Spring Colors

Earlier this week, I discovered the grape hyacinths blooming in my garden!  Trees are coming out early this year, too - Colorado has had a very mild winter.

I still need to do the Spring garden clean-up!

So I've been stitching in Spring colors this week, too.  

This pretty purple is DMC 209 - dark lavender.  The Blessings stitch is a start on the "Spring Blessings" free design for March.  You can get it if you sign up for their newsletter.

A few more stitches have been added to the Spring embroidery design from Gail Pan, too.  Lots more to do on this one!

Sharing at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.

Moving along with red...

This week I got out my bin of the smallest pieces of red and started sorting them to see what would work for this month's scrappy placemat.  The next step is to sew pairs and trios and then start puzzling them together into a 12 x 16 slab.

A friend gave me quite a big pile of her unwanted leftover reds last fall, and they were good for making another Jacob's Ladder block.  It takes some bigger pieces than what I keep in the above bin.

I had made one last December in brighter reds, so this time I used some darker pieces. 

It's always fun to add more to the block collection!  The lone brown block at the top was the first block I made, sometime last fall.  It needs a friend, but that can wait until we sew the dark neutrals this year.

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 #474

It snowed here!  Not much accumulation, but lots of good moisture.  Even my husband, who hates snow, was happy to see this!

A snow day made us feel like baking, and snickerdoodles were the choice of recipe.  They turned out to be yummy!

I got some happy mail last week - thank you, LeeAnna!  I had told her I loved the cute books/reading prints that she used in one of her Project Quilting projects, and she sent me some pieces.  ❤️❤️❤️   I have an idea for how to use these, but need to think it through a bit before starting.

LeeAnna's question of the week is about fashion - if we could bring back any fashion trend, what would it be?  And this one had me just about stumped!  You might call me "fashion-challenged."  I don't follow the trends - just wear what's comfortable.  So I came up with one that I'm glad has NOT come back - shoulder pads in everything!  This came from a Pinterest board titled "1980s Shoulder Pads - the Epitome of Power Dressing!"

Remember Joan Collins of Dynasty fame?

She even wrote a memoir called Behind the Shoulder Pads!

And piggy-backing on last week's topic - something that I'm glad came back into fashion is curly hair!  This is Susie Wargin, a well-known TV and radio personality for probably 30 years here in Colorado.  She is known for her curly hairstyle, and I have always admired it.  It has probably changed and become a little looser in the years since I when I first noticed her, but it is still so pretty!

Have a great Thursday, everyone!

I'm joining in with Not Afraid of Color for I Like Thursday.

Midweek Update

Often, when I am interested in a new project, my first question is - can I make it from my stash?  I don't always know if what I am envisioning will actually work.   So finally, three blocks into the Little House Sampler sew-along, hosted by Melva Loves Scraps,  I think I know what I am doing with this project!

I started it with a jelly roll I had won last fall - and it has lots of pumpkins, leaves, and bright oranges in it.  Block 3 is called Harvest Basket, and it was perfect for nailing down that my colors for this quilt are orange, turquoise, browns, and creamy neutrals.  

I love basket blocks! 

Focusing on those four colors helps me pick out the strips for the log cabin surrounds.  I've been trying to keep these blocks from being too busy, so adding in some solids and low volume neutrals should help that. 

Here is block 3!

I'm liking how this is coming along!  There are nine blocks total, and Melva is releasing them every week or two, which is a nice pace for me.

Getting closer to a finish is this year's Stay at Home Round Robin.  I have the pieced border finished and strips cut for a final solid border.  Hope to get that sewn on later this week, and then a backing figured out so I can get going on the quilting.  The final quilt parade starts two weeks from today!

Sharing at The Inquiring Quilter for Wednesday Wait Loss and at 

Melva Loves Scraps for the Little House Sampler Block 3 link-up.

Alycia Quilts for Finished or Not Friday 

 

Lucky!

Mr. Lucky the Leprechaun is finished and ready to watch over us for St. Patrick's Day!  He looks a little mischievous, doesn't he?  Melisa's design didn’t have you stitching a mouth for him, but I decided he needed a little smile.  

