I Like Thursday #132 - inside and out

Mother Nature played one of her Spring tricks on us this week.   We have had some gorgeous weather in recent weeks, including this past Sunday when we were outside much of the day, working on the yard and cleaning up our deck so we can start using it.

This was my view on Sunday afternoon.

The blossoms on our Spring Snow Crabapple tree (without the apples!), finally started opening up!

In full bloom, this tree is so beautiful!

Then Monday morning, the snow started.

And here was the view on Tuesday - 

I can't complain about the moisture, which is always needed here in dry Colorado.  And I do love any excuse to wrap up in one of my quilts and read the afternoon away.  But finally today, Wednesday, the clouds are breaking up and the sun and blue sky are making an appearance again!  Yay!

Speaking of interesting books, I checked this one out of the library last week.

I didn't really know anything about Gwen Marston until I started reading tributes to her on people's blogs last week.  

I've already been learning more as I read and leaf through, looking at her interesting style and her amazing quilts.  I'd like to dig through my solid scraps and maybe play with some liberated log cabins.

Down in my sewing room, I have been loving my design wall!  It's really the best thing we did when we painted and rearranged in January.  It's just batting stapled to the wall, but such a nice large space - so useful!

I've been having fun playing with my Floral Sawtooth Star project this week - I haven't gotten this one out in awhile.

Thanks for visiting my I Like Thursday post today!  Check out lots of other bloggers and see what they have to share over at LeeAnna's place, Not Afraid of Color.

Stars, Sprouts, and Sunflowers

Where did this week go?  It has sped by for me, and I'm not sure where the time went!  I did manage to make this week's Tiny Tuesday block - a sweet Spinning Star shared by Katie at Zana's Ninis.

Thanks, Katie!

I've made 20 of these fun blocks now.  I really love them!

I did also manage to pull out my Scrappy Sprouts project this week which is an ongoing Rainbow Scrap Challenge project started in 2018.  This picture was taken on March 31, the last time I looked at it.

Ideas are starting to come along for the top part of it.

Yesterday I finished up the bottom Grassy Green border.

I've made four Dresden Sunflower blocks for the top section.  I'm wondering, though, if I'd be happier with piecing that section with a variety of blocks, rather than just a yardage of the blue sky fabric with the sunflowers appliqued on.  I think I want more texture and interesting things to look at!

Butterflies, maybe?

What about some Birds in the Air blocks in that section?   These are just the pieces cut for one block, but you get the idea.

Two or three of these might work!    

You can see that this is a "design as I go" project!  But it's moving forward!

Looking forward to seeing what everyone has been working on this week over at Soscrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday! 

Strawberries!

I had a "Drop Everything and Make It" moment this week...  If you've visited my blog before, you probably know that's not unusual!  

Our family has always loved strawberries, and when I saw Vicki's adorable tablerunner a couple weeks ago (See it HERE), I knew I needed to follow her link to the pattern and make one!  It's from the blog, Skyberries Handmade.

It was fun, and also a little challenging, to pick through my red and green scraps to find just the right pieces to make a strawberry.

Dark reds, bright reds, orange-y reds, stripes, text fabric - I used it all!

I thought the red and green dots on white made a perfect background, too.

I pulled this piece from my stash for the backing - 

Oh, so true!

This bright yellow - green print was perfect for the binding.

A fun and fast project!

I think this is just where my strawberry belongs!

Sandra at mmmquilts is having her DrEAMi link-up this weekend, so I'll be sharing this there, and also at Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap on Sunday.

I Like Thursday #131 - On the Road

We spent Easter weekend at our son's house in Nebraska.  Seeing the "Welcome" sign reminded me of all the times we stopped at the border of a new state to take a picture when our kids were little to snap a picture.

We did not stop to take a picture on this trip, so while hunting around for one to include in this post, I found this interesting article. 

50 Welcome Signs for the 50 United States of America

We enjoyed the time with our son - conversation, games, food, a ballgame on TV - our favorite stuff.  We also enjoyed seeing a family of wild turkeys!

I always have to visit the quilt shop when we are there, and this time I bought a few turquoise fat quarters to add to my stash, plus a charm pack of Garden Variety by Lella Boutique.  That will be fun to play with!

I'm sure I'll be cutting into those turquoise pieces before this month is over!

