Slow stitching this week...

I put the last stitch into Sweetly Sayin on Friday evening!

I didn't have time to fully finish it yesterday, but I did back it with some fusible interfacing and trim to size.  Now it can hang out with its February friends until next weekend when I change everything out for March!

Next up to finish the stitching on is the Winter snowman embroidery.  Not much left here except that mitten, a snowflake, and some umbrellas.

It won't be long until I can start something new.  I've enjoyed the cool blue and white of the snowman, and the sweet pink and turquoise of the Valentine stitch, but I think my new start will be something green!

Linking up with Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.

 

A February House

February in the neighborhood is all about Valentine's Day!  Living in a town named Loveland, you can see how that would have to be so.

And, with February being the month for green in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, this house needed some green in it, too.  I just happened to find the perfect scrap to use for parts of the house.

Green with hearts!

So, the February house is all about green, and hearts, and giving flowers!

I made a new tree for the neighborhood, too.  I've been making the trees with stitch and flip flying geese, instead of the no waste method where you can make the geese a bit big and square them up.  Unfortunately, that's causing my trees to be a bit wonky!  

Hopefully, I'll be able to square things up with some sashing!

But this method does give me some bonus HSTs, so I like that.

The neighborhood is growing!

Sharing at Alycia Quilts for Finished or Not Friday and at 

SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday.

 

I Like Thursday #471

Good morning, friends, and Happy Thursday!  And a hello from my mom, too, on Valentine's Day.  I found this sweet bouquet of flowers at our grocery store for only $12.99!  (Not that I want to be cheap when it comes to my mom, lol!  But the price makes it easy to pick up a little bouquet and take it to her every now and then.)

For myself, I chose a bouquet of daffodils, my favorite flower!  I was glad to see them at the grocery store, too.

We've been enjoying Season 5 of All Creatures Great and Small on our PBS channel 6.  I like the addition of young Jimmy who likes to go along with his dad and "help out!"

PBS site

LeeAnna's question of the week is about our favorite subject in school.  And thinking back - I liked them all!  Maybe I was not quite so into science as all the rest of the subjects, but I did end up liking teaching science when I taught 5th grade.  But my most favorite classes in school were music classes.  I was in choir, band, orchestra, and lots of other music related activities when growing up.  Here's a picture of the choir from my senior yearbook in 1972.  Can you find me?

Hope you're having a good week!

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

SAHHR, round 4, and a new project...

Every year I attempt to grow a few pumpkins in my garden, and 2025 was a pretty good year.

Four of them!

So when Wendy at Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life, the host for the fourth round of the Stay at Home Round Robin, called for blocks with curves, I knew just what I would make.  Here was my chance to add some pumpkins!

These were drawn onto a Pellon fusible that I had in the stash, cut out, and will be fused down to the center section that I previously made.

My pumpkins are small because they need to fit here -

I'm still thinking about how to resize the double slice blocks that I made for round two - maybe I'll just add a little coping strip to them when I decide how everything will be sewn together in the end!

And speaking of Fall, I started a new project this week.  Melva, at Melva Loves Scraps, is hosting a QAL inspired by the Little House on the Prairie book series, and I have started on the first block - the Maple Leaf.

This is just the center of the block - the leaf will be surrounded by log cabin strips.  I won a jelly roll of a beautiful Fall themed fabric line last year when I participated in the Fall Fortnight fun over at From My Carolina Home.  I'm hoping these strips will work for the log cabin section of the blocks.

Something like this?  This is just the first round, though - these blocks end up at 16 inches square!

Linking up at Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life for the SAHRR, round 4, and at

Melva Loves Scraps for Sew and Tell Monday.

And at The Inquiring Quilter for Wednesday Wait Loss.

Almost there...

I've been stitching and stitching on Sweetly Sayin every night this week and have made good progress.  But I'm not done yet!  (This is the Primrose Cottage free pattern of the month from January.) 

Last week at this time:

And today (Saturday afternoon):

You can see the areas that are left to be filled in.

Love these cute little toadstools that I stitched last night!

I'll keep going until this is finished - fingers crossed that it doesn't take too much longer!  Linking up with Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.

Bits and Pieces of Green

Happy Valentine's Day, quilty friends!

This is just the beginning of my green house for February.

I need to work on the rest of it this coming week.

I also finished up a second green Jacob's Ladder block.  In the photo it looks more blue-green than it does in real life, but it's a good second green for the group of blocks.

There are six of these blocks now.  I'm liking the design that's emerging!

In between seams of Jacob's Ladder, I've been sewing together crumbs for this month's placemat.  They need to fill a 12.5 x 16.5 rectangle.  Looks like I'm getting there...

I spy some little penguins! 

💚💚💚💚💚

Sharing at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday.

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

I Like Thursday #470

Good morning!  We caught this beautiful sunrise earlier this week.

You may not be able to see it, but there's a rabbit sitting out in the middle of our small cul de sac, near the neighbor's truck.  I didn't realize I caught him in the photo until I was looking at it for this post!

We alternate between various streaming services every so often, and we recently started up our Netflix account again.  One of the shows I wanted to watch was The Lincoln Lawyer, and we're now caught up through Season 4.  I liked it a lot, and now I need another season!  Meanwhile, I got the latest book in the series from the library.  It's a good one, too - I'm almost finished with it, but I haven't figured out how it's going to end!

Carole, at From My Carolina Home, shared a beautiful Quilt of Valor that she's been working on recently in this post.  She'd like to make several more, so asked for 12.5 inch star blocks to be sent in.  I thought I could probably send her a few so got started on one yesterday.  These pieces and parts should sew up pretty quickly this afternoon.

