Slow stitching a scrappy rainbow...

Quite a bit of my sewing time this week has been devoted to prepping my hand-pieced scrappy Trip Around the World quilt for hand quilting.   It's not the most exciting part of quilt construction, but it's a necessary one!

Pressing and de-threading the back came first.  Lots of seams in this quilt!

The backing is yardage that I found at Joann's earlier in the week, so it needed to be pieced.

I decided to pin baste the layers, so I cleared off my sewing machine table, and used that nice big space to do the basting.

This quilt really has a lot of favorite scraps in it!

This might be my new favorite backing fabric for rainbow quilts!

I'll be quilting this with DMC white Perle Cotton #12, starting with all the white diagonals, and then going through the rainbow colors.  This will be my slow stitching project for a lo-o-o-ng time!  

Sharing at my favorite weekend linky parties:

SoScrappy 

Quilting is more fun than Housework 

Kathy's Quilts 

I Like Thursday #260

 Happy Thursday!

I am grateful!

I am especially thankful to share my life with this guy.  Happy Veterans Day to him!

This was taken at one of our favorite places - Depoe Bay, Oregon.

Stitching this week:  a sweet redwork snowman!  This is a design from Melisa at PinkernPunkin Quilting.  She's sharing a snowman every Thursday for an embroidery/quilt project, and I thought I'd join in.  She is so generous with her designs!

Just a little more to do!

Reading this week:

I really enjoy this murder mystery series, so I was happy when it became available from the library.  And it looks like a #22 is coming soon, too!

And speaking of murder mysteries, we discovered "Grantchester" this fall.  It's on PBS right after "Call the Midwife" on Sunday nights.   I know it's been around for several seasons before this, and I wish we had started watching sooner.  We've really been enjoying it!

Hope you've been having a great week!  Thanks for visiting on "I Like Thursday" hosted by LeeAnna at Not Afraid of Color.

To-Do Tuesday #111

Good morning!  I'm joining in with Linda and friends at Texas Quilt Gal for the To-Do Tuesday link-up, sharing what I've been working on and my new list for this coming week.

There are always weeks where the days fill up unexpectedly, and there isn't as much sewing time as we would like.  That's kind of how my week went.    One of my goals was to make progress on quilting Positivity, and I did, but no pictures to share of that today.

Another project on my list was to finish up the Pumpkin Patch embroidery project, and it is now finished!  You can read more about it in my Sunday post, but here's a photo of it hanging on my holiday wall.

I also finished up a small scrappy rainbow project, read about it here.  So maybe it was a better week than I thought!

Must dos this week:

• Keep going on the Positivity quilting!
• Get started cutting out a Christmas project that has a due date of December 9th.  The fabric has been hanging out on my ironing board after pressing.

In the "hope to get to" category:

• I found some fabric for the backing of my rainbow trip around the world quilt, and hope to get it all prepped for hand quilting this week.  It's a rainbow dot print, and I think it looks perfect for this quilt!

And, finally, in the "sometimes you have to make a mess to clean one up" category, there's this:

It's my solids drawer.  I started cleaning it out and sorting: strings, smaller chunks, larger ones.  I'd like to start doing something with these, but first I think I'd better get back to the "must dos" up there!

Wishing you lots of progress on your list this week!

Slow stitching on a Sunday

 The Pumpkin Patch embroidery was finished up this week!   I also added some borders of my most favorite (ever!) pumpkin print.

I layered the top with batting and backing and added some simple quilting to hold everything together.

Today's slow stitching will be to finish up the binding, and add a little hand quilting to the center section.

Linking up with the Slow Sunday Stitchers at Kathy's Quilts.

A Little Finish

When you've had a busy week, a small finish feels very satisfying, and that is how I'm feeling today!   I took this small bunch of 6 inch wonky stars...

And sewed them up into this 18 x 24 inch quilt!

The red underneath is the backing of Positivity,

which is in the process of being quilted.  (Or maybe I should say - 

that's what I should have been working on!)

A leftover piece from this quilt provided the backing and binding.

This little quilt would make a good doll quilt!  Maybe my Jo doll from Little Women needs a new quilt?

It also works as a tabletopper - maybe I'll call it my Table Scraps project for November?

But I also like it hanging like this, on the door of the storage shelves in my sewing room.

Some of my wonky stars are definitely better looking than others.  

Learning the best way to make them was a process, and I improved as I went along.   The thing I love the most about this little quilt is the great scraps it contains.  Many of my favorite quilts are represented here!

Sharing at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and at 

Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!

I Like Thursday #259

Hello, friends!   Thanks for visiting on I Like Thursday, hosted by LeeAnna at Not Afraid of Color.   It's a day to share some good things from the previous week!

There was another pretty sunrise the other morning!  This is taken with  Mike's fancy Nikon, and I love how the color is seen through the almost bare tree branches across the street.

We've enjoyed seeing these little guys at our feeders again recently - lesser goldfinches.   Our guess is that we are on their migration route, as we only see them for a short time in spring and fall.

We watched an interesting documentary on Netflix last night, "Found."  It's about three girls who were adopted as babies by American families, after being left somewhere by their Chinese parents.   It was not uncommon for Chinese parents to leave their babies (especially girls) in places where they knew they would be found and then taken to orphanages because of China's One Child Policy that ended in about 2016.  

I finished this fun story the other day.  It's my book club's pick for December.  This is definitely a children's book, and as I read it I wished I still had a classroom of kids to read it, too.   There are lots of fantastical characters and would make for a good class discussion.

We had to run up to Cheyenne, Wyoming, yesterday to see Mike's mom, so before we left to come home, I visited their LQS and did a little stash enhancement.  I've been wanting to collect a few black on white prints for a possible future project.  I thought these were fun!

I especially love that text print!

Have a great Thursday!

To-Do Tuesday #110

 Good morning, and welcome, November!  I'm joining in with Linda and friends at Texas Quilt Gal for the To-Do Tuesday link-up, sharing what I've been working on and my new list for this coming week.

It's been a good sewing week for me, and I've gotten a lot done!  One thing on my list was to get started quilting my Positivity quilt, and I have been working on that the last couple days.

I'm using the serpentine stitch on my machine, and the seam lines as a guide,

so I don't think it will take too many more sessions to get the quilting done.

I also finished the pieced border on Autumn Jubilee.  I love this little quilt!  Right now it's about 36 inches square and a good size for my table.  

The final thing on my to-do list from last week was to take a look at my Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects for the year and evaluate what needs to be done with them to move them forward into finished quilts.  I did that and you can read about it in my Saturday post here.

So, for the coming week:  

• Keep quilting Positivity and make the binding!
• Keep working on RSC projects, especially the Crumb Hearts quilt and the Wonky Stars mini.
• Finish the embroidery on Pumpkin Patch and add a border.  Just a little bit left to stitch - a star and the moon!

Do you like the blackbird's hat?

I thought that was so cute!

Have a great week, everyone!