I Like Thursday #297

Are you familiar with the folk group, The Seekers, from the 1960s?  We love their music, and have been listening to them again, since the news of Judith Dunham's passing this week.  She was their female lead singer.  I especially love this song "The Water is Wide."

YouTube 

I hope this video works.  

This is my first time trying to add a video to a post, 

and I *think* I did it successfully, lol!

We spent Friday going up to Scottsbluff, Nebraska, for Mike's brother's service.  As all those times are, it was a bittersweet day, full of stories and memories.  My BIL, Ron, was a truck driver all his life, and his grandson arranged to drive his casket to the cemetery on a semi truck.  Some might think this strange, but for the family it was very touching.

Grandpa's last ride.

You can learn a lot about a state's geography by the local produce it's known for.  In Colorado we have Palisade peaches and Olathe sweet corn, both from the Western Slope.  (the western side of the Rockies.) 

I have eaten both this week, but no recent pictures.  From the southeastern corner of the state comes Rocky Ford melons.  We have some cantaloupe and, yum, is it good!

Closer to home, I'm always attempting to grow some favorite vegetables, and have harvested a few green beans and tomatoes.  Cucumbers are also growing, but for some reason this year, they look somewhat like alien life forms!  

In the flower garden, little mini sunflowers are blooming!  I planted the seeds in the spring, but wasn't sure what to expect.  These are really small!

Since this photo was taken, they've opened even farther.

And in the sewing room...  I've been making plus blocks with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color of the month, with black prints on white for the background fabric.  Unfortunately, my supply of those backgrounds has really shrunk with all the blocks I've made.  Earlier this week. I found a few new ones to add to the pile.

Hot air balloons, bicycles, paper airplanes - these are fun!

Hope you're having a great week!

I'm joining in with I Like Thursday, hosted by LeeAnna at Not Afraid of Color. 

 

To-Do Tuesday #148

I have a finish to share this week!  Since I've included Crumb Hearts in my to-do posts quite a bit in the last few months, it seems like the perfect place to share the finish.

All done!

I so appreciate all of the encouragement from blogging friends at this link-up that kept me going as I struggled through how to show off these heart blocks in a layout I really liked.  What would work as a background fabric or alternate square?  What should I do for borders?  In the end, a smaller quilt made me happier - this measures 45 x 45.

For the quilting I used gentle curves to make different sizes of orange peels going diagonally across the quilt,  and I'm really happy with how that turned out!

I'm not sure yet what I will do with this quilt - I have a couple ideas for donation, but I might just live with it for awhile before sending it off.  It also still needs to take a trip through the washer and dryer.

I even ended up with one more small finish, and that is the tabletopper for my son.  He wanted earthy colors, so I figured water, leaves, and stone should work, right?  

It feels good to get these both off the to-do list and 

be able to move on to the next items!

This week is kind of busy, so I'm keeping the list short and simple.  I've prepped pieces for some of my Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks in orange, and they're sitting by the sewing machine ready to go when I get a few minutes to sew.  For example, these are for the Masala Box blocks.

Once the squares are cut, these go together quickly!

My seasonal projects - the Frosties and Halloween Jubilee - are on hold for this week, 

but I'm sure I'll get back to them in the near future!

Sharing at To-Do Tuesday at Texas Quilt Gal - thanks, Linda for hosting this fun link-up each week!

Getting started on August

 Not quite finished...

But close!  I'm stitching the binding on Crumb Hearts.  Orange hearts for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color of the month!

And just barely started... some orange hand-pieced plus blocks.  Pumpkins and starfish on orange!  One more prepped to stitch up when I finish the binding on the hearts quilt.  

This one has marigolds...

And I really love marigolds!

Sharing at all my favorite weekend parties:

SoScrappy 

Quilting is More Fun than Housework 

Kathy's Quilts

I Like Thursday #296

 I love this picture of my husband's family from about 1953 or so.  Mike is the cutie on the left sitting in Dad's lap.  He has two older brothers and (now) three younger sisters.  This was taken before the two youngest were born.  His next older brother, Ron, is in the middle - so cute with his glasses!  Sadly, Ron passed away this week.  He had been in poor health for some time, so this was not unexpected, but of course, he will be missed.

So all the more reason to cherish friends and family and celebrate the simple, lovely things in life.

I love that some color is beginning to emerge in my flower garden again!  We've been doing battle with the grasshoppers this summer.  I think they like this hot, dry stuff we've been having, plus they like to eat flowers!  Fortunately, the flowers are coming back.

