabric pull - the floral was stored in with my purple scraps.  I chose the blue/purple, gold, and green to go with it.

I knew I needed a fence for this challenge, so started with some blocks that looked like fence parts to me.

But then it needed to be larger - for my purposes, about 12 x 16.  So I added more of the green and blue/purple to the side and bottom.  And ended up with this!  Not really a match to my original vision, but if you squint you might think you're looking out a window at a garden.  🤣

These dots made a fun backing.  This was all that was left from cut off backing pieces of a larger quilt.

And here's how I'll use this Table Scrap project.

At least it is useable!

I'll leave you with a photo of my little flower garden as it looks right now.  I'm enjoying all this color!

Thanks to Joy at The Joyful Quilter for the monthly encouragement and inspiration to use up a few more scraps!

Linking up with the July Table Scraps Challenge 

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... a blog hop!

Welcome!  Today it is my turn on the Christmas in July Blog Hop hosted by Melva at Melva Loves Scraps.   I hope you'll enjoy following along as I share the project I made!

Since I discovered embroidery several years ago, and started finishing my pieces with patchwork borders, I have been making lots of pillow covers to give as gifts.  This one was made for my mom - the design is from Gail Pan's Christmas Patchwork Loves Embroidery.

My local quilt group has a gift exchange every Christmas, and this was my contribution a couple years ago.  "Noel" is a Kathy Schmitz design from her One Stitch at a Time club that I belonged to for several years.

And, while not Christmas themed, this one made a great house-warming gift for my niece. My sister told me that my niece's house needed "more color!"  So I contributed to that effort!

And this one was a birthday gift for a friend.

I bet you can guess where I'm going with this!  My project for the blog hop is an embroidered pillow cover in a Christmas theme.  Another design from Kathy Schmitz that had been hanging out in the "to-be-stitched" pile will make the front of the pillow. 

Stitching along!

Once the embroidery is complete,  I trim it to 8.5 inches square, border it with 2.5 inch strips, and quilt it to a scrap piece of batting.  Finally I trim the piece to 12.5 inches square.

I learned to make an envelope backing for pillow covers over at the Crazy Mom Quilts blog.  Amanda Jean no longer posts, but has left the blog up as a resource and I appreciate it!  For a 12 inch pillow, I cut my two backing pieces 12.5 x 18.5, fold each in half and top stitch along the finished edge.  (This size gives you plenty for overlapping.)

And ta-daaaa!  My finished pillow that will make a sweet Christmas gift for someone!

Hope you've enjoyed your visit here at Little Penguin Quilts!  Would you like to get a head start on a Christmas project this month?  I have four Christmas fabric fat quarters that are up for a prize giveaway.  Just leave me a comment (and make sure you include your email address so I can get ahold of you!)  The giveaway will be open until Sunday, July 27th.

Because I do like blog hops, and enjoyed making my project for this one, I'm also joining in with my usual I Like Thursday friends over at Not Afraid of Color.

Also sharing at Alycia Quilts for Finished or Not Friday.

And then be sure to visit all the other lovely Christmas in July Blog Hop participants, too!

July 24

Melva at Melva Loves Scraps ~ hostess

Diann at Little Penguin Quilts ~ you are here!

Carol Andrews at Quilt Schmilt

July 25

Melva at Melva Loves Scraps – day 2 ~ hostess

Vivian at Bronx Quilter

Gail at Quilting Gail

Linda at Texas Quilt Gal

 

Midweek Update

It's another week of working on some smaller projects, and I've been making good progress.  I had some time on Monday to pull out the braided tablerunner, and had been thinking I could probably get it prepped for quilting.  But as so often happens, one squirrel led to another, and I ended up spending some time piecing a backing for it.

First I laid out all the leftover strips to see what I had.

I also had a triangle section cut off from squaring the braid up last week, so I started by making it into a square with a triangle of the blue-green backing fabric leftover from Glowing Hearts.

Then I added strips to the top and bottom until it measured about an inch taller on the top and bottom than the front of the runner.

From there it was just a matter of sewing strips together and adding them on to either side of the center until the backing was big enough for the braid.  The whole process took about an hour!

Did this pieced backing use up all the leftover jelly roll strips yet?

Of course not!  🤣  

But this will make a fun (and even reversible) tablerunner!

Come back tomorrow and see what I made for the Christmas in July Blog Hop hosted by Melva at Melva Loves Scraps!

Sharing at The Inquiring Quilter for Wednesday Wait Loss.