Stitching bunnies...

Happy Easter!  Beatrice Bunny is a finish!  I stitched her a year ago, but she has been patiently waiting her turn to be ready for display.  This is a PinkernPunkin design.  

I tucked Beatrice into the little Easter basket next to the wooden eggs and she snuggled right in!

This week I also stitched up the bunnies on Melisa's Spring Banner.   Now I just need to fill in the banner, and I'm doing that with a pale yellow floss.

This will be the perfect slow stitching for my Easter Sunday!

Linking up with Kathy's Quilts.

A little more with red...

Senior moments - do you have them?  I sure do.  Earlier this week I shared the red sixteen patch star that I had made.  I'm happy with how it turned out, and I was thinking about how I now had four of these blocks.  

Four?  Did that mean I'd only have 10 or maybe 12 of them by the end of the year?  That didn't seem right.  Well, oops, I suddenly remembered I've been making two each month!

At the end of March:

So I had to figure out how to make another red block that was enough different from the original that you could tell the difference.  I dug around in my Christmas drawer and found some reds with black and white and a text print and some plaids.  I tried some different combinations.

It's a little busy, but it's a scrappy quilt, so I'm sticking with this.   So now there are two red blocks!

And eight total.

And in other scrappy sewing - my leaders and enders have turned into Gameboard blocks which I discovered over at Sara's blog - My Sewing Room.  I start with 2.5 inch four patches, then make them into 4.5 inch sixteen patches.  Eventually the outer sections are added to end up with an 8.5 inch block.

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 #432

 April in my garden starts like this:

Some tulips are blooming, and lots of pretty purple grape hyacinths. 

Last year's leaves were still there - I leave them over the winter for mulch - but I've cleaned them out since this photo was taken.

But the crowning glory of Spring in our yard is this beautiful Spring Snow Crabapple.  It was at its peak this week.

This afternoon the wind came up and the "Spring snow" part of its name happened!

I came home the other day to a box of goodies that came in the mail from Nann - thank you, Nann!  There's a lot to dig into, but I'll share one item that was in it that I know will get used - a rainbow of embroidery floss!

LeeAnna's question of the week is about Easter baskets.  I loved getting an Easter basket as a kid - ours were usually full of chocolate, especially those little individually wrapped chocolate eggs.  Remember these?  It looks like you can still get them - even a dark chocolate variety!

Nowadays, my Easter basket looks like this:

Those are painted wooden eggs!  

(Not that I don't enjoy some chocolate every now and then... 

Maybe I'll have to put in a request with the Easter bunny!)

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

Midweek Update

Since my last midweek update post, I shared the finish of Masala Box here.  That was a big quilt finish, so working on some smaller things was on the agenda next.  Next up, the background squares needed to be sewn together for the Orange Peel SAL, hosted by Julie at The Crafty Quilter. ✔️

I'm ready to start the orange peel applique - 

I think that's coming up this week.

Sandra's most recent post about the Glowing Hearts QAL talked about fabric requirements, so I spent some time digging through my stash to see if I could find anything that inspired me there.  When nothing exciting turned up, my next thought was to visit my LQS for some fat quarters to cut strips for the hearts from.  But before I even did that, I found an Island Batik jelly roll at Missouri Star Quilt Co that I liked ✔️, was on sale ✔️, and they had a Daily Deal for free shipping! ✔️  And it just arrived this afternoon, so I'm all set to get started on that project, too.

With those things out of the way, I could get back to sewing with my red scraps for a Rainbow Scrap Challenge project.  I've been making sixteen patch stars for one of my RSC quilts, so that was on the list for this week.  These blocks really take longer to cut the pieces and prep for the star points than they do to sew!  It didn't take long to make a star in red.

Then it occurred to me that I've actually been making two of these stars each month, one in a darker shade and one in a lighter!  How was I going to do that for red?  (Isn't light red actually pink?!  I made those in February...)  I hunted around for some different red choices and I'll share in my Saturday RSC post what I ended up using!

