I Like Thursday #134 - Flowers

Welcome back to "I Like Thursday," our weekly celebration of the positive things in life!  Thanks, as always, to LeeAnna at Not Afraid of Color for getting us started on this journey.

I loved all the interesting plants that were growing everywhere we went in San Diego.  This pot was in the courtyard of our hotel.

Luckily for me, Mother's Day means it's planting time where I live, so that's what I've been working on this week!  Although I would not say I have a green thumb, I do enjoy planting things each year and adding color to my yard!

Tiny to begin with, but they will fill up this big pot before too long!

And while we were at it, we planted some veggies in the new raised bed garden planter.

Hoping these will bring us fresh tomatoes and peppers later in the summer!

Meanwhile, in the sewing room, I've been playing with flowers, too.  This pretty orange/coral fabric is part of my Beothuk Star QAL project, and since I didn't need all of it for the HSTs I needed to make, I decided it would make a great headdress and skirt for one of Preeti's International Sister blocks.

My lady has sparkly age spots, lol - just like her maker!

I also liked getting caught up on the parts I needed to make for Carole's Scrap Dance Minuet mystery over at From My Carolina Home.

There are bricks, flying geese, and four patches involved.  I'm making the table topper size out of my August Blogger Bundle that Carole curated for Needle and Thread Fabrics last year.  There are a couple of pretty florals in this bunch, too.  Since I bought half yards, I'll have enough to make one of these for my mom, whose birthday is in August!

Happy Mail arrived the other day in a package from Sandra at mmmquilts who is sponsoring the Beothuk Star QAL.  I won a charm pack of this pretty fabric that has yellows, grays, and black.

This will be fun to play with!  Thank you, Sandra!

And, finally, it was fun to see the first goose mama and papa with their babies at the golf course yesterday.

Little fuzzy goslings, and very protective parents!

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

A Finish for H2H

Just in time, I finished up my little quilt for Jack's Basket, one of the featured charities for this year's Hands2Help Quilt Challenge, sponsored by Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

16  "Hello, Darling" Stack, Cut, and Sew blocks, from this tutorial by Cluck, Cluck, Sew

Plus a narrow green border

And some fun polka dot backing and binding

Equal this sweet 36 inch square baby quilt!

Ready to be sent off this week!

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

Some Orange for May

I've been out of town this week, but before we left I had a little time to pull out my orange scraps -

and get my four string blocks made for May.

After making the four rectangular blocks, I even had time to rip out the paper foundation and sew them together.

So far I have five 12.5 x 18.5 blocks - 

If I make 12 of these big blocks, and set them 4 x 3 (because they are taller than they are wide), I'll have an approximately 48 x 54 center, and then I have to figure what to do for borders.  Maybe a bunch of smaller (6.5 inch square) neutral blocks?  Hmmm... definitely something to think about!

Sharing at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday!

I Like Thursday #133 - Field trip!

Back when I was in the midst of my teaching career, the words "field trip" were not  my favorites.  But nowadays, when Mike says, "Do you want to go on a (field)trip?" I'm all in!

Needing (as I often do) some time by the ocean, we chose San Diego, California, one of our favorite cities, as our destination.

I like the color... everywhere!

I liked the baby seal pups at the Children's Pool at La Jolla Cove!

Mike found some sea glass - a favorite of mine to search for.

The views are amazing!

We decided to stay over on Coronado Island, which is a new experience.  I'm loving the amazing bridge that brings you here, the interesting old homes, the places we can walk to, and this view of the city at night!

And riding the ferry over to the city so that we could go to a Padres ballgame.

I like the interesting things you see in beach towns that you wouldn't ever see anywhere else, like this seashell design in the sidewalk!

And finally, I liked bringing along my hand-pieced project, "Sand, Sea, and Sky," for some photos by the sea!

We have one more day to get some ocean time in before we head home.

Meanwhile, thanks for visiting my Thursday post and don't forget to check out all the other "I Like Thursday" bloggers at Not Afraid of Color!

More Hand-Piecing

A typical sewing day for me means time at the machine in the afternoons, and then some kind of hand stitching in the evenings while watching TV with my husband.  After getting into the routine of hand-piecing blocks and stitching them together into a small quilt top during the Hand-Pieced QAL, I got kind of hooked on hand-piecing!

So, what to do about that?  Start something new, of course!  And why not use up some scraps in the process?!

And how about a blue and white quilt while I'm at it?

I decided to make this a blue and white one block quilt, using the HST block from the Hand-Pieced QAL.  Easy and quick to piece!  These pieces make a 6 inch finished block.

In no time at all, I've made 4 blocks!  Here's one way to put them together.

But I really like them this way!

I don't think I'll run out of hand stitching to work on in the evenings for awhile!

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

and at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.

A Little Aqua, a Little Orange

This seemed like a good week to pull out my Floral Sawtooth Stars project, which I hadn't seen since (yikes) last August!  When does something stop being a WiP and turn into a UFO?!

Using a fat quarter bundle called Blush and Blooms by Melissa Ibarra of Iza Pearl Design, up to this point I had made nine 12.5 inch blocks using various sizes of Sawtooth Stars.  This fabric line is a fun combination of floral and geometric prints, plus some blenders that read as solid, although they aren't really.  I love the variety of pink, green, aqua, and orange in these blocks!

After I got these blocks out earlier this week, it was time to decide what to do with them!  So, besides making a few smaller stars, I started cutting and sewing 4 patch blocks in lots of sizes.

They have ended up in blocks like these - 

And then added to the layout like this -

Every time I walk by my design wall, I switch two blocks or turn one to orient it another way, so this is definitely not what the final layout will be!  I'm planning to make a few more blocks so that I'll end up with 20 blocks total, for a quilt that will be about 48 x 60.

One of my favorite prints in this bundle is this one, with its pretty mix of yellow, green, orange, and aqua.

I decided to grab a bit of it to use in my Tiny Tuesday reverse appliqued heart.

So perfect with that aqua grunge that has a bit of yellow woven in!

Here's the finished block with its gray sashing - 

And all of the aqua/turquoise/blue-green blocks for April -

I'm looking forward to adding some orange to the mix this month!

Linking up with SoScrappy for Scraphappy Saturday!

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.