To make this sawtooth star block, I used tutorials from these ladies:

Diary of a Quilter

Quilting Jetgirl

I'm so thankful for the wealth of skills 

and information that quilt bloggers share with us!

LeeAnna's question of the week asks us to describe a romantic date.  You all know how much we enjoy visiting the Oregon Coast.  When we are there, I am all about the views - watching the ocean, listening to the waves, just relaxing and enjoying all that.  So one of our favorite ways to do that is to have a picnic or a glass of wine with a view.  

Being with my favorite person in our favorite place is just the best!

Hope you're having a great week!

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

And at Alycia Quilts for Finished or Not Friday. 

Stay at Home Round Robin - round 3

This week's host is Emily at the Darling Dogwood.  Emily suggested that we get our inspiration for this week's border blocks from the animal kingdom.  Since my project this year is fall-themed, I ended up deciding to make Birds in the Air blocks.  What is more a sign of fall than flocks of geese flying through the air?!

I wanted a simple Birds in the Air block that could be made in the 3.5 inch range, so I googled it and found this article from Quilting Daily that had directions for multiple methods of making Birds in the Air blocks.  I ended up using the most traditional method (which was simple!) to sew up these blocks.

Along the way, I also added a narrow solid brown border to the existing center.

I'm picturing these blocks in the corners, with the Double Slice blocks from last week's prompt acting as bare tree branches, maybe?  You can see that the two types of blocks are different sizes, so I'll have to do something about that that, too, plus make some more.  But - it's an idea!

Since the verse in the center talks about pumpkins and sunflowers, I've been thinking about how I could bring those into the pieced design.  I have some ideas, but waiting to see what the next border prompts are.    

Linking up with The Darling Dogwood for the SAHRR, Round 3

and at Melva Loves Scraps for Sew and Tell Monday.

The Inquiring Quilter for Wednesday Wait Loss.

Stitching some Love

You can't really live in a city named Loveland and not expect to see a lot of reminders of Valentine's Day, especially in the month of February!  

This week I stitched the letters of love for the Primrose Cottage Sweetly Saying design.  I love how they used a strawberry for the O!

Here's the whole design so far  -

There's lots more to do and since Valentine's Day is just next Saturday,

I'd better hustle!

Meanwhile, the winter embroidery is almost finished.  Just a bit more in the top left corner to stitch.

I definitely have plenty to do for today's Slow Sunday Stitching! 

Linking up at Kathy's Quilts. 

Getting started with Green

This week I had a chance to get out my greens and do some sorting...

These are the smallest pieces - hopefully there will be enough to make a crumb placemat.

I think this month I'll combine the dark greens and the bright greens.

Some of the others will be used when we have a light/pastel green month.

I also had some time to make one Jacob's Ladder block and pick out the colors for a second.

And then I got distracted by a "Drop Everything and Make It" project!  Older son requested some soup bowl cozies for himself and his girlfriend.  I can never turn down a request from family, so I ordered some Wrap and Zap batting, and as soon as it arrived, I got to work.  I decided to make three because I realized we could use a new one, too.

In keeping with February being green month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, I found a piece of this Baby Yoda/Mandalorian print on green and used it for two of the cozies.

I made some of these several years ago, but it's been awhile, so I thought I'd better find a tutorial to remind me how to do them.  I found this one at All People Quilt, and it worked.  

It took me about three sewing sessions to get these made this week, but they turned out nicely, and I sent two of them off to older son this morning.  I'm so used to sewing things for guys, and rarely things for women, but he has told us that his girlfriend loves pink, so...  

I made one in pink!

I know they'll get a lot of use out of them, because we certainly do!

And that was my sewing week.  How was yours?  

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 #469

Good morning, and Happy Thursday!  We like Dad jokes at our house...

😊

I went to a concert the other night!  A friend had an extra ticket and invited me along.  These gals are a BeeGees tribute group.  It was fun!  

I have been reading (and enjoying very much) Miss Morgan's Book Brigade.  It is historical fiction set in France in WWI, about Anne Morgan (daughter of J. P. Morgan) and a group of women who go to war torn France in 1918 to help the people whose villages were destroyed by the Germans as they retreated.

Goodreads.  

LeeAnna's question of the week is about Valentines.  Do you remember the tiny little cards and envelopes from elementary school?  I sure do, because I also did them with my own kids (it was great practice for writing your letters!), with the preschoolers I taught, and all the way up into 5th grade.  And, yes, the rule was not to leave anyone out!  Shopping for Valentines was very important - my boys always liked the box sets that had robots or something space-aged on them.  Something like this, probably!

Those were the days! 😊

Hope you're having a great week!

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

Stay at Home Round Robin - Round 2

Our host for this week, Kathleen McMusing, suggested double blocks for the next round of the project.  Her post includes lots of ideas, and I thought a long time about trying for some kind of double star design.  But I couldn't come up with one that would be doable within my (self-imposed) 3 inch size - the pieces would just be too small and fiddly.  So - on to the next idea - something I'm calling "Double Slice."  I played with these blocks once before, and made a small piece with them.

As you can probably imagine - you start with a square, slice it once diagonally and add a narrow strip, then slice it again through the opposite corners, and add a second narrow strip.

You can square them up straight - 

Or wonky - 

Which I thought was a fun look!

I haven't decided yet where these blocks will end up, but I did do the measuring and sewing needed to finish the first border from last week.

This measures 15.5 x 16.5 right now.

I might add a very narrow solid border first, and then see what border #3 brings before making any more decisions!

Linking up with Kathleen McMusing for the SAHRR Round 2,

and at Melva Loves Scraps for Sew and Tell Monday.

The Inquiring Quilter for Wednesday Wait Loss.