Hope you're having a productive week!   Linking up with The Inquiring Quilter for Wednesday Wait Loss.

And at Alycia Quilts for Finished or Not Friday.

Melva Loves Scraps for TGIFF.

Slow stitching this week...

I spent several nights this week stitching down the binding on this quilt. That's always my favorite kind of slow stitching!

Once that was finished, I've been able to make some progress on the Gail Pan variegated blue flower basket.  In fact, there's just a little more to do.  

But with it being Eastertime, I gave myself permission to start a new little project with bunnies on it!  This is Spring Banner from Melisa at PinkernPunkin.  Hopefully you can see the bunny starting to emerge!

Plenty to work on today for Slow Sunday Stitching! 

Linking up at Kathy's Quilts.

And at Melva Loves Scraps for Sew and Tell Monday.

It's a finish!

And even in time for Friday!  My version of Masala Box, a Sew Preeti Quilts design, is finally finished!  I started this one way back in 2022 as a Rainbow Scrap Challenge project.  This is the best photo I could find of the first blocks.  January was red that year and February was turquoise.

It progressed to a finished quilt top in January of 2023 - I had to look around a bit to find this photo of my design wall at the time.

And then it hung in the closet until earlier this year, when I finally got the layers basted for quilting and got it done!  Whoop, whoop!

This photo shows the double grid quilting I did - 

Gail at the Cozy Quilter calls it waffle quilting and that's the perfect name for it!

It's kind of time consuming, but I like the final look of it.  

The binding is a funny penguin print that Nann sent me a half yard or so piece of.   I thought it could make a fun binding, plus I wanted to use something I already had.  Thanks, Nann!

Peeking penguins!

So glad to finally have this quilt finished!  It doesn't have a home yet, so it will live at my house for awhile, and I'll enjoy seeing it!

Sharing at Alycia Quilts for Finished or Not Friday and at

SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday.

Quilting is More Fun than Housework for Oh Scrap! 

I Like Thursday #431

Thursday snuck up on me this week!  I'm not sure where the time has gone, but I guess some weeks are like that.  I did finish a good book.  It's a WWII historical fiction - a genre I almost always like.  I particularly like Jennifer Ryan's books - I think I've read all of hers now.

We found a new treat that we like!  Madeleine cookies - tasty with a cup of coffee or tea.

With Joann's closing down, I needed to find a new place to get my favorite Gutermann thread from and Karen recommended Red Rock Threads.  I ended up ordering from them - several spools of Gutermann for the sewing machine and a ball of Valdani embroidery floss.  I thought the prices were good and the shipping reasonable, so I'll order from them again.  Thanks, Karen!

The gals at my mom's house just love to decorate for the holidays and the Easter decorations are up now.  Cute bunnies and eggs all over the place.  But this one is the most creative of all!

This is a hand sanitizer dispenser! 

Speaking of Easter, LeeAnna's question of the week is about dyeing Easter eggs.  I always enjoyed doing that, as a kid and with my own kids.  We loved the Paas egg dyeing kits and apparently they're still around!   I remember using those invisible crayons to put wax on the egg so that the dye would show some kind of pattern.  And the little stickers and the paper "costumes" you could create characters with.  

We did hide the dyed eggs, as well as 

the plastic ones with candy and little prizes in them.  

Always fun and good memories!

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

Midweek Update

I finally finished up the quilting on Masala Box over the weekend, and got the binding sewn onto the front on Monday.  Now it has been transferred to my evening slow stitching time to finish the last step of hand stitching the binding down.  There are some penguins peeking out from the binding every now and then!  

Hopefully, I'll have a finish to share by the end of the week!

It's good to get something finished because I've got some new projects I want to start!  One is the Orange Peel Sew Along, hosted by Julie at The Crafty Quilter.  

This one requires 25 - 5 inch low volume squares for the background and 24 charm squares for the orange peels, so I've been getting these ready.   Somewhere, in one of Julie's posts, I saw that she had made an orange peel design with Kaffe charm squares, and I happen to have a bunch of those, so I decided I'll use them up in this project, too!  

