I Like Thursday #499

Did you get to see the lunar eclipse last week?  Younger son was following it with his smart telescope and got some great images of it, including a time lapse video, and this photo.

My sister gave me a bunch of her tomatoes and Mike had peppers from his garden, so we made fresh Pico de Gallo.  Yum!

I checked this book out of the library this week.  It's fascinating to follow Dolly Parton through the years of her career by looking at the costumes she wore.  I think she was an amazing inspiration for being who you are, no matter what other people think!

There's a whole section about the jumpsuits she wore for concerts and their bell bottom pant legs.  I got a kick out of this photo of her rainbow of "bells!"  She started out with a friend sewing these for her.  

LeeAnna's question of the week is about summer - I know it's the end of summer when...

the light starts to change.  Not just darker mornings and earlier evenings, but the angle of it changes.  It comes in different windows than it has all summer.  In our house it's the back porch window.  By the end of this month, I'll have to start closing those blinds because of the sun.

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

Finally Finished!

Patchwork Hearts!

I was looking back on my blog and photos and found this in January of 2024.  I think I made the red and blue hearts in December of 2023 just to see how the block would turn out and then added the 4 patch alternate blocks in 2024.  January of 2024's RSC color must have been green.

I ended up not liking the green heart with both darks and lights in it, so remade them into two separate hearts later in the year.

Much better!

After making all the blocks that first year, 2025 was spent figuring out a layout and sewing the blocks into rows, then prepping each row for quilting.  I liked the quilt-as-you-go process for the ease of quilting each row individually.

This year I continued quilting and figured out how I was going to connect the rows after quilting was completed.  That has worked out worked pretty well, too.  I kept the excess batting and trimmed the backing so that it would work for the back connection, and then sewed on a narrow light neutral sashing strip to cover that join on the front.  That required some top-stitching and quilting to finish, which was probably the hardest part of the whole project.

But it's done now!

A rainbow of fun color and lots of scraps make my heart happy!

Thank you to all my blogging friends for all the encouragement along the way!

Sharing at:

The Inquiring Quilter for Wednesday Wait Loss 

Slow stitching for a Sunday

For most of this week I've focused on the Sunflower Sampler from Melisa at PinkernPunkin.  I enjoyed stitching the alphabet, and got some of the sunflower - stem and partial leaves - completed.

Until Friday, when I got the binding machine sewn onto the front of Patchwork Hearts, and started hand sewing it down to the back.  There's 250 inches of binding to stitch on this quilt, and I've done one side (65 inches), so there's a ways to go yet.

This will keep me busy for Slow Sunday Stitching!

Linking up with Kathy's Quilts.

Almost there!

Hello from this little penguin!

This photo might not look much different from the one I shared in my Midweek post, but there's a huge difference to me - all the seams are sewn to make this a completed quilt (well, without binding yet!) - finally!   I quilted this "as-you-go" using a row by row method and then joined the rows with front and back sashing.

60 x 65

A light blue binding was sewn on Friday afternoon, and I'm ready to stitch, stitch, stitch all weekend long until I have a finish!

Sharing at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday.

Also linking up at Quilting is More Fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!

And at Melva Loves Scraps for Sew and Tell Monday.

I Like Thursday #498

My sunflower bloomed!  Here it was on Tuesday -

And then on Wednesday (yesterday) - even better!

Also this week I got some happy mail from Nancy at Grace and Peace quilting!  She sent me her scraps of little penguins left over from the Ikea duvet cover and pillow cases that she's been using to back the sweet baby quilts she makes.  Thank you so much, Nancy!  I will have fun figuring out where to use these penguins!

Our favorite summer outing has turned out to be driving up to Estes Park for a round of golf at the course by the lake, and then treating ourselves to lunch at the winery.  We went again on Monday, and it was a beautiful day up there.

School has started here, and that brings on many memories for me.  LeeAnna's question of the week is about the beginning of the school year - did we look forward to it?  And, yes, I always did - as a student, as a mom, and as a teacher.  When I was teaching, we had just spent a good week in meetings and planning for the school year, and I was so ready for the kids to come and to get going on the year.  I miss that - a little bit - but I'm too old to go back there now, lol!  

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

 

Midweek Update

My number one goal this week has been to finish the quilting on the final row of Patchwork Hearts, and I did it!

The final two rows are trimmed up and ready to connect to the first three.  I've spent the last couple days sewing on the sashing that connects the fronts of these rows to each other and to the top section.

Only a few more long seams now!

But you know me, I need a break from this kind of quilting task every now and then, so I decided to try a few of Melva's blocks from her Lala's Irish Chain sew-along.  The Irish Chain design has always intrigued me, but I've never made one before.  

When I saw that Melva was using the same print for one of her versions of this quilt that she had sent me for participating in the Little House log cabin sew-along, I was inspired to start cutting into it and making these blocks, too!

The blue print I'm using for the chain also has darker blue, red, yellow, and white dots, so that's how I chose the other colors to use.  It turns out there's a bit of an art to choosing and placing the "scrappy" parts - you want them to support, but not overwhelm the chain design.  And I'm not sure about my red squares.   Are they too much?

These are 10 inch blocks and I'm committing to making 

nine of them which will make a small quilt, but will be fun

to play with as I finish up the much bigger Patchwork Hearts! 

Sharing at The Inquiring Quilter for Wednesday Wait Loss.

Quilting Learning Combo for I Quilted This!

Alycia Quilts for Finished or Not Friday 

Slow stitching this week...

I got on a roll early in the week, and got the Summer embroidery from Gail Pan completely stitched!  It did turn out to be fun to add the gold accents here and there to complement the bees.

Three of the four seasons are complete now!

Sometime in the next week or two, I'll prep and trace 

the Autumn design that completes the set

so that I can get going on the final one.

That left me a little time to get some quilting stitches into the spool mini quilt.  Lots more to do there.

And, silly me, two new cross-stitch starts happened this week as well.  They are both from Melisa at PinkernPunkin.  First I started the Sunflower Sampler, and then on Friday Melisa shared Bee the Sunshine, and I couldn't resist it.  Neither one is a huge project, so it doesn't really matter which one I work on first.

I love stitching letters and there are lots more to do!

Sharing at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.