Slow stitching this week...

Not sure why it took me so long, but I finally finished up the Gail Pan Spring embroidery piece this week!

Winter, Spring...

and I will move on to the Summer design, as soon as I find the background fabric that I had reserved for this project to trace the new design!  😜  Meanwhile I decided to prep a small quilt for hand quilting.  I sewed this up back in April.  It's made from a charm pack of Tilda and a Spool quilt pattern from Primrose Cottage.

About 15 inches square.

And meanwhile, I've continued to work on the Summer SAL from PinkernPunkin.  I stitched Stamp 4 this week - Sunflower Strut.  

Moving on to stamp #5!

Sharing at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.

And at Melva Loves Scraps for Sew and Tell Monday.

Catching Up!

It's been nice to have a week to catch up on some quilting tasks.  Earlier in the week I finished the top for my Lyra tablerunner, and it's now layered and ready to quilt.

Then I got busy working on block 9 for the Little House sew-along at Melva Loves Scraps and it's now finished, too!  It started with a sweet center block that Melva calls Prairie Rose.  Choosing the fabrics for this one, using my fall-themed prints, was more challenging than sewing it up.  Of course this one looks like a sunflower rather than a rose!

Add the log cabin strips, and here it is.

Now all nine blocks are made, and we can start to play with layouts.  I think the finishing instructions will be out next week.

I can already see a block or two ⬆️

that I'm going to have to rearrange.

I fussy cut a favorite bit of orange from the jelly roll for this block!

Having a leader/ender block is helpful when sewing these log cabins together, so I was able to finish a gameboard block along the way, too.  It even uses scraps from the Little House project!

And there goes orange month!  I'm wondering what our next color will be.

Linking up with SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday 

and at Melva Loves Scraps for the Little House sew-along, block 9.

Quilting is More Fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!

I Like Thursday #485

We spent some time on Monday exploring a new park in our town that we hadn't been to before.  It has a little bit of everything - a great playground, sculptures, walking trails, and fishing areas.

I've been telling all my friends with grandkids 

that they need to bring them here!

The sculptures are fun - much larger than life-size - native animals.  Wild turkeys!

And prairie dogs!

That trail you can see back behind there is where we walked.  

You can go down to the river there and check out the fishing ponds, too.

It was a beautiful day!

This week's book was a good one - The Keeper of Happy Endings, by Barbara Davis.  It's my book club's June book.  It is historical fiction, taking place in the 1940s and the 1980s.

Goodreads

LeeAnna's question of the week is about perms.  Have we had one and how did it work out?  This one made me laugh!  I have very curly hair!  So curly, in fact, that people have asked me if I had a perm.  😄  When I was a teenager, some product came out that claimed to straighten curly hair, and my mom thought we ought to try it.  I think it was done much like a perm - you combed this stuff in, left it for awhile, and then pretended your hair was magically straight (as was the style in the early 70s when I was in high school).  I think it lasted at the most for a week or two.  

In college, I met Mike, whose hair was also curly back then, and our friends called us the "Brillo Pads!"  We even dressed up as brillo pad boxes for a Halloween party way back then.   I wish I could find a picture of that, but I'm not sure where it would be.

How's this for a 70s look?!

Have a great Thursday, everyone!

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

Midweek Update

Looking back at my recent posts, I realized that it's been a month since I last shared any progress on my version of mmmquilts' Lyra QAL.  I guess going on a trip in the middle of that month affected what I was able to get done, but I'm moving it along now!

Early in the QAL, I had figured out that the best way for me to make all the sections I needed was to paper-piece them.  The entire quilt is made out of these three shapes.

Based on my fabric choices and available time, I decided to turn Sandra's nine blocks quilt into a 3 block summer table runner, so I calculated how many of those paper-pieced sections I would need, and they turned into this design.

Getting it to that point was the hardest part!  And now it is sewn together.  In the above photo the pieces are laid out on the green backing of an older quilt.  In the photo below, the runner is on a blue sheet because I was pressing with some starch.  There are lots of bias edges in this one!

The last couple days I've been working on the borders.  Sandra's design for the full quilt calls for square-in-a-square cornerstone, which I made in a 2.5 inch size, using the same green as the star points.

And then here it is - the finished tablerunner top!

This measures 40 x 20, a good size for our table.

Time to layer, quilt, and finish this!

The final quilt parade starts June 15th.

Sharing at The Inquiring Quilter for Wednesday Wait Loss.

And at Alycia Quilts for Finished or Not Friday.

Melva Loves Scraps for TGIFF

Pink flowers and a watermelon!

I planted some pink petunias yesterday afternoon.  These are hanging off our back porch.  I hope they grow and fill in the pot!

I stitched some pink flowers, too!  Since starting Melisa's Summer stitch-along, I've been ignoring the Gail Pan Spring design that I had been working on.  This is from her book, Changing Seasons.  I've already finished "Winter," and eventually there will be Summer and Fall, too.  I've decided it really is time to finish up Spring!

Alternating with that each evening, I also stitched up stamp #3 for the Summer SAL at PinkernPunkin.  It made me crave some watermelon, lol!

On to stamp #4, which has sunflowers to stitch!

Sharing at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching. 

A (sort of) scrappy placemat for May...

At the beginning of the month I shared a cute elephant print that I thought would be fun in a placemat.  

It didn't really make sense to cut it up too small, so I paired it with another orange print, and cut both into 4.5 inch squares.  Sewn together like this, it was a quick finish!

I found a light blue/turquoise print for the backing.  Some simple quilting and binding and done!

The other placemats I've made this year have been in use on the dining room table, but this one is going right here.

The rainbow is forming!

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 

Quilting Learning Combo for I Quilted This!