I set him on the little chest of drawers with all the other March decorations.

A friend and I share the lightbox that I use for tracing embroidery designs.  She called and said she needed it this week, so that gave me just the push I needed to get the Gail Pan "Spring" embroidery prepped and ready to stitch.

I'm using DMC 954 for this - Nile Green.

It looks pretty spring-like to me!

Sharing at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.

A March House

I've been spending a lot of time on my Stay at Home Round Robin this week, but I wanted to get started on sewing with the red scraps so I decided to play with a house block. Something's been bugging me about the construction of these paper-pieced houses, and I needed to to figure out what it was.

I first purchased this pattern from Twiggy and Opal's Etsy shop in 2020, and made this little mini quilt at Christmas.  Our kids didn't come home that year because of Covid and I was missing them.  These are the smallest houses in the pattern - 4.5 inches.

There's also a 6.5 inch size - 

Then I didn't use the pattern again until this past December when I made the Little Penguin Christmas house just to try the pattern again.   This time I made the 8.5 inch size.

If you compare this one to the previous blocks, you might notice that in this one, I sewed that long strip to the bottom of the house, rather than below the roof as I had before.

And I proceeded to do that with my January and February houses this year, too.  Each tine, they just looked a bit off to me - which is when I finally dug out the previous ones I had made and realized the difference.

The long strip is really supposed to go between the roof and the house part!

Like this - in red for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color of the month for March.

Does that mean I need to go back and re-do the previous houses in my Neighborhood?   I decided not to because every neighborhood has houses with different designs, right?  So here is the Neighborhood as it looks now!

Most likely, I'll continue making houses in both styles 

and mix them up in the final layout.

Sharing at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday.

Quilting is More Fun than Housework for Oh Scrap! 

Melva Loves Scraps for Sew and Tell Monday 

I Like Thursday #473

It rained at our house yesterday!  For those of you who have been stuck under feet of snow for months now, that probably seems like a strange thing to get excited about, but in terribly dry Colorado it was a big celebration!  You can see how brown everything is.  We have had almost no measurable precipitation all winter.

We watched the movie, "Song Sung Blue" over the weekend.  Thanks, Judy, for the recommendation - we really enjoyed it.  It's a good story (based on an actual Neil Diamond husband and wife tribute group) and such good music.  I didn't realize it would be sad and went through quite a few tissues, but still enjoyed it.  We found it streaming on Peacock.

Image Source

Other than the rain on Tuesday this week, we have had very Spring-like weather.  It's been nice for getting outside and walking at some favorite trail areas.  The geese are already starting to pair up.  

We have been learning to identify some different ducks.  

Buffleheads

And Common Goldeneyes - 

who really do have yellow eyes,  

but it's hard to see in the photo!

LeeAnna's question of the week is about a bad haircut.  Has that happened to me?  Oh, yes!  I have very curly hair, so when I have to find a new stylist, it is stressful!  The last time I needed a new one, I called a place that a friend recommended, but couldn't remember who to ask for, so of course I got the newest, youngest hairstylist who had just started there.  😬  And all I can say is, thank goodness hair grows out, lol!  The next time I went in, a different stylist met me at the front desk and said the young girl wasn't there anymore, but she could take me.  It turns out that was the woman my friend was recommending and I have been her client ever since!  Thank goodness for experience!

Curly!

I'm joining in with Not Afraid of Color for I Like Thursday.

Work in Progress Wednesday

My Stay at Home Round Robin is now in the finishing phase, and the first job has been to add coping strips to the blocks I've made so that they fit the current sides of the center.  The double slice blocks that I made for round 2 were only 3 inches square, so I've been adding strips to bring them up to 3.5 inches square.

The added benefit of that has been that these blocks can now kind of dance around at different angles instead of being all oriented the same way.

Then additional fabric was added to make the whole set into a border strip.

I've doing the same thing with the birds in the air and friendship star blocks, but they didn't need quite as much work as the double slice blocks.  Almost ready to sew these borders together now!

The final link-up for the 2026 Stay at Home Round Robin starts on March 25th, so I've got three weeks to finish it up!

Sharing at The Inquiring Quilter for Wednesday Wait Loss.