I got out my favorite August tabletopper for the dining room table.  And Colorado peaches are in season - so yummy!

Not colorful (yet), but maybe soon - I have a pumpkin!  It's about the size of a golf ball, maybe a little bigger.  We have it surrounded by a little wire covering, hoping to keep the backyard critters from trying a taste!

I finished a really good book this week!  The Island of Missing Trees is part historical fiction, about the island of Cyprus, which I, honestly, knew nothing about, part fantasy (a fig tree is a main character), and part science story (lots of fascinating information about plants, animals, and trees).  Really an interesting story!

Goodreads

LeeAnna suggested we include some info in today's post about the summery topic of sunscreen.  With Mike's history of melanoma, sunscreen is important to us, and he's a good researcher when it comes to products like that.  Interestingly, the Walmart store brand, Equate, came out really high in the ratings so that's what we've been buying.

Sunscreen and my yellow hat, which I've shown in many photos,

are definitely in constant use around here!

And one last thing to share.  I finished up the quilting on Crumb Hearts and got the binding sewn on by machine this afternoon.  I'm really pleased with how the orange peel quilting design turned out!  Because of the different sizes of borders, there are also different sizes of orange peels.

There's some binding stitching to do!

            I'm joining in with I Like Thursday, hosted by LeeAnna at Not Afraid of Color. 

To-Do Tuesday #147

Good morning and happy Tuesday!  It's To-Do Tuesday at Texas Quilt Gal - thanks, Linda for hosting this fun link-up each week!

I think I said something in last week's post about staying on task (doesn't that sound like a retired teacher, lol!?) and not letting any squirrels in to the sewing room.  Famous last words, right?  Turns out, I caught a bit of the "start-itis" bug, and that resulted in a bunch of PFOs.  That's "Partially Finished Objects!"   I won't share the squirrels yet, until I get some other things done.

But... in the long run, I did make some progress on the things that were on my list!

• Crumb Hearts is about 75% quilted.  Here a peek at the back - I decided to try a gentle curve going diagonally across in each direction, which turns into orange peels.  And then it makes this great design!

• Another Covered in Love block is in progress - so Partially Finished!  
• Son's tabletopper is sandwiched for quilting - also Partially Finished!  😎  This one needs a different thread color for quilting than Crumb Hearts, so I'll quilt it when the Hearts are done.

I did actually make some progress on those two "Coming Up" projects.

• The backing for Halloween Jubilee is sewn, and it will be next in the quilting queue after Crumb Hearts and son's tabletopper.  See a photo of it in my Saturday post.
• Six of the Frostie embroideries are trimmed to size, with six more to go.  I haven't found any sashing fabric yet - still looking around for that.

So, this week's list continues along the same theme:

• Finish quilting Crumb Hearts and get the binding on.
• Quilt son's tabletopper.
• Get started on orange blocks for August in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.
• And if time, more work on Halloween Jubilee and the Frosties.

Lots to do!

A little hand-piecing project

As I was finishing up with purple this week, I decided to cut a couple 2.5 inch squares out of each of my favorite prints of the month. 

It was easy to hand-piece them into this little patchwork mini, and I finished it off with some hand quilting.  The binding is just the backing folded around to the front and stitched down.

I've made a series of these, starting last fall, with seasonal prints or colors of the month.  They all measure about 6 x 8, except for the Christmas one, which started with some bowtie blocks from the orphan drawer.  It was made with 3 inch blocks, so about 9 x 12.

So, now the angels have their own purple quilt!

Meanwhile, I'm back to the teacup embroidery design.  Now working on little pink flowers and a sweet bee.

Stitching along on this Slow Sunday with Kathy's Quilts 

and the rest of the Slow Sunday Stitchers!

Cleaning up the purple

Since I was already finished with the blocks I needed to make for purple month, I've spent some time this week moving a couple projects along closer to a finish.

One of them involved this purple fabric that I've had in my stash since last fall.  Purple with bats!

Turns out it was the perfect inspiration for piecing a backing for my Halloween version of the Autumn Jubilee quilt top.  Carole at From My Carolina Home hosted a QAL for this design last October, and I'm hoping to finish it up for this coming October.

Looks like I'm moving in the right direction!

Everything in the backing is leftover from the front!

Meanwhile, progress is being made on quilting Crumb Hearts!  I would estimate that it's about 2/3 quilted, so maybe a finish by the end of next week?  First I need to figure out a binding for it.

Getting close!

Sharing at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday.

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