 

I Like Thursday #484

I love a good rainstorm!  The kind where you can hear it on the roof, and puddles form in the street, and everything looks greener.  It rained all day here on Monday.  That's pretty unusual for Colorado, especially this year!

It was even too chilly and rainy to play golf on Tuesday, so a friend who lives on the golf course invited a couple of us over for tea.  It was so pleasant to chat and watch the bird activity outside.  There are lots of goose families there right now.

I finished this book recently - Theo of Golden.  It was recommended by several friends, and is on our book club's discussion list for later in the year.  I have to admit, it took me awhile to get into the story.  It's not a murder mystery or historical fiction or even what you would call women's fiction - I'm not sure what genre you would call it.  But somewhere along the way, I did get into the story and am glad I read it.

More about the book on Goodreads.

Younger son made some yummy snickerdoodles with his sourdough starter!  I would like him to make these again.  😊

LeeAnna's question of the week is asking about wearing plastic sandals when we were kids, and did they come with ankle socks?  I had to think and think about the plastic sandals and I cannot come up with something like that in my memory.  My mom loved dressing up little girls, making our clothes and all that, and what I remember is wearing Mary Jane's, like in the picture below.

But we definitely nailed the ankle socks! 

This is a yearly photo we did with my dad's parents 

who lived in Iowa City, Iowa, where my dad grew up. 

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

Midweek Update

The last few days I've been focused on making Block #8 for the Little House SAL at Melva Loves Scraps.  It starts with a patchwork heart block.   It's a miniature version of the 12 inch heart block that we made for the Pieces of My Life quilt, which is one of my favorite blocks ever!

I had a harder time making the 6 inch version of the block - not because the strips were tinier, but because I had a hard time choosing fabrics that would work for the design.   I made it twice, in fact, and scrapped both of them in favor of a simpler version like this:

Once that was taken care of, the log cabin strips were added and here is the finished block.

Only one more block to make!

With all the strip cutting for the log cabins, I'm ending up with leftover chunks of the jelly roll to use up, so I decided to make a few tiny four patches out of them.  They made good leader/enders for the strip piecing, too.

Sharing at the Block 8 link-up at Melva Loves Scraps.

And at The Inquiring Quilter for Wednesday Wait Loss.

Alycia Quilts for Finished or Not Friday 

Progress...

I've put a few stitches into the Summer Stamp SAL from Melisa at PinkernPunkin every night this week, so I'm making progress! 

Today I'll continue working on Stamp #3, Summertime Treat.  It has a slice of watermelon in it, and a crow - it will be fun to work on!

Sharing at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching. 

There's no place like home!

We enjoyed our week away and now it feels good to be home.  There's always so much to be done after you've been out of town for awhile.  Laundry, grocery shopping, yardwork...

But I have had a little time to get back in my sewing room, and worked on an orange house for my Year in the Neighborhood project.

Home is where the heart is!

This robins have been visiting the neighborhood this month - they like to play in the water from our sprinklers.  So this house was made to celebrate the robins!

Here's how the neighborhood is shaping up.  I added another tree to the collection, too.  

There's another new development in the neighborhood, too - actually in my backyard!  We've been hearing the woodpeckers pecking away at the trees for weeks, but just went out to look at what's going on a couple days ago.  We not only found a woodpecker making a nesting hole, but we think she's made a whole condo development!

Look a little closer in and you can see this little female downy woodpecker, on the lookout for intruders!

Welcome to the neighborhood!

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 

And at Quilting Learning Combo for the Quilter's Cove May link-up.

 

I Like Thursday #483

I love a picnic lunch!  Wherever we're on vacation, we try to find places each day to take our lunch.  In Charleston, one of the places we went was Folly Beach.  This is their fishing pier that you can walk out on.  We watched a girl reel in a small shark!  (They did throw it back in the water!)

View of the beach off the pier.  It was a popular spot!

Thanks go to Deb A. for recommending the Publix subs for lunch!  We did this a couple days in a row and they were tasty and very convenient, too.  

LeeAnna's question of the week is about 60s/70s fashions this week - mini skirts, fishnet hose, halter tops?  If you knew me in real life, you would realize that I'm not into fashion and never have been very much.  But I do vaguely remember rolling up my skirt to make it shorter, after leaving the house for school in the morning, lol!  

While visiting my mom yesterday, I came across this photo in her album that we were looking at.  1968 - I would have been 14.  The outfit I had on was sewn by my mom, and I recall it being one of my favorites.  Not sure you would consider the skirt to be a mini skirt, but I loved it anyway! 

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

Midweek Update

If you've visited Charleston, you might know about the group of houses called "Rainbow Row."  It's a group of row houses on E. Bay Street painted fun bright colors.  Google Map it and you'll see lots of photos.  Here's my photo from our trip.  There are lots of trees and cars parked near them, so it's not easy to get a good picture, but this gives you an idea!

A very fun souvenir to bring home is some of the Art Gallery fabric line inspired by Charleston and the Rainbow Row colors.  I found a quilt shop to visit while we were there, and bought a few quarter yards.  I'm not sure what I'll make with them yet, but they will be fun to have in my stash!

Now that we're home, I'm ready to get back into my sewing room and work on my current projects.   I left them on my cutting table, piled up and waiting for some attention.

- Blocks for mmmquilts' QAL, "Lyra"

- jelly roll strips and fat quarters for block 8 

of Melva's Little House sew-along 

- and the basket of orange fabrics for the 

Rainbow Scrap Challenge for May

The hardest part is deciding what to work on first!

Linking up at The Inquiring Quilter for Wednesday Wait Loss.

And at Alycia Quilts for Finished or Not Friday.