I Like Thursday #437

Happy Thursday, friends!   Hope you're having a great week.  My snapdragons are starting to bloom.  It looks like it's going to be a good year for them!

Happy yellow blooms!

The other day I got a somewhat vague text from my brother - "watch for something being delivered to your house soon."  ???  He never sends me anything, lol!  Well, the something came on Saturday, and it is one of these - 

When I texted to say thank you, he said it was to thank me for everything I do for our mom.  So, that was nice!  You never know know if the rest of the family realizes what you do.

We figured out a place to hang this, and I planted it yesterday.

I finished this book this afternoon - it's from a favorite series of mine - by Anne Hillerman.  These are mysteries set in the Southwest, with Navajo policemen, and lots of Native American culture included.  There is another after this one that I'm now waiting for from the library.

LeeAnna's question of the week is about technology.  What technology do we use now that wasn't available when I was a kid? - and the answer to that is just about everything!  We had a TV, of course, when I was growing up - a black and white one... and I had a transistor radio that I listened to every night to get the latest music.  But that was about it!   Personal computers, cable TV, VHS, DVDs, smart phones and TVs, streaming - all of it has come in my adult life, and it's pretty hard to say what I could do without anymore!

My phone and my Samsung tablet are pretty much constant companions. 

(Unless I'm sewing or reading a paper book.)  

Besides calling and texting, I use the phone for photos and 

the tablet for email, blogging, and reading the news and ebooks.   

I could probably get along without a TV - although I can watch anything I want on my tablet - so that wouldn't really be much of a loss.  

I'm definitely attached to my technology!

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

Midweek Update

I've made good progress on my Glowing Hearts project this week.  Thanks to a tip from Kate at Life in Pieces, the ninth heart - which is the center one of the group - turned out perfectly!

The next step is to add the sashing and cornerstones between blocks and rows.   I chose a couple white with yellow-green and pale blue strips for the sashings, and the dark blue (second strip on the center heart) for the cornerstones.  

It didn't take long to sew together blocks and sashing into rows and get two-thirds of the quilt center together.  Thanks to a sewing tip from Gail at The Cozy Quilter, I was able to save the heart points and all is well!

One more row to attach and then it will be time 

to make a decision about the outer border!

Sharing at The Inquiring Quilter for Wednesday Wait Loss.

 

Slow stitching everyday...

 I finally had some time to prep the variegated blue embroidered project for hand quilting and get started on that on Thursday.

You would probably call my hand quilting "big stitch" and I do best with simple straight lines following the seams.  Right now I'm stitching around and around the center basket design.

I also made some progress on the Rose Garden Mini Sampler from PinkernPunkin.  Little by little the border and the roses are emerging!

As always, there's plenty to work on for my Slow Sunday Stitching!

Linking up with Kathy's Quilts.

A little more with green...

This week I continued to fiddle with my lighter green squares to come up with the right ones for a second 16 patch star block.  I got them to this group by piecing a couple squares from strips.

A couple of them still bothered me, though, so I took a few away, added a few more in, and finally ended up with this:

Done!

And here are the two together:

Along the way I stitched up two tiny green sixteen patch blocks as leaders and enders that will eventually become Gameboard blocks, a design I borrowed from Sara @ My Sewing Room.

And one more thing was worked on - a strippy quilt-as-you-go project that I'll post more about later in the month.  This one gets all the greens (and some flowers, too)!

Sharing at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday.

Melva Loves Scraps for Sew and Tell Monday 

I Like Thursday #436

May in my garden is for planting!  Right around Mother's Day is when they always tell us we should be past the last freeze.  So that's what I've been doing this last week.  

Green bean seeds in the raised bed - 

Plus we added a cucumber plant and pumpkins.

A couple tomatoes in pots - 

And flowers, too.  I have good luck with petunias, so I plant a bunch of those every year.

Today (Wednesday) started out as a beautiful day and we played golf with a friend. There are tons of goose families at the golf course, hanging around the ponds especially.  The little ones are so sweet!

Later this afternoon, the sky clouded up, everything got very dark, and we had a huge thunderstorm!  Now the temperature is in the 40s and we have all the plants covered with buckets and sheets.  That's Colorado in the springtime!

LeeAnna's question of the week is about motorcycles.  Have I ridden one?  Yes - three times, I think.  Did I like it?  Ummm, not really.  It went too fast for me, without much protection.  But I did have a good time on a little dirt bike once.  We were camping with family and everyone else had gone fishing, except my sister-in-law and me.  She asked if I wanted to learn how to drive the dirt bike and I thought - why not?!  So she taught me - and that was fun because I could control how I went.  I don't have a picture of that event, but here is where we were camping - a neat place up in Wyoming called Vedauwoo (pronounced Vee-da-voo).

Vedauwoo

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

Midweek Update

This week I have been determined to finish up eight of the nine hearts needed for the Glowing Hearts QAL at mmmquilts.  And I did achieve that goal, but not without some continued frustration with how the bottom section of the heart block is turning out.  Sometimes it looks great, other times I'm way off.  

  Pretty good ⬆️ - I'm happy with that.    ⬆️Not so great...  

I've tried multiple things to correct the problem, including starching and oversizing the triangles.  I ultimately decided that the paper template I was using for cutting was keeping me from having an accurate piece.  So I printed out two brand new ones, taped them together, and figured out what size of square to cut so I don't have to use the template anymore.  

That definitely made cutting the triangle piece easier, but I still ran into trouble getting those bottom points to match up.  So, you know what I decided?  They're good enough!  And eight hearts are finished!

