Some Slow Stitching for a Sunday

After finishing my Book Club Hand-pieced Quilt, I went back to the Kathy Schmitz embroidery design I started a few weeks ago.   It has been the take-along stitching that accompanied me to the parking/ waiting lot when my husband goes in for his cancer treatment and I have to stay out.

Last time I brought a Starbucks treat, too!  :)

Once I started working on it nightly, it didn't take long to stitch the design.

I think Kathy intended for the heart to be stitched in blanket stitch, but I decided to go with a chain stitch because I need practice on that one.

I'm getting my stitches to be more consistent, I think!

I'm not quite sure how I'll finish this one off yet, so I put it off to the side and traced something new to embroider.   I've been wanting to start a new project from Gail Pan's Patchwork Loves Embroidery, Too, so I traced a couple of snowmen for a Christmas tablerunner pattern.

Four snowmen are needed for her pattern from the book, 

but I've just traced these two to work on so far.  

This is what I'll be working on for my Slow Sunday Stitching, and 

linking up with Kathy's Quilts.

Scrappy Dark Blue

This week I worked on the dark blue HSTs for my Rainbow ZigZag quilt.  24 are needed for an 8 x 48.5 inch row.

It's always fun to play with the background fabrics to see what happens!

I have five rows ready to go so far - 

Once the dark blue zigzag is sewn, just red, yellow, and purple will be needed.   It's possible I may need to make each row one more zigzag longer so the quilt top isn't too long and narrow, though!  

I also pulled out a little ocean themed WiP that I haven't shared before.  This is made from scraps leftover from my first hand-pieced quilt project, Sand, Sea, and Sky.  A few months ago, I cut all the leftover prints into as many 6.5 or 4.5 inch squares as I could get, bordered a few with some solid colors, and sewed them up into this little patchwork top!

At this point, it measures about 31 x 37.

Since this needs a bit of a border to make it a little wider and longer, I'm thinking I will use up some of the remaining blue solids for that purpose.  Maybe something like this?

Hoping this will make a little boy donation quilt that someone can use!

Sharing at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and at 

Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!

  

I Like Thursday #194

Happy Thursday, friends!  How's your week going?  It finally cooled down here in No. Colorado where I live, and it's been a lovely couple of days.  (Don't worry - summer will be back in full force today!)

There are some good things to share this week for "I Like Thursday."  Last week I showed my newly spiffed up sewing machine who had been to the spa and come home just like new!  This week, some happy mail came for my sewing machine (and me, too!) - a Sew Steady extension table.  I'm liking the larger flat surface it gives me.

Sewing up my pink zigzag row!

I may be the only person I know who has trouble growing zucchini, but this year I have managed to grow two tiny ones in my garden!  

These little guys were just enough to make some yummy Banana Zucchini bread using this recipe from Taste of Home.

So good with our coffee every morning!

And in other garden news, I liked this view of our pumpkin blossoms, and one lone pumpkin growing!

Mike caught this photo of a Tiger Swallowtail deep in the red petunias getting some nectar.  When I was reading about what butterflies do on flowers, the nectar was called the butterfly's "flight fuel!"

I really liked this month's book club read!

It is a story of the Packhorse Librarians of Kentucky in the 1930s, with an added twist that the main character is a woman with blue-tinged skin.  She is based on a family who really did exist known as the Blue Fugates, who had a genetic trait that gave them blue skin.  You can read a little more about them here.

Joining in with LeeAnna and friends at Not Afraid of Color for I Like Thursday!  

To-Do Tuesday #46

I'm checking in today with my weekly to-do list and linking up with Roseanne and friends for the To-Do Tuesday linky party at Home Sewn By Us. 

Last week's list included...

Finishing up my Red and White Hand-Pieced quilt, and I did!  

I also wanted to get started working on an old UFO that I'm finishing for the Christmas Then and Now blog hop, coming up at the end of the month.   Progress was made, and here's  another sneak peak!

This week I plan to continue working on this Christmas-y UFO and get it closer to a finish.  If I work on it a little each day, it'll get there!

I'd also like to get some blocks made for the July/August block drive for Covered in Love.  One is made so far, and I'm planning on two more.

A couple of other projects are on my mind, so I'll mention them here just to get them written down!