And at Alycia Quilts for Finished or Not Friday.

Lots of progress!

The final border prompt for the Stay at Home Round Robin came from Anja, who gave us "Quilter's Choice."  As with border #5, I had been thinking about what else my SAHRR project needed.  There are hourglasses (showing the passing of time), pumpkins, and sunflowers, bare tree branches, and birds in the air.  How about leaves flying about in the wind?  For that theme, I made pinwheels!

I'm going to be laying all the pieces and parts out like this - 

with the next step being how to fill in the empty spaces! 

I've already started working on that, 

but will save to share when I've made some more progress on it!

Meanwhile I did finish up block #2 for Melva's Little House Sew-along.

So now there are two of these!

Things are moving right along!

Sharing at Anja Quilts and at 

Melva Loves Scraps for Sew and Tell Monday.

Hello, March!

The gals at my mom's place have been decorating for St. Patrick's Day this last week.  They have the cutest things placed here and there!  

So I thought I'd join in with Mr. Lucky Leprechaun - a St. Patrick's Day stamp design from Melisa at PinkernPunkin.   I've been enjoying all the green!

I did finish up the Winter snowman embroidery, too.

This is from a Gail Pan book, and is a set of four seasonal designs.  I'm planning to prep the Spring one sometime this week so I can get started on it.  These are meant to be finished separately and hung on a little background during the corresponding season.  I haven't quite decided if I'll do that or make them into a little quilt.  For now I'm just going to enjoy the stitching!

Sharing at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.

One more green project...

February really sped by, and I wasn't sure I would be able to finish the scrappy green placemat I started earlier in the month, but I did!   I originally shared my green crumb blocks a couple weeks ago, but at that point they were just sewn in twos and threes.  Inspired by Judy's post last week, I dug into my orphan block drawer and pulled out two green quarter star blocks left over from last year's Rainbow Scrap Challenge project and added them into the mix.  Eventually I had two crumb strips that were 4.5 x 16.5.

I mixed bright greens and dark greens 

so that I could get enough scraps for a whole placemat.

Then I just needed to fill in the center to get a piece that measured 12.5 x 16.5.  

Little penguins, stars, hearts, grassy swirls, leaves

Some serpentine quilting, a dark green Grunge for the binding, and the green placemat is finished!

So far, so good on my goal to make a rainbow of scrappy placemats this year!  

Blue ✔️   Green ✔️

These crumb blocks made good leader/enders for sewing a couple of star blocks for Carole's QOV block drive.  I sent these off to her this week, too.

Sharing at:

Alycia Quilts for Finished or Not Friday 

Soscrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday

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

 

I Like Thursday #472

Good morning, friends!  How's your week going?  We have had a week without many commitments which is always nice, so I've been reading, and sewing, and going for walks, even getting some housework done.  😆

Right now I'm re-reading a book I read back in 2024 because it is my book club's choice for our March discussion.  Sometimes I only need to skim through to review the story before we discuss it, but this time I'm completely re-reading.  And liking the story just as much as I did the first time around! 

Screenshot from the Libby app.

We found a tasty new snack at Costco the other day.  It has dried blueberries in it.  I hadn't tasted those before and they are yummy!

I've been sticking with my plan to use up all the partial spools of thread I found hiding in my sewing room back in January.  It has turned out that some of them even have plenty of thread to fill a bobbin.  Since January 29th, I've emptied four spools of thread, out of the nine I started with.  This is just the Gutermann Eggshell color.  There are many, many more to go in several other colors!

LeeAnna's question of the week is about the most adventurous thing you've ever done.  And I have to admit - I'm not very adventurous!  But when I was 16, between my junior and senior years in high school, I was an exchange student, and that felt pretty adventurous.  Rennes, France, is a sister city to Rochester, NY, where I grew up, so I went there for the summer on a sister city exchange for high school students.

I lived with a French family and they were very kind to a homesick teenager!  They took me lots of interesting places, introduced me to French food (crepes! Yum!), and helped me become much more fluent in French.   I visited Mont St. Michel and spent a week in Paris.  Pretty cool for a teenager!

I'm joining in with Not Afraid of Color for I Like Thursday.