I Like Thursday #121 - Happy Valentines Day!

It's a day for hearts!  I had fun looking around for hearts in all kinds of places this week.

I love these swans!  We enjoyed seeing them at the

Swan Lake Iris Gardens in Sumter, SC, when we visited there in 2017.

I love this beautiful wine glass that a friend gave me when I retired from teaching!

Almost too pretty to use!  :)

I like quilty hearts - 

And hearts on cards - 

Since I love beachcombing, I put some of my treasures in a heart-shaped glass dish on top of another heart mini I made last year.  Lots of likes all in the same picture!

I love seeing the hearts they put up around our town this time of year!

And I like this little monkey who oversees my sewing room.  Hearts on his bowtie!

I hope you're having a lovely day!   Thanks for visiting for I Like Thursday, and be sure to check out the other positive posts at Not Afraid of Color.

Hearts!

I love making mini quilts and haven't had a chance to sew one up for quite awhile, so after I made Cynthia's Tiny Tuesday heart a few weeks ago, I knew I would be making more.

I found some fun prints in my stash to start with -

And stitched up four little hearts in no time!

A little more background fabric and two strips of that dark pink print brought everything together.

And then, the exciting part of the week happened!  I bought a new sewing machine!

It's a Pfaff Ambition 610, and has many lovely features.  The most important to me are the Integrated Dual Feed (takes the place of my old walking foot!), quite a bit bigger throat space, and a serpentine stitch!

And what better place to try out these new features than quilting my hearts!

That's just what I wanted!

Scraps left from the hearts worked well for the backing and binding.

Here it is, hanging on the wall in my newly rearranged sewing space!

Sharing at Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!

February Sunshine

It has been a delightful week in my sewing room in more ways than one, not the least of which has been getting out the yellow scraps!

First, though, I used my new design wall to put up last year's Scrappy Sprouts because that is this month's UFO to move along.

I love these blocks, but need to decide if I want sashing in between them before starting to sew them up.  (And, if so, what color? Any advice?)  I also need to get busy on making some more sunflowers to go at the top.  That will be the perfect sewing for yellow month!

The strings came out for some yellow string blocks.

And here they are!

I decided to use a dark red center string, no matter what the rest of the colors are, so that the design will emphasize the diamond shape.

And Angela showed us two Tiny Tuesday nine patch blocks, so two it was!

One block needed cats in the background - these cats have yellow eyes, after all!

I'm sure enjoying these!

Hope you've had a great week, too!  I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone has been up to over at Soscrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday!

Hand-Pieced QAL - Flying Geese!

In my "I Like Thursday" post for today, I shared some photos my husband and I took of real flying geese we were watching near our home earlier this week.  My friend, Linda, who is also participating in the Hand-Pieced QAL, commented about how fitting that was!

Except I think hand-piecing this flying geese block was more like working with sharks!

Lol!  This was my fabric choice for this week's block.  I've never seen sharks in the wild, but I've definitely enjoyed learning about them over the years.  They are ancient creatures!

Isn't this a neat selvage?!

I found the flying geese blocks easy to sew together initially, and was happy with how they turned out.

Things definitely got more challenging as I constructed the block - and it all had to do with the bulk in the seams that were going together and how you actually sew through them.  I have more to learn about that part of hand-piecing!

Here is my block after a few rounds of unstitching and restitching, but before pressing.

I was at the "Good enough" stage!

And here are all three of my hand-pieced blocks so far.

I'm continuing to enjoy the learning in this QAL, and I'm sure more opportunities are coming as we make new blocks!  Thank you, Patty and Kristin, for the great tips, tutorials, and videos that are so helpful!

Sharing at the weekly Hand-Pieced link-up!

Also at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.

I Like Thursday #120

Happy Thursday, friends!  Hope you're having a great week!

Sunday was such a beautiful day here that we went for a long walk at a favorite natural area around some lakes.  There are tons of geese hanging out there right now and we got some pictures I really like.

From far away -

A close up - they are all facing the same direction!

And flying above us - 

They were making quite a noise as they swirled through the sky!

Sunday I also made a new recipe that we liked - it's called Slow Cooker Garlic Parmesan Chicken Stew (although I just made it in my big soup pot on top of the stove, rather than the crockpot).

You can find the recipe here, if you're interested.  I love her website title, "The Recipe Rebel!" And, of course, her photo of the stew is MUCH yummier-looking than mine... lol!

This week, I liked finishing up my hand-pieced and quilted doll quilt, which I used for practice on hand-piecing before the QAL started.

I am happy with how this turned out!  I can hand-piece squares pretty well.  But this week's Flying Geese block for the QAL is challenging!  Hopefully I will master it, though!

We discovered the Dr. Blake Mysteries on Netflix this week.  I know it's been around awhile, but somehow we never latched on to the show until recently.  Now that we have, we're really enjoying the series!

Those are my likes for this week - thanks for visiting!  Be sure and stop by over at Not Afraid of Color for more I Like posts.

A Design Wall!

My sewing room overhaul of the past week left me an empty wall to use as a design wall.  And I am enjoying it already!

After picking the brains of a couple trusted quilty advisors, I ended up doing something extremely simple.  I bought 2.5 yards of 72 inch wide white felt, which was on sale at Joann's for $3.99 a yard, and stapled it up on the wall.  Inexpensive, but effective!

After squaring up one end of the yardage, I ended up with a design wall that is 72 x 90, and it is working really well!

Just for fun, I put up the Northern Lights blocks which I've made so far, the Stack and Cut squares I've been making out of a Bonnie and Camille layer cake, and my Tiny Tuesday blocks.  There's lots of space on this wall, and nothing falls off!

The design wall is on the west wall of my room.  When you turn to the north, here's what you see.  I moved the cutting table over there.

Our house was built in the 70s, and back then everyone *had* to have a fireplace.  Nowadays (and, really, for quite a long time), we don't use it anymore.

Here's the east wall - and around the corner to the south, too, where my storage is.

Those walls are looking a little bare, but I have lots of mini quilts to put back up - and most likely I will make more, too!  :)

Thanks for coming along on this tour of my sewing room makeover.  Hope you enjoy some stitching time today!

Sharing at Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!

I ❤ my new storage!

The painting was finished in my sewing room on Tuesday afternoon, and before too long we got the furniture moved to where I wanted it.

This beautiful oak cabinet used to be full of a big old TV and lots of VHS tapes.

Mike thought maybe we should get rid of it, but I knew exactly how I would use it!  :)

Those scrap bins and project boxes have been on the floor ever since I started using them.  This will be so much nicer!

I also ended up with the perfect spot for my "And Sew On" wall-hanging.  (This was sewn up in 2013 through a Block of the Month with Kristy of Quiet Play, and is the reason I started blogging!)  It hasn't been hung up in awhile, and it definitely belongs here!

I did find some time to sew up a Tiny Tuesday heart this week.

Thank you to Cynthia from Quilting is more fun than Housework for a fun little design.  I know this won't be the only heart I sew up this month!

Loving these little blocks.  I'll enjoy adding yellow to the mix this month!

Linking up with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilters over at SoScrappy!