The first step is to sew together the background squares,

so that's what I'm working on this week.

The other quilt project I'm planning to start is Sandra's (mmmquilts) Spring QAL, called Glowing Hearts.

Fabric requirements for this QAL are coming out Thursday,

so I'll have to make some decisions for my quilt soon.  

Maybe I'll go shopping!  😘

Sharing at The Inquiring Quilter for Wednesday Wait Loss.

Stitching for the birds...

This week I finished up the new April mini heart quilt for my display stand.  This was one of my favorites to stitch last year with its mama bird and babies in the nest!

Changing out the display for the new month - 

We've had some birds nest in our yard over the years - one mama robin even built her nest on top of our front porch light! - but the nest I've been fascinated by since mid-February or so is the Big Bear (California) Eagles nest.  They have a nest cam there so you can watch everything that goes on.  The parents are Jackie and Shadow, and the babies are Sunny and Gizmo - they hatched about 3 - 4 weeks ago and are growing fast.  

Friends of Big Bear Valley

And in other bird stitching, I've continued to work on the Gail Pan embroidery project that I started last week.  It has Gail's signature bird sitting on the basket!

Still plenty of stitching to do on this one!

Sharing at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.

Getting started with red...

Starting again with a new color is always my favorite way to mark the beginning of the month.  Red for March means - sorting through and seeing what I have.

Cutting into some of it for blocks - 

and sewing a few up!

And then there's the opportunity to see what happens when you lay all the blocks out, now that there are some red ones.

I'm starting to see how I want the starburst to form with each color addition.

The blues won't really go where I have them now - it will be oranges and yellows in the next round.  I might need more yellow blocks!

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 #430

We had a little adventure the other day, and it wasn't even very far away from home.  I wanted to go check out a new trail area on the west side of town that has just recently opened up.  

It took us down by the Big Thompson river.

And then it curved around toward this big building.  What could it be?

It's a winery!

Good thing Mike brought money!

This is the Sweetheart Winery, and has been around in our town for quite a few years now.  We had just never been there.

But we'll be back!

LeeAnna's question of the week is about Easter traditions in our families - did we get a new dress and how else did we celebrate?  I shared this photo in one of my posts about the Pieces of My Life quilt, but it's such a classic!  My mom always sewed new dresses for us three little girls, and here we are, maybe about 1961 or so?  They were even matching dresses!  And look at the hats!  

We, of course, had Easter baskets, and egg hunts, and went to church.  I continued all of that with my own kids (well, not the dresses, lol!) until they weren't interested in Easter egg hunts anymore.  But I still make some hard boiled eggs every year, so that I can have deviled eggs with Easter dinner!

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

Midweek Update

This is the quilting on Masala Box shown from the back so that you can see what I'm doing.  It's simple, but takes time because the lines are double going both directions along almost every seam.

Getting closer!

Meanwhile, my mind wanders to other quilts I'd like to be working on, and I've been thinking about the patchwork hearts I made for a 2024 Rainbow Scrap Challenge project.

I got them out the other day and decided on a final layout.

My plan is to try using my newfound "Quilt As You Go" skills to quilt one row at a time and then connect them with sashing, just as I did with Pieces of My Life.  That means starting with row 1 first and putting all the rest of the blocks away.

It didn't take long to sew the blocks in this row together, and layer it with batting and backing cut just a little bigger all the way around.

My plan for quilting is a diagonal grid through all the blocks.  Since they are all 12.5 inch squares based on a 36 patch design, this should be simple to do and will be consistent throughout the quilt.

Here's the center block of the row already done in one direction!

Eventually, after all five rows are quilted, I'll connect them with sashing, and should end up with the quilt being 60 x about 68.  

Sharing at The Inquiring Quilter for Wednesday Wait Loss.

And at Alycia Quilts for Finished or Not Friday.