• Get started on my July Color Challenge block - at least get the pieces cut for it!
• Finish up the dark blue HSTs for my Rainbow Scrap Challenge zigzag quilt.  12 are needed by the end of July.

Hope your week is getting off to a great start!  See you over at Home Sewn by Us for To-Do Tuesday!

It's a finish!

My Book Club Hand-pieced QAL quilt is completed!

35 x 35

Many, many thanks to Kristin at Simple.Handmade.Everyday and Patty at Elm Street Quilts for sponsoring their second QAL, designing the blocks and giving great instructions, tips, and tutorials to help all of us learn more about hand-piecing!  I enjoyed participating for the second year in a row, and learned a lot.  

I keep trying to decide which block is my favorite - maybe this one?

Or this one?

Really, I enjoyed making all nine blocks, even the ones that required templates and curved piecing!   Another fun addition to the QAL this year was that each block represented a character in a favorite book of Patty or Kristin's.  Some of the books I had read, others I hadn't - all of them sounded interesting!

I decided this quilt needed a scrappy binding, so I cut whatever 2.25 inch strips I could get out of the leftover pieces from the blocks and sewed them together.   Sewing the binding on the front of the quilt was the only time my sewing machine got involved!

Maybe this one's my favorite block?!  

Pretty in the morning light - 

Many evening slow-stitching hours were spent working on this quilt, 

including hand-quilting along most of the seam lines of the blocks, 

sashing, and cornerstones.  My husband and I have gotten to be good friends with Special Agent Gibbs and the NCIS gang (courtesy of Netflix) while I've worked on this project! 

The red Ikea chair in our living room is where this quilt will live for now.  

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

Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap,

and with Patty and Kristin for the  QAL final link-up!

Cool blues

I've been playing with bits and pieces of dark blue this week to make a few different blocks for my Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects.  Take a look!

Four more trees for the Rainbow Jungle - 

A big thank you to Preeti who suggested I make some freezer paper templates to use when my scraps are odd sizes and I want to make some trees.  That worked out great!

I also made some HSTs for the dark blue zigzag row.

I've been having fun making a few of Bonnie Hunter's Leader/Ender blocks - 

And I added a few double four patches to my collection, too.

Here's my busy design wall!

I finished up the scrappy dark blue batik placemat I was working on last week and squared it up to about 17 x 13.  I decided a bright yellow binding would be fun!

And the back - 

Works perfectly for breakfast!

Hope you've been staying cool with your blue scraps this week!  Linking up with SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday.

I Like Thursday #193

Happy Thursday, friends!  Thanks for visiting my I Like Thursday post.  Find lots more great posts over at Not Afraid of Color where we gather every Thursday to promote everything positive.  

It must be July here because it is hot!  This kind of summer weather makes me really appreciate my basement sewing room because it is the coolest spot in our otherwise un-air conditioned house.  It's my refuge.

Heading down!

My Pfaff went in for a spa treatment on Tuesday afternoon, so I took that time to clean off the sewing table.  Amazingly, the LQS where I took it (and where I also bought it) gave me same day service!  I really liked that!   I was expecting to be without my sewing machine for a week.

She's really purring now!

How often do you take the bobbin cover off your machine and clean all the lint and crud out from under there?   I've done that twice in the year and a half I've owned this machine.  The sewing machine guy suggested doing it after every project.  Since I sew every day, but don't finish a project all that often, what do you think?  Should I clean under the bobbin once a week?  Once a month? 

Of course I did have to sew something right away, so I worked on my blue and yellow scrap slab project.  I thought yellow thread would be a fun contrast with the dark blue batiks!  (It's Aurifil Lemon.)

A couple photos from our hike in the national park the other day - 

Beautiful and green, lots of sun, and no one on the trail but Mike and me.

Hiking along Mill Creek - I love the sound of the water!

First tomato of the season - a cherry tomato - yummy!  And I've gotten several more since.  Still eating those green beans, too. 

Have you ever read Make Modern Magazine?  I was lucky to win a subscription to it for participating in Sandra's Centred QAL at mmmquilts.  Lots of inspiration and good information in here!

Thank you, Sandra and Make Modern!

Thanks for visiting today!  Hope you're having a great week!