My son's favorite fruit is strawberries, so they are always on the menu when we are with him.  When we got home, I decided I had to drop everything and make...

A strawberry!  (More about this little project later this week!)

Last week we had a chance to get up into the mountains to Estes Park to enjoy the scenery and a walk by the lake there.

Driving up into Rocky Mountain National Park, we passed a herd of deer.

This photo found on Facebook made me laugh this week!  Now I have not experienced this, but I know people who have.

I hope you're having a wonderful week!  Thanks for visiting and don't forget to check out the other I Like Thursday posts at Not Afraid of Color!

Little Bits of Turquoise

I realized this week that I don't really have a lot of aqua/turquoise scraps left.  Turquoise is the smallest pile in my fat quarter shelves, too.  Good thing I could still pull together a few blocks with the little bits I do have!

I finished up the Tiny Rails block in turquoise that I started working on last week -

I had to dig into my solids drawer for this week's Tiny Tuesday block!   This photo really makes the scraps I picked look blue - they definitely look more blue-green in real life.

Thanks, Mari, at the Academic Quilter, for this fun pinwheel block!  I really enjoyed making it!

This month's three Tiny Tuesday blocks - 

My main focus this week has been to move my Hands2Help quilt for Jack's Basket along, and it's almost done!

Some "S Curve" quilting on a turquoise block - 

The binding is made and ready to be sewn on, too.

But first, a quick weekend away to visit our oldest son for his birthday!  Happy Easter, everyone!

Sharing at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and

Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!

Beothuk Star QAL

Sandra at mmmquilts has given us the fabric requirements and cutting directions for her Beothuk Star pattern, so yesterday I got to work on my version of it.

I'm using a fat quarter bundle of Printology by Benartex that I won in a giveaway from Allison at Little Bunny Quilts last year.

My bundle had 8 fat quarters, so I set aside two that I thought would be more useful as blenders or background fabrics, and then chose the 5 that would make up my stars.  That 6th fat quarter will probably end up in the binding, since it has all the colors in it!  My background fabric is Kona Butter.  

Wanting to be very careful about fabric placement and cutting, I decided to make myself a key using graph paper and colored pencils.

Then I reread (and reread, lol!) the cutting directions and made copious notes for myself!

Fortunately, we have a couple weeks to do all the cutting, which is good for me as that is something I'm slow at.  I did get started on my background pieces today!

Linking up to mmmquilts to share my progress!

I Like Thursday #130

Welcome to this week's list of likes, and thanks for visiting!  Happy Easter Week, too.  I hope you're celebrating this week in the way you love the most!

I like Spring decorations!  I enjoyed seeing all of Mary's bunnies a couple weeks ago, so I had to get mine out, too.

I like my friend, Maureen, who is in my local quilt group.  Maureen is our member who really produces!   I shared my Vinyl Project Pouch at our March get together, and last week at our April meeting she brought 5 or 6 of them she had made, in all different shapes and sizes!

Speaking of quilting, I liked making progress on my Hands2Help donation quilt earlier this week!

I was listening to the Friendship Album, 1933, podcast while I sewed.  I'm really enjoying that story!

I like my current read, The Huntress, by Kate Quinn.  One of my favorite genres is WWII historical fiction, and this one is right up my alley!

Part of the story line is about women pilots in the Russian army who flew bombing missions against Germany.  That was something I had never heard about before, so I had to look it up.    Sure enough, they were the 588th Night Bomber Regiment, known as the Night Witches.  Here's the Wikipedia article about them.  I love learning something new!

Our friend, Jocelyn, at Canadian Needle Nana, has gotten me interested in bird nesting cameras that you can look at online.  There happens to be an osprey nest cam at the Boulder County Fairgrounds, in Longmont, Colorado, (not far from where I live) that I've been watching.

The nest notes from 2018 say that eggs were laid on April 19th, so I'm going to keep checking back - maybe we will see eggs this week!

It's too soon to plant here, but we're getting a new raised bed ready to go.  We found this one at Menards, a big box store similar to Lowes or Home Depot, and Mike assembled it himself.   I like the look of the dark gray and it's very sturdy!

Hopefully some veggies will like the warm sun on the south side of our house!

Every Thursday, I join in with LeeAnna and friends at Not Afraid of Color to celebrate our likes for the week.  Be sure to head over and check out all of this week's posts!