I've saved the center heart for last 

so that I can see what's left of the strips I've used for the others.  

It will be a dark to light design.

Linking up with The Inquiring Quilter for Wednesday Wait Loss.

And at Alycia Quilts for Finished or Not Friday.

   

Slow stitching this week...

I finished up the variegated blue embroidered top with some more scrappy strips and today's job is to get it ready for some hand quilting.  

This measures about 23.5 x 13.5

 

Meanwhile, I also finished filling in the background of the Spring Banner, so some decisions need to be made about how to fully finish it.

And the alphabet is stitched on the Rose Garden Mini Sampler, designed by Melisa at PinkernPunkin.  I've just gotten started on the viny border, and I'm looking forward to adding the pretty red and pink roses, too.  

There's plenty to work on for Slow Sunday Stitching,

and I'll be linking up at Kathy's Quilts!

So many greens!

About five years ago, I was playing with my green scraps and made this mini quilt that hangs on our dining room wall.  It was fun to create the background with such a variety of greens from Spring green to very dark, and then add the vine and flowers.

This week I've been hunting through my stash for green scraps for a different purpose.  When making the two blocks for my 16 patch star project, I need 15 3.5 inch squares that read as a similar shade.  For example, these blue blocks made earlier this year:

It seems that my green scraps are making this week's sewing a little more challenging!  First try for a dark green and a light green block:

Some of the dark greens read as almost black - hard to photograph!

The light greens range from bluish/almost grayish green to acid green.  Ugh!

And how about this green?  It could go in either block, right?!

A little adding and a little subtracting and I have a dark green 16 patch star that I'm very happy with.

The light green star block is still to be determined!

So now there are nine of these!

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 #435

My lilies of the valley are blooming!  That is always a treat to see, especially since they are in a part of our yard that I have to specifically go out and check to see what's happening.

They smell so good!

I've shared before that we enjoy playing cribbage at our house.  Mike taught me when we first met, then we taught our kids, and for many years now we've played a daily game of cribbage while we eat dinner.

Lately, we've been playing for money!  😊  The losers put in change equal to the amount of pegging holes that we lose by.  If you are skunked (behind a certain line) you pay double the points.  We've been using that money to treat ourselves to a meal out, or ice cream - something like that.  This last week we had enough to try a new restaurant called Teriyaki Madness.  It's a chain, and just recently opened up here.  We liked it, and will go back!

It's also nice that they sent us some coupons in the mail yesterday!

I love the PBS  show "Call the Midwife" and it is back for Season 14 right now.  It's our "must watch" Sunday night show.

LeeAnna's question of the week is about bicycles because May is National Bicycle Month!  Do I have a bicycle?   Yes!  Do I ride it anymore - not in a long time since I had some trouble with one of my knees a few years back.  Nowadays I get all of my exercise by walking.  We did used to ride our bikes a lot, and Loveland has a great bike path that goes all the way around the city which we really enjoyed.  (It is still a great place for a walk, too!)  Here are our bikes right now - hanging in the garage collecting dust, lol!

Hope you're having a great week!

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

Midweek Update

I've been working on some more Glowing Hearts for the QAL at mmmquilts.  I left off last week with four hearts made - two that are dark to light, and two that are light to dark.

The pattern design calls for five of the first set and four of the other.   Because I'm working with a jelly roll, I'm ending up with four matching dark to light hearts - two more are in progress.

For the light to dark hearts, two will match and two will have a couple of slightly different stripes in the middle - the same colorway, but different prints.  I think this will work just fine in the layout of nine hearts total.

The ninth heart goes in the center and will be different from these eight.  I'm going to let the jelly roll strips tell me what they want to do for that one!

Next step is to add the background triangles to make the heart block shape.  I have to be really careful with the sewing of these because I'm struggling a bit to get them on correctly so that there is a 1/4 inch seam allowance at the bottom.  There has been some ripping and restitching which can be frustrating.  But I'll get through this! 

Linking up with The Inquiring Quilter for Wednesday Wait Loss.

And at Alycia Quilts for Finished or Not Friday.

Slow stitching for a Sunday...

I finished up a new heart to display on my mini quilt stand!  The only problem is that this is June's heart and May's heart is actually the strawberry one.  But no one at my house minds (or even knows, lol) so I'll just go with this one!

It's finally planting time here, so I bought some seeds for my flower garden.  How about some purple coneflowers, just like in the heart embroidery?!

This week I also finished stitching the two smaller side sections of my Gail Pan basket embroidery design.  They'll need some blue border trim like the main section has, and then I'll stitch it all together!

Moving those two hand stitching projects forward meant I had time to start something new!  I've always loved Melisa's mini samplers, so when I saw that she had shared a new one, I knew that was what I wanted to work on.  This is just the beginning of the Mini Rose Sampler found at PinkernPunkin.

There are plenty more letters to stitch and then a pretty rose garden border, 

so that will keep me busy for Slow Sunday Stitching!

Linking up with Kathy's Quilts.

  

Green for May!

 I love green - especially this time of year, when the world is greening up.

It's greening up in my sewing room, too!

I started with the quarter star blocks this week, and made eight of them.  Plus a few little four patches for leaders and enders.

Then played with all the colors!  Because I'm building this one from the center out, the look changes every time I add a new color.  When we have orange month this will change again and the greens will mix with the blues instead of the reds.  Right now my plan is to use the warm colors closer in and the cool colors around the outside.  

44 blocks.

I'm going to need at least 100!

Sharing at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday.

Quilting is More Fun than Housework for Oh Scrap! 

Melva Loves Scraps for Sew and